Unfretted, July 2008
Kevin Kastning: 10 Questions
1. Where were you born, where did you grow up, and what were your first musical
influences?
I was born in Wichita, Kansas, which is right in the middle of the US. I also
grew up there, but moved to Boston when I was 23. My first musical influences
were in the form of listening to records before I could even walk. My father was
a bassist, and had a huge record collection of several genres: big band jazz,
classical, country and western, bluegrass, a few pop records. There was always
music playing. From there, I don't know which genres would have influenced me
early on, but I'm sure that having all that music around all the time made an
impact. The ones I really remember were a live Cannonball Adderly record, and
some Mozart: some of the later symphonies and a recording of Andre Previn
playing the 11th and 12th Mozart Piano Sonatas.
2. What instruments have you learned, and how did you come to playing the
fretless guitar?
Starting at age 7, I played various wind instruments, such as trumpet, french
horn, and baritone horn in the school orchestras, and just loved that. Around
age 11 or 12, I started playing guitar and piano. Current instruments are all
the various guitars (6- & 12-string), alto guitar, the KK series of Santa Cruz
extended baritones; both in 6- and 12-string, fretless guitar, mandolin, bass,
and piano.
I began playing fretless guitar back around 1983 or '84. During this time, I was
composing my first string quartet, and I had borrowed a cello for a while to try
to work out some of the cello parts. I wasn't playing arco, but all pizzicato. I
really became fascinated by the cello's pizzicato sounds, the almost vocal
quality. I wanted to extract that sound, texture, and vocal element from a
guitar. Although I had never heard of a fretless guitar, it occurred to me to
have a guitar converted into fretless; I thought this would be just for
experimental purposes, but within a few months I was performing with it. I took
my Ibanez D-type acoustic to the luthier that did all my guitar work, told him
what I wanted, and he basically threw me out of his shop! I persisted, and
eventually he did the conversion for me; in fact he ended up liking it. He is an
incredibly talented luthier, and still does some work for me; his name is John
Barger in Salmon, Idaho.
That Ibanez is still the fretless guitar I use. I had it set up with
nickel-wound light-gauge strings (.010, .013, .017p, .026, .036, .046) for
years, but now use nylon strings, as they just speak better on this instrument.
I also feel that the articulation is improved with nylon strings.
3. Do you play also electric fretless guitar or only acoustic?
I don't play any electric instruments at all; either fretted or unfretted.
4. What are your main musical influences right now?
The past several years, I've been listening to a tremendous amount of early
music; this is music which was composed between 1400 and 1650 or thereabouts. In
addition to that, it's my usual diet of 20th-century composers: Bartok,
Schoenberg, Webern, Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter, Shostakovich, and many others.
5. Are there any other instruments you would like to learn to play?
Right now, the various guitar family instruments are keeping me plenty busy! I
wouldn't mind getting a cello, though.
6. What do you feel in the main difference between the electric and the acoustic
fretless guitar?
I don't play electric fretless, but from recordings I've heard from those who
do, the sustain issue is certainly improved on electic. Playing fretless
acoustic, the sustain is all but gone in the upper registers, so I've had to
re-learn parts of my technique to either compensate for that, or to enhance and
extract what little sustain there is in those registers.
7. What do you feel is the future for the acoustic fretless guitar?
Excellent question! I wish I had an equally good answer. In the future, I do
hope to see more of us adventurous souls allowing it to lead us down previously
unexplored paths.
8. Did you choose to play the acoustic fretless guitar, or did it choose you?
I'm not sure. Maybe I chose it, based on the cello experience I mentioned, or
maybe that was how it found me, through the cello. At the time, I had never
heard of a fretless guitar; I just knew I wanted a guitar with no frets to see
where that might lead me.
9. What is your philosophy of music... what is the purpose behind why you play
music... what is the reason (if any)?
I doubt that this interview is long enough to really explore that question.
However, a couple of inceptive thoughts would be that I think music is the
highest form of non-verbal communication. It comes from and reaches into places
which words can't. For me, music is like breathing; it has always been there,
and I don't know how I'd exist without it.
