Tyler Kline

Sep 1456 min read

music/Maker with Tyler Kline // Episode 21

Pursuing Deeper Inquiries through Music with Mat Campbell

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On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by Mat Campbell.

A native of the Rio Grande Valley in Deep South Texas, Mathew “Mat” Aaron Campbell graduated with a BM-Education from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and received High Honors upon completion of a double MM-Composition and Conducting from Oklahoma City University. As an award-winning composer, his works have been performed at national conventions and across the United States and the world.

As a conductor, he has conducted orchestras, wind ensembles, choirs, and chamber ensembles in world premieres of his and his colleagues’ music at regional, state, and international events. As an educator and arranger/sound designer for the marching arts, Mat has served students of all ages in their journey as musicians. Lastly, he is a media composer that specializes in writing music for video games and films of varying length.

Mat wears many different hats as a creator, and he and Tyler dig deep into the various facets of his career in this conversation. Mat also shares his journey from the small town he grew up in in the Rio Grande Valley to today, some thoughts on recent notation software news, and how he elevates the young musicians who play his music into the concepts he explores in his work.

Mat and his music can be found online at https://www.matcampbell.com/.

mentioned in this conversation

Disclosure: links to products that appear throughout this interview may be affiliate links. By purchasing an item discussed in this interview via one of these links, you support this podcast and network.

Coming soon...

Transcript

Many thanks to Iris Gracia Campbell for writing Mat's segments of this transcription, and for Mat for providing this for listeners.

Tyler Kline

Well, Matt, I'm so excited to chat with you today. It's great to have you on the podcast. we were talking a little bit before this, how it's been becoming a trend now in these podcast episodes where I'm talking with people I've been connected with and chatted for years with online, and it's like the first time meeting face to face. And that's definitely the case with us. And I'm just really excited to explore your journey, your process, and just, again, thanks so much today for coming on.

Mat Campbell

Well, thank you so much for the invite. Tyler, I have known you online for such a long time now and I think that it’s fantastic —the ability to reach across so many different platforms and to be able to talk to so many different people, and at the end of the day I think that it’s really worth making that extra step and that extra connection to touch base. I know that we’re not in person right now, but even then, just a video call makes our interactive experience so much more meaningful and fruitful, hopefully for both of us, right? Yeah, thank you again for the invite and I’m really excited to be on your show.

Yeah, absolutely. So, where we always get started here is as far back as you want to share, as far back as you remember. And so I'll just start and kick things off by asking you, what's your earliest artistic memory as a composer, as a sound maker, and you can even share as a musician.

I don’t remember how old I was, I was probably, like, 3 or 4 years old and we went to the mall, as you do in the 90s because I’m a 90s kid, right? There was this store in the mall nearby where I lived and that store was a music store called Mr. Music. If you know the Rio Grande Valley where I’m from, Harlingen, Texas is where that mall was, and one of my favorite musical memories is my first one and that is playing on the pianos when they specifically said not to play on the pianos. It’s kind of funny to me because, you know, lots of people when they sit down at the piano, whether it is in a rebellious fashion or not, they play what they know, but I did not know what to play. I kind of just made stuff along as I went, you know? I didn’t realize that I was improvising in that moment. I had no idea what improvisation was, you know? But I can remember playing stuff and my mom and my aunt would kind of just question, “Oh, well what are you playing?” and I said, “I don’t know, I’m just making up whatever I hear, whatever I feel and I’m having a great time.” Then we would get the wave from the front desk of Mr. Music saying, “Hey, you shouldn’t be playing on these pianos right now,” and you know, I guess that’s a common thread throughout all of my life because it kind of feels like making music has been such an act of rebellion in the best possible way. Having grown up in a very particular religion which I am not a part of anymore, making music in a worship setting was so different compared to the music that I actually wanted to make, and that’s honestly why I’m a composer right now. So, that entire common thread from making music in a rebellious way all the way to what I do now has served into a very interesting and accidental career that I never set out to go on.

Yeah, I feel like I want to really get to hear more about this, like, rebellious nature in your musicianship because I agree there's something about my own journey that has, a lot of times, even the music I make, which people might not hear it at all, it feels like rebelling against, ah, a lot of what's popular or trendy in a lot of ways. But I'm really curious about, you said that you were with your mom and your aunt and they were like, what are you doing? What are you playing? You know, we don't recognize this. Are they musicians as well?

Yeah so my aunt, to clarify, was my mom’s sister, so if we look at maternal and paternal sides of my family, my mom comes from a whole family of musicians. My dad also comes from a family of musicians, but both my mom and my dad come from different— it’s a interesting perspective what I’m about to describe, but one came from a very faith-based musicianship and one came from a very traditional-based relationship with music, and that was, you know, good old high school marching band. That kind of thing, you know? So, on my mom’s side of things, which was very faith-based, yeah my mom was a musician. But my goodness, my mom has an incredible voice, and that’s something that I grew up around. You know, like, “Saturday mornings cleaning the house” kind of thing, blasting, like, Mexican “regional” music and that kind of thing. I grew up around that. Meanwhile, my dad’s side of the family taught me that there is order in music as well. So, I guess it’s been my lifelong pursuit to, for lack of a better word, harmonize these two different ways of making music in a very interesting way.

Yeah. Okay, so kind of walk me through, like you were. You were very young when, when this moment happened.

Yeah.

And I know, and something that we're going to talk about later is, you would end up, I think, joining the band. Maybe there was like a point in between then. But what kind of led you to continue pursuing music? I mean, was it just a matter of like, oh, I've been around this, I like this. Now I'm going to join the school group or did something else kind of push you towards that?

Well, if anyone reads my bio as well online, I had mentioned, I believe, whether it’s the current version or a previous version of it, I grew up playing drums in my church.

That led me to choosing percussion, very heavily influenced by the movie Drumline, which had a very lasting impact; it’s a movie that I jokingly reference to with my wife, Iris, all the time time.

So, anyway! Yeah, like, music has always been there for me and it’s always been an option, but It’s not anything that I ever considered to pursue. It’s this duality that I intended to pursue music as a career because I’ve always known that I wanted to be a musician in a professional sense, but it’s not something that I actively set out to do. So, if I take you through this timeline, I started playing drums in church for the various groups that I was a part of, like, musical groups that I was a part of. That led me to joining middle school band which, you know, my parents both coming from a musical...a vastly different musical background, told me, “Yeah, if you want to practice...if you want to get good, then you have to practice and you have to keep on putting that effort in there.” As all musicians know, yeah practice makes perfect, but I also learned very quickly that perfect practice makes perfect. To clarify, my mom did pursue music at the undergraduate level as well. She was a mezzo-soprano in our local undergrad university that I also attended when I was in college for my undergrad. So, yeah it’s kind of just always been there for me. This is incredibly cliche, but I really cannot imagine my life without music because of how permeating it has existed throughout my life.

I think that question of, like, when were you cognizant of it? You know, when I think about it, it's like, I don't. I don't know what. What kind of a question. It's like it's just ever present, right. it's like, when do you remember starting to. Just to talk? And it's like, I don't, you know.

Yeah, and it’s kind of funny, if I may talk to that really fast. The musical things that I was improvising, I have no idea where they came from. I don’t even know...I don’t have a recollection of what they sounded like currently, you know, in my current self-aware form. At that time, if looking back now, and if I had seen some small, young child doing that, I would think, “Well, they might have something to say” and later on we might be able to talk about that as well.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. When would you say the first m moment was that you actually put a note onto a page? And, that doesn't have to be literally a note on a page, just kind of figuratively speaking.

