robert rich interview with tanner menard

this interview was recorded over a telephone conversation and is between robert rich and myself, tanner menard. i have decided here to present my questions to rich in written form rather than in recorded form. my decision to do this was based on two factors. robert rich’s portion of the conversation stands out and is an important message about his original conception of the sleep concert. i believe his voice deserves to stand alone, and see this as a sort of theory lesson in sleep concerts for the future. and secondly, the recording qualities of each side of the phone conversation were too vastly different to work as a publishable sonic item. i hope that many more sleeping events will come about because of this new world wide interest in sleep concerts. as robert rich points out in this interview, all night musical events have been happening for thousands of years, and sleep concerts are one way in which we can bring sacred conscious raising ritual back into our modern lives through art and sound. i hope that these recordings can stand as a model for composers and artists in the future who wish to carry this process of sleep music into the future.

TM: first i would like to thank you robert, for allowing me to use your sleep concert idea in my own project Sommeil: A Concert for Sleep. your music has been an inspiration to me for some time and the idea of a sleep concert has appealed to me for many years. obviously, by the number of people who have submitted music to the concert i think that many many people around the world have a genuine interest in your ideas and i hope the work that have put together honors your original idea and brings new life to a form that i see as an important one for the twenty first century.

how did you initially arrive at the idea of the sleep concert? i recall in our previous phone conversation that you mentioned your study of psychology. could you talk a bit about how your study of psychology played into the creation of sleep events and could you say a few words about the origins of these ideas.

Robert Rich - response 1 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: one of the things that i am very curious about, and about which we have spoken before, is the types of suggestions that you would give the audience before the sleep concert. what should they know before going into this experience?

Robert Rich - response 2 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: the next question is as much composerly advice as it is a question about how you created your own sleep concerts. my challenge is finding a way to mix over 90 composers and experimental artists sound submissions over the course of nine hours. could you talk a little about composing for extreme lengths of time, about your own compositional process in the sleep concert and about the types of synthesis you use in your work.

Robert Rich - response 3 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: i am actually trying to avoid using digital reverb in this. the challenge that i have set myself up for is trying other techniques such as spectral resynthesis and granular synthesis.

Robert Rich - response 4 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: i wanna thank you for allowing me use your sleep concert idea, its meant a great deal to have your support and permission to use the idea. i hope that myself and all of the people who have submitted material have respected your original notion about what a sleep concert is. do you have any thoughts on the sleep concert moving forward into the future and evolving or do you have any proprietary feelings about the concept?

Robert Rich - response 5 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: i have started to view the sleep concert almost as a type of monumental form for the ambient artist. i see it as being similar to brahms pining over beethoven’s approach to the symphony. i see the progression of the sleep concert beyond as you defined it as being perhaps a form that could become common in the 21st century. how do you feel about that?

Robert Rich - response 6 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: is there anything else that you would personally like to talk about, or points that we missed so far?

Robert Rich - response 7 Tanner Menard Interview

TM: thank you very much robert for your time and your interest in my remix of the sleep concert idea. i hope indeed that the memetic evolution of the sleep concert continues beyond my performances. i also hope that the audio contained in this interview can become a basis for understanding your interpretation of all night music and that it can serve as a guide to others in the future for recreating and reinventing all night musical forms. as i mentioned earlier your music has been a big part of my life for a long time and its an absolute pleasure and honor to have the opportunity to do this interview with you and to share in the development of sleep concerts.