Interview with Katahj Copley, April 2022
Regarding the piece Unspoken
Rachel Maxwell (RM): And I thought there's so much there. It's just such a good piece, because it shows that it doesn't have to be a super difficult, super technically complex piece to have a lot to say and that's why I loved selecting this piece and finally getting a chance to get to know it a little bit more. So, I'm very excited.
Katahj Copley (KC): Thank you thank you I’m excited too.
RM: And then we're going to talk a lot more about what you're doing right now in your studies. We're going to dive right in with some stuff. I've listened to, and read through several of your interviews that you've given so I do know the context of your high school years, and that you were in a dark place, burned out, and not really ignited yet. You were not excited about school or music yet, and then that chance to do your setting for your mixed instrument ensemble of Bohemia Rhapsody. It almost sounds like a light switch went off for you. Was it that fast of a switch for you?
KC: And realization. Oh, yeah, oh, totally. cause when I was arranging it, it just felt like I was. I was doing it, and it was slicing. There are a lot of tasks. When you do it feels like you're slicing through bricks when it's hard, but for this arrangement I'm just moving through water like it felt natural and I was like this should be hard to do this. I should feel like this is hard, But it's not. It's me, literally finding the path. You find it, and I was like okay, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm doing something wrong. So when we played it for our class at the end of it, it was up to the guitar solo, so we ended it there. And the first thing that I remember is this person yelling Wow! And I became that person. I became “the arranger person”. And then the kids were like, Whoa! That was actually really cool because everyone else is playing stock pieces and all of a sudden we come out with literally a new setting. And so that was really cool, too. Then, when the parents heard it again. They didn't know about me. they didn't know of me, they knew of me, but not about me. So finally, with that piece for that arrangement, it felt right. I I don't know how to really explain it that well, but it felt like you said, a light switch. It was like this is what you're doing, you're actually telling the story, and people are responding to it.
RM: And I got to ask you, if some people have their whole lives before they find or take many years before they find sort of the thing that put them in a state of flow, or they're calling. For you to find your purpose so young is almost like a miracle, if you believe in that sort of thing, because it doesn't happen to too many people that early on. What do you think your life path would have been if you hadn't had that experience?
KC: Probably wouldn't be here, to be honest with you.
RM: Would you have remained in music or a part of music?
KC: Oh, no, I probably wouldn't even be alive and be honest with you. Yeah, I probably still do music, but I wouldn't have a driving force, and I firmly believe that I have the superpower of luck sometimes. I don't take it for granted. I know where I'd be without it.
RM: Let me ask you about your training up to that point. Had you had any experience besides just playing your instrument? What did you go on? Did you just go with your gut feeling of how it would work?
KC: Gut feeling, exactly. Listening to the piece over and over again, and then checking out piano and transcriptions of it to see, I didn't even know it was called voicing, but what the voicing was looking at that and trying to figure out? Just literally teaching myself how to arrange. Because I know, like a lot of high schools, I went to a great high school program but it wasn't that much of focus on the composition and arranging side. It was just mainly just on the playing side. Most people don't really get to compose during high school or middle school facing them. I was lucky enough to do it my junior year. Finding that, and teaching myself throughout these arrangements how to find my colors and find my matches, and how to make odd instrumentation work.
RM: That's really fortunate that you made those right decisions because not everybody would immediately plunk down on the piano and figure it out. It's almost musical genius or guidance, but something innately led you to those choices. So it was truly something that you were meant to do?
KC: Yeah, totally, it was an innate thing like, yeah, like you mentioned, destiny has a weird way of picking out people.
RM: So once you headed to college, did you keep playing your instrument?
KC: I played all the way to the end of my undergrad. I have a double major of music ed and composition all the way through. That's a heavy load and luckily for me, a lot of those overlapped. So I was a little bit above the average with credits but a lot of my classes didn't branch out until the last 2 years and because of that you had to kind of figure out like a jigsaw puzzle. Which one do you take here? Which ones do you take there? Ultimately it only added an extra year to. So there's the interlap here for music, composition, music, education. Then the rest was music education.
RM: As a consumer of your music, and somebody who buys a lot and listens to a lot of music for younger bands I appreciate that you have that music ed degree and experience, because I think it informs you so much on what you are writing. What are the capabilities of instruments, or what is the capability of a second-year player, or what they know. And sometimes composers who are writing with a more artistic voice don't have that experience and so we get things that are a little out of the league of kids and so it's not accessible to them. Having that balance is really something that I think is exciting for a lot of people in the field, because that provides you with a really good understanding of the practicalities that have to go into it for your music to be played widely.
KC: And not only just the practicalities. I thank Dr. Bird a lot because of his really tough assignments. He had this project where we did a lot of listening, and we had to decipher between grade two's and grade three’s and a lot of the grade two sound a lot like other pieces. It is a weird homogeneous kind of sound and form for a lot of grade two music. So, seeing that, studying that, and wondering, how can I find my voice and give the listener and performer a different color?
RM: And that's what is really fresh to a lot of people. Having that really mature palette of colors and different timbers in your writing with the easier grade levels is something people have been really hungry for.