In the classical, traditional sense of putting an actual note to a page, it’s funny because I had just talked about that and posted about that on my Facebook page a few days ago in the, “If You Know You Know, Finale is No More” crisis that affected many, many, many people, and I am one of them. So, in 2007, I was playing around with this program that I found in the back of a Tonal Harmony book, which I don’t know, I believe that if you have opened up a Tonal Harmony book you might be entitled to financial compensation. Um but yeah, there was this Finale Notepad 2004 disk in the back, and I just popped it into my Dell computer because I didn’t know what it was. At that time I was 15 years old, at that time I was like, “Well, let’s just learn about the world, let’s learn about whatever I can” almost in an act of rebellion again. I’m not a rebel, if you will, but I like to do rebellious things if given the chance. So yeah, I popped it into the computer and then I realized that I could write music. In that moment, the floodgates opened. I thought, “Oh my God, what do you mean that you can make music? What do you mean that I don’t just have to make it and then it’s gone into the ether never to be heard or found or realized in some capacity ever again?” Man, it’s like right now, you invited me onto this show and you are asking me to talk, and pardon me for having a hard time in shutting up right now, you know? As a composer, it’s very much that way. I don’t like to think of myself as prolific ever since the first note that I put on a page. I think that I’ve just always wanted to say something. I’ve just never had the outlet to say it.

So, I'm always interested in learning more about musicians from small towns or communities, which you talk about in your bio, simply because people really don't talk about that very often. And also because I am one of those musicians who grew up in a very small town. So, yeah, on your site, you talk about how you grew up in a small town in the Rio Grande Valley, specifically saying you had limited resources. can we discuss this a little bit? How did you go about making the most of these limited resources? And are we talking about simply, like, musical resources, or does it kind of go beyond that?

I employ the word resources much like a developmental person who’s trying to raise money for their nonprofit organization, and I say that in that particular way because I am married to someone who works in development. Resources, at it’s very fundamental level, means money. In a very vulnerable statement, I grew up very poor, and I grew up in one of the poorest countries within the United States. I pause, because I’m thinking about where I come from, and I’m not trying to showboat my poverty that I grew up in or anything like that. Like that...I’m not that kind of person. I’m not the kind of person that’s going to show how rich or poor that I am,

I’m just going to show that I am. But in the event of describing a lack of resource, yeah I grew up with not that much. For instance, in order to get, like, my band...like marching band shoes where if you know, you know, that kind of thing where they have to go with the uniform or they have to be black or they have to be white depending on what uniform we’re using that night. Well, at the beginning of the season, we had to buy two pairs of shoes for marching band and that meant going to a pawn shop to get the money for it, you know? That was what I grew up with and there are a few things that my parents...you know, my parents gave me a roof over our heads and I’m incredibly grateful for that. But one of the things that my parents gave me, specifically there are two things that they gave me that opened up the opportunities for me like nothing else. One of those things was a computer that I could use Finale with to create my imaginary worlds with, and somehow it turned into this career that I now have. If I remember correctly, a 1993 Toyota pickup truck in which that was before they came out with the Tacoma or anything like that. It was a standard, beat-up truck, 4 wheel drive that got me from point A to point B, and that gave me the opportunity to delve more into my undergraduate music degree before I actually attended university, if you will. Because we had a samba school or we had a drumline that I was trying to be a part of as well to help further my musical education in ways that high school band was not fulfilling. Not that I wasn’t fulfilled by high school band, but I was that kid that always wanted more. So these two tools, the laptop and the truck, gave me the opportunity to spread my wings in a very cliche way and not look back. But that doesn’t mean that along the way, between receiving those incredible gifts to where I am now, was not without struggle as well. So that’s what I mean by limited resources, but, like, I think about my childhood home, and that place is so...like incredibly special to me because of my musical growth, because of my ability to learn what I wanted to say, and to learn that I was not limited to where I was coming from in that moment.

I totally get where you're coming from because I have a similar kind of experience in my life. Remembering the kind of place we lived. But for whatever reason, we had a computer. And that's how I learned about all the stuff I learned about at that time.

Exactly. Yeah, at that time, like you know, growing up in the 90s with like a computer room, if you will. I’m gonna make you laugh, but that room meant so much to me because I was able to do that stuff, but then I was in that room so much that my parents were like, “Here, here’s a laptop, stay in your own room because we want to go to bed,” you know? So, yeah um...it’s a very sentimental part of my life, but it’s one thing that taught me about the value of persistence and the value of the constant pursuit of change. If I may...I promise I’m not trying to go on a rant, but I’ll finish with this. To quote Bluecoats 2024 show, change really, really is everything.

So you know, with all this being said and maybe painting a picture of the kind of Music programs you took part in in school, when would you say that your first encounter with a composer was, was that in high school or did it come, did it come a little later in college? What was that like for you?

Man, that’s a fantastic question and one that I think about a lot. In high school, I went to a high school with amazing band directors that I just really value and appreciate so much, but they never really stayed in that position for too long, so we didn’t really have the camaraderie that we would have expected to have in a standard 4 year high school band. Therefore, these opportunities within a usual 4 year band were not there, and one of those opportunities is working with a composer. I never had the idea of working with a composer, like, that didn’t even cross my mind until undergrad, and I’m pausing because I’m trying to remember the year. I’m pretty sure that it was 2011, and I was a sophomore. No, I was a freshman in undergrad, and that was the first time that I ever met a composer. Their name was Kawai Shiu...I don’t remember where they were from because it was so long ago but I was also kind of just thinking to myself, “What do you you mean, like, I know that I’m a composer, but what do you mean that I can actually meet a composer, I thought that everyone was, like, dead.” Dead, white guys or whatever moniker you wanna call them. Yeah, so we had a masterclass in undergrad and, mind you, I was not a composition major in undergrad. We did not have that in my undergrad. *laughs* Uh, I was a, you know, tried and true music education major who just happened to write music. So, we had a composition masterclass for anyone who “wrote music” and I showed this like, twelve minute long piece for orchestra that...it’s very mid. But in that moment, we listened to it and he gave me feedback, and that was my first experience with a composer. I thought, “What do you mean, like, other people get to do this? Like, how is that possible?!” Then, my constant pursuit in talking to other composers, building a community, and networking for the love of the art and not to get ahead became my biggest priority in that moment. Immediately in that moment I told myself, “I want to be a composer. I want to write music. I want to do the thing.” You know? So yeah, that was my first experience and it left a very lasting impression on me.

So I typically ask people the question, when did you know you wanted to pursue your craft as a career? did you just answer that? Or did something else happen later that kind of solidified it?

No, actually that’s what solidified it and previously in high school I always thought that I wanted to be a composer or...I don’t know. If you read my bio on my website, you’ll see that I have many different facets and things that I like to do. In middle school I wanted to be a session drummer like Steve Gadd who’s still my favorite drummer. I also thought, “Oh, what about working in the music industry or working in, like, Nashville or trying to work for a performing rights organization” or something along the lines of that. It never really occurred to me that I could be a composer, but I thought, “Well, in...” and I’m holding up air quotes right now, “if I’m going to be a composer and I don’t know how to do it, I’m still going to make it happen somehow.” But then actually meeting that composer (Kawai Shiu) taught me that I could do it. It gave me validation to pursue that in a very fundamental way, and yeah, just man, validation is everything if you really think about it. But also, to those of you listening, don’t wait for anyone to tell you what you can do, just do it. And that’s something that I wish that I had told myself. It’s something that I had always, like, told myself that I wanted to do because, like, growing up being obsessed with...man, I’m gonna, like, out myself, but, like, being obsessed with composers like Eric Whitaker, or like Frank Ticheli, or John Mackey...these people have left a lasting impression on my life, you know?...on my career. I always wanted to be like them, but I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to be them, I wanted to be that version of myself along the way. Finding that along the way has been my lifelong pursuit. I still don’t feel like I have found myself in my career because I’m always thinking about the next best thing, but in its very fundamental level, meeting a composer has been very advantageous to me because then it told me that I could do it.

