Meet Kevin Good

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kevin Good. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Kevin with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I’ve always enjoyed working. It can be stressful and difficult at times when something new occurs but for myself, actively working helps me to feel accomplished. I think humans naturally want to work sometimes the job itself isn’t desirable but I think most people would have a harder time never working than they would working a small amount each day. The sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a task can be incredibly rewarding. As a performing being able to bring my interpretation of a piece or a premiere of a new piece can feel really wonderful. The process of performance naturally creates a work ethic for me. There is no world where I can procrastinate and learn a piece in a day there simply isn’t that kind of cramming available in music so doing a small amount each day creates consistency in my development as a player. As a composer I’ve done a few things with my own writing to make the work process more relaxing. I write everything by hand and I have a series of different notebooks I use for different works. Writing things by hand keeps me away from a screen and helps to personalize each piece I write from a visual perspective that reflects my sound as a composer. It also makes the amount of writing I do in the morning feel less like work and more like journaling. That is to say its calming and helps me set my mental state in a positive direction to start the day. So overall, the more I’m able to set things up in advance and keep them consistence the better my work ethic is and while I’ve made small changes to that process throughout the last few years the process of planning ahead to stay ahead of schedule has always helped.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m both a percussionist and a composer and I love doing both. As a percussionist I’m a bit all over the map, I love playing music similar to the music I write which is to say modern classical music that is generally slow moving and quiet but I also love playing all kinds of other percussion from around the world like Brazilian Samba drumming, Ewe and Dagomba drumming from Ghana, conga and salsa music from Cuba and Haiti, frame drums and drum set. Lately I’ve been working on playing more Jazz Vibraphone as well. I love listening to all kinds of music in terms of culture and location as well as genres. I think as a composer listening to different music can influence the music I write on a conscious and unconscious level so I try to be as open-minded as possible.

As a composer, I’ve mostly written percussion pieces do to demand from percussion friends and the fact that I can play them myself however I’ve found myself writing a lot of solos for various guitars for my friends M Denney and Matt Sargent. My music is adjacent to a group called Wandelweiser which focuses on Silence and following the use of silence by the composer John Cage. My music tends to try and take these very scientifically based and sometimes cold silences and make them more personal and intimate. Silence in my music is about people in relation to one another and a moment to reflect that.

I have a few projects on the horizon that I’m excited to share! A couple of recordings, one of pedal steel guitar music played by Matt Sargent called “Trails” and a massive 30 minute piece for Piano and Percussion played by my friends Michael Jones and Ashley Zhang. The piano/percussion piece hasn’t been premiered yet but, we will hopefully have something in the books in the later half of the year or next year. Additionally, the UCSD undergraduate percussion group “One Fish Two Fish” just premiered by percussion quartet “29 Palm Trees” and the UNCP percussion Ensemble directed by Joseph Van Hassel will premiere a new percussion trio of mine titled “I Wish I Had Done More” in April.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Using my ears, listening to all kinds of music and all types of sound in general has helped me a lot. Understanding how to listen to different sounds and music is also part of this. I listen to jazz differently than I listen to classic music for example but I also listen to things like the sounds of birds differently than I listen to music. I listen to the lyrics in certain pop bands more than I do the instrumental parts. Having a versatile and multifaceted modes of listening as helped me immensely with how I create music as a performer and composer

2. Putting myself in others shoes – I think this is one of the hardest things for people to do. Everyone from birth thinks of themselves as the protagonist of their own story and their own life. I think that is okay, it’s important to lookout for yourself but the more you’re also able to try and understand the world from other’s perspectives the more empathy and understanding you’re likely to have going forward. There are so many issues and complications in the world I couldn’t begin to understand or experience but trying to at least see what it is like from any other side is fundamental to the human experience. This skill relates maybe less to music but for me it is a skill that has helped me to build friendships and relationships throughout my life that have gone on to last. Some of these relationships have helped me in my career and to me this is the ideal way to meet and understand people.

3. intuition – in any form of artistic writing, especially music, it is easy to rely on technique to create something. When you go to school for composition one of the first things you experience in lessons is explaining why you’ve chosen to make the decisions you’ve made with your writing. “Why this instrument here?” “Is it related to any kind of traditional form?” “how did you structure this” etc. One of the more rewarding things I learned is that, while it is important to have answers for all these kinds of questions, (for your lessons and for yourself) it is important to remember its perfectly fine to answer with your “gut” or intuition. Sometimes it is important to have a reason for something but some times it’s okay if the reason is I just “I like it and its fun”

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I’m always happy to write music for people so anyone who is interested in collaborating on bringing a new piece to life, I’d be happy to talk to. If you are interested in what my music sounds like and aren’t familiar with it you can hear it here:

http://www.kevingoodcomposer.com

listen to and purchase albums here:

https://deso.bandcamp.com

Additionally, as a performer I’ve been reconnecting with improvisation so I’m always looking for people to play with.

I’d also love to work with some visual arts and/or art galleries to perform/display some of my scores. some of them such as “Songs for Two” or “The Chords in My Life” are written with a visual idea in mind and do think of the scores themselves as art objects. There are score samples available on my website (Linked above) but if anyone is interested in any score for any reason fill out the contact form or email and I’m always happy to send them along.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
DesoDuo “ghosts” by Angela Deane.

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