Intervalic Awakening: A Conversation with Modney on ‘Ascending Primes’

Prime numbers – whole numbers greater than one that are not the products of two smaller whole numbers – are something of an enigma. While primaility has been under human consideration since at least 1550 BC, there is still a general lack of clarity about these numbers. While generations of mathematicians have formulated equations to analyze the relationship of numbers, no one has successfully created a simple formula that separates primes from composite numbers. Theorists have noticed two things that only further deepen the mystery surrounding prime numbers. The first, Goldbach’s conjecture, states that every integer greater than two can be expressed as the sum of two primes. The other, the twin prime conjecture, holds that there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by two. The point is that even as people have studied prime extensively, an aura of mystery remains surrounding them. And, from that aura, a hue of exoticism as well. This aspect of prime numbers ties directly into the recording by violinist Modney – formerly known as Josh Modney – Ascending Primes (Pyroclastic, 2024).

Modney’s latest project plays with the concept of primality in two ways. First, there is the instrumentation itself. Across the double album, the size of the ensemble expands from one prime configuration to another. The first piece, “Ascender,” features the bandleader by his lonesome, albeit with the assistance of a distortion pedal that makes it sound as though more musicians are in the room. From there, the work expands to a trio, a quintet, a septet, and, finally, an undectet of eleven. Each additional artist comes from the same transtylistic New York community that, like Modney himself, straddles some undefined space between the improvisational crux of jazz and the compositional virtuosity of Western classical music. 

The second way prime numbers enter into Ascending Primes lies in Modney’s composition of each piece. The bandleader’s practice has been heavily informed by Just Intonation, structuring pieces based on whole number ratios between frequencies. In this case, he advances the intervals by prime numbers. The approach is likely to sound “off” or “unusual” to the average listener, who is more accustomed to the Equal Temperament regime which generally rules Western music. This perception of the work being outside the commonplace perfectly reflects the mysterious nature of primes.

As theoretically heady as the album may seem, one cannot overlook the severe physical and emotional depths that Ascending Primes imparts upon its listeners. For instance, at some points on “Everything Around it Moves”, the quintet contrasts threads of consonance and dissonance in such a powerful way that it makes you feel like you are being jostled and tossed around. Similarly, the tension in the four-part septet suite, “Fragmentation and the Single Form,” continually builds but quickly turns to white noise and release. The album, taken as a whole, emphasizes the juxtaposition of different extremes, taking the listener along for the ride.

While Modney’s name may not be as well known in some experimental music circles as others on Ascending Primes – for instance, Anna Webber, Nate Wooley, or Cory Smythe – the record makes clear that he is a composer and performer on the rise. Though, to be fair, his experiences with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Wet Ink Ensemble, George Lewis, and John Zorn should also make this evident. We sat down with Modney to discuss Ascending Primes and the power and mystery of prime numbers.  

PostGenre: Going back, what first got you interested in Just Intonation and alternative tunings?

Modney: For my undergraduate studies, I went to Ithaca College. At the time, I was interested in contemporary music and was friends with many composers. Those friendships are what truly got me deep into contemporary music. My friends exposed me to the works of many Twentieth and Twenty-First Century composers, which I found fascinating.

I moved to New York [City] in 2007 and did the Contemporary Performance program at the Manhattan School of Music. Through some of the people I met there, I started playing with the Wet Ink Ensemble, of which I am now co-director. Wet Ink is at the core of my artistic identity. I’ve learned so much from being in that group and from the other composers in that group. I became interested in Just Intonation through working with Wet Ink and a few other composers in New York City.

PG: What do you feel you have learned the most while serving as director of Wet Ink?

M: Well, Wet Ink is a collective, and I’m a co-director. Artistically, all eight of us co-direct the ensemble. I’m also the Executive Director, which refers to my administrative role. Being an Executive Director has taught me a lot about grant writing and organizing concerts. I have also learned a lot about the logistics of artistic life.  

But I think what I’ve gained the most from that group is on the artistic side. As a classically trained musician, I was brought up in a perspective that heavily emphasized hierarchical relationships. Even when I got into new music, it still seemed that the composer was off on their own. They write their compositions and hand them to the musicians who execute them. But Wet Ink operates differently. The group is a collective, and most of us in the group are composers as well as performers. 

