Name: Anthony Tan
Occupation: Composer, pianist, electronic musician
Nationality: Canadian
Current release: Anthony Tan's susurrus is out via gengseng.

If you enjoyed this interview with Anthony Tan and would like to know more about his music, visit his official website. He is also on twitter, and Soundcloud. 



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

It varies. Sometimes it is extramusical – literature, visual arts, movement, environmental, and scientific (psychoacoustic and biological) metaphors all inspire me. Most often it is theoretical.

I am a structural composer, and I am very much interested in exploring how sound is organized to produce varied aesthetic responses. For example, my work, And/Or, for 14 musicians and electronics explores the result of subtle timing variations of attacks between instruments within a rhythmic drone.

Contrastingly, my work, Un/Divided, was inspired by William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, where two independent stories alternate with each chapter. The stories never meet on a narrative level. Yet on a conceptual and thematic level, I perceived a certain unity between them. This idea served as a metaphor for the relationship between the ensemble and the electronics.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I often hear / visualize something in my inner ear. It is not a complete piece but more of a feeling connected to an inner sound. What comes next is a laboured translation of that inner sound to the outer world.

For example, when I started writing the work “Horizontal and Vertical Forces II,” I heard, internally, slow, steady pulsations with a rattling snare drum underneath. The compositional process involved bringing that inner audition to an outer reality.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

I am a slow composer.

With acoustic compositions, I draft with pencil and paper first and get to some sort of double bar line. With electronic works I explore and manipulate the material that I am working with and do a lot of listening. For mixed media works, I do both simultaneously.

After the first draft I take some time to reflect and create distance from the work. Then I approach it with fresh ears and begin revising.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I do not try to create perfect environments for composing. Being busy with an academic job, travel, and family, you develop the ability to work anywhere at any time, even if it is just for a few minutes. I have written some of my best music at the airport.

I do need to exercise to keep my body alert. Meditation also plays a big part in quieting the negativity.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

It varies. Sometimes I start with an imagined sound, sometimes it is a musical process that I enact, sometimes I just play with sound electronically and I hear something that tingles my ear, sometimes I build theoretical structures, sometimes I improvise at the piano.

My 2017 solo album, Anesthesia, documents my improvisational approach to the instrument.



Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

By working hard on the piece even when you are not feeling particularly inspired.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

It is both, simultaneously. I would describe my approach as the combination of control and fury.

I often begin with a structural process that creates the foundation for the work. This can be anything from the data sonification of a genetic sequence, to the structure a Baroque fugue. Once the foundation is there I return with my heart and ear and shape the material in whichever way it tells me to go.

Farbenfugue from my string quartet, “Ways of Returning,” is a good example of this process.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I let it flow.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Meditation is important. It is vital for me to embrace silence.

I think we are all creative. It is about opening that channel and allowing it to flow through you.

At the same time, I do not want to privilege being creative too much. A lot of creative practice is about working hard consistently.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

Deadlines often mark when a finished score needs to be delivered to the musicians.

With independent projects it can last a long time. I work on the piece until it is just right for my standards. Eventually, one must let it go and make space for new things.

My new album, susurrus, took seven years to complete because it just did not feel finished for a long time.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

Generally, the premiere of a concert music composition marks the first time I actually hear the work. Immediately, I want to revise the work for the next performance (if it gets one).

I could revise endlessly. It never feels done. There is always room for improvement.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I am a producer-composer that combines electronic and notated instrumental practice, meaning that the mixing is a big part of my sound design and composition process.

I normally do pre-mixes before I send it off to a professional mixer and mastering engineer, who make it all sound professional and polished.

A good example of this process is my work, “An Overall Augmented Sense of Well-being.”

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

There is always the next piece, and I am usually working on two or three projects simultaneously. So, I just move on to the next work.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I am an artistic pantheist, meaning I believe that all tasks can be artistic and be taken to new levels, even making coffee.