Ken Beck is the staff musician for the UI's dance department. He first began composing music as a teen obsessed with classical music, but later studied composing at the Conservatory of Music in Boston. He has had a 20-year career in music, ranging from arranging tunes such as "Happy Birthday" for Hallmark musical cards to composing an eight-part musical to accompany a ballet of "Huckleberry Finn."
He spent 12 years as dance musician for a ballet school in Washington, D.C., where he also taught piano. He joined the UI's dance department in January 1998.
You started studying music when you were a youngster?
I got interested in music when I was a teen-ager. I had piano lessons starting at age 8. I had a couple years of group piano lessons and I never practiced. My mom said if I didn't practice I'd have to quit, so I said 'I quit.' And then everybody up the street got guitars and they're all out there playing 'Gloria' on their guitars, so then I got determined that I should be involved in music somehow.
Also about that time there was a seminal experience in a movie called 'Our Mr. Sun,' a science movie with Eddie Albert as the narrator. It had this powerful piece of music in the background. It turned out to be the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. I had no background in music. Most of my experience was cheesy popular music and hymns. But I was exposed to great music in that film. And so I went out and bought my first classical record. And pretty soon I was obsessed with Beethoven. Absolutely obsessed. I had to have all nine symphonies.
And then I got radical about it. I started letting my hair grow. For those three years of high school, I was Beethoven. I didn't know doodly squat about writing music but I started doing it. I started taking piano lessons again. And I decided I was going to be a musician.
Was it difficult to be a teen-ager in the '70s obsessed with Beethoven?
Oh no. I did away with my friends because I figured Beethoven was a grouchy guy. I read all his biographies. I was terrible. I'm embarrassed by it now. Whatever my personality was I remodeled it as only an adolescent can do. And bit by bit I started looking at expanding into other classical music. Certainly by the time I got to the Conservatory of Music I was still sort of in this Beethoven mode. However, I sobered up rather quickly in the Conservatory because I had gotten myself in way over my head. And I had to use all of my wit and intelligence to try to survive it. And I think I did pretty well. So anyway, there I was a composer.
And at about the same time I discovered dance. I've done plenty of other musical things, but dance has always been the main thrust of my musical career.
What do you do exactly to provide music for dance?
The advantage for the choreographer-teacher in having a live musician is the interaction the musician can make the music fit the exercise exactly, on the fly. That's what I do. And that's the trade I have mastered over this 21 years I've been doing it. You sit there at the piano and the teacher gives the exercise. You watch the exercise and instantly make a masterpiece to go with it. It's an impossible job. It's quite impossible. But every now and then you manage to make a good piece of music fit the exercise.
Really, the art of the dance accompaniment is improvising. There's a lot to it. And everything you know goes into it. You can't fool dancers. Dancers are the best audiences for music. They feel it in their bodies; they have a sense of time that is inexorable.
You consider yourself a composer though, rather than a pianist?
When I got into the Boston Conservatory I could get around on the piano. It's hard to make an honest assessment of what my skill was. I was not a very good player. That's the end of it. I just wasn't. Except they knew I could improvise. I was writing pieces; I was composing. I would have crashed and burned if I thought I was going to be a concert pianist.
What kinds of things have you composed?
The first couple dance pieces I made as a composer were a ballet based on the book 'Huckleberry Finn.' I made a little outline and I started writing, pretending I was Tchaikovsky or something. It was good. It was produced in Kansas City. The first performances were in an outdoor courtyard in a restaurant and it was packed. It was great. I got great press. I was just out of school. I thought 'Man, I am on a roll!' [He laughed]
They're not a bad set of pieces. I've enjoyed playing them lately. And then I started writing for small chamber groups.
Where does this job come in?
I came here the middle of last year. This job happened because even I began to realize that 12 years at a little ballet school and driving around Washington, D.C. as a peripatetic music teacher wasn't really a good thing for a 45-year-old man to be doing. I just realized I was afloat in a sea of life. So I sort of thought I would try to look for a real job.
So do you like being a staff musician at the UI?
Yeah, I do. I do like the job, but it's intense. I put in long days. I'm not just playing for class. I also have started to do production work. I'm becoming familiar with digital audio technology. And I'm composing for dance again.
In Studio Dance II [through March 7 at Krannert], a graduate student choreographer will perform a piece of mine that is top to bottom new music. I play piano and drums. The choreography is called 'Endlessly.'
This is a great school. I like to hike in the mountains and, of course, there are no mountains here, so I wasn't impressed with the topography. But there are rivers and I've taken up kayaking. But the institution itself is awesome. This is an incredible brain trust. This is like one of those Athenian places where a lot of very smart people have gathered and it doesn't really matter what it looks like or what it is because what it is in terms of its importance is way out of proportion to its appearance.
And the dance department itself is excellent. There is a great faculty. They have very good placement. If this is going to be the high water mark of my career as a musician in dance it's a good place for it.
Have you had your 15 minutes of fame yet?
Ummm, no. I want it. And I don't want to have to do anything amoral to get it either. And you know what? If it ever happens to me, I'll be ready for it.