10. Who are your 5 favourite musicians of all time?
Wow, tough question. I suppose I tend to listen to, learn from, and experience
growth and expansion from a broad range of composers rather than musicians, if
we're defining musicians to be instrumental performers and/or players who either
do not or are not known for their composing. I doubt that I could narrow it to
five, but certainly Bela Bartok and Carlo Gesualdo would be on that list.
From the Middlesex Beat magazine; December 2004
“KEVIN KASTNING: AN ARTIST AT PEACE”
by Maureen King
Kevin Kastning is a soft-spoken artist completely at ease with his craft. Not so
comfortable, the composer reveals, is being put into a box labeled “modern
classical.” With the release of his third CD, Bichromial, the imaginative
writer/composer has again stepped way outside those suggested boundaries.
Admitting his compositions for guitar have a strong modern classical influence,
both Kastning and his audience know there’s a lot more to it.
For Bichromial, Kastning has again partnered with Portland, Maine
classical guitarist Siegfried. The composer and guitarist also collaborated on
two earlier CDs, Binary Forms and Book of Days. With Bichromial, the two
have produced a very different sound from their previous work. Varied
instrumentation has given way to baritone and steel-string classical guitar.
Eighteen open form improvisational studies composed by Kastning and Siegfried are meant to
form a cohesive and singular whole. The creator compares the series of moody
interplays to T. S. Eliot’s collection, The Waste Land, where individual poems
stand on their own, yet contain a similar thread of tonality. Purposely omitting
liner notes, Kastning and Siegfried have let it up to the listener to form their
own images and meanings in the ethereal compositions. “Open Form No. 8” was just
picked up by Chicago’s classical radio station WDBX for their “experimental
music” broadcasts.
A rich interweaving of unhurried improvisational duets, the flavor is hauntingly
atmospheric. The textured interplay between Kastning’s baritone and Siegfried‘s
concert pitch steel string delivers the listener to a soothing, meditative
solace. The autumnal texture of the disc makes it the perfect complement to a
coastal art gallery opening on a gray, misty evening, a moaning foghorn in the
distance. “The most introspective music I’ve ever heard,” revealed one fan to
the composer.
On a recent cool November afternoon, the fair-skinned artist tucked himself into
a cushy seat at the Concord Center Starbucks. Coffee in hand, Kastning spoke
with a quiet confidence about his life’s work. In describing their latest
release, the composer believes he and partner Siegfried have put forth strong
music, yet more esoteric than mainstream listening material. “It’s so unusual I
think everyone will have their own take on it. It’s like looking at an abstract
painting, everybody takes away something different. I compose from what I hear
internally, not with an audience in mind. Writing for an audience becomes
marketing thing…a commodity. It has never appealed to me. Fortunately, people
have liked it. But it’s like eye color; I have no control over it. It’s just a
piece of me that I’m doing for me.”
Apparently somebody’s listening...and liking it. In 2001, Kastning was
approached by Santa Cruz Guitars to be an artist endorser. Santa Cruz delivers a
distinctive instrument, crafting their guitars from Honduran and Peruvian
mahogany, among other imported tonewoods. Daniel Roberts of the prestigious
California-based guitar company made a succinct appeal to the artist. “No one
else is producing music like you, no one is doing it. It would mean a lot to us
as a company to be associated with you,” stated Roberts. Buoyed by his belief
that the Santa Cruz guitar is truly the “modern day Stradivarius”, the composer
accepted. “It really meant a lot to me because I just love their instruments.”
In 2003 and 2004, The London Chamber Group performed two of Kastning’s pieces
including “Arborescence,” a piece inspired by a hiking trip near the musician’s
hometown of Groton. After rave reviews the group requested an additional
Kastning composition for their 2005 season. Things began to roll for Kastning
and Siegfried, who were then invited onto Greydisc Records. Being approached by
the small Massachusetts label was an experience the shy musician admits to
being, “satisfying…nice.” Two earlier CDs with partner Siegfried were receiving
significant airplay on NPR, ABC Classical and Australian Public Radio. A second
CD for Greydisc is in the works, with Kastning and Siegfried returning to a more
varied instrumentation, featuring Kastning on fretless classical guitar,
12-string guitar, and mandolin. As yet untitled, this CD is due out in 2005.
