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Interview with David Bruce
February 14, 2011
David Bruce is a composer. For information about his work, visit www.davidbruce.net.
Tibbetts: How long have you composed, and what made you decide to become a composer?
Bruce: Since I was about ten. I started writing pop songs, but soon what I was trying to get my friends to play became too complicated so I had to start writing things down. I was always obsessed with music in one way or another so it wasn't really a decision.
Tibbetts: What inspires you?
Bruce: The instrument or combination of instruments. I am slowly collecting an orchestra of my own instruments, and I try things out on them all the time. Other music inspires me, particularly obscure cultures that have a completely different outlook as to what music is. Concepts or images sometimes inspire me, but usually only once I'm already started on a piece. For example, I recently sketched some music that was quite tender, but it was only when I read a short story with an image of the night sky as a giant eye that the idea of the music as a depiction of the vast mystery of the night sky came to me, and this inspired the completion of the piece. For me this order of things makes sense because then you end up with a solid musical structure underneath, but the surface then reflects this later inspiration. That's generally how I work with libretti when I write opera too--sketch some of the music first, then stretch and squeeze both it and the words until I find a fit.
Tibbetts: Of all you have done, what do you consider your best work, and why?
Bruce: I'm only happy with the stuff I've written over the past five years or so. The first piece I really feel I made something truly individual was, paradoxically, the one where I deliberately attempted to write 'folk songs'--this was my piece Piosenki, which is a collection of Polish children's poems and playground chants. Somehow the decision to write 'in a folk style' liberated me and it struck me how much better as a work it was in every possible way than anything I had done up till that point. However this was also the first piece where I felt the technical level of the craft was finally at the level I wanted it to be, so that may be something to do with it too.
Tibbetts: What is your 'typical day' like?
Bruce: I work from home and balance my composing with working on a number of websites, including the sheet music website www.8notes.com. My office is chaotic, with papers and instruments strewn all over the place. My 2 kids run in and out showing me their new pictures or asking me to mend a broken toy. I seem to function best in chaos.
Tibbetts: Do you have any words of wisdom to offer to aspiring composers and musicians?
Bruce: Don't be afraid of copying people you admire. It's not only the best way to learn, but you'll invariably not copy it 'correctly' and you'll find yourself in the process. I think this is kind of what happened in the Polish piece I mentioned above. Check out the Leonard Benstein lecture on how Wagner wanted to write his own 'Berlioz Romeo and Juliet' and how this became Tristan and Isolde--the similarities between the two pieces are amazing when you hear them side by side. I think in today's digital age it's all too easy for people to uncover the source of someone's creativity, but I think it's a fallacy to think creativity can exist in a vacuum and we shouldn't be ashamed of drawing on what came before.
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