RM: The last 10 years have been a really weird time in the history of our country, because middle class White people were under the delusion that we were in this post-racial America with the election of Barack Obama. My delusion was quickly removed with the ascent of Donald Trump and everything that followed. With that, and the things we've seen with the civil discourse of police brutality and racist or racist adjacent behavior of people. As a Black man growing up through that, can you talk about that experience? I think that's a big part of your voice as a composer.
KC: Yeah, So a couple of things I do remember. I feel like there's this thing for us. It's a veil sometimes. The veil gets removed, and there are moments where that veil gets removed. For a lot of people. It's a younger age for me. I was definitely lucky to not really need it. I was just ambivalent about a lot of things until fifth grade, which was the election of Barack Obama and seemed like kids as we were watching the inauguration, and seeing kids try and find the littlest thing, because their parents have told them about him being an immigrant, or him, being this or him being that, ruining a lot of that moment, because it's it's forced on. It's forced when they're a kid, and from there you grow up. You grew up with that mentality. It's a learning thing, So when kids have that kind of mentality, that he he's a terrorist, or these people aren't the ones you should trust, it's the thing that's repeated over and over again in their environment. My father, who is 78, he's been through blatant racism. What we're going through is subtle and that's even worse to me because it's methodical. You know it's built in the systems and you know we could deep dive this forever. But the denial and the gaslighting of people. They think it doesn't exist, you know and I know as things happen, like Ferguson, the series of police shootings, and deaths that were unnecessary. Obviously, as you're growing up and seeing these things happen what impact is that having on you. At first I didn't understand. I remember the first. The first thing I remember of any kind of death involving this situation for this topic was Trevon Martin. That was the first one. That was when high school started for me, and every year after that there was another thing to happen. And another thing that happened. And another thing that happened. So eventually, it seemed like it was like a seasonal thing and when it becomes seasonal, your mind becomes numb to it. Like, there's a seasonal drought here. So we know that we're gonna plan for it. It's gonna be this thing that happens. Then this thing happens every year that we're not gonna talk about until the next season. And it happened over and over and over again, because the world continues to move on. Even though people pass away and people are killed, the world somehow continues to move. But when the world just stops that's when you start to think.
RM: Do you think the world stopped when George Floyd was murdered?
KC: I think that was a stopping moment. I remember the actual feeling, because it was during COVID. It was during the time where my school we all stopped from doing anything. We're just sitting there, and I remember in my room just watching CNN, and like seeing that, and hearing about that, and it was like it was like a cup of as much as you can fill that cup with it just flowing over it. Just. it was full, and it fell over, and I remember that motion, and for a lot of my colleagues in school, and a lot of my friends who are African-American, we really didn't know what to do when it came to certain things like this. Because for a long time our voices were not heard. I didn't know that I even had a voice in this fight in this argument. I realized this after my premiere at CBDNA. I had a platform. I don't want that to happen to some other kid in band. I want them to be able to say, this is how I feel.
RM: Have you ever felt yourself threatened during a dangerous situation with authority figures? Being a Black man have you ever felt profiled, or that somebody has had misconceptions about you?
KC: As a kid growing up , no. As a composer, yes. So when talking about Unspoken, a band director was on board with it. A local band director from Georgia was on board. The school was on board. The principal was on board. They were here for it. The band director tells the children about it, and the kids- all of them are excited. They are all excited, and they are ready to do this. So this one kid went to her mother being excited about it, we're gonna premiere this piece. We're part of this thing. It's gonna be really cool. Mother was not down for it. Mother was the one who went above the band director, above the principal, and to the board. And now I'm not played there. I'm not allowed in that system right now. That was my first taste of that and I didn't know how to respond, because it wasn't necessarily about me. It was the fact that I wrote the piece for kids to have a voice and someone took that away again. Then the second time it was an older gentleman in a wind ensemble, a local ensemble in Georgia again. I was in Georgia. It's my home state. A gut level when your home state does that to you. I got commissioned for a fanfare from a friend of mine who was in the ensemble. I was like, cool let's do it. Let's do a fanfare. Suddenly, he says, Hey, We want to do your piece, but I don't want to do it with this ensemble. He send me an email and there is a member of the band getting mad. The member sent him a message which states: A quick review of his website suggests a few “red flags”. I see Mr. Copley has written at least one agenda based work that brings attention to events not related to music and causes significant rift amongst the people of this nation. I just laugh about it because of all the things I've been criticized by really old racist white people. Yeah, well and all music has an agenda. All music is telling a story about something and for so long it's been white male stories. It's only since I offend people when it's not a white male story being told. It's interesting because my initial response was laughing, because the only thing I can remember was when I was student teaching and the kids asked me the purpose of music. I said music is a reflection of the times in which we live, and that person’s ideas are not the reflection of the time in which we're living.
RM: How has your experience with Omar Thomas changed your voice? How is your experience with him enhanced your voice?
