Part 1

Name: McKenzie Stubbert
Nationality: American
Occupation: composer
Current release: Waiting Room on Curious Music
Recommendations: Late Fame by Arthur Schnitzler is a wonderful exploration into an artist's relationship with their work and the very idea of an audience / Seria and Seria II by Skúli Sverrisson have greatly impacted me as works that feel very deliberately composed but performed and recorded with the looseness and openness of jazz or folk music.

If you enjoyed this interview with McKenzie Stubbert visit his website for more information about his discography.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

My first instinct is to listen to things more technically, for the construction, the mix, for ideas to steal or “borrow.” When I can force myself into the purely “listener” space and try to pretend I know about music, I can let the music exist on its own terms.  I try to pretend I know absolutely nothing about music and let it invade my senses, but it can be difficult. I sometimes have to remind myself that there’s nothing work-related going on. I actually fantasize about an entirely separate life where I don’t have (what I call) the artistic burden and simply enjoy art and music as a human rather than as a creator.


What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I took my first piano lessons at age 4 from a woman named Diane Super in the back of a local piano store. During my first piano recital, I played the very basic melody from the Star Wars Main titles on one hand.  This was the first moment that music, a “big, magical, other thing,” became part of my real world. For me, so many revelatory moments involve the simple discovery of “Oh, a person can do that.” If it weren’t for piano lessons, public school music classes, and cassette tapes shared with me by siblings and cool uncles, I have no idea how my path in music might have happened. Experience can sometimes smooth out the edges of exploration that come from naïveté. I wish all forms of education had as much emphasis on protecting the “wonder” as they did on hammering in the technique.


According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Music was both an escape inward but also a window outward. Between 13 and 16, my love for music began to separate into more genres, specifically film music, jazz, and classic rock. Each of those interests started with an entry point that seemed so new and exciting that I needed to know everything related to them. And those are each very big worlds that eventually connect to most other forms of music. Some profound entry points were Danny Elfman’s scores for Batman and Edward Scissorhands, seeing Harry Connick, Jr. play James Booker-style New Orleans piano on PBS, and, of course, my inevitable Beatles phase.

Playing and studying music in a decently-funded public school was definitely a privilege. I didn’t fully understand what I actually wanted to know, namely, the mechanics of composition and the ways and means of creating recordings. That ignorance kept it magical but perhaps delayed some formative creative exploration. It’s as important to have teachers and mentors giving you answers to questions as it is to learn which questions to ask.


Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

The piano was the first instrument I learned to play, and it can still be hard for me to break out of the linear nature of the keyboard. I am forever grateful that I was taught to read music. It is still a deeply valuable asset. Composing at the piano used to be a struggle for me as everything sounded like something that came from my hands rather than something that came from my mind, and I didn’t like what was coming from my hands. Having a career as a composer is to have a deep and constant relationship with the computer, no matter how romantically analog I would like to be. Using the computer as a recording tool helped me start thinking about music more sonically than in theoretical or notational terms.


What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

For me, the motivation to create feels almost biological. I want to experience the creation of art that will be received by someone other than me. When I’m writing, I’m looking to discover a concept that will inform the finishing of the project. I tell myself, “You only have to draw the first part of the map. The rest of the map will reveal itself and lead you somewhere exciting.”

When I was mixing the violin on “Ventomine,” (played by the marvelous Tim Fain), I sent his signal into a reverb channel which I then sent into a delay/effects channel. To me, it sounded like the ghosts of everyone who ever played that instrument were unleashed simply by his playing. I took that idea further and mixed the album as if every instrument contained the same essence. Any idea that creates an internal logic to follow seems to strengthen a piece for me. It helps me answer questions if I’m lost in a composition and, more importantly, in finishing one.


Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I would describe my sound as melodic with an ache and some earthy agitation.

My instincts do most of the work. If I’m still working on a piece, I try to listen and let it wash over me so my instincts kick in. They are my most reliable critics. I wait for my ear to catch something as it plays so I can go back and tweak it. I know I am particular, but I don’t feel overly precious. Once a piece feels finished, I rarely listen back and wish things were different. I listen to my work in the way one might read over their journals: to remind themselves of their existence. This is what it is and who I was.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

All I have to do is think of the dog singing “I love you” at the beginning of Beastie Boys' “Sure Shot’. My dog, Wally, makes the most musical sounds when trying to communicate with me, and I hear them mostly as tiny songs. But every set of sounds becomes musical if you repeat them enough, no matter how strange they initially seem. I had an old refrigerator in a house I was renting that started “clinking” what sounded like a double-time breakbeat rhythmic pattern, and I deeply regret not recording that. This is why I ultimately leaned into the messy and sometimes accidental sounds that came from my piano when I was recording Waiting Room. These seemingly “unmusical” sounds become that when set in the context of music. They are now part of the piece and I would notice them if they were gone.