Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Shanley.
Hi Adam, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started playing guitar when I was in middle school, learning Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins songs from tab books. I was just drawn to the guitar from the first time I saw one in person, which was when I was probably nine. Much later, when my brother went away to college, he took a music theory course as an elective. When he was done with the class he brought the book home and I started reading it and becoming interested in learning about how music worked. I was fascinated. So those are basically the first early things that set me, I think, on the path, whatever it is, that I’m on today. Creatively.
At some point after graduating high school, and not having any idea what I wanted to do, or what I was good at, I felt a pull toward learning music. Eventually, and pretty much out of nowhere, I decided that I was going to study music composition, and that my mind was made up. In the Fall of 2002 I was accepted into the Music Composition program at SUNY Fredonia despite not having a deep musical background.
In applying to the program, though, I had to first prepare for an audition on an instrument. I had some experience with guitar, so I dove in to learning classical guitar. I had 7 or so months to put an audition together on classical guitar, which meant that I had to learn how to read music for guitar, and then memorize some etudes and other rep for the audition. After spending about 8 hours a day for that entire 7 month period, I learned enough to pass the audition and be accepted into the program.
For the next 4 years I continued learning more guitar rep. And while composition was my primary focus, I could never distance myself from the guitar. When it came time to graduate and decide what my next step was, I decided that I was going to continue studying both composition and classical guitar, which meant staying on for another 3 years to complete a masters degree. Even though I considered myself a double-major in music theory/composition and classical guitar performance, and completed the course work for both, bureaucracy dictated that I would only be awarded the one Masters degree, and that was for music composition.
Following that, I still felt like I wanted to learn more, so in 2011 I applied and was accepted into the PhD program for Music Theory at the University of Oregon. During my time there I spent little to no time with my guitar, but continued to dive deeper into analysis, and counterpoint, and the history of music theory. It wasn’t until I was writing my dissertation in 2015 that I began reacquainting myself with the instrument.
By that point I was so far removed from anyone telling me how to write music, and I feel as though all my years of study had been internalized to the point where I was just free to come up with my own process and see what came out. And that was the whole point in the first place. My composition teacher from way back when I was an undergraduate had his one way of doing things, but the curriculum was all about learning the fundamentals, and how things worked together. It was about coming up with your own process the entire time, but I just don’t think at the time I was really in the right mindset to understand what that meant. I’m a pretty slow moving person. I need to spend a lot of time away from everyone, and a lot of time to myself, to come up with how things work for me. It’s not like I’m every trying to consciously go against the grain. On the contrary, I have spent my entire life desperately trying to fit in and just being made to feel like I can’t, and I never will. So naturally I’m pushed toward just spending time alone with all of the things that I have learned and reconstructing, and reverse-engineering everything so that I can understand it and move forward.
Anyway, every day I spent writing my dissertation, and continuing that analysis, I would take frequent breaks and pick up the guitar that was nearby, come up with a little chord progression, or some short melody, and then turn back and continue working on my dissertation. On and on like that for months. Before long I had developed a workflow that I was happy with, that wasn’t frustrating me. I found the fun in working on music on my own, taking into account all of the things that I had learned.
The guitar that I was using to write at that point wasn’t a classical guitar, but a Squire Jaguar that was given to me as a pre-graduation gift by my wife. And that’s kind of a funny story too, because I hadn’t planned on getting an electric guitar at the time. I had seen the guitar at a store in Forest Park, IL when I was hanging up flyers for guitar lessons that I was giving to try to make a little money while I was working on my dissertation, and for some reason that guitar just called out to me and I felt like I needed it. That guitar is what brought out my urge to start writing music again for myself. It’s similar to the way that I cam to studying music in the first place, where there wasn’t a plan to do so, but something in the universe, or something in my mind was giving me every signal that that is what needed to happen next.
Now I still find myself sitting down with very much the same mindset, which is that I try to keep everything that I know somewhere in my subconscious, and I just improv and edit, improv and edit, find something good and focus on bringing it out, and making it better, and creating little harmonic experiments, and trying to do something a little bit different each time. And that’s pretty much where I’m at today. Sometimes the “edit” part takes a little more of my time than it should, but the point is that I’m creating and working on the finer points of technique through practice almost every day. My composition professor instilled in us that all composition is is edited improvisation. That has stuck with me above everything else. You just have to open yourself up to being creative whenever you can, taking whatever it is that comes out and shaping it, and learning when it can’t be shaped and starting over. There was also another quote that in my mind I’ve attributed to Pierre Boulez, and that is, I’ll paraphrase, that one’s output is on a continuum and just needs to be selectively parsed out for public consumption every once in a while. As a creative person I feel like I just need to continue creating with the only goal of working on getting better, whatever that means to me, and clipping it up for others to consume every once in a while, but really it’s a never ending process. Well, I guess it ends one day.
