Spring Break
Things I've Learned, with rock music professor Paul Mathews
Issue date: 3/6/08
Paul Mathews, Peabody professor of music theory and Homewood professor of rock music, talks about his days as a Peabody Prep student and reconciling his two loves, classical and popular music.
News-Letter: Was your family musical?
Paul Mathews: No, not particularly. My father worked here at the Domino Sugar Plant and my mom stayed home.
N-L: So how did you fall into music?
PM: My mom had a part time job at a music distributor, so I was in contact with a lot of music businesses. Through that, she sort of set me up with piano lessons. From there, I took it up in school and stayed with it.
N-L: Were you originally interested in classical, or was it just something separate?
PM: Mostly I was a drummer in a rock band. Then I sort of had an epiphany my last year of high school when I heard music of Igor Stravinsky and decided that was where it really was, so moved towards that.
N-L: You originally studied at Peabody Prep. Did you have any idea that's where you would wind up later in life?
PM: No idea. I had no desire to go there until graduate school.
N-L: Was there an individual in your life who piqued your interest into what would become a career path?
PM: I had a much older brother and he kind of steered my musical tastes towards acts like, say, Led Zeppelin or Steely Dan.
N-L: Had you not chosen music, what path might you have taken?
PM: Perhaps writing. I used to write fiction in college. I really like Pixar, so the idea of writing screenplays or animated features would interest me.
N-L: You recently published a book, Orchestrations.
PM: Right. It's an anthology. I'm currently working another one that I'm covering. It's about Pierrot Lumaire, a seminal 1912 new music pianist.
N-L: In Orchestrations you discuss several theories behind orchestration. In your own works, how have these theories manifested?
PM: As a composer, I've been mostly writing chamber music and an opera, so I wouldn't say terribly much. It's just my teaching. I was actually hired by Peabody to teach orchestration. So the constant teaching and constant studying of it is what generated the materials that I used in the book.
News-Letter: Was your family musical?
Paul Mathews: No, not particularly. My father worked here at the Domino Sugar Plant and my mom stayed home.
N-L: So how did you fall into music?
PM: My mom had a part time job at a music distributor, so I was in contact with a lot of music businesses. Through that, she sort of set me up with piano lessons. From there, I took it up in school and stayed with it.
N-L: Were you originally interested in classical, or was it just something separate?
PM: Mostly I was a drummer in a rock band. Then I sort of had an epiphany my last year of high school when I heard music of Igor Stravinsky and decided that was where it really was, so moved towards that.
N-L: You originally studied at Peabody Prep. Did you have any idea that's where you would wind up later in life?
PM: No idea. I had no desire to go there until graduate school.
N-L: Was there an individual in your life who piqued your interest into what would become a career path?
PM: I had a much older brother and he kind of steered my musical tastes towards acts like, say, Led Zeppelin or Steely Dan.
N-L: Had you not chosen music, what path might you have taken?
PM: Perhaps writing. I used to write fiction in college. I really like Pixar, so the idea of writing screenplays or animated features would interest me.
N-L: You recently published a book, Orchestrations.
PM: Right. It's an anthology. I'm currently working another one that I'm covering. It's about Pierrot Lumaire, a seminal 1912 new music pianist.
N-L: In Orchestrations you discuss several theories behind orchestration. In your own works, how have these theories manifested?
PM: As a composer, I've been mostly writing chamber music and an opera, so I wouldn't say terribly much. It's just my teaching. I was actually hired by Peabody to teach orchestration. So the constant teaching and constant studying of it is what generated the materials that I used in the book.
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