Streams, Aesthetics, and the Long View: An Interview with John Bickerton
John Bickerton – interview with Marc Medwin, Fanfare Magazine, July/August 2025 Issue
There are musicians whom I interview whose answers open possibilities numerous enough to be staggering. Composer, pianist, improviser, and producer John Bickerton is one of those, and now he adds label founder to his list of credits. In this interview, conducted by email in February and March 2025, Bickerton discusses the impulses behind the founding of his new label and its first release, an album of music by composers of the New York School. However, as we exchanged ideas, it soon became clear that the label serves as a conduit for Bickerton’s vast knowledge of all matters musical and historical. He is as comfortable engaging about improvised music as he is discussing the production values that shaped his recording of Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis, the new album’s centerpiece. None of this should be surprising to anyone familiar with Bickerton’s work. Listen to Solitude, a piece for felt piano available on YouTube, to hear just one other facet of his art and the way he modifies the sound of an instrument seemingly familiar. To call his responses eclectic, though true, would be as glib as it is unfair to the obvious learning and experience governing them.
First of all, thank you so much for taking part in this interview feature! Let’s begin by establishing a bit of background. Was there a moment, or an event, an experience, really, that made you decide that music would determine the course of your life?
At some point in high school, the feedback I was getting from the piano just started to bloom and intensify. I started to write songs, putting chord patterns together with melodies. Really, it was this transition from playing classical works to creating my own personal works that launched me into music full throttle. I began to write and improvise. And these were songs, verse/chorus type of things, and some jazz heads. I was not writing large form or sonata form or anything like that. But starting to feel the piano respond to me, to my ideas in the moment, really charged me. There is a type of loop you have with the instrument, a relationship, in the moment, there is a sharing going on. It becomes not about the notes, but about staying in that relationship—that’s where the music is. That is the thing that gets expressed out to the audience. So I was still young and these things were budding, developing. If you had asked me then what I would be or what I’d do for a career, I don’t know if I would have been able to answer the question. I wasn’t thinking on that level. Maybe kids today are more future-oriented, but as a kid of the 1970s, I can’t say I gave the future much thought. It wasn’t until talking with my parents about university and what I would study that it dawned on me that music was something you could commit to for life. So, I guess if there was one moment, it would be when I realized I made something of my own—making musical choices of my own and having them there. That would have been around 1976–77. I remember those tunes were very big on minor seventh chords. 😀
You are a composer-performer, but beyond that, your musical interests and recorded projects are what might be called diverse. I would be very interested to hear you discuss the age-old composition/improvisation dichotomy and how you see yourself as engaging with those fraught concepts.
I think improvisation is always at the heart of what I’m doing. Even in a fully notated composition, the idea, the initial energy to create a composition comes from improvising. The difference is, with long-form composition, one has the ability to take the time to edit the idea, to discard things that are no longer applicable, and to hone the idea over time. Often the initial idea changes or becomes further developed. I test my ideas through listening, either playing them on piano or listening through a DAW. This was instilled in me by David Del Tredici when I was in graduate school in Boston. In lessons with him, you had to play what you had written. He wanted to hear it live. It had to work as music. He wasn’t interested in what you had to say about it, or any theory of what you were doing. He wanted to hear it work as music.
The strength of improvisation is that the music is alive right now in the moment. I believe Chopin worked this way. There is a story of how, upon finishing playing a new idea, he became upset because when he turned to put the idea on music paper, he could not recapture the essence of the feeling he had while playing. This is a common problem for an improviser translating the music back to paper. It’s elusive; if you wait too long or don’t record the improvisation, the feeling can slip through your hands. Even transcribed jazz solos, and there are some fantastic transcribers working now, feel a step removed when compared to the original recordings. I think it is because it is hard to recapture the soul of the improviser in the moment of creation. You can look at the notes. I’ve read through transcribed Coltrane solos, and yes, they are an indication of what he is playing, but it never sounds as good as the original solo. They’re valuable as education tools, I guess, but I think they’re limited because you cannot capture the essence of the performance on paper.
