Page 10
N.C. ESSAY
Tuesday, May 14, 1974
Jay Williams: ^Vm Eclectic As HelV
By MARYA COLUMBIA
and ROBIN DREYER
Essay Staff Reporters
Jay Williams? Isn’t he the piano tuner
at the School of the Arts? Yes, he is, but
he also composes, plays trombone and
synthesizer, teaches and has a two-hour
radio show every week, conducts oc
casionally, holds a masters degree in
theory and trombone from Indiana
University.
When reporters arrived at his house for
an interview, he was seated at a toy piano
busily memorizing the John Cage sonata
for toy piano which he will be playing in
the Contemporary Music Festival to
be held here later this month.
One wall of Williams’ living room is
stacked with electronic equipment. An
old Victrola, a cylinder record player, his
trombone, several old clocks, a strange
assortment of furniture, stacks of
records and tapes and various in
describable pieces of mechanical
equipment are spread about the house.
“77ie class just totally
fizzled within a couple
of weeks. . . when they
realized work was
involved. ”
Williams received his B.A. in music
from Boloit College Wise, in 1963. He
went on to Indiana for his masters degree
and continued there working on a doc
torate and later tuning pianos half time
and teaching electronic music courses in
association with Iannis Xeraks and John
P.aton.
It was at Indiana that Williams first
began composing seriously. “I composed
a percussion piece about 12 years ago
when I was in college. Then there was a
big lapse until the day at Indiana when I
almost decided to commit suicide.”
He said he decided against it but “in
desparation just to do something now
that I was aware that I was alive and that
1 was probably going to stay that way for
awhile, I ripped a tape recorder apart.
When I put it back together it dawn^ on
me that if I left out certain parts I could
do things with it I wasn’t supposed to do. I
discovered for the first time that there
was something in my life that I liked, and
that was making crazy electronic music
happen.”
“From then on I decided that whatever
else I do, at least I can compose. I’ve
always been working on things ever
since,” Williams said.
Williams heard through Jerry Homer
that the school needed a piano tuner.
■'About one month later, I found out that
the dean at Indiana was thinking of firing
me because I insisted on wearing a
beard. I started doing things to get down
here just so I could have a gig. That’s
why I’m here.” Williams began working
at the school in February, 1971.
in the interview when I talked with
(Chancellor Robert) Ward, I told him
Piano tuning might be the way I make
my bread but you better expect that
that’s not my main activity. I’m really a
composer and performer and everything
like that. 1 expect to be doing that and
tuning pianos is my main way of staying
alive and that’s all,” Williams said.
“Lasf year we had kids
creating actual taped
pieces in the public
schools.
In the fall of 1971 Mr. Ward asked
Williams to teach a course in electronic
composition to his advanced students.
But Williams said, “The class just totally
fizzled within a couple of weeks...when
they realized work was involved.”
•' 1 have at various times since then told
people in the administration that I’m
perfectly willing to teach some class be it
in 20th century music or anything without
increase in salary,” said Wilhams.
Nobody has ever taken me up on it. In
fact I even told (Scott) Schillin (assistant
to the dean of music) that. “He sort of
said 'Ya , well....’ The best I’m doing is
teaching classes to perspective students
on Saturday morning.”
Williams’ classes in the Saturday
morning instrumental workships in
cluded “improvising and looking at
written down music of all eras.”
Williams also teaches electronic Music
seminars in the public schools. “Last
year we had kids creating actual taped
pieces in the public schools.” Williams
said.
Every Monday night at 8 p.m. Williams
can be heard on his WFDD radio show,
which has been on the air since Sep
tember, 1973. Williams presented himself
at the radio station one day and asked to
do a two hour radio show on 20th century
music; “because nothing else was
happening and I was starting to go in
sane because there was no outlet for
what I’m really interested in.”
‘%ets face it the u>orld
is getting glutted with
classical musicians.**
Although Williams is very enthusiastic
about his show he said: “I really think a
show like that is just as sick as the rest of
the musical establishment in that it
absolutely disagrees with my crede and
that we should totally, utterly get rid of
this concept of time in music.”
Williams is currently preparing for a
recital of his music, scheduled May 15 at
the home of Dr. Angus Randolph. The
recital will include two pieces for tape
and trombone which Williams will play
and an instrumental piece which
Williams will conduct.
We asked Jay to talk about his work in
composition. “There are two sides of me
that within my own feelings about
things they never meet. On the one side
there’s this intellectual, analytical
earthy thing which says ‘anjkhing that in
this world, I’m absolutely a part of and I
love it.’ It seems like there is this other
part that says, ‘Oh yeah, but here’s all
these impossible weird things going on
that nobody seems to know a tout.’
Somehow it seems that compositions
alternate between the two in what they’re
trying to do.”
“1 expect that whoever tries to listen to
my music,” he continued, “likes to use
their ears and concentrate a bit. On the
other hand, I’m not particularly orienteC
Jay Williams plays trombone
in 12-tone things or things th^t are great
on paper first of all and might just
happen to work otherwise. I’m ecclectic
as hell. I have my own ideas as to what
forms I end up using but I don’t know if
they appear that way to anyone else.”
Williams then went on to talk about his
views of music in general. “Music has
just got to get off this pretentious stage
and get to a local level again. Sure, for an
orchestra you may need that but as for
playing a toy piano piece, say in Car-
nagie Hall—why? It’s kindof surrealistic,
but I’d rather play out in the middle of a
group of people where I’d hear people
breathing around me. Music is a human
thing; why make it inhuman? It’s
already pretty abstract, and you’ve got
to make up for it by at least presenting
yourself as a presence, as a human
being.”
“One of the things I most wish to do in
every city would be to set up a group of
demolition experts. What we’d do is plant
dynamite caps under every conceiveable
parking lot over a certain size. Then at
two A.M. Sunday morning after scouting
around to make sure that there were no
people around the parking lot, push one
button and blow up all the parking lots
and then put parks in their places. I’d
really like to do that in every city.”
Since piano tuning is his main interest,
we asked him if he anticipates leaving
this school for some other kind of work.
He replied, “The thing that’s keeping me
here is that conservative sense of
security that probably every one of us
has in some way of another. Somehow
I’ve been conditioned to want a steady
gig. Basically, I do like piano tuning
Essay Photo by Bill Wren
although I like doing other things more.
If I’m doing things that I really like
doing, piano work is a gas.
‘If Fm doing things
that I really like doing,
piano work is a gas. ”
“If the school would allow me to teach
a few courses, I certainly wouldn’t mind
working on pianos. If the school would
shape up a little, if it would become a
school of the arts instead of at best a
school of crafts, if it really would
recognizes all the manifestations of the
arts it proposes to teach, then it would be
a great place to be. Music demands many
different kinds of places for per
formance. Let’s face it, the world is
getting glutted with classical musicians.
I find that what people really want is just
to play and what they want to play is not
necessarily classical.
“If it doesn’t shape up, and if it goes on
like this for very many more years, I
might just go out on the road with
somebody, somewhere, and see what
happens. I’ve really gotten a lot of things
done down here that I couldn’t possibly
have done at Indiana, all because the
dean was thinking of firing me. That’s
what spurred me on. So what the hell; if
they happen to decide to fire me here,
who knows what I’ll get into?”
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