I also. I have to say that what you're talking about, like, this kind of ongoing search for self in your work. I mean, I think about that all the time. And I also, Like, I don't know if it's achievable. Maybe that's, like, the whole point is, like, it's this thing. Does this thing exist? I'm gonna chase after it, but maybe it doesn't. And it's just the whole point is that chase. I don't know.

I think that that chase can be what you want it to be.

Yeah. I mean, I think what you're talking about is so important and so relatable. I mean, like, having that catalyzing moment, that kind of, you know, you're doing your thing, and then you have this moment where it's like, well, everything's different now because I have this new information. I have permission, you know? I mean, what. What were the next steps after that for you? I mean, you said that you didn't even have the chance to study composition in your undergrad. that's the same for me too, actually. And I think that's the case for a lot of composers too, actually. So, I mean, what. What happened after that, that kind of put you on your path to where you're at now?

I pursued my most ambitious goals after that moment. After that moment, I asked myself, “What do you want to do?” and I pursued goals that I failed at in one particular moment, and I told myself, “Well this isn’t the limit of what you can do, this is the limit of what you can do right now.” You know? Uh, in 2013 in my undergrad, we had you know, like...every undergrad has a holiday concert that features a potpourri of ensembles, and it’s wonderful and everyone’s happy and wants to donate money to the school of music, right? I had asked if I could write this quote unquote...and this is the title of the piece, “Christmas Concerto for Orchestra and Chorus”...this 13 minute long work, medley, and arrangement of standard Christmas public domain music in my own way, in my own voice, and that was the furthest reaches of what I could do in that moment. So within this project, I essentially didn’t meet a deadline for revisions that we were trying to push because of X, Y, and Z, becoming sick, like, literally getting sick in the middle of it from being so stressed, and in that moment I knew that I bit off way too much. Like, way more than I could chew. Because, you know, having to organize a piece, a score alone, from an engraving perspective for orchestra and chorus is a lot. Having to organize all of the parts and the vocal scores...it’s a tremendous task that I don’t wish upon my worst enemy, but for some reason, my past self decided that he was full of hubris and decided to go down that road. Then, when I didn’t meet those revisions, I ate the biggest s*** sandwich of my life. Sorry, mom. And yeah, like, I was, like, on my way back to the music department office trying to print out parts and everything...crying because I was just so stressed out, and if you can’t tell by now, I’m a huge people-pleaser and I was not pleasing anyone in that moment, especially myself. So yeah, in the moment I realized like, “Maybe you should pull back a little bit. I know you wanna do that, I know that you have all of these lofty goals and ambitions, but let’s build up to that instead of just going for this incredible project in scope, duration, and difficulty, and arrangement, and all of these incredible goals. Let’s just...let’s just wait.” You know? So yeah, for the second time, uh, that was the biggest s*** sandwich of my life and man, I think about that thing every day. I think about how I felt in that moment every day, and I wake up grateful that I’m not going through that.

Yeah, I think as we grow, as in our ambitions grow with us, you know, it's always like, something to be mindful of. And I call it like, the shooting star effect. And, you know, that's very connected to the idea of burnout, which is not a good thing. That's not like a shooting star is fun, right? But then, like, the burnout's not fun. So it's kind of like, I sometimes I can, like, kind of see now. Like, I'll see people or organizations even sometimes, like on Facebook or social media or just I hear about them and it's like, that's kind of a little shooting star thing going on. You know, it's like maybe a little too much. Like if I. If I were in their shoes, I would be kind of taking my time a little more. But I think that's also like a byproduct of our culture in a lot of ways, is not taking our time and trying to. Trying to really cram things. So, you know, the thing about your situation that you're talking about is, you know, it happened when you were still in undergrad, which I would consider, like, a young composer. And you just got back on the horse, you learned from it and you moved on.

Yeah, absolutely. I told myself, “I’m never going to do this again and next time, don’t think smaller.” Like, I never like to think small. I like to think of myself as a very big picture kind of person. But along the way since that moment I told myself that if I want to do things like this, then my logistical prowess has to be far more developed that it is right now.

Yeah. So, kind of getting into more of the. The work that you do nowadays, you know, a significant portion of your output is geared towards middle school and high school musicians. Like, I guess, educational writing, which I. Which is great. I mean, there's not enough composers, do. I mean, there's a lot of composers doing it, but, like, a lot of composers also draw a line there. And I think more composers should not draw that line.

But at any rate, when did you start thinking about creating music for these educational settings? Ah, and how's this part of your output similar or different from the other kinds of music that you write? Maybe the more like experimental concert music, for example?

Sure. One thing that I just want to start off with...I mean, like, earlier I had mentioned that I grew up playing in middle school and high school band, and I think that’s the answer. Because that community gave me a home in my rebellious way of, if you will and again, sorry to my parents, but trying to cope with always being at church, I mean, I always wanted to be in the band hall. I always wanted to be making music with my friends, music that was not prescribed by rote but literally, like, you could put sheet music in front of us and we could make music. That brings its own advantages of being able to be expressive or interpret something in a new way, thinking about music in a new way. That was always very fun to me. So, one reason that I, and perhaps the most prominent reason, why I write middle school and high school band music because I’m still one of them. I’m a band kid at heart, and it’s something that I’ve never wanted to leave, you know? But it’s funny because I haven’t always written music for that age level. I think that I’ve just become a little bit more understanding and more aware that that community is one that has never left me. So, if you don’t know, I write a lot of educational music, except I don’t really think about it that way. I write educational music that...in terms of that it caters to a specific criteria, that it caters to a specific grade level, that...and all of these things feed into each other in a very logistically sound way so that middle school and high school band directors can play my music in a very accessible way. But if you think about the content that I write my music about, it’s not terribly accessible, or it makes you think about something in a new way. For instance...and I’m going to talk about one of my more recent pieces, which is, in the logistical sense, a grade 4.5 work for wind band called Forerunner. If you are curious, yes, the word and the title Forerunner comes from my love and appreciation for the Halo video game series. So, I always wanted to, like, use that as a title, so if you think about what the word “forerunner” means, it means pioneer, it means someone that comes before us. I always wanted to just capture that idea within music, but I had no idea how to do it. So, I wrote this piece with the intent of asking the question of, “How are you a forerunner?” And for high school students, that might be a very, very big question. Or university students, even, it might be a big question. But the musical material that represents these ideas remains to be accessible, and it remains to be within their grasp. So, with my educational music, I strive to ask questions that can be represented in an intuitively accessible musical manner. Another one of my pieces called A Thousand Inner Voices describes that inner turmoil that all of us might feel from day to day...asking us, “Well, am I good enough for this? Can I do this? Well no! Of course you’re not good enough to do this!” That constant struggle is something that so many of us just deal with from day to day. But yeah, like A Thousand Inner Voices asks the question of, “Instead of conquering these voice and making a very romanticized perspective of these inner voices that we fight everyday, what if we learned how to live with them instead?” Taking these ideas to ask another...like, kind of turn them on their head and ask these musicians that are playing them, “How can we do X, Y, and Z? How can we think about this in a new way?” That’s what I strive to do with my educational music. It’s educational because it fits within that difficulty level. A lot of these ideas and concepts behind the works—because that’s what I come up with first—have a lot to do with what it means to be human, or what it means to do with X, Y, and Z that we might encounter in our daily lives.

Yeah, I think for a lot of composers who are unfamiliar with graded music, like you're talking about, they might think of it as being like, very restrictive, which, you know, in a lot of ways it is because you're having to follow a specific parameters. But I think maybe restrictive in the sense that, like, oh, it's. I can't explore more serious topics. Like, I have to, like, write something that's unserious because like twelve year olds are playing it or something like that.

