Interview With Peter Katz
Next up in our series of interviews with real guitarists is Peter Katz, an award-winning Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist in general. Check out an audio clip of his song "Taking on the World" below. Exemplary guitar work and songwriting, if I do say so myself.
In addition to writing his own original songs, Katz also writes songs for other artists. So we asked him:
In addition to writing and performing your own songs, you write songs for other artists. How does the creative process differ when writing songs for other projects as opposed to writing material for yourself?
His response:
Funnily enough, most of my writing for other artists is not really straightforward 'songwriting'. I tend to work with modern dancers, coming up with original 'soundtracks' for their work. It definitely gives me the freedom to move away from the guitar and my voice and really get creative with instrumentation and finding all kinds of different sounds. I also get into very heavy layering, sometimes having up to 50 different tracks running simultaneously, creating various soundscapes and such. What I like most about the whole process is the fact that unlike the very personal nature of my songwriting (where I'm really looking within), on other people's projects I am forced to look outside of myself and complement somebody else's inner-expression. It's almost a second-hand interpretation and the onus is not on me to come up with the 'soul' of the piece. The challenge is really to identify what I think is going on (in a general or specific way) and figure out how I can musically enhance it.
When I was asked to write music for a play a few years back, in that instance, I did have to write a song. Similarly to what I love about writing for dance, what I enjoyed about that particular experience was that I was given what the main inspiration for the song by an outside source. It was then up to me to figure out how I was going to go about coming up with an appropriate piece, what mood I felt it should take on, what perspective I should write from. The song that I wrote was called 'The Fence' and the whole piece was so important to me, I refused to force it out in any way. Once that little piece of the chorus spilled out of me, I just sat on it and played it every night for about 6 weeks. Every once in a while, I'd have a little breakthrough and a little more would come out. Eventually, I had a full song.
When I'm writing my own songs, it's much different. It's much more unsure, it's a lot more of a mystery and there's no guarantee it will ever be fully-realized or finished. When I actually get to the end of writing a song, I'm so relieved. Most of them die long before they ever get finished...and many die soon after they're completed. NO song actually feels ready though until I've played it live at least 10 times.
*****
For more on Peter Katz, visit his web site at www.peterkatz.org. And if you know of any other guitarists who could share their insight into the craft with us, shoot me an email at kmercury@gmail.com.
In addition to writing his own original songs, Katz also writes songs for other artists. So we asked him:
In addition to writing and performing your own songs, you write songs for other artists. How does the creative process differ when writing songs for other projects as opposed to writing material for yourself?
His response:
Funnily enough, most of my writing for other artists is not really straightforward 'songwriting'. I tend to work with modern dancers, coming up with original 'soundtracks' for their work. It definitely gives me the freedom to move away from the guitar and my voice and really get creative with instrumentation and finding all kinds of different sounds. I also get into very heavy layering, sometimes having up to 50 different tracks running simultaneously, creating various soundscapes and such. What I like most about the whole process is the fact that unlike the very personal nature of my songwriting (where I'm really looking within), on other people's projects I am forced to look outside of myself and complement somebody else's inner-expression. It's almost a second-hand interpretation and the onus is not on me to come up with the 'soul' of the piece. The challenge is really to identify what I think is going on (in a general or specific way) and figure out how I can musically enhance it.
When I was asked to write music for a play a few years back, in that instance, I did have to write a song. Similarly to what I love about writing for dance, what I enjoyed about that particular experience was that I was given what the main inspiration for the song by an outside source. It was then up to me to figure out how I was going to go about coming up with an appropriate piece, what mood I felt it should take on, what perspective I should write from. The song that I wrote was called 'The Fence' and the whole piece was so important to me, I refused to force it out in any way. Once that little piece of the chorus spilled out of me, I just sat on it and played it every night for about 6 weeks. Every once in a while, I'd have a little breakthrough and a little more would come out. Eventually, I had a full song.
When I'm writing my own songs, it's much different. It's much more unsure, it's a lot more of a mystery and there's no guarantee it will ever be fully-realized or finished. When I actually get to the end of writing a song, I'm so relieved. Most of them die long before they ever get finished...and many die soon after they're completed. NO song actually feels ready though until I've played it live at least 10 times.
*****
For more on Peter Katz, visit his web site at www.peterkatz.org. And if you know of any other guitarists who could share their insight into the craft with us, shoot me an email at kmercury@gmail.com.
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