As a child in Wichita, Kansas, Kastning received elementary school instruction
in wind instruments and French and baritone horn. At the age of seven he took a
homemade manuscript sketchbook along on one of his many hikes, a practice the
artist still employs today. As a child would draw pictures, a seven-year old
Kastning began to sketch little songs for piano. It remains the artist’s first
recollection of original composition. Kastning would move on to guitar in
seventh grade, continuing with trumpet, French horn and baritone horn through
high school. The artist pursued further formal training at Wichita State
University, and by graduation knew exactly what he wanted to do. Entering the
Berklee School of Music in Boston, the burgeoning composer knew he would never
return to the Midwest. He simply fell in love with New England.
While studying at Berklee, Kastning discovered enormous opportunity in getting
to work with the right people at the right place. He was able to absorb
invaluable instruction on the side from jazz great Pat Metheny during afternoon
sessions at the musician’s house. Kastning recalls his mentor as being “brutal,
but that was great.” Back at Berklee, unknowing professors were somewhat
startled by Kastning’s talents musing, “Wow, you’re really improving.”
In the setting sun of a late fall afternoon, Kastning went on to compare the
process of melding together the 18 series of Open Form studies on Bichromial
to the Ravel string quartet playing overhead in Starbucks. The artist sat
described a process of melding the individual pieces together like chapters from
a book or movements from a symphony. “They were constructed to stand on their
own, but they’re all part of that series. It’s like this Ravel,” the classical
aficionado points out from the string quartet heard overhead. “Four instruments
are playing something different but yet they come to a cohesive whole.”
Kastning explains the title for Bichromial is based in the definition of
chromatic, a term indicating the progression of semitones. While searching his
brain for a name for the new CD he began thinking about music as a “chromatic
pallet” with a broad range of color and tonality. “I couldn’t find a word to
describe that, so I made one up,” confesses the shy composer with a smile.
“Bichromial” indicates a dual chromaticism.”
The warmth of the Kastning-Siegfried vignettes comes across in intricate
fretwork. The haunting effect engulfs the listener in a mesmerizing ambience.
You are formally invited to pour a warm mug of your favorite brew and curl up in
front of a wood fire and drink in what the UK’s Music News is calling, “A fine
record for the onset of winter - find some time and enjoy it.”
From www.13thfret.com
ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR OCTOBER 2004: KEVIN KASTNING
Location:
Groton, Massachusetts
Home town:
Wichita, KS.
At what age did you start playing?
8
First guitar:
Some horrible no-brand pseudo-dreadnaught with a bolted-on bridge and painful,
finger-bleeding action. It put the "dread" in dreadnaught. Before I had it, I
think it was used to extract war secrets from prisoners in World War II. One of
the guys in my dad's band sold it to me. Of course, I loved it.
Early influences:
My father was my earliest musical influence; he was a bassist. My uncle was a
very talented singer/songwriter with a few records under his own name, and some
songwriting credits on some other performer's records. My father was the bassist
in my uncle's band. Music was a constant. It was everywhere in our house; he had
stacks and stacks of records. He exposed me to all genres of music: classical,
big band, jazz, pop, country, bluegrass; if it was available on records, I heard
it. Exposure to all these diverse styles at such an early age made a tremendous
impact on me. Even as a small child, I was listening to music hours and hours
per day. (I still do!) According to him, I learned to read from record labels
before I'd ever started school.
First gig:
I began playing recitals when I was 8 or 9, but my first real gig was when I was
14. I was doing gigs with my uncle's band (totally under-age), and I started
doing studio gigs when I was 15.
Acoustic guitars you own:
Santa Cruz custom DC , Santa Cruz custom OMC, Martin HDC-28, Martin custom
DC-12-28, and an experimental fretless nylon string. All my guitars, except the
fretless, are cutaways. I recorded the new CD using all Santa Cruz guitars.
