Tom Walker
Junior Editor
Music Professor Charlie Kirchen is a new arrival to Sewanee who brings a unique perspective to the classroom. Outside of class, Kirchen is an active band leader and bassist for a sextet based in New York as well as a quintet based in Chicago. The music he makes is often referred to as creative music and includes genres like jazz, classical, Avante-garde classical, electronic, and free improvisation music. Kirchen said that, in his opinion, “the challenge of [creative music] is to execute some demanding ink and really listen to [the band]… while responding and creating a flow of energy.” After college, Professor Kirchen worked as a professional bass player in Chicago and directed music at a church.
Kirchen’s musical experience often informs his teaching in the classroom. Kirchen said, “What I hear in music is very influenced by my experiences making music, trying to learn how to make music, and evaluating my own music.” He also said, “That has tuned up my ears in a certain way and I try to teach students how to hear like a musician: which is really to say how to hear like me.” By modeling his own questions and attitudes towards music, Kirchen gives students skills that they can apply to any music: including their own. Kirchen focuses on teaching these skills in his pop-focused MUSC101 class. In his MUSC214 class, Electronic Music, Kirchen’s role is somewhat different. “To what extent am I just the band leader in the class…I’m trying to set an agenda and put everyone in a position to be the most ‘themselves’ they can possibly be,” he stated. By empowering students to make the type of music they are proud of, Kirchen helps to spread his passion for music.
When asked about how he manages it all, Kirchen said,
[Balancing teaching in Sewanee, living in Chattanooga, leading a band in New York, and leading a band in Chicago] starts with planning ahead: normally a year or a year and a half ahead. Scheduling ahead is important and I’ve found that, specifically with music, it sounds crazy that I’m able to go to New York and make a recording, but I booked the session for spring break. That [day] will come and then it will just happen. It’s the same for Chicago. I’ve booked some shows in the summer. If you just do it, it’ll happen. I think that is a good lesson for college students too. To make things happen that seem hard or hard to balance, put something on the books. Then, eventually, that date will roll around. -Kirchen
When responding to the same question, he said that none of his work would be possible without the support of his wife.
At Columbia, Kirchen recently defended his doctoral dissertation on the producer Madlib. Madlib is best known for his work with MF DOOM, Freddie Gibbs, and Quasimoto, but he’s also produced songs for artists like Kanye West. About his dissertation Kirchen stated, “[it] covers a period in [Madlib’s] career — right around the turn of the millenium — where he starts framing his musical practice as one that is about transcending generic barriers and making music that’s not just generic hip hop, but is a part of all the genres.” Each chapter of his dissertation, which is approximately 300 pages, focuses on a technique Madlib uses to distance himself from generic conventions. “For instance, there is a chapter on magic mushrooms that reads the literature on magic mushrooms to try to understand what they actually do and see how [those effects] might be active in his music,” he said. Another of his chapters focuses on a trip to São Paulo that resulted in Madlib buying lots of Brazilian records that he later incorporated into his music.
About writing his dissertation, Kirchen stated:
One of the things that maybe everyone finds when they write a dissertation, but I definitely found that when I got to the end of this dissertation, which is a 300 page document where I was trying to tirelessly discuss every aspect of the subject matter, was that I know absolutely nothing. I became extra aware of all of my holes and all of my blind spots and I feel grateful to be [at Sewanee], teaching classes, because it allows me to fill in some of the blind spots and learn in an open-ended way. -Kirchen
While he is primarily teaching the class, he also said “I fully expect all the stuff that we are doing in [MUSC] 101 and [MUSC] 214 [will] make angles for research that aren’t imaginable to me right now: I think that is what a healthy pedagogical practical should look like.”