KC: Yeah, the first lesson that I had he critiqued this one work that I had. He's talking about my phrasing and honestly I take that advice with literally everything I do. Now, he said, it’s like you have 4 bar phrases here, and it's literally bar bar bar bar bar. Why don't you just push through the melody and extend it and break that kind of cycle? It's a breakthrough of 4 bars, maybe 5 bars. You can live past the bar line, let's test the bar line. That's perfect and that's what I've been examining and trying to find. It's like last year- like breaking through that societal bar line finding my voice out of that because he's he's really pushing me to explore more and find not only I've found a lot of colors throughout my music, but I haven't really found the hues and the shades that need when we find those shades it changes the whole piece, or it changes the whole artwork so when you find those different sounds when you find those things, and you're fearless of whatever message you do are unstoppable, and that's how I feel when I have lessons, and when I listen to him, and he tells me about certain techniques and certain ways to approach storytelling to approach this part. For, because the whole point of composition, to a lot of people, is storytelling, and that we are the holders of those stories.
RM: I love that. Let's talk specifically about Unspoken. You talk about expressing the Black community's grief and the stages of that? Talk to me about your perspective on how you approached each emotion, writing wise.
KC: Yeah. So I'm gonna pull up the Score. So with just the bass line alone with the bass drum, and it's empty and just a low instrument, the low voices. It's kind of creating this processional. This funeral March. I really just wanted there in the beginning to be kind of a drone, but I felt that a lot of people have done that, done a drone for denial. But what's more expressive than a drone is the idea of moving forward and moving past it, not even acknowledging it. So we're just doing this stagnant march, like the same thing we've been doing, which is just walking forward and not having a purpose. And then we have that theme which is literally just sadness. The reason why we bring it back in that huge section is because I feel there's like a huge tight group between anger and sadness. One kind of pushes one to the other and sometimes when people are angry, they start crying, or get angry at people around them. It's a huge tightrope that you walk on and depending on what side you lean on is that emotion that you feel. It is why I brought back the material for the angry section, and in bargaining we're just pushing and pulling and tearing away. If we add more to this, if we can give more, maybe this will raise awareness. And finally, we just release it in this anger in this climax section. And then, after all this, we get to this rather soft section and in some ways I wanted to end the piece on that powerful angry chord. But there's a lot of music where it's about anger. It's the emotion that they have now. Here's our anger now, here's our pain now. A lot of pieces exploit pain in that sense and I didn't want to do that. If I allow that, then the people are just only going to know the piece from the anger. Oh, that's the angry piece, or that's the piece that doesn't really have a message behind it.
RM: I can hear you know how authentic you are in reflecting the grief and pain but you have a real sense of hope. Your urgency, and your optimism comes through as you're speaking and your really positive energy comes off of you, And that is how this piece feels like it ends. The work really sounds like your personality coming across when you're speaking to me right now.
KC: Yes, you have to acknowledge all these things happening, but you have hope for things to be good, to be better. I have to have hope, because I remember there was a time where I didn't have hope in anything. And now I just want to reflect that because I know there are people who have been through both my situations when it comes to depression and you feel like there's no hope at all. My goal is to tell people that there's hope- it's there. It might seem like it's not and that's why I wanted to end the piece the way it ended. Still with that kind of moving forward but this is a different type of moving with the motion of the bass drum and low reeds.
RM: My sense that I got just listening to it, it's a heartbeat.
KC: To me, too. It sounds like a heartbeat happening and there's times in the heartbeat is weak in a hurtful place, and there's other times when it sounds stronger, but to me it felt like you know almost somebody's like life force continuing through no matter whatever stage you're in, you still have that life force going you still have your heartbeat, your soul you're going through that so I mean as I listened to it that's what came that's what that's going to look like to me and then you're descending little intervals at the beginning.
RM: It instantly made me think of the little sighing motif that you hear. Romantic composers use it all the time to reflect melancholy so as soon as I heard it it's operatic in the writing of it.
And then can you talk to me harmonically because when I started looking at what you have here, is this in G Phrygian mode at the beginning?
KC: Or just c minor. It's the color and the timber it does have such a different color. The first two-thirds of the piece, and then the end, is just it's so dark and it's so clouded and for you to say that it's not a harmonic thing, and more of a color thing to me is like it might be c minor. I do like to do the c to E flat, because E flat is one of my favorite keys. E flat for me sounds hopeful, just something about the warmth of it, and when you add different notes to it there's a lot of reflection. You think about the person you've become here or a person that you're going to be. The only thing I can think of is the opening lines of 1812 Overture. I feel like that's a reflection of someone who's been through it and then we look at the flashback, and it's reflective. It's not the most pure key, because when not really the most pure people we're not like, Oh, the most it's we're not like for not all saints or not all sinners. I feel like E flat is humanity.
RM: Last question. If you were going to give kids one message: younger kids, because I'm Junior high, leave them with one message. What would it be? One message can be a few words?
KC: I have it right here on my wall. I would tell them to be like water. It is helpful, nurturing, and flowing however, it is a force. It's powerful and when used with enough force it can break things or can create things. It can be healing. Be like water. Strive to be happy, strive to be humble, strive to be heard. If you're not working on all 3 you can get you can only go so far. but all 3 push each other up,