Favorite guitar:
My Santa Cruz DC. Cocobolo rosewood back and sides, German spruce top, with a
cutaway. A huge, massive tone; yet very well-balanced. I love it. Without
question, my favorite guitar I've ever had.
Your style, and how you developed it:
I don't think I have a style as such, but my playing has been impacted by many
diverse influences. Interestingly enough, probably none of the people I'd count
as influences were guitarists. The vast majority were, and still are, composers.
The rest were jazz pianists and horn players. I think too many guitarists only
listen to guitarists. Only listening to and pursing the music of one instrument,
no matter what that instrument might be, is truly limiting from a technical and
artistic standpoint. As much as I love guitar, it's only one of the many
instruments from which I can learn.
Practice regimen:
I begin and end the daily sessions with various scales and modal scales over a
three-octave range, using a metronome. I do quite a bit of sight-reading
exercises using non-guitar music. For example, I'm currently sight-reading my
way through the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Playing music on
guitar which was not written for guitar will tend to force you out of patterns
and habits. I also spend a lot of time adapting chordal and harmonic structures
from things like string quartet scores to fit on guitar. This produces some
unusual, interesting, very beautiful, and very non-guitar-like chord voicings.
Favorite artist(s):
Wow, that's tough. I have so many favorites! Mostly composers: Bartok, Elliott
Carter, Beethoven; especially the late quartets, Gesualdo, Schoenberg,
Shostakovich, Webern, Morton Feldman, Bach, and many others. Most of the
composers to whom I listen are 20th century composers. I've gotten a lot from
authors such as Joyce and Proust, and painters such as Pollock. I think all
areas of the arts are connected; it's all about self-expression and
communication; just in different mediums. For example, I've gotten ideas about
composition and form by reading something like Joyce's "Ulysses." Or staring at
a Pollock painting and thinking about how it would sound if it were translated
into notes. I've also been influenced by pianist Bill Evans. I actually don't
listen to that many guitarists, but a few I like are Ralph Towner, Goran
Sollscher, and Paul Galbraith. Those guys just knock me out. They're stretching
the boundaries of guitar.
Is there anything else you want people to know about you, your playing style or
your views on today's music in general?
Nothing else about me or my playing or composing, but in my opinion, the
possibilities of the guitar are endless. I would invite guitarists to broaden
their horizons and expose themselves to non-guitar music. You'll hear things
you'd never hear otherwise.
Wichita East High School Produces Many Notable
Alumni
Published Apr 22, 2008
Maybe there’s something in the water fountains‚ or maybe it’s knowing you’re
part of a proud tradition‚ but a number of East High Aces have gone on to fame
and glory.
For example‚ there’s Jim Ryun‚ the first high school student to run the mile in
under four minutes. He went to the Olympics in 1964 while still a student at
East‚ and again in 1968 and 1972. Remembered as one of the world’s great
runners‚ he also served in Congress from 1997 to 2007.
Robert Gates‚ class of 1961‚ also made his mark in Washington‚ as director of
the CIA under former president George H.W. Bush and in December of 2006 was
sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Diane Bish learned to play the organ at East and is now an internationally known
artist. Her TV show‚ “The Joy of Music‚” is seen and heard by more than 300
million people weekly.
Writer Teresa Riordan‚ class of 1978‚ wrote the “Patently Weird” column for The
New York Times.
Gary M. Adamson‚ class of 1954‚ founded Air Midwest Airlines.
Michael McClure was one of the major Beat Generation poets.
Astronaut Charles (Chuck) Jones‚ class of 1970‚ was among those who perished on
Sept. 11‚ 2001.
Alafair Burke has authored several crime novels and is a radio and TV
commentator. She is the daughter of crime writer James Lee Burke and a radio and
TV commentator.
Kevin Kastning‚ class of 1978‚ is an internationally recognized classical
composer and recording artist.
- Images Magazine (Wichita, KS)