No, that’s absolutely not the case. I believe that 12 year olds are humans too, and they deserve to develop their social cues, social identity because we’re able to do that in the band hall. It is my hope, and I wouldn’t call it my goal, but it is a byproduct that they’re going to be doing this in the rest of their lives. That’s really, really important to me because nobody did that for me when I was their age.

I think it's like the idea of not, dumbing down your music, but I'm, speaking generally, you, not you specifically, but not dumbing down your music as a composer, but rather elevating the group into the ideas that you want to explore. I think that is, like, big time stuff that. I mean, I've never thought about that. Right. So just kudos to you for having that perspective. I mean, you're really the first person I've talked to, for sure, on this podcast. But I don't talk to a lot of people who write for, like, middle school and high school band, for example. Maybe I should. Maybe this is proof of it.

Yeah.

Do you know...um, there are so many brilliant and...incredible composers that write really, really fantastic music out there that write for that medium, that write for that age group...um, I’m not trying to be better than anyone else, I’m just trying to be the best version of myself and try and give my past self what nobody gave to me.

Yeah, for sure. So I know, because I follow you on social media, that you've had the opportunity to actually, like, travel and work with these groups, too, which I'm sure adds another dimension to what you're talking about. I mean, do you want to talk about that a little bit, what your experience has been like? And, I mean, maybe have you had the experience of earlier, you were talking about, how you had this masterclass with a composer, and it, like, made things click for you. Have you gotten to be that for any young people?

With all of my humility, I...*laughs*...I laugh because, like, this is a very self-aware moment, but I hope so. I’m gonna be the first one to say, like, I never set out to be a composer, I just wanted to be someone who wrote music. And I know that those things could be exclusive if you wanna look at them that way, but I use my music as a vehicle to ask questions, to pursue ideas, to pursue concepts, or to depict them in some scientific way that’s represented through a musical medium. I hope that in my time of collaborating with these amazing groups that I’ve been able to, I don’t know, ask questions or help aspiring music makers...ask what they want to do and how they want to make music, or how they want to use music to ask these questions, or to provoke an idea in someone else. That’s my MO, like, that’s my main mission in life right now, and it’s to ask people how they can do X, Y, and Z. All of my music is very reflective, unless you’re talking about, like, absolute music which I also have. But when I set out to write a piece, my main mission is to figure out an objective, whether it is emotional or cognizant or anything like that...or do I just want to write a piece with a groove on it that makes people feel good, you know? All of these questions are very, very important to me because they all let me ask and, therefore, explore and give my narrative on what these ideas are.

And that's. I mean, that's what being a composer or being an artist is, really.

Absolutely, yeah.

And....but again, like, I don’t think of myself like, yeah I write music and, therefore, I’m a composer, but it’s more about the creation of art and the creation of using a medium, whatever medium that is, to ask questions and to provoke thought in others. It just so happens to be, uh, largely for middle school and high school band.

Yeah, and it's awesome. We're kind of already getting into this next question of mine, and I always, like, get the answer to this a little bit anyway before I ask it to people. But I'll ask you directly. So what would you describe as the primary pillars of your creative practice, you know, in terms of philosophy or even aesthetics or I. You know, you can answer that however you like.

That’s a very, very reflective question and it’s ironic that I don’t have a direct answer for you right now because I just came off a contextual version of that answer...but I think that that in itself, what I just said, is the answer. Uh, it’s all based on context. Whenever I write music, again, I set out to achieve an objective or a goal, and more often than not its like, “Well, do I want to make someone feel something in a programmatic sense, or do I want to make someone feels something because it sounds abrasive or immersive or whatever? Like, one of my favorite things to do is use spatialization so that audience members can feel immersed in the sound because, man, I love me some Dolby Atmos music,you now? Like that incredibly immersive sound and...it just...*sighs* it’s like being in the womb all over again, you know? So, I don’t know, that’s something that I strive to achieve a lot with my music. To fully answer your question, I think that a primary pillar of mine has a lot to do with achieving that objective and trying to figure out what I’m trying to say. On my website I think that I have advice to composers as a heading on there, and uh, I make mention, like, to those that want to write music, always have something to say. You might ask, “Well, what do I mean by that?” and it’s like, well, if you want to write music, if you want to create art, what are you trying to say with your art? Is it just absolute, is it just...and not “just” but is it...does it serve a very surface-level perspective or a narrative of what you see in the world or in life? Or are you trying to ask a question with it? What I try and do throughout all of my music is figure out what that objective is and solve it.

Well, you bring up something I was going to ask you about, and I'll just kind of reiterate this, because I love that you even have a section on your website that's advice for young composers. And of course, I'll have a link to your website and people can read the whole thing. you end this advice, again, to say what you've already said. Most importantly, always have something to say. I mean, can you elaborate on why you think this is important advice for. For young people? But I mean, even talk a little more about, like, what is it? What does it mean to you to say something?

I have listened to a lot of music...and this is based in structure and design of the music itself...that takes a significant amount of time to get to the point. Sometimes I absolutely love that, sometimes I don’t, and it depends on my mood in that moment. It depends on how much coffee I’ve had that day, and I don’t usually drink caffeinated coffee anymore, but when I am, I mean, sometimes I just want you to get to the point, you know? But in all art, I think that it’s important to have something to say. I think that it’s important to ask questions as well of your audience members. So if you’re a young composer and you want to say something, how can you best represent those questions or ideas in a musical way? Oftentimes when—and I’ll be the first one to tell you—I suck at writing thematic material. I am awful at it! So, I steal, um, what the greats have done and I represent significant profiles or ideas that I’m writing about in my music in a musical alphabet-type of translation, if you will...where I superimpose the English alphabet—and I have two variations of this—onto the musical alphabet. Then I’ll use this to inform my thematic material and BOOM!...I don’t have to think about anything. So, I’ve incorporated this to ask questions or to describe ideas to my audience members...and to the musicians playing these pieces as well, like, that’s what I want to question, that’s what I want to say. And on the subject of absolute music, as long as I can justify, even with one word, what I was trying to accomplish, I have said what I’ve wanted to say. Uh, there’s a piece of mine called Tour de Force for percussion ensemble and it is based off of a piano improvisation that I literally “wrote the piece in 8 minutes” and then I orchestrated it to full percussion ensemble, 12 players, and I just wanted it to be cool. And I think the piece is pretty cool, so yeah, um, that’s what I wanted to say with that, but also within that context which is a pillar, I wanted to solve that objective and I knew that for that piece, I was going to close out a concert, like a showcase concert, at the Texas MEA [Music Educators Association] convention in 2023. And so I had to write a big closing piece and that’s what I did. So, I personally think that as long as you can justify what you’re trying to accomplish to your audience member, then you have said what you have wanted to say.

I mean, it kind of all gets back to intention and I don't. I mean, I almost feel like, as artists, what you're talking about almost liken it to like, having a voice or like having like, a distinct quality to your work that's like, very unique to you. I mean, because, you know, a voice can mean a lot of things. And I don't, I don't think that's quite what you're talking about, but I definitely think like a, uniqueness to. Because otherwise it's like, what are we doing? Are we imitating. Just imitating Mozart, right. Or whatever. That was a bad example, but, well.

Correct, correct.

I mean, imitating Mozart is a very good way to go, but I’m never going to do that. I mean, to talk to what you just said about, like, voice, I think that it’s inherently—and this is, like, so weird for me to say in a self-aware moment—but it’s inherently, if you will, “Mat Campbell” for there to be more than one meaning to a piece that I wrote. I always try and search...equate the cognizant and the intellectual level of my music with that of the musical materials that I have gathered.

So something that you talk about on your website, otherwise I wouldn't bring it up. And is it should be clear to people by now, is you live with a speech impediment. I'm wondering if this is something you'd like to talk about. And if so, do you feel like it factors into your creative existence in any way, or is it. I mean, it is who you are, I suppose.

