Behind the Curtain with Stephanie M. Neumann - Part 4

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 93: Behind the Curtain with Stephanie M. Neumann (part 4)

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation with E4TT Audio Visual Project Specialist and For Good Measure’s co-producer and audio engineer extraordinaire Stephanie M. Neumann, in our “Behind the Curtain” mini-series. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Stephanie M. Neumann, check her out here: www.stephaniemneumann.com.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
With assistance from Hannah Chen, Sam Mason, Renata Volchinskaya

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists, sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble for These Times. Today we continue our interview with E4TT Audio Visual Project Specialist and For Good Measure co-producer and audio engineer extraordinaire, Stephanie M. Neumann [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. You wrote HydroCosmic Echoes for E4TT, which we premiered in 2022 for Dark Universe/Mysterious Spaces. For that piece, can you talk about the compositional process and your inspiration for the piece? Because I remember it definitely was a fixed media with ocean sounds.

Stephanie M. Neumann  00:54
Yeah, so I knew that the concert was going to be the Dark Universe/Mysterious Spaces. And I thought, well, I really love recording the ocean, and I really love space. And what mysterious spaces both of these are, and dark. Right? Really, I mean, so I thought it would be really interesting to kind of play around with the idea of sounds from both of these, but mixing them together and thinking about the similarities and differences and the exploration of space and the ocean and all of that in a piece. And so it was one of the electro acoustic pieces I worked, so I recorded ocean sounds and then I grabbed sounds from Mars, and I used that, played around with those together so that you couldn't really tell which was which. So there was these electronic sounds, and there was also these really nice waves. There's the little, I dropped a hydrophone microphone, this was my first, like, I wanted to get one and I thought, this is the perfect time. And I bought a mic, I hooked it up to my Zoom H6 and I was out there on the pier in Monterey Bay recording the clicking sounds of fish, I think they were like attacking, like almost, they were like, this is not food. But they, it turned out being a really interesting sound that I used and it worked really well with all of the other electronic sounds that were happening.

Nanette McGuinness  02:43
Definitely did. Yeah.

Stephanie M. Neumann  02:45
So yeah, I did that. And then I used the frequencies that I heard from all of these recordings, and I started writing, you know, pitches for the instrumentalists and textures and all of that, and like, created melodies with that, and did interplay between the recording and their acoustic sounds. And yeah, it was fun, and it's notated but I like to use events. So there's a, you know, event of maybe a notated section but it's a timed score, and so then you would do these different events at certain times, sometimes it could just be text, or sometimes it's actually the specific notes and melodies that they should be playing, or just some pitches, and they can decide how to play, when to play, maybe there's a little bit of instruction with it. So that's how, that's how that piece came to be and ended up being realized.

Nanette McGuinness  03:52
It was a wonderful piece, and I really liked that you leaned into the notion of space and ocean and deep spaces. When I came up with the title, I didn't just call it space, I specifically wanted to have spaces in there. It's clear you like to play with sound, is that what draws you to using mixed media in your composing? And do you see advantages and disadvantages to that?

Stephanie M. Neumann  04:22
I think that in a way it can, it's another, or a few more, musicians. That's how I hear it sometimes. So I made a trio sound like seven people. So I think an advantage is I can kind of fill out some of the sound how I would like because I have these recordings in addition to the players. And also, I like to present it to people who haven't really played it before sometimes, just to see what happens. Sometimes people don't like it, but I feel like for the most part, people are interested. But seeing how the performers react in their own way to the sound is really important to me. But that's the difficult part, is like I'm, I'm recording this sound from a totally different space, different areas, you know, somewhere else, and I experienced it one way. And so some of that stuck with me when I was writing the piece, too. I'm in that, but then I'm presenting this to the performers, and they haven't, you know, been through that same experience. They weren't there on the beach, when I recorded the ocean. They weren't there, like, you know, like, there's some of that where it probably like, it doesn't translate. But that's what I'm trying to do in my program notes, or also extra things. Bringing performers into a space with sound that is already there, instead of things that I've recorded, is also super exciting for me, and almost easier, because it's there. It's the natural sound, I guess, I didn't have to capture it and, so I've done a little bit with that, but it's sometimes hard when you want to play in concert hall.

Nanette McGuinness  06:26
So it sounds like part of what you care about in your music isn't just the external experience. It's the experience from the inside.

Stephanie M. Neumann  06:37
Yeah, I think it's because of the way I really experience sound, personally, and so sitting in it, in the sound, for me, it is meditative. Can be, and also the whole, something I, I say, something that I wrote about in my thesis, the whole idea of all sound is music. And I really believe that when I'm writing, that I'm in that mindset of, you know, that's why I'm recording a fan. Because there's so many frequencies, there's so much potential in that fan that you're just like, ugh, it's so annoying, and yes, it can definitely be sometimes painful. But then when I go in and I'm like, messing around with EQ and like, which is like, you know, picking out frequencies, different pitches, I'm really like getting deep into that sound, and it becomes, almost for me, it becomes something else.

