SIP - SoundLAB Interview Project

Plotkin, Owen


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Owen Plotkin

  • artist biography
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    Interview : 10 questions

    1. When did you start making music, what is/was your motivation to do it?

    I was 14. I wanted to make music. I was surrounded by music. My Father loved Opera and played it incessantly.
    He gave me his classical guitar. I taught myself to play it. My Mother loved jazz and often played me her 78’s.
    There was rock and roll on the radio waves.

    2. Tell me something about your living environment and the musical education.

    See answer to question one.

    3. Is making music your profession? What is the context in which you practice music nowadays?

    I have never made more than a few hundred dollars from music. I practice music every day. Music is inside me,
    just like it’s inside you.

    4. How do you compose or create music or sound? Have you certain principles, use certain styles etc?

    Trust intuition. Open the door. Find a thread, let it lead the way. Music has nothing to do with style.

    5. Tell me something about the instruments, technical equipment or tools you use?

    Voice. Acoustic stringed instruments. Software synths. Electric guitars. Toys. Samplers. Software recording and editing systems. Tape based recording devices. Air. Solids. Liquids.

    6. What are the chances of New Media for the music production in general and you personally?

    Chance plays an important role is all creation. Very important. Choosing to contact one person. Deciding to walk
    down a particular street. Answering an email. Sending one. Uploading something. Downloading something.
    The chances are very good something will happen.

    7. How about producing and financing your musical productions?

    Try not to spend any money. But, if time is money, spend a lot. Don’t wait for money.

    8. Do you work individually as a musician/soundartist or in a group or collaborative? If you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?

    Both are good. Alone.

    9. Is there any group, composer, style or movement which has a lasting influence on making music?

    Cage Lennon Ruggles Glass Babbitt Dylan Hendrix Moog Ives Parker Cohen Verlaine Whitman Williams Ibsen Stevens Picasso Duchamp Mitchell Carson Chekov Hemingway Fellini Antonioni Bergman Coppola Plath Ginsberg Kerouac

    10. What are your future plans or dreams as a soundartist or musician?

    Make more music. Have it listened to.