Yeah, well I think that’s a fantastic segue from what we just talked about with voice as well. I like to think that this attribute and characteristic to who I am has influenced and impacted a lot of what I do as an artist. In 2020, in the middle of the lockdown period, my wife and I recorded a 27 minute long video called BREAKING EVEN: on living life as an artist with a speech impediment...and she asked me questions about what it’s like to live with that and to work with groups that...like, with a speech impediment. It’s always very interesting because people have asked me—at, like, fast food restaurants or something like that—where they’re like, “Do you have a hearing problem because....” and obviously they’re not being...like, they’re just curious, but they’re like, “Well, do you have a hearing problem or what is it?” and I’m just like, “Nope, my hearing is actually great!” or as long as I have been a percussionist, right?...but it’s all mechanical. So, the reason that I have a speech impediment—and this has to do with being a premature baby...yay right?...but also being born with Pierre Robin syndrome, and that comes with its own set of deformities within my body that I was born with. One of those was a cleft palate and I’m sure that people listening might understand or be familiar with cleft palate or cleft lip. Mine was the palate and there were several times that my tongue—while I was asleep —would cover that cleft and literally suffocate me, according to my parents. By the grace of God, I was able to come back and here I am, right? For some reason, right? But, yeah. When I was a baby that happened and it happened quite a few times. So, mechanically, if we’re thinking about how my mouth and nasal cavity are formed, that cleft meant that I didn’t have one of my palates—I don’t remember if it’s soft or hard—but that creates the nasal quality of my voice. Secondly, and this is being a product of 1990s medical attention, but when they went to sew up my cleft palate at the roof of my mouth, they also cut the tip of my tongue after sewing it to my bottom lip so that they could work on it and, therefore, all of my hard consonants are unavailable to my mouth construction, if you will. So, don’t ask me to do this, but if you asked me to show you the tip of my tongue, I literally don’t have it. So, yeah. That is the mechanical breakdown as to why I talk the way that I do and, like, it’s not anything that I’m, like, afraid of anymore, like yeah I grew up with bullies and everything like that, but like everyone grows up with bullies to some extent. So, um, I just couldn’t tell them off in a way that they could talk to me with, you know? Like, so yeah, “breaking even” has been a very interesting mindset to have...and it’s also kind of funny because, like, growing up Hispanic or growing up without money or resources, as I said before. It’s really interesting because I’ve had to break even in more than just one way in my life. So, yeah. Having a speech impediment and working with various groups around the country has been very interesting, but I’ve never had any problems or any questions about it because chances are by now, I mean like, everyone is used to it. And like, um, to that I also work trade shows with C. Alan Publications who I work for as an engraver and I’ve never had an issue, but I feel like within that safe space, I mean like, it’s kind of just...it just is, you know? And now I’ve met enough people that probably have talked to each other like...“So like, let’s just talk about his speech impediment...” Right? And if you talk about that while I’m away, great! I’m totally fine with that. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. In fact, it’s probably going to bring more awareness to it and I might have to tell people less often like, “Hey, by the way, if you don’t understand me, I’ll say it in a different way in hopes that you will.” But one thing that I’ve never been without in a residency opportunity is whenever I open up my mouth the first time on the podium...it never fails that when I start talking, there are crickets in the room. Like, you can hear a pin drop because everyone’s like, “Oh, maybe I should listen.” And I’ll be honest, I definitely use that to my advantage!

Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. I mean, I think most people don't think about their voices. In my line of work, we all do. And it sounds like you do too. But in like, a totally different way. I mean, to have the kind of self awareness and, I mean, and music being such an aural thing, I mean, I I'm kind of just thinking out loud. I'm wondering what the connection is there. I mean, for you to be able to talk about it in such a way. I mean, it's so aural oriented, you know?

Yeah, yeah it is. I don’t know, like, one particular thing that I’ve always been concerned with...um, with my speech, and on the mechanical side of things because yeah, sometimes I will have, like, a stutter, but I wouldn’t consider myself to have one, it’s more like a byproduct of my brain working faster than my mouth. But when I’m describing articulation from a musical perspective, I always want to make sure that I get what I’m trying to say across. So with that being said, if you look at my scores, my actual sheet music , I’m very, very explicit about what kind of articulation that I want from the performer because, hopefully, by the time that I get there and get to the residency, all of that will be ironed out. And more often than not, it is and I don’t really have to clarify anything. That’s when I use music to my advantage...when I know that I cannot physically make a sound to emulate what articulation I want, then I’ll have my music do it for me.

Oh, I. That's such a, I want to say important perspective, but. Or interesting perspective, but that almost feels like it doesn't do it justice, because, I mean, I. That's also something you see, like, composers who don't do that in their scores. Like, they don't think about things so specifically...

...Or they leave it up to interpretation.

Right. No, I kind of have my own thoughts about that, but, yeah, I mean, that's a really. It's just really interesting to me.

Yeah, and that about using music as a technology—maybe we can talk about that later on— but yeah, using sheet music to describe the sounds that I want is very important to me because I literally cannot make those sounds with my mouth. And it is what it is, but as a conductor, I had to learn how to kind of, like, reframe how I’m going to teach articulation. And it’s funny because I’m thinking about it, so now I’m retrying to be as particular and as articulate as I possibly can and that still only gets me so far.

So, shifting gears just a little bit, you are one of the first composers that I've spoken to on the podcast who is still very active in the marching arts, of course, I've talked to people who, yeah, I was a band kid, you know, whatever. But you, you know, you still write for these kinds of ensembles. And this is something that at one point was a huge part of my life as well. And to a degree that, like, I attribute my standard of excellence to the groups I played with, you know, with, in terms of marching bands and. And drum corps especially.

Yeah.

So I'm sure, you know, that all being said, I'm sure there's plenty we can discuss about the marching arts, and I'm happy to do that. But how has your experience as a marching, ah, musician influenced your work as a composer? And again, kind of similar to my last question, how do you approach music for marching band compared to music that you write for the concert stage?

That’s a fantastic question and this comes in two parts for me: one of the reasons why I write music—aside from being bored and discovering the Finale Notepad 2004 disc...aside from that—is because of marching band and because of drum corps, even. The pageantry arts, as it is known, hold a very special place in my heart. Perhaps it’s because of the formative years of my life in which those events took place, or maybe it’s because of the sheer intensity and passion that it takes to pursue those musical avenues...I don’t know what it is about it, but it still keeps me coming back to it. Like, I...ugh, my God, I just love them so much. And whether it is because of that intensity or the passion or the talent level or X, Y, and Z. I think... and I’m probably going to make people laugh right now, but one of my biggest goals in life is to have my music out on the marching field. Like, that would be an incredibly full circle moment for me whether it is like a marching band in a high school or a collegiate marching band or even a drum corps, you know? But like, yeah, I don’t know. You ask about how marching band might influence my concert music or vice versa and I’m going to tell you, like, first and foremost, I am two different people when I write these two different ensemble types. Marching band, I’m trying to emulate my heroes in this medium and those heroes might include—no, they definitely include— Jim Casella, who wrote for Santa Clara Vanguard and The Cavaliers, Murray Gusseck, who also wrote for Santa Clara Vanguard. Both of them started the Tapspace Publications company which I have looked up and spent way too much time on their website as a high school musician, you know? These people are just very influential on my output and my...my creative vision as a marching arts arranger. And if you don’t know, I do front ensemble, I do drumline battery, and I also do, as a recent development, sound design as well because I have way too many Spitfire Audio libraries that I have to make tax write-offs on...anyway! On the flip side we have concert music, and I’ve always wanted my concert music to influence the marching side, not the other way around. I fell in love with marching band first, but I fell in love with concert music more. You can’t explore all of the emotional worth of a Mahler symphony in an 8 minute marching band show or even in a 12 minute marching band show. You can’t understand the gradual changes of Steve Reich’s Drumming or Music for 18 Musicians on a marching band field, even though Bluecoats do a fantastic job of hocketing like him so effectively. Marching band is fantastic and it is my end-all and be-all for one part of who I am. But concert music is also fantastic and is the end-all and be-all of another part of who I am. They influence each other, they impact each other, but I also...when I get into the chair that I’m sitting at right now at my desk and I am writing one or the other, I will be that person that that work needs me to be. Does that make sense?

