Roland Carter: “Make Some Noise, Get in Trouble” — A Juneteenth World Premiere

Well, the piece came to mind to me in that I am a preservationist first, okay. And much of what I do, my writings, my settings are based on music of the African-American history or culture of the spiritual, especially. And I chose... actually I didn't know this is where the piece was going initially, that wasn't the idea. The idea was simply to do a piece which reflected the African-American culture and also blend the kind of choral things that I usually do. I didn't have a subject particularly, but came upon it when reading about John Lewis. I was listening to his vibe, one of his biographies. I am an audible person so I listened to lots of things that way. And started, a friend sent me a list of quotations from John Lewis and that was contained in spiritual... not spiritual, sorry, contained in his speeches. So that's where I got the idea. And then I decided I would write a spiritual or indeed write a theme based in the pentatonic idea of the pentatonic scale and the rhythmic aspect of the spiritual. And driving down the highway, where I do a lot of my recording and ideas, I get because if you don't... well, you know, if you don't catch them at that moment, it's gone forever. So I do a lot of recording in my car on the highway. But that is how the piece came about. And actually I saw the description of the other composer who had been commissioned by the... uh... Chorus America to do a consortium piece, and she was doing something on Rosa Parks and some other iconic people, so I fell in line. That's what I did.

Well, just the basic structure of a spiritual. If you... I've been collecting them forever, been singing and collecting them forever, having just become an octogenarian. But this is what I started out doing. And the idiomatic idea of the spiritual, of course the slight syncopations with the rhythms, the relationship, the call and response organization, which has influenced all music since. People have had me from jazz, direct time right on, all American rhythm and blues, and everybody's doing call and response. We may not recognize it necessarily as that, but that idea with a slight syncopation. Because I have some firm beliefs about syncopations, that in the spiritual I think sometimes performers tend to overdo. They tend to make the accent more of an accent than it should be and actually interrupt the flow of the rhythm by doing so. And I'm not sure everyone will understand where I'm going with that, but that syncopation is very, very important to me. And the rhythm does not have to be complicated, but my approach to rhythm is not necessarily though actions are one and three, not necessarily the accent on two and four. I think what happens in the performances of spirituals for the most part is people put too many beats in measures. And I only use one beat per measure. That's a rocking chair thing I got from Paul Johnson in my experience with him. You rock forward and you rock back. Sometimes you go a little farther back than you want to go, and then sometimes you come right down on the beat. So there's a flow. There is a flow that's not necessarily specific, metronomic, no. It's not necessarily there, but... well, I don't explain. Yes, yes, yes.

Yes, there is indeed. And I talk about choirs. You're saying all the notes and all the rhythms correctly and all the notes and never make music. You know, that's the thing that bothers me tremendously. Just singing right notes and right rhythms will not take the music off the page. And that's why I leave a freedom with my conductors to bring part of themselves to the music and don't try to do what I have put, I mean imitate what I put on paper or try to conceive what I had in mind. Just let the music speak to you and let you say something. I think the words, the text of this is so important to me. 'Make some noise, get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.' And someone in one of the choirs said, 'Well, it's a very political statement.' It's not a political statement at all. Yeah, and one prime member, one of the choirs didn't want to participate, I think, because she said that it was too political. And what? The texture was too political. Well, it's certainly in my mind it's a human statement. It's like let's live as fully as we can.

I didn't make mention of the thematic thing I opened with, but there are four notes there. Did you get that? You know where that comes from? So, I recognize it orally as something that I would... I said to myself, 'What is that from?' But then I said, 'Well, it's a motive that... the way that did it... there's something about it that I've seen before but I don't... I've heard it before but I can't identify it.' I'd love to hear you if you would... you would have heard it a hundred times, I mean with your work with spirituals because it's just a minor third repeated, which occurs in a whole lot of spirituals. But the main thing rhythmically for me was got to go into... I trouble this yes. Okay, okay, I'm looking. Oh, yes. And then you talked about the fluidness of the writing and this stuff. I said okay. And even inverted, dude still got to go into trouble. Um, and it brings to mind you remember Margaret Bond's piano piece? Yeah, and now I'm feeling like I need to go look at that and see the relationships. I just want to see the connection. That's great. I always like to quote a spiritual if I can that has meaning, not just any spiritual, but it has to reflect the text. Text becomes an important part of what I do. And I like in doing art songs of what I call my solo spirituals art settings, art songs, because I like the play of the piano with the voice and the interpretation of the words that the piano and the voice try to. Yes, so that's important.

That's the idea. That's why I want the audience to be involved. I want them to pick a line and sing a line too, you know. The audience can do, see something, do something, say something any way they want to do it. And it's just, that's an important part of it.

Oh, I think I tried actually between the second section about what redeemed the soul of America, which is rather straight choral writing, and then I get to the little semi-spiritual gospel section at the end. 'Make some noise again, get in trouble good.' That's right. And I really tried to put a little gospel in the accompaniment. So I heard that. That doesn't bother me if somebody can just go right on and just take it off the page. I think perhaps my tempo might be a little fast, and that's where I want people to feel comfortable. Don't feel driven. Because if you do that, even this third section with the repeated too fast, you lose the sense of... That's why I do the rocking chair. Make some noise.

Okay, yeah, and somebody made an observation to me that I changed the rhythm at some point. I didn't realize when the chorus comes back, 'river to make some noise get in trouble' rather than 'make some noise again.' Right, okay, difference there. So I'm gonna have to straighten that out some kind of way. The bass rhythm is different from the soprano, alto, tenor when they, the 'get' comes a bit later with a front on an eighth note rather than the quarter note.

It wasn't. I did? I don't know what my intention was. I like the one. I'm not opposed to the front on an eighth note after that four-measure repeated section. When the sopranos come back with that melody, they can do the same rhythm that the basses did. Okay.

One is, if you got a good strong soprano and she can improvise against what the choir is doing. I mean, that... my suggestion is just really what I said, suggestion. Okay. That should be a way, almost a wailing against what. Maybe.

Oh, well, I tried. I really wanted that sandwich there. Actually, I thought I was going to move this choral section to the end. I mean, initially I hadn't decided the order of the sections, and I played with them very... I was going to start with the little rap section and then after the intro, the introduction was set, and the ending was set because I wanted that done. But the switching of the other three sections in there, I just wasn't sure about it.

Oh, thank you.

We will. Thank you very much.