Improvisation is about you: your music, your phrasing, your sense of time. You can’t recapture Coltrane (and you shouldn’t) because you are not him. You are you. Your improvisation is yours. Composition, [on the other hand] like giving a speech, is something you can prepare over time. You get to chip away at it until what is said is concise and pointed. Then, a great orator brings that speech to life, knowing what words to linger on, when to speed up, when to talk softer, louder. However, improvisation lives in real time. To further the speech analogy, improvisation is more like hearing a lively discussion amongst a group of people who are humble enough to give enough space for each other to participate.
Yes, I remember that Chopin story, a wonderful example of the fluid nature of the admittedly but only partially false binaries I presented to you! Before we move toward discussing your new label and your vision for it, I was struck by Del Tredici’s ideas about hearing music, music working as music, not as theory. My spidey sense tells me that we’ll be returning to this idea a bit later, but for now, I’d love to hear you talk more about musicians (I leave interpretation of that categorization open to you!) who have had a similarly powerful impact on your approach to music as you practice it now.
The list of musicians who have influenced me is pretty extensive. However, regarding my current working style, I believe it is essential to teach yourself your own method and discipline. No one can truly impart that to you; it must be developed over time. I engage in a lot of testing, repetition, concentrated listening, questioning the music, and asking each note, each moment, to justify itself. There is a macro examination of the overall form; it must prove itself, followed by a micro, note-by-note, measure-by-measure testing of all the components, dynamics, articulations, and so on. I suppose it is like writing anything—you have a first draft, and you continually clarify and polish over several further drafts.
My undergraduate teacher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was Leonardo Balada. He was my composition professor and also a working composer. At that time, in 1981–82, he was beginning to compose operas, but had already achieved extensive performances of orchestral and chamber works. Being in his presence and observing his discipline, approach to daily work, and seriousness about music greatly influenced me. You learned that it was a profession. While I feel that my teachers provided a solid foundation for what a composing career entails, I believe that at some point you must navigate your own path as a composer and take responsibility for your direction.
I have to inject here that I am in complete agreement with the idea of responsibility as an integral component of a musical journey. Speaking of which: What is it that made you decide to start a label at this time? Related, I’d be really curious to hear you discuss why you chose the Cage trilogy to be your label’s inaugural release. I mean, even given your long-term interest in labels like Another Timbre and Wandelweiser, didn’t you approach the prospect of such a thorny release with some trepidation?
The idea for recording Atlas Eclipticalis emerged during the COVID-19 lockdown. It was the ideal project to pursue while we were all separated. The essence of Atlas Eclipticalis is that the musicians are completely independent; they don’t interact musically or need to synchronize rhythmically. They exist autonomously. The sounds resemble constellations shimmering in the sky. Ultimately, the project didn’t reach its full potential until Spring of 2023 due to delays in obtaining the scores from Edition Peters and other factors, but the conception happened during the lockdown.
To compose this piece, Cage utilized the Atlas Eclipticalis, a star atlas published in 1958 by Czech astronomer Antonín Becvár. Cage superimposed musical staves over its star charts. Given that the score was derived from star maps and we were in lockdown at the time, I envisioned musicians from around the globe recording their parts and sending them to me to be mixed in my studio. My recording of Atlas Eclipticalis features musicians from Italy (two), the United Kingdom (two), Austria, Los Angeles, and Seattle. I created individual parts based on Cage’s score for each musician and sent those out for recording. I planned everything beforehand so that the players could record their parts just as they would with any standard piece of musical notation.
I believe the reason John Cage faced such a rough response during those initial performances of Atlas Eclipticalis—specifically, the infamous NY Philharmonic performance in 1964, where he felt sabotaged by the Philharmonic musicians and Leonard Bernstein—was that Cage assigned the creation of parts to the individual musicians. They were confused by the abstract score, and developing a part required a significant amount of extra effort. In fact, creating the part is the most challenging aspect of the piece. They simply didn’t see it as part of their job as Philharmonic musicians also to have to create their own parts. Feeling overwhelmed, they reacted negatively. However, once a part has been transcribed onto standard music paper, the piece is not that complicated. Certainly, any professional classical musician today could perform it with ease. David Tudor, Cage’s primary collaborator and interpreter, adopted this method in his performances of Cage’s Winter Music using piano. He transcribed the score onto standard music paper, providing him with a more manageable format to work with at the piano. Winter Music is often performed alongside Atlas Eclipticalis, and my recording features both works as well.