Yeah, just. Just kind of occupying different hats and I mean, as composers alone, like, totally disregarding the kind of music that you might be writing, you know, whether it's for the stage or the field or, or what have you, we are always wearing hats, like, you know, creator, hat editor, hat analyzer, hat, you know, that kind of thing. So I totally get what you're saying, like, how you separate it. But I also appreciate that. I mean, it sounds to me like what you're saying is you want to like, almost push and nudge the marching arts. Like, elevate, them a little more to match the nuance of the stage.

Absolutely. Mhmm.

And that’s the thing. Like, you raise a really, really good question with that. Because there is nuance in marching band and drum corps. For those of you that watched—or that watch— drum corps and watched the Phantom Regiment 2024 show Mynd, M-Y-N-D, there is a lot of nuance in that show from a design perspective and also an execution perspective. Everyone across all drum corps, whether you’re top 3, or top 25, or an open class corps, or in SoundSport, or whatever you are...these musicians know how to play with nuance but it’s the breadth of the art that limits the full capacity of how far we can push it. Like, seriously, while I love— and I’m gonna pull from the depths here—while I absolutely love Carolina Crown 2015 playing Ode to Joy at the very end, that still does not satisfy in the exact same way one to one. It does in a very drum corps-ified way which I admire to the nth degree, but it does not replace or match how I feel after listening to the end of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. The scope is different, the nuance is there and this doesn’t, like—I’m not saying that any one is better than the other—I’m just saying that they are different.

Yeah, I think it's. I mean, now we're just kind of, like, chatting about this, which is a very niche thing, which is fine. But now I'm wondering, is this a discussion about orchestration? Because when you orchestrate for an orchestra, for example, it's very different considerations versus a marching band or an outdoor ensemble. Right. And also, most of the outdoor ensembles have a level of consideration, like what we were talking about earlier with educational purposes. Right. DCI to a lesser degree, for obvious reasons, but there's still, like, educational elements to that.

Um, I think that there’s education to be found in whatever ensemble you’re in, whatever ensemble you’re a part of. I was in a...the Brownsville Samba School before I went into my undergrad degree, and I was just there as a high schooler and I was learning about Brazilian samba rhythms. That was a lot of fun to me, but that was an educational perspective that I was learning about how to do X, Y, and Z pattern, you know, or play on different instruments. Same thing with concert music and—as well as that—the outdoor ensembles that we mentioned before.

So kind of getting into a, question that I ask everyone, and, you know, it's. And I'll open it up a little wider than I sometimes do. What is a piece of music, a, song, a book, a piece of art, an experience, even anything like that that changed the way that you thought about the work that you did as a composer and even changed your life in a lot of ways.

That’s a huge question and I’m going to cheat a little bit because there are multiple ways that I view different contexts of music that have changed my life, and all of them serve a different part of who I am. Let’s just talk about drum corps really fast. The first show that I saw was The Cavaliers 2006 Machine and I saw it on ESPN when they still showed drum corps on there. That taught me like, oh man, this is so cool. Like, what do you mean that you can just play cool music, and move around, and make, like, little pictures on the field? And I’m not trying to infantilize it at all, like, it’s just my brain could not, like, fathom what was happening. But in the same respect, one of my favorite musical moments in my life is being at the Texas MEA conference—and I don’t remember what year it was...I wanna say it was 2020–and it was listening to An Alpine Symphony by Strauss. And oh my goodness, if you have the chance to ever witness An Alpine Symphony in the flesh...highly, highly recommend. The theme of, like, the main over arching idee fixe, if you will, of that piece just has such a soft space in my heart. Like, I’m trying really hard to not get emotional about it because— that’s one of— yeah, it’s a fantastically fond memory of mine. But what that piece paints as a picture in my mind, like truly programmatic in nature, captures me and captures my love for the romantic medium in concert music. But, on the flip side, uh, one of my favorite pieces of all time is Harmonielehre by John Adams.

Ah that's a good one.

And the sheer intensity from the beginning to the end, whether it is at fortissimo or pianissimo, it does not let go of you. And I guess the equal vocal part of that is Harmonium, also by John Adams, in which the transition from the second to the third movement into Wild Nights, the ascending horn calls with the percolating brass which—oh my god, and it’s just... ugh, like, so kinetic and that gives me life!—but all of these different ideas and all of these different moments and memories give me nourishment in different ways. And in a very self- serving way, there is one transition in my piece Forerunner that I mentioned earlier that—with a apologies to Frank Ticheli—I stole from Angels in the Architecture. Where at the end—and I think about the climax of Forerunner as this soft modulation to the final key—that Frank Ticheli did so eloquently and beautifully in Angels in the Architecture. If you’ll hear it on my SoundCloud, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And it’s funny because the older I get, the more that I realize that climaxes of works and significant musical moments are not always loud and brash. It can be incredibly quiet. Like, I think that the...one of the best moments in all of classical music for me is the very ending of Scheherazade with the violin harmonic at the very end that fades into the distance. That to me is the climax of the piece. Yes, the brass beforehand in the fourth movement is incredible, but the ending, which signifies that there will always be more, is a little bit more significant to me.

We were talking about rebelliousness in music earlier, which I kind of promised myself I'd ask you more about. And I'm going to take the opportunity now because I think what you're kind of describing, I mean, youre describing moments in these pieces that do the opposite of what you think theyre going to do. Like, they defy expectations in some ways. And to me that is when we talk about rebellion in our work, thats what I think about, at least for me personally. I mean, how do you see this kind of rebellious streak manifesting in your music? I mean, is it that, does it go beyond that?

I’m going to answer one of our previous questions with a very succinct answer. And that is one of the my pillars of being a composer is subverting expectations. Because, my goodness, I love human psychology and I am so ready to mess you up over that. Uh, there’s a piece that I wrote called neveroddoreven (Never Odd or Even) which is a palindrome that has a golden section within a golden section, and they are literally like the same forwards and backwards. It’s also constructed in arch form, and, as you might imagine, the title neveroddoreven means that you conduct the piece in 5...in 5/2, so the half note gets the beat, but you hear it in 4. So, like, 4/4 and it sounds like a bunch of quintuplets. But that’s not very user-friendly, so I wrote it in 5. Anyway, the piece ends the way that it starts, and you don’t quite realize that until you’re at the end. To realize like, “Oh, like, I didn’t know what to expect. Oh, I thought that I knew what I was expecting. Wait, what do you mean this happened?” and then there’s like a huge, like, metric modulation in which we are playing quintuplets over a huge chorale and everything. And this is trivial for me to describe, but I just love subverting expectations for the listener. There’s another other piece of mine called Nightmare Fuel in which—spoiler alert—I actually have a jump scare within the piece because it’s for grade 3 1/2 for band with track. And so, like, you have a whole soundscape to it and everything. That’s a lot of fun and all. But there’s a middle section that’s quiet and slow that you think the piece is over with resolve, and then the jump scare hits you because I want people to jump out of their seats when listening to it. Also, conducting that

piece with a track in itself is indeed nightmare fuel, so yeah! I just enjoy preparing something for the listener and then completely taking them on a whole different adventure.

And do you feel like you learned that from the examples you were giving earlier, those pieces? Or, I mean, is it a. Do you just. Is it more intuitive?

I think it’s because I’m a little bit of a jokester at heart.

Yeah.