When I first joined the group, I was just starting to improvise. I didn’t identify as a composer yet. But I was working with composers that I greatly admired, and they brought me in and made me feel like I had a say in what was happening musically. They gave me agency because we developed our work collaboratively, in a way tailored to each of us as players. I think what I’ve learned the most from Wet Ink is how to place a great value on collaboration and working together to create an artistic end product reflective of everyone involved. 

PG: Since you mentioned when you were starting to improvise, did you initially find improvisation difficult? You often hear that most classically trained musicians either will not or cannot improvise. It seems, given your background, like it would have been a big adjustment to start improvising.

M: I am lucky that I found my way into an inclusive space. The creative improvisation community has been very welcoming. Both socially and in terms of the music itself, things are very inviting to people of all different backgrounds and practices. So, I started improvising in a free creative space where people were very welcoming. That was very satisfying and a nice way to build my practice. 

And it is incredible to be able to play with someone like Ingrid Laubrock, who’s a master improviser. Playing with someone like that is an excellent opportunity to learn. I think those of us with classical backgrounds, and those with jazz backgrounds can operate in an adventurous hybrid musical space. We’re all looking to learn from each other. It’s an inclusive space where we can shed together and work on things. 

PG: In the liner notes to the album, you mentioned that Ascending Primes is a decidedly New York recording because of that community. Do you feel that the community you’re talking about would have been available if you had tried to put this project together elsewhere? 

M: There are other great adventurous music communities in the [United States]. But I feel very lucky to be in New York because of the size of the adventurous music community here. There are a lot of people here who are interested in adventurous sound-making. That shared interest is special to me because I have noticed over the years, on the contemporary classical side, that there is a specific New York sound. That sound is incisive, aggressive, and has a large dynamic range. The composers and performers also collaborate on the music. I think we have built something up in New York that could happen only here. 

PG: Going back to Just Intonation, you first started using it by getting involved with the Wet Ink Ensemble, but what initially interested you in it?

M: Just Intonation just greatly piques my interest. And, as a violinist, I responded to it in a particular way. In college and grad school, I found a mysticism around intonation. I had noticed certain things that were initially puzzling. For instance, when I practiced solo, I would tune in a certain way. But when I used those same tunings and went to play with a pianist, it would sound awful and out of tune because the piano uses equal temperament. The way that violinists practice by themselves is closer to Just Intonation. These things hadn’t been explained to me as intonation is not generally part of classical training. 

I started hearing these sounds through contemporary music tuned to intervals, and it answered many questions for me as a violinist. It was an awakening. For one thing, the sounds were very rich and satisfying. Just Intonation can be more systematized in a very helpful way. It is also good for a string player’s self-esteem because it makes you start to understand there are set intervals that can be tuned with open strings. Just Intonation gives you a grid on the instrument that is much more precise and accessible. Using Just Intonation felt empowering to me. It felt like I unlocked a higher level of violin tuning and practice on my instrument. It also exposed me to sounds that I thought were amazing. Sounds unlike any others that I had heard before. 

PG: As you have continued to work with Just Intonation over the years, are those things that first attracted you to it the same things that have continued to keep you interested, or has your perspective on Just Intonation changed as you continue to work with it? 

M: Over time, Just Intonation increasingly informed my creative voice. I first found creativity as an improviser. However, improvisation was tied to my practice as a violinist. Just Intonation became integrated into my practice as a violinist because I found it so fulfilling to work that way. As an improviser, I’m very interested in cutting between different modes of expression and juxtaposing extremes in tuning from consonance to dissonance. Working with Just Intonation opens things up to an extreme consonance, where all the overtones are aligned. They are supreme consonant sounds. And then various noise techniques on the violin, more complex sounds on the violin, and more dissonant tuning open up things up to a very extreme dissonance, as well. I like having a very wide spectrum of expression in terms of tuning and the signal-to-noise ratio. Stylistically, as an improviser, I developed my practice of cutting between all these different extremes and using a lot of Just Intonation. 