My label, Simple Harmonic Motion, won’t just release avant-garde music from the late 20th century; it will also reflect my musical interests in contemporary music and jazz. There are two new releases planned for later this year. One album will feature solo piano pieces I’ve composed, while the other will focus solely on Earle Brown’s graphic score Four Systems. The concept is to present an album showcasing four or more interpretations of the score. I hope this will highlight the score’s versatility while maintaining its overall aesthetic.
Starting with a somewhat experimental album of John Cage and Earle Brown scores might seem challenging for a new label. It’s true that identifying the audience is essential, but there is certainly an audience out there. I’m pleasantly surprised by the launch so far. The album is attracting its largest audience in Japan, where I’ve established distribution. However, setting up distribution in the United States has proven to be a bit more difficult. Most distributors prefer to see a developed catalog, and with only one release, it’s been hard to capture their attention. Most of the sales have come from online users discovering the label. In the three months since this album’s release, I believe the pressing will sell out, so I’m content.
What I was unprepared for was the vitriol some people still hold toward John Cage personally and toward his music. On Simple Harmonic Motion’s social media pages, there have been several comments from individuals who simply can’t stand his music; it’s visceral for them. People who haven’t even listened to the record feel compelled to weigh in on John Cage.
It’s strange to me because Atlas Eclipticalis (1961) is over 60 years old. I’m simply surprised by some of the reactions to it. For comparison, the famous riot surrounding the performance of Stravinsky and Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring took place in Paris in 1913. If you move forward 60 years from 1913, you arrive at 1973. I don’t think many people had issues with The Rite of Spring by 1973. Cage, however, and perhaps much of the music from that period, still faces anger and rejection. Maybe people don’t like that this music gets lumped into the classical repertoire because they believe it is so aesthetically different. I don’t know.
You experience this type of music differently. It is not narrative like sonata form; it doesn’t tell a story that unfolds through various developments, culminating in the hero’s triumphant return. There is no climax. Narrative structure forms the basis of nearly all Western music, and even standard jazz performances share this trait. What Cage and the members of the NY School—Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff—sought was to create a pure sonic experience. There is no narrative; instead, you become immersed in a unique atmosphere of sound. The joy of this kind of listening comes from allowing yourself to be a part of it, to be in it—almost like a meditation. The more attention you give it, the more rewarding it becomes. Pauline Oliveros embraced this philosophy as well. The younger generation today intuitively understands this type of music. The various forms of ambient electronic music, such as dark ambient, ambient house, and chillout, emphasize atmosphere and texture rather than traditional narrative structure.
Would you speak more about the timbral and production choices you’ve made in presenting the rest of the trilogy, of which Atlas Eclipticalis is the first part?
Audio recording, and mixing and mastering, are distinct arts from composition. As composers, we focus intently on composition, but creating a record that sounds good requires a different skill set. It took me many years to gain confidence in recording and post-production. I owned a commercial music production business for several years, and through that experience, I discovered my preferences regarding recorded sound. Today, there is a wealth of audio recording tools available. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, and you can easily over-produce a recording. Now, I rely on a few essential tools (EQs, compression, tape emulation, saturation plug-ins), and I use this chain in all my recordings.
I can say that the Radio Music mix is the most processed mix on the album because I aimed to replicate the sound you would hear from AM radio speakers, which involved rolling off highs and lows to create a narrower audio bandwidth in the final result. The 0’00” recording was also cleaned up a bit since it was recorded outside. It has a narrower bandwidth compared to the more controlled studio recordings. In the end, one’s ears are the ultimate judge of how the recording will sound. It’s a different art form, but it shares similarities with composition in that respect.
Finally, though you’ve already begun to do this, I was hoping you could expand on the directions in which your label is headed. Judging by what I’ve heard of your music and the way you’ve responded thus far, I imagine there will be some surprises along the path.
The label will gradually, slowly, grow. Selling contemporary music is possible, but you have to actively seek out the market. The market exists; however, it doesn’t come to you. You must engage with it, which requires investment. I wonder how many musicians have considered the amount of work a label does to sell music. Musicians are familiar with stories of being exploited by major labels, and I wouldn’t deny any of that. However, a small boutique label is often close to a break-even proposition. It is a small business, and a small business is constantly weighing its expenses against its income.
