Most people have a hard time doing one thing well. You've had four distinct careers. How have you managed to explore it all?
I'm a double Gemini. This is what happens. There are four people living in me, and I'm just now getting to know them. I'm always incredulous that things do change. I always said when I started the Buchla that I would not go back to the piano again. Then when I started the piano, I said I would never go back to the Buchla. Well, then I went back to the Buchla and I said I wouldn't go back to the piano! Now I don't believe myself at all. I know that I don't know what's going to happen. So, this is a surprise to me; but I'm used to surprises. Getting out of New York and commercial production, that was really a health issue. I got sick. Maybe it had nothing to do with my life there, which was intense; I loved it. But I got early breast cancer. It was a signal to me that I was supposed to change my life. I left the big city and came to the end of this dirt road, after my treatments.
You embrace the surprises?
I'm a follower. I have an instinct for a path, and I explore it, as if it's opening up in front of me. I don't come up with an idea and then pre-plan how to go there. I'm organic. I go with the flow.
I'm curious about your time in NYC when you started Ciani/Musica. That was groundbreaking at the time, not only to pack up and go to New York, but to have this idea of starting a studio that made noises for people.
Well, I went to New York to do a live Buchla performance in quadraphonic. I fell in love with New York. I loved the smell. I loved the energy. I felt the minute that I got there that that was where I belonged. So, I never went back to L.A. I didn't even have my belongings with me. I had them put in storage. I just had my Buchla for that concert, and I stayed in New York. Then I got hungry; I was starving. My brain said, "You've gotta find a solution to this." I had done a commercial when I was still in northern California. I had done more when I was in L.A. I had worked in film in L.A., teaching technology to film composers. There was a real interest back then in the film world for this new thing. In New York, I tried to make a career as a performer on the Buchla. What stopped me was that they wouldn't put up four speakers any place in a theater. I'd be at Lincoln Center with a concert scheduled and I needed two more speakers in the back of the room, and they'd say, "What? Are you crazy?" I said, "Well, if you don't put them up, I can't play." That was a dealbreaker. Then I worked for a year and a half trying to get the theaters to change. I started a non-profit corporation called The Electronic Center for New Music. I had a lot of people from the AES on my board, people from the speaker industry, and folks like that. I got to the point where nobody would listen to me because I wasn't rich and famous. I thought to myself, "Well, I'd better become rich and famous." That's what triggered my appetite for moving forward commercially. I stopped wanting to be the Buchla performer, and I started to go after making money with a vengeance.
Where was Ciani/Musica?
I had an apartment at 40 Park Avenue. With the first iteration of Ciani/Musica, the studio was in my apartment, and the office was at 1650 Broadway; the classic music building of all time, right near the Brill Building. It was wonderful. I didn't have to be near the office activity. The studio I initially put in was when I got money to do The Incredible Shrinking Woman soundtrack. I got a big check for that, and I put a home studio in my apartment. There weren't any home studios back then. It was a doorman building, and the guys just let me do it! I didn't allow shoes in the studio, so sometimes there'd be 15 pairs of shoes outside my door when I had clients in. I always felt nervous that I might be threatened to have to move out, but that never happened. For about ten years I ran it in my apartment. I had a view of the Empire State Building. It was tiny, though. Gear was piling up to the ceiling. It was wonderful, but then I felt obliged – because the company got big – to build an outside, big studio. But I was never as happy as I was when I was working at home.
How many people did you have working for you?
Well, I've been working on my archives, and I recently came across a telephone list of contacts for Ciani/Musica staff. There were about 30 people on that contact list. I had employees, but I also had studio interns. Frequently that was how you got in. You'd come in as an intern, and you'd work your way up. That's how it was done. The woman who eventually ran my company, Marina Belica, came in as an intern. Initially I didn't want to hire her because she was too smart. She'd gone to Yale. She was going to be coiling cables and sharpening pencils. I said, "I think you should go get a real job someplace." She said, "Hire the person you want to hire, and I'll come in anyway." She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She became the head of the company.