That experience, in turn, informed how I write for other instruments as well. When I had the chance to write for colleagues – as for Ingrid Laubrock, Mariel Roberts, and Cory Smythe for my last album, Near to Each (Carrier, 2022) – my reference point was my improvised practice. All the people I’m working with are also great improvisers. I find their creative practices inspiring. I see this new album, Ascending Primes, as expanding my improvised practice reflected on Near to Each and taking those ideas into big ensembles. I’m trying to create a shared space where my colleagues and I can all be creative and find a conversation between our distinctive voices. 

PG: As far as the size of the ensemble, it changes across the length of the album. First, you play solo, then in a trio, a quintet, a septet, and finally with an undectet. Each number of musicians – 1, 3, 5, 7, and 11 – is a prime number. Hence, the title of the album. Why did you focus on prime numbers? 

M: It was a way of structuring the album related to how I hear controls. Being fascinated with Just Intonation, I find that the prime numbers are families of sounds. For example, numbers related to seven have a distinctive sound compared to numbers related to eleven. That difference has gained almost spiritual importance to me because, in Just Intonation, these different prime number families give me an emotional response. The different families make me feel things in my body. I’ve always gravitated towards music that has both head and heart components. I’ve always liked sounds that are both intellectual and visceral. I’ve loved [Igor Stravinsky’s] ‘Rite of Spring’ since I was young. I, like many others, thought it was a mind-blowing piece. It is highly detailed, but it also has guts. It’s very visceral. So does the music of many of my colleagues whose work I greatly admire, including other members of the Wet Ink Ensemble like Alex Mincek, Eric Wubbles, and Sam Pluta. When I was new to New York, I had a visceral reaction to their music. Their music was also meticulously worked out. 

As I’ve gotten more into Just Intonation, I noticed how I was getting an emotional and gut reaction from each of these different prime number relationships. When it came to making this album, since that idea of primes has taken on such significance to me as both a player and a composer, I thought it would be an interesting way to structure the album if I had prime number groupings with the instrumentalists. 

I also knew that I wanted to work with certain people. Those personal relationships are important to me. Anna Webber is a good example. You can hear Anna soloing over Just Intonation chord changes in the third movement of “Event Horizon.” It was very special for me to work with her on this album, not only because I’m a fan of her music but also because we have both incorporated Just Intonation into our practices. Bringing together mutual interests like that is one of the things that makes working in a hybrid musical space so fulfilling. All of the musicians on the album are people I greatly wanted to work with and whose practices I admire so much. Using these prime order configurations was a good way for me to structure the groups. 

PG: Though even the solo piece, “Ascender” sounds like a larger group than just one musician, in large part due to your use of a distortion pedal. Using a distortion pedal on your violin is fairly new to you. What inspired you to add a pedal?

M: Yeah, incorporating a distortion pedal is something I’ve been wanting to try for many years. I encountered some music by Sam Pluta that used distortion to bring out a different sound. His use of the pedal was fascinating to me, in part, because when I learned to tune Just Intervals on the violin, I learned to do so by listening for a psychoacoustic difference in tone. Using a distortion pedal makes those differences very obvious. I wanted to try and build that element into my practice, and this album allowed me to do that. 

The pieces I’ve encountered that use a distortion pedal tended to be a little more drony. I use it in a drony way on my album too. But I wanted to see if I could use it to create a bassline. With my solo piece, “Ascender”, I’m shifting fairly rapidly between different Just intervals and creating a three-part harmony. In this, the distortion pedal can be used to fill out the bassline. The pedal was essentially a way to add bass to a solo piece. 

PG: A little while ago, you mentioned Sam Pluta. You have both Sam and Charmaine Lee providing electronics on Ascending Primes. Electronics are not typically prominent in most “classical” or most “jazz” music. What are your thoughts on integrating electronics into music, more generally?

M: Sam is a member of the Wet Ink Ensemble. Since Sam is one of the eight musicians in our band, I’ve become very accustomed to playing with electronics. Electronics have been a part of much of the music I have played since I moved to New York. 

Charmaine is another wonderful and interesting artist who has her own distinctive voice on electronics. She was also someone I had worked with before and wanted to work with on this album. 

Generally, my experience with electronics has been working with people who have created their own instruments. Sam and Charmaine both have unique setups that they designed themselves. It also made sense in my practice to incorporate electronics. I rely on people who are masters of using electronics to make them work in the context of the piece. The distortion pedal meshed with my practice in a way that I found satisfying, but it’s a small part of the electronics compared to what Sam and Charmaine add. 