Simple Harmonic Motion will release three to four titles each year. The next title is a record of Earle Brown’s Four Systems, which I previously mentioned. Following that, my next release will be a piano project of my own. This will differ from the indeterminate music of the Cage/Brown releases, showcasing the acoustic piano in a solo setting as well as merged with electronic textures. Additionally, it will feature an upright piano with a felted piano mute, also known as an apartment mute, where a pedal is depressed to lower a ribbon of felt, causing the piano hammers to strike the felt first before hitting the strings. This technique produces a delicate, muted sound that resembles a fusion of a Japanese koto and a piano. If you experiment with where the hammers strike the felt, it can somewhat resemble the prepared piano in certain ways. This method removes many high frequencies from the piano sound and significantly lowers the volume, allowing you to hear the physical sound of the hammers returning. It has its place in the realm of creative piano sound. I’m enthusiastic about this record, but its release is expected toward the end of 2025.
Simple Harmonic Motion has three streams. The first is to release works from the nexus of indeterminate, graphic, moment-form composition, and early process music pieces—the great experimental works from the second half of the 20th century. I am interested in the early works of Robert Ashley and the Sonic Arts Union, the music of Charlemagne Palestine, and Stockhausen’s more improvisational pieces from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, such as his Spiral for soloist and shortwave receiver. I’m particularly interested in the period when he had his performing ensemble. As an improviser and composer, I am drawn to his Aus den sieben Tagen text pieces. When I was in graduate school at Boston University (1982–84), I was the teaching assistant in the Electronic Music lab headed by Sam Headrick. There were some classic synthesizers in that lab: an Arp 2500 and an Arp 2600. While in the lab, I created a version of Alvin Lucier’s I am Sitting in a Room. I was intrigued by how the making of the work (the process) becomes the work, and I believe that is my attraction to all this music. You can bring your own aesthetic sense and merge it with the composition. One could argue that’s true of any performance, but engaging with these works brings out the composer in you.
The second stream is less avant-garde and is firmly rooted in tonality. However, this tonality is not the functional type we see in the Western tradition; instead, it features less harmonic motion, even static harmony. While I greatly admire the undisputed skill of the late 19th-century symphonists, I have never been able to connect fully with their music, as the constant and sometimes (to me) arbitrary shifts in emotions can feel schizophrenic—although that may be their point. By the time we reach the pre-tone-row Schoenberg Expressionist pieces, like Verklärte Nacht, the objective is to convey a disturbed, manic, or highly agitated mind. Psychology, a relatively new science at the time, was part of these artists’ Zeitgeist.
Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder is my favorite piece from this era. The music is sad and extremely beautiful, but its psychology and emotions don’t shift rapidly. You spend a good deal of time in one overall feeling. I am not saying it should always have calm, placid emotions. I enjoy listening to free jazz saxophonist Charles Gayle, for instance. But it’s like the Sturm und Drang ideas that fueled Romanticism and powered Beethoven’s works; over the course of the century, they became exaggerated or skewed to a point where they were overindulged. The quick transitions of emotion don’t seem to align with modern psychology or the way we currently process music. It can sound chaotic—you’re happy one moment and enraged the next. I think that’s the key difference. It’s not that tonality is dead; today’s composers are expressing it through their contemporary experiences and psychology, which establishes longer individual sonic (chordal) textures. Perhaps 100 years from now, some composer will argue that today’s psychology feels dated compared to their present experience.
The label’s third stream will focus on jazz releases. This stream is less well defined and will likely depend on how enthusiastic I feel about each individual project. I admire composers such as Bill Dixon, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and others. Jazz is an entirely separate conversation for me.
Thank you so much for taking part in this interview.
CAGE Atlas Eclipticalis/Winter Music. Variations IV. 0’00” (4’33” No. 2). Radio Music. EARLE BROWN Folio: November 1952; December 1952 • John Bickerton (pn, elec); Jessica Townsend (vn); Thomas McCluskey (vc); Veronika Blachuta (fl); Nick Akdag (bn); Giovanni Todaro (tpt); Zachary MacLurg (tbn); Cecilia Cuccolini (hp) • SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION 24001 (61:53) Available via Bandcamp (johnbickerton.bandcamp.com)