Experimentalism and Discovery: Pascal Spadinger-Fengler on his musical process

A Vancouver-born musician, Pascal is a fourth year SFU student completing his third year in the music composition program. In the midst of his studies at SFU, he has also branched out into other programs such as philosophy and cognitive science while his primary artistic medium remains to be music composition, improvisation and performance. Whether working collaboratively or individually, Pascal enjoys creating multi-faceted musical pieces and experimenting with music creation and editing. Here he speaks on his evolving experiences working with music, digital collaboration and some of his favourite parts about his artistic processes.


Is there a certain way you compose your music? If so, why do you return to it?

How I go about writing music depends heavily on whether I am composing music for someone else to play or whether I am composing music for myself. If it's the latter, I don’t really have any sort of fixed process that I go by. However if it's the former, I usually begin by recording the performer as they demonstrate a number of different possible techniques and gestures so that I have some idea of what they, and their instrument, are capable of. After that I usually play around with those recordings in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), adding effects and manipulating the recordings until I think I’ve found something interesting. From there I begin sketching out a piece while working closely with the performer to ensure that what I am writing is playable and sounds the way I’d like it to.
This process has changed somewhat since the start of the pandemic, which has forced everything to happen remotely, but I would say that I still generally stick to this same process. The main reason I like this process is because it allows me to iteratively improve or change my work in a way that accounts for the limitations of the instrument and the performer, while also allowing me to achieve results that I am excited and inspired by.


Is there a certain element or theme you find consistently coming out in your art?

I think there is something of a graduated and progressive quality that usually finds its way into most of my pieces. I like the idea that a piece can start in one place and end up somewhere entirely different just based on the gradual accumulation and intensification of sonic material.


What's your favourite piece or work of art you've created?

I wrote a piece with my friend in 2019 called “Table Music for Two”. That piece is probably the one I’m most proud of and also the one I most enjoy playing in front of an audience, so I’d say that's probably my favourite.

Pascal Spadinger-Fengler, "Table Music for Two," 2019

Do you have a favourite artist or something that inspires you artistically?

I think what usually inspires most of my work is the performers I am collaborating with or the equipment I am using to produce sound. In both cases I think it's the sounds and pairings of sounds that spontaneously arise out of these contexts that inspire me to continue down the path of exploration and creation. From there, I just have to have faith that the path I am travelling down will eventually lead to some sort of interesting and compelling outcome.


What makes you the happiest about your art?

Probably the most joyful moments are when I find a sound that is unlike any sound I’ve heard before, or when I have a breakthrough idea about how a piece I’m working on is going to be structured. I think it really comes down to the childlike feeling of discovering something new or unexpected that keeps me motivated to continue coming back to the process of writing and playing music.


Interview conducted by Nina Grant, 5th year Writing and Film student at SFU