Like, I love messing around with people and saying like, “Oh, like, I’m just kidding, but I hope that you enjoyed that.” I’m not... I’m not actually that way in real life, or maybe I am, I don’t know. I’m having an existential crisis right now with that particular question. But I think that if you ask my wife, I think that she would say, “You want to build people up to think that you’re taking them in a certain direction, but instead of playing a joke on them, I think that you’re just simply wanting them to know that there’s more out there than what they expect...” and she is much more eloquent than I am so I think that would be her answer.

Yeah, I like it. So we kind of started part of this conversation off talking about how, you know, your first moments as a composer were with finale notepad. And this is a very contentious week for us all. So, I, you know, I feel like we have to talk about this, because, you know, I saw your post on Facebook about finale notepad earlier in the week, and, you know, I haven't said anything on social media about my thoughts about finale. For those listening who have no idea what we're talking about.

So finale music notation software is just that, a software that enables us to put our notes into the computer, and then we're able to render, you know, high quality sheet music scores, you know, parts of all that stuff from finale. And they announced earlier this week that they are ending development and kind of corralled everyone into, like, a different software, and everybody lost their minds. but, Matt, what you said on Facebook is part of the reason I said nothing, because there's nothing for me to add. It's. And that's like, this is annoying. And there's some legitimate concerns about losing access to a software, but for me personally, and what you said, it's like losing a friend, right? It's like, this has been such a mainstay in my life for, like, two thirds of my life. And it's like, now I have to move on from that without warning for the most part. So that really resonates with me. That's my experience, too. Downloading the software and exploring it and getting started and being like, oh, I can do this, and, we can talk about all that if you want....

Yeah, I would love to.

...you say in your bio, again, I mean, your bio wrote all my questions for me, which is awesome, by the way. but you kind of leave it all out there, and you say. You even mentioned notation software in your bio, and you say that it elevates your ambitions. I mean, what do you mean by this? How does it do that? I guess now with this news, I mean, what does that change anything?

Finale gave my career an unintentional springboard to express myself in the most fundamental way. And if we can come full circle, it took what I was writing at Mr. Music without realizing it , and turned it into real, validated sheet music...whether it was on the screen or whether it is on actual, physical sheet music, which is something that I don’t get to work with enough anymore. I described in my Facebook post that Tyler was mentioning that it started this accidental career that I never sent out to do. I, again, never really set out to be a composer. I wanted that to happen in a perfect world, but I never expected it to actually happen and manifest in the way that it did. And so, with this news about Finale, being discontinued and development coming to a close, you know, that program has meant so much to me in ways that a lot of people probably can’t wrap their mind or hearts around, and that’s fine. That’s completely fine, and I hate being this kind of person, but for the last few days I had to advocate for why so many people were losing their minds and “ed-vocate,” if you will, through information. I’ve been using Finale for 17 years and *laughs*, like man, when I got that note, I had all of the stages of grief immediately, like in a split second. And not because, “Oh boo-hoo, my notation software isn’t going to be supported anymore.” No, that’s not why. It’s because one thing that I—maybe it wasn’t that I was ready to walk away yet—or just this one thing that...when you were asking me this question I thought, like, “Finale was, like, the imaginary friend in my computer that I could tell everything to.” It was rebellion. It was the things that I couldn’t tell to anyone else... sometimes even the things that I couldn’t even tell myself. That gave me such an incredible outlet. The software is jank as heck. I know...I know that very well. And over the 17 years of my life, there have been many crashes that I will mourn many, many iterations of whatever passages I was working on in that moment. But every time— like, you know working with Finale... and this is going to probably make people laugh—but working with Finale, a program that crashed so much, taught me grit. And it taught me about resilience, because every time that it crashed, whether it was at 3:30 in the afternoon or 3:30 in the morning, I would take the time to render everything that I had lost all over again and 100% of the time it came out better. You can’t do that with pen and paper or pencil and paper. You can’t do that with X, Y, and Z... that experience is solely built within a software program like Finale, which is buggy and crashes. The last few iterations have been pretty good, but in those formative years of my life, I spent so much time with Finale...so much time even trauma bonding over that damn program because I wanted to be able...because that was the only time and way that I could make music and what I really, really wanted to say. Again, always have something to say. Finale gave me that opportunity. And it gave me that opportunity to develop, “What did I mean by those questions, what did I mean by those thoughts and those ideas that I wanted to explore.” That’s why it was so significant to me, and I’m happy that Finale has changed course and let

authorization exist indefinitely. And—don’t get me wrong—this was a very immediate wake up call and I will be switching to Dorico as I learn the program. I’ve already like started working on templates for marching band stuff, and concert band stuff, and, you know, everything that I know how to do. But as a program and as an outlet, Finale gave me something that no other thing in my life has, and that was a chance.

Yeah, I think, like, that's the part of it that people are kind of losing sight of. And I'm 100% with you. It's been like a constant companion. And, even when there was a point in my life where I composed within finale and then I changed that up and I stopped doing that. But even after that, it was like I had always flirted with the idea of moving to, Dorico. but I just never did. Probably out of convenience. but yeah, I'm like 100% on the same page with you that about everything you just said, really. I mean, just what it's meant to me. What it's meant. What, what it means now, moving forward, my plan. But yeah, I think mostly more than. More than anything, when I saw that news, I agree. It was like, oh, this is, this is a bummer. But not, not because of the reasons everyone else is saying. It's. It's like a very personal bummer.

Because we’ve— in both the case of you and I—we have lived our formative years through that software. And learning Finale was a metaphor for life. You were, like, learning how to use that program at the same time that you were learning the ropes as an adolescent. Those are very, very important times, and, you know, I hope that other people who use other programs such as MuseScore—yeah, I said MuseScore first, what of it, right?—or Sibelius, or Dorico, I hope that these people can relate to that and understand in their own way. And if they can’t, that’s totally fine, you’re not going to hurt my feelings. But if you can’t understand, or if you choose to not understand that it’s more than just a tool to me, then maybe it’s not Sibelius or Dorico or Muse Score that you have to consider that with. I described losing Finale to my wife as...it’s like selling your first car that you learned how to drive with...that’s what it means to me. And not because it’s a tool, but because it—I described it as *laughs* uh...I was talking to someone about downloading Dorico this morning, and I was like, “I know Finale is trash, but it’s my trash and I love it, you know?” So, those years, like, that exploration and that sandbox moment with Finale as a 15 year-old to now has...like, nothing is going to replace that. And Dorico might, but Dorico is going to be more a tool than anything else to me.

Right, exactly. Im realizing now you just spoke so poetically about this situation, and thats a perfect segue to my next question, which is, again, on your site at the very bottom of your about me section, you talk about your interest in poetry. would you be up for discussing this? Because, again, you speak so poetically. Youre speaking poetically today with me in general. So how do you feel that it connects with your work as a composer or is it just a kind of a totally alternative outlet for your creativity? Or maybe option three is it just, is poetry just the way you kind of see the world.