Nanette McGuinness  07:46
Right. That kind of leads to the next topic I wanted to talk to you about. You know a lot about equipment and you're definitely a gear hound and you love audio. And you also love video as well and you've done video and audio for us. How does your passion for music and audio connect with the video and with using gear, and in that direction

Stephanie M. Neumann  08:10
So as I kind of mentioned I, I was trained in audio, I did like a summer workshop at the recording workshop back in Ohio and I did audio classes throughout school and I have now done a lot of projects with that. But with all of that audio and editing, it can be very meticulous detail. Yes, when you're recording, there's specific, there's best or better ways to capture sounds and to get them more naturally even though they're not you know, when you then play it back, but how to, how to capture the full sound and all of that, the detail and all, I think that's what draws me a lot to audio and it relates a lot to video and video editing. And I had dabbled a little bit in video in grad school or so, playing around with images, picking out colors and different things, so some visual art pieces. And then through different projects I just naturally kind of fell into doing more video work. And now I'm, you know, they're very similar with the editing and the gear and now it's super combined. Before, I didn't really know too much about video and was a little, like I really wanted to dive into audio, but now it's, they're both kind of a big part. I think naturally, pair well.

Nanette McGuinness  09:49
Your passion has expanded.

Stephanie M. Neumann  09:51
Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  09:53
Well, you've certainly made some wonderful videos for us. Can you talk about your time working for E4TT? You've worn a number of hats for us, all of which we're very grateful for.

Stephanie M. Neumann  10:05
Six years? 2017, I think that's when I started.

Nanette McGuinness  10:10
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.

Stephanie M. Neumann  10:12
Yeah, I started out just financially, I really, I was working as the music administrator for the music department at Mills College, and, you know, after I graduated, a couple months later, I got that position. And, you know, I love spreadsheets and organization, as an administrator, I kind of fell into that, but it was, you know, a full time job. And, you know, so expensive, unfortunately, to live in the Bay Area and I needed more. And I also wanted something different, I think, to like working with the, an ensemble, or you know, somebody who was in ensembles, and was the performer. I was very interested in seeing kind of the inner workings of another ensemble. And, you know, what, what does it all involve? And so you were looking for an intern, I think? And I was like, well, actually, I'm looking for more work. So I did admin, I remember sitting in your, your dining room kitchen, with the stamps, and getting the envelopes together, and all of that at the beginning, right. And I was just doing so much admin, I was trying to figure out how to do more audio video at the same time. And so E4TT, Nanette, you, presented other opportunities, more, more audio video things, and I just kind of blossomed and really appreciate that you have given me the space, actually, E4TT. And yeah, you, have, and so I feel like I've really grown as, and been very happy with all of the work that I'm doing for Ensemble for These Times. And I'm very excited to see more and more projects as we go, you know, as the years, so...

Nanette McGuinness  12:12
Yeah no, it's definitely mutual admiration here. We love the trailers that you design for us. And the podcast is successful because of your meticulous attention to detail, and sound. For all of you listening out there, without Stephanie this podcast could not be, it would just fall flat on its face, so very grateful to you.

Stephanie M. Neumann  12:35
Yeah, it's been an exciting project, and I'm excited to put together some new episodes as well, coming out. Stay tuned everyone! Little promo.

Nanette McGuinness  12:48
Yeah stay tuned, we have some great conversations coming up.

Stephanie M. Neumann  12:51
Yeah, yeah. I'm sure I'll talk about it soon. But I've been doing visuals for some of the concerts and that's been really exciting, to work with E4TT in that way, and other composers. Like, being a fellow composer, it's so it's interesting to create a video for someone else, in that way, instead of writing, instead of me writing and then also creating my own visuals, actually taking a composition that somebody else has written and, it's another kind of creative mind space that I get into for that, yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  13:28
You've done some really interesting projection video work for us for other pieces, and we've gotten compliments from other composers on your work, people really impressed by what you're doing. When we do multimedia concerts, which we do at least once, if not more often, a year, some of the videos and visuals come from you. And they're great.

Stephanie M. Neumann  13:52
Thank you, yeah. I'm very glad that other people also are liking that, and I have fun! I have fun doing that.

Nanette McGuinness  14:01
Oh, good. I think that's the important part, that you have fun. Growing with fun.

Stephanie M. Neumann  14:06
Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  14:07
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Stephanie M. Neumann, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button, and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.e4tt.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times and designed by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure" [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS].