Spring Break
Q&A: Futureman draws from music of the past
by Sarah Bayer
Assistant Arts Editor
Arts | 2/3/09
Posted online at 12:41 AM EST on 2/3/09
Roy Wooten, known on stage as "Futureman," will appear with the Black Mozart Ensemble at Brandeis on Feb. 7. The group blends classical, jazz and hip-hop influences in a performance about the life and times of the biracial classical composer Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges. Futureman also performs with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and has invented three instruments: the Drumitar, the RoyEl and the Dorothy Graye. The Drumitar is a guitar-shaped instrument with a keyboard that generates the sound of a drum kit. The RoyEl and the Dorothy Graye are shaped like pianos but play notes that are absent from traditional Western music scales. He spoke with JustArts about musical evolution and his creative process.
JustArts: Why have you chosen to focus on the Black Mozart, Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges?
Futureman: His story is going to shed light on the times and the struggle that he had during the Classical age, also the struggle for race relations, at the height of the slave trade. To this day, Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges, the black Mozart, he's a blind spot of history. There's an area of classical music that you can breathe freshness into. They took you into the ballroom, but they never took you into the slave fields.
JA: Do you feel that some part of music comes about due to the time when it's created, and that some part of it is timeless?
FM: Some parts of it are timeless. Like improvisation, it's timeless, but depending on the time, it's [a question of] what it's going to sound like. During that time of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, all these great virtuosos, they were all improvisers, in the same spirit as Miles Davis. But improvisation is not part of classical music today. The improvisation of classical music died, and the spirit of improvisation would wait a couple hundred years and rise again in the classical music of America called jazz. So there's certain things that are timeless, certain flows, certain themes, and you can see them when you study history.
JA: And your music is about evolution and change, is that correct?
FM: I would say so, yes, really to understand that the seed of the future is always in history. A lot of my music will reflect that, even the most futuristic things I'm working on, from the Drumitar I'm playing with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones to the piano inventions that I've created that have evolved out of my experiments. To develop the piano you have to understand something about the history of the old piano and the history of the drums.
JA: How do the instruments you've invented play into that natural progression, the looking forward and looking backward?
FM: The way I'm approaching [the Drumitar] is all based on history. It's based off learning how to play the drums, knowing what they sound like, what their role is in music. But I'm using my fingers, like, hand-drumming to paint that sound as if I'm playing sticks a whole different way. And because I'm using my fingers to do it, it connects to the piano, which is like a sophisticated drum set in a sense. Just from my vantage point I can see the similarity between the two approaches. Both histories are right under my fingertips because of technology.
JA: Does that allow you more freedom when you're composing music?
FM: Yeah, particularly because in my compositions I actually invented the instrument. That creates for me a place for my intuition, or even a higher type of intelligence, popping through to create these compositions. It's like a type of creativity that I don't even understand is showing itself.
JA: Would you say there's anything inherently religious or spiritual about music?
FM: Music and mathematics- there's something inherently universal and eternal about both of them. Music encompasses mathematics, but it delivers its message emotionally. I think there's an inherent essence to music and mathematics that does have a spiraling or spiritual nature to it. I'd go so far as to say the bass clef is a symbol of the golden ratio, same shape as your ear, same shape as the ocean wave, same shape as a shell, and I don't think that's by accident. There's something about music that reaches up to the heavens.
JustArts: Why have you chosen to focus on the Black Mozart, Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges?
Futureman: His story is going to shed light on the times and the struggle that he had during the Classical age, also the struggle for race relations, at the height of the slave trade. To this day, Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges, the black Mozart, he's a blind spot of history. There's an area of classical music that you can breathe freshness into. They took you into the ballroom, but they never took you into the slave fields.
JA: Do you feel that some part of music comes about due to the time when it's created, and that some part of it is timeless?
FM: Some parts of it are timeless. Like improvisation, it's timeless, but depending on the time, it's [a question of] what it's going to sound like. During that time of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, all these great virtuosos, they were all improvisers, in the same spirit as Miles Davis. But improvisation is not part of classical music today. The improvisation of classical music died, and the spirit of improvisation would wait a couple hundred years and rise again in the classical music of America called jazz. So there's certain things that are timeless, certain flows, certain themes, and you can see them when you study history.
JA: And your music is about evolution and change, is that correct?
FM: I would say so, yes, really to understand that the seed of the future is always in history. A lot of my music will reflect that, even the most futuristic things I'm working on, from the Drumitar I'm playing with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones to the piano inventions that I've created that have evolved out of my experiments. To develop the piano you have to understand something about the history of the old piano and the history of the drums.
JA: How do the instruments you've invented play into that natural progression, the looking forward and looking backward?
FM: The way I'm approaching [the Drumitar] is all based on history. It's based off learning how to play the drums, knowing what they sound like, what their role is in music. But I'm using my fingers, like, hand-drumming to paint that sound as if I'm playing sticks a whole different way. And because I'm using my fingers to do it, it connects to the piano, which is like a sophisticated drum set in a sense. Just from my vantage point I can see the similarity between the two approaches. Both histories are right under my fingertips because of technology.
JA: Does that allow you more freedom when you're composing music?
FM: Yeah, particularly because in my compositions I actually invented the instrument. That creates for me a place for my intuition, or even a higher type of intelligence, popping through to create these compositions. It's like a type of creativity that I don't even understand is showing itself.
JA: Would you say there's anything inherently religious or spiritual about music?
FM: Music and mathematics- there's something inherently universal and eternal about both of them. Music encompasses mathematics, but it delivers its message emotionally. I think there's an inherent essence to music and mathematics that does have a spiraling or spiritual nature to it. I'd go so far as to say the bass clef is a symbol of the golden ratio, same shape as your ear, same shape as the ocean wave, same shape as a shell, and I don't think that's by accident. There's something about music that reaches up to the heavens.
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