PG: By relying on others to provide most of the electronic components, you can also focus more on the violin. What can you tell me more about your violin, “Leo”?

M: Thanks for calling my violin “Leo.” How did you know his name? That warms my heart that you would know its name. Yes, I’ve had Leo since high school. I was very lucky to find an instrument that worked for me at an early age and that has grown with me. Leo was made by Matthias Neuner. He made it in the Mittenwald region of Germany. Many violins come from that region. It is a big violin-making area.

Neuner made Leo around the year 1850. At that time, it was popular to make ornate violin scrolls, including those like Leo where the scroll looks like a lion’s head. That style was also popular in the 1700s but was having a resurgence when Leo was made. And so, Leo has a beautiful lion’s head scroll. I’m told that the tongue being intact, which Leo’s is, is rare. I’m proud that his red tongue is still sticking out. 

I’ve found that this instrument has grown with me as I’ve found my voice. It works very well for what I want to do. Leo has a clean sound with many high overtones. 

PG: But Leo is not the oldest violin you have played. You also played a 1690s Stradivarius at some point, right? 

M: Yeah, I once played a Stradivarius. The violin was on loan from Jonathan Solars, who runs a fine violin shop in Harlem. At the time. Leo needed repair. And I was premiering a George Lewis solo piece, ‘Melodies for Miles.’ I also play with the International Contemporary Ensemble [ICE], and our Executive Director, Jennifer Kessler knew Jonathan Solars. She connected me with him, and Jonathan very generously lent me a Stradivarius for ten days so I could premiere George’s piece and play another concert with ICE. 

As a person who plays the music that I play, I didn’t think anyone ever let me play an instrument like that. The fine violin world seems pretty distant from what I do as an adventurous contemporary musician. It feels sometimes like you are siloed into the experimental category. 

But Jonathan was very generous and very pro-New Music. He takes the perspective that Beethoven’s music – which used these old fine instruments – was considered noise when it first came out. If the instruments were fine for that music, why not use them for contemporary music? It was very special to me that Jonathan was so enthusiastic about lending me that instrument to premiere George’s piece. It was very cool. 

PG: So you have no hesitancy in playing something thoroughly modern on an instrument that is over three hundred years old?

M: Not at all.

PG: Now, in addition to the violin, you also played the trumpet for a while.

M: Yeah, I was very enthusiastic about trumpet through the beginning of college, but then I stopped playing it. I just didn’t have time to play it because I was busy with conservatory violin training. But I loved playing the trumpet. I loved [Guatav] Mahler’s symphonies when I was in high school. I also loved [Miles Davis’] Kind of Blue ( Columbia, 1959). It was incredibly nice that the trumpet let me be in my high school band too. I learned a lot from playing it and had a lot of fun. I’m very happy I did that. 

I have had two opportunities to play the trumpet professionally. The one recorded instance of my playing trumpet can be heard in Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar (Carrier, 2014). Kate wrote it for Wet Ink, and on the recording, everyone in the Ensemble is doing unique doublings. At that time I was still able to play trumpet, so she wrote a trumpet part for me. I’m very glad that it is on record. I’m proud of it, and it’s nice to have a recording that represents that period. But, at this point, my chops are gone. I don’t play anymore. 

PG: Do you feel like your experience with the trumpet has shaped how you approached the violin? 

M: I think that seriously pursuing the trumpet has informed my violin playing. I learned the violin using the Suzuki method, which is memorization-based. Suzuki is great for developing ear training and memorization. But it’s not as good at developing a rhythmic sense or reading music. By contrast, playing trumpet in bands is great for developing rhythm and reading skills. 

Also, I have an aggressive style on the violin. The trumpet is itself an aggressive instrument. I think that aggressiveness has undoubtedly informed my playing. My experience with the trumpet has broadened the spectrum of how I want to approach my instrument. 

‘Ascending Primes’ will be available on May 3, 2024 on Pyroclastic Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. On April 30, 2024, Modney will also be hosting a free listening party for the album on Bandcamp. You can RSVP here. More information on Modney can be found on his website.

Photo credit: Frank Heath