All of the above. And that doesn’t help one bit. I like to think of myself as a Tumblr poet, if you will. So, not officially a poet, but one that grew up reading really...exploratory poetry on Tumblr between 2012 and 2019. I think that there’s a lot of...there’s a lot to explore within poetry, within words and I’ve...you know, as a person who literally has to focus on choosing their words wisely so that all aspects of my words, whether it is the consonants, the vowels, or what they mean...all means so much. Like, I have to choose that so, so carefully so that my point gets across without any room for error. And if you haven’t heard my voice by now, yeah, there is a lot of room for interpretation. But, I choose my words very wisely. So poetry...I guess if you could consider my poetry in conjunction with my music, a lot of it would be in the liner notes of my album of output, if you will. Uh, some of them go with specific works. Some of them go with significant moments in my life. Some of them were written at 3:30 in the morning when I was writing a piece for my master’s recital called Far and Dark Places in which I was very much in a far and dark place at that time. I wouldn’t say from a depression perspective, I would just say...if you don’t know, I did two master’s degrees in two years, so the implications of that are...*laughs* uh, I had no time for myself. I was in search of a lot, and I was in such a far away place in my life at that time, so I wrote a piece about it! And I wrote poetry within... that was recited within that conducting recital and within that piece. Poetry, like, I am not an aspiring poet just like I’m not an aspiring composer. I just make when I am inclined to make, and if people want to read or listen to it, then they will do so. If not, then it’s for me. And that’s the thing, like, going back to my previous Facebook post about Finale. Like, I specifically wrote at the beginning of that, “This is not for anyone.” “This is for me when Facebook inevitably notifies me, “Hey, you have memories from a year ago today.” And I want to look back on that a year from now as some sort of time capsule, and look at my thoughts from that time and reflect on how I am now in that moment. That poetry—much like all of my music—every single

piece of mine represents a time of my life. So, that’s where that poetry comes from. I’m not going to win awards. I’m not even going to submit for awards. If you happen to come across it on my website...great, amazing. And if you think that it’s trash, well again, it is my trash, and art is completely subjective and I’m completely fine with that, and I have accepted that, you know?

Yeah. It's like, I had to look for that. yeah.

Yeah, I buried that in my website very deliberately. Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting that it's like you just set it, you make it for yourself, but it's not like you want to stash it away either. Like in a very private place. Like, you're still putting it out there, but you're not broadcasting it necessarily. I think that's a really, that's a really interesting way to go about it.

I guess one of my pillars...my other pillars...man, I feel like we should’ve asked this at the end. But, one of my pillars is giving people a reason to look for something within one’s output. Because, I don’t know if you know, but I have linked a lot of different things between my pieces and that’s for everyone else to find. And if you don’t feel like it, no harm no foul. I want my music to stand on its own, whether it is connected to another piece or not.

Yeah. Oh, that's good. So I feel like my next question, which I ask everybody that I talk to. So fair is. Fair, is always, like, the hardest one for maybe the top hardest or second hardest question that people are asked from me, and that is, what do you think you would be doing if it wasn't your arts, if music was totally out of the equation. And I'll also say if poetry was also out of the equation.

Sure. One thing, like...again, in middle school, I wanted to be a session drummer like Steve Gadd, my hero at that time, you know? In high school, I knew that music was always going to be a part of my life, and there was a point of no return, you know? I don’t know what that point was, but maybe it was when I heard the sound of the marching band for the first time after being in sectionals for, like, two weeks and then realizing what collaborative opportunities marching band could offer, you know? But, if I wasn’t doing music...*laughs*...I always wanted to be an architect because—and I’m not trying to, like, take from Iannis Xenakis or anything like that—but his music has definitely spoken to me in that it is architecture through sound. Also, funny, like, meme type thing is I feel like I sound like George Costanza from Seinfeld with Vandalay Industries or Art Vandalay and wanting to be an architect, right? But if not for architecture and design, which hold a very special place in my heart, I always wanted to do something within physics, or like astrophysics even. I love the natural world, and I love the idea of how things work on a micro and macro level. Some of my pieces represent that love and that ambition to always have wanted to explore space. I have a recent piece called Cosmic Lighthouse, which depicts pulsars, and as mentioned before, uses spatialization to depict these pulsars around the audience. I have a piece called Perigee Syzygy—which is awful for me to say, but you might get it now—which is a 17 minute long work about the tetrad of supermoons within 2015. I wrote it for clarinet, electronics, and for percussion, and I wrote it for my then girlfriend. And she played clarinet, and pretty much it was my love letter to her, putting her at the center of my universe, you know? Through using, like, scientific explanations and ideas to explore what I love in life. And music gives me such a beautiful outlet because I can slap—and justify saying whatever I want to say—justify that through clever program notes and intuitive user experience, you know?

Yeah. I always ask that question. And it's kind of. It's kind of like a just for fun question that makes people think. And it's, you know, it's interesting to see what people have to say. But like, I think the common thread is like, well, but we're artists and we get to explore these things anyway.

Yeah, exactly. And if I was able to explore astrophysics I would probably be making a lot more money than I am now, but I’m not going to complain because I’m supporting the lifestyle that I want.

Yeah, for sure.

Is there a tool that you use in your practice that you think everyone should know about and that everyone else could benefit from.

Um, one is physical one is mental, and I suppose that you can combine them for an even better experience. Meditation is one of them, and that’s the mental one, obviously. Meditation and figuring out what you really want, or realizing that there is no such thing as control in life aside from how you react to something is incredibly important. And the physical one, no joke— this is very granular in nature—but, like, having a standing desk or getting up from your chair every, like, for like 10 minutes out of the hour has been an absolute game changer because—I know that we haven’t talked about this—but I work as an engraver for C. Alan Publications, and I also work as a freelance X, Y, and Z “insert career here” for myself and other composers. So, if you might imagine, I spend anywhere between 50 to 60 hours a week in front of my desk. So, stretching is very, very important and standing up is very, very important. So yeah, but the hybrid of the two is doing something that I love to do on Apple Fitness+, which is called a “mindful cooldown.” And that is—and you can do it before or after any exercise if you do—it is a meditative movement-type exercise in which you can imagine yourself doing something like filling up a balloon while simultaneously moving your arms. And I don’t know if that’s the percussionist in me, I don’t know if that’s the conductor in me, but as a human being, man, it feels great. And it clears my mind like nothing else.

Those are two things I should work better at, personally.

Highly recommend.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So, my final question for you is your, chance to really say whatever you want. Go into spaces we haven't yet gotten to or that you've never gotten to at all, ever. And that is what is something that you've never had a chance to say about your art, about your music that you've always wanted to share with people.

Believe it or not...kind of a difficult question to answer, and not because I’m reclusive or anything like that. It’s because of what you mentioned before that...I leave it all out there. And I don’t want people to know about me because I want people to know about me, I want them to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “ Well, he did it this way how about I try doing it that way as well?” And I suppose that within the scavenger hunt of information across my website or across my output, that’s a really important thing. Like, I want people’s attention to be worthwhile. I purposefully have not done things, like, I don’t necessarily put dates or locations at the end of my works so that people can compile later on when I’m dead. And I’m just like—to talk to that—like, I’ve told my wife, you know, if I die before you—and I’m very frank about this—if I die before for you and you own all the rights to my music, if you want to put it out for free, put it out for free, I don’t care. Because it should be art. I think that if it’s not serving me or if she wants to benefit off of any money that might be coming in at that point, I will be very happy for her to do that. But, if it’s not benefiting me or us later on down the road, give it to the world. I think that art should be...art belongs to the world. Art shouldn’t have a paywall, and the only reason why it does right now for me is because I make a living through that art, and I am really incredibly grateful for that. But, if I’m going to have someone’s attention for, however long, whether they’re on my website or listening to a world premiere in real time. Whether I’m on the podium or not, I want their time to be worthwhile.

A perfect period to this conversation. Matt, thank you so much for your time. It's been great just getting to talk to you, getting to learn more about you and. Yeah, just like I. So just, I'm a big fan of everything you do, which is a lot of things. So just thank you for that as well.

Well, I definitely appreciate your very kind words, but please know that, while you may be a fan of what I do, please know that I admire what you do and what all of us do in our community as well. We are a community of composers that should all look after one another. I think that it’s very important to acknowledge that all of us are creatives and not anyone’s art is better than the other. Because as long as we’re able to find worth it, then it’s valid. And even if you don’t find worth in it, then you have to ask yourself, “Why do I not find worth in it?” And, you know, that might be a self-reflective thing, but that’s a whole different conversation.

Yeah. And we'll have it one day.

Yeah, absolutely!

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music/Maker with Tyler Kline

music/Maker with Tyler Kline // Episode 21

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