Those are pretty much all of the things that I think about, and how I got to where I am today, but I guess I couldn’t really tell you exactly “where” that is. I haven’t performed in a really long time, and I’m only just now, in the past few months, mentally in a place where I feel like I would seek that out. Right now where I am is in a basement in Springfield, Tennessee writing my own little idiosyncratic guitar-based compositions in near total isolation, but I hope to change that soon. My aspirations right now are just to be more consistent about sharing my art, and eventually performing live in some capacity. I have so many friends here who are active musicians, and it feels awkward to just want to also be included in that world in some way, but I just want to make sure that I doing whatever it is that I’m going to be doing on my own merit.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road, there have been a lot of struggles. Mostly mental health related. Like I said, because I started studying music more or less on a decision that I made not long before auditioning, I always felt like I was and am behind the 8-ball. I spent so much time listening to everyone around me talk about all of the things they had already done, and all of the people they had worked with, and I felt like I desperately needed to “catch up.” I drove myself crazy for years trying to out-do, and out-study everyone, and eventually just learned to find my own pace.
The struggle on top of that has always been with confidence. I had this mindset of “nobody is going to want to hear this” or struggling with knowing that the music I’m making doesn’t really fit neatly into a box, and I’m not sure who would be interested so I convince myself that nobody is interested, which means that I don’t share anything very often and I don’t perform ever. It’s still a struggle, but I can’t stop myself from creating. It’s just a part of my life that I can’t let go of.
And now here I am, having taken a pretty unusual path, but just quietly plugging along because creating and immersing myself in music is just something that I can’t not do.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I write music. I’m not sure if I’m “known” for much of anything at the moment. I’ve released some music on bandcamp, and I have a lot more in the works. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I’m sure it’s not as weird as I make it out to be in my head, but it’s guitar-centric instrumental music. If you really dig into it I think you’d find elements of jazz harmonies in some parts, indie rock experimentation in others. I think when I’m sitting down to write, what comes out is just a result of all the hundreds and hundreds of hours of listening to tons and tons of music and not having any particular preference for one genre over another. There’s always something to listen to and to learn from if you can keep your critical listening focus attuned.
I think I’m most proud of my ability to start from nothing and develop ideas into something I feel are worth sharing (even if I have a difficult time bringing myself to actually share it). I’m definitely not the kind of person who needs to feel inspired before I sit down to write. I can sit down any time and start working on something. I think that a lot of time I write too much and can’t focus on what to continue working on, which becomes a whole other problem. Also, I think I’m proud of how I’m able to find a way when I need to, and to not give up. I know that I’ve focused a lot here on my years of schooling, but it was such an important part of my life that I can’t help but let it serve as the foundation of everything that I have right now, whether it is music related or not. I’m proud of my ability to stick with something for so long, and to be able to prove to myself that I have earned the title of musician, and artist. The unfortunate thing, and I think that all artists have this in common, is that it is never enough. Even if someone was standing in front of me telling me some great, affirming things about me and my art, I still would never feel like it was believable. I would still have to go on and continue trying to prove it to myself. It’s some twisted, exhausting, drive, but I think it’s something I can be proud of.
Not sure what sets me apart from others. I am too nervous to interact with other musicians in general in a musical setting because I feel like everyone is better than me, knows more than me, and I for some reason always end up pointing out all of the things that I’m not good at, or that I can’t do, which makes me feel like I don’t belong in the arena. I do it to myself though. I probably am good enough to at least share my music, but I keep coming up with reasons to just not. Like, I always come up with reasons I shouldn’t be included, while at the same time wanting to be included. Like anyone else, I know what I’m good at, and I know what needs work, and what I’m interested in working on. My brain is just an absolute battlefield of contradictory ideas of self-doubt and pride of accomplishment.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I am definitely risk-avoidant. I’m a nervous, shy, introverted person who just so happens to have chosen an art form that would eventually force me to perform in front of other people. Just thinking about that puts my body into fight-or-flight mode. So, some day when I finally get myself to perform in other people that would be proving to myself that there is nothing to be afraid of. I guess I don’t see that as a “major” risk though. Unless the audience were carrying knives and would come on stage to stab me if I missed a note.
I guess I haven’t really seen anything I’ve done as a risk. I’ve seen a lot of things as frightening, but there’s always something that kicks in when needed that just pulls me through. Every day is a risk in the world today. When we live in a society that doesn’t seem to value art, or anything really, it feels like just being a creative, outspoken person with any sense is a huge risk.
Recently I’ve starting trying to put myself out there a little bit more, in even the smallest ways, just to make myself feel like I’m part of a community even if it is in my own mind. I’ve started entering song-writing contests and things like that knowing full well that I’m not going to win because I’m not exactly what any song-writing contest might be looking for, but I figure that if I don’t even give myself a chance then what even is the point? It’s more, for me, about being creative, and engaging with the community in some way that is meaningful to me, than it is about winning anything or any recognition. It’s more about taking up a little space and sending my work out into the world. And, for the way that my brain is wired, that can be a huge risk.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://adamshanley.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quartertonality/
- Other: https://quartertonality.bandcamp.com/
