Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, band leader, and software programmer. In 1983, he founded the avant-rock octet Doctor Nerve. He presently resides in New York City, where he composes, creates music software, and teaches computer music composition at New York University and Columbia University. Didkovsky's work with Doctor Nerve joins the furious energy of rock with intricate composition, some of which finds its origins in rich software systems of his own design. His non-didactic approach to combining human and machine creativity is his unique fingerprint in a musical world that pushes the boundaries of rock music, algorithmic composition, and contemporary music.
PROGNET DENMARK : How did your adventures with music begin? Did you have any musical training or are you self-taught?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : There was always a guitar around. My grandmother played piano, and I recall that from an early age. First instrument I really played around with a lot with was a smCCall tape recorder (called a "sound camera" back then), playing with sounds backwards, half speed, double speed, etc. Started playing guitar at the age of ten (I think), about a year after my mom decided to learn guitar. She followed a course on public television called "Folk Guitar with Laura Weber" So I watched her learning chords and songs for about a year before I decided I'd like to do the same thing. I think it's remarkable that a middle aged woman would start a new instrument from scratch. It was an extraordinarily powerful model for me. Babies are typically born into an adult world where expertise in adults perceived to somehow have gotten there magically. But to see an adult struggling with an F Major chord, cursing it, sticking with it, and then finally getting it after a few days of hard work ... well that made a strong impression on me as a kid.Took some guitar lessons here and there, was in a couple of rock bands in high school, Took some music theory and electronic music courses in college. Probably the strongest educational experience I had was the year I spent at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1980-81). There I was exposed to a wildly heterogeneous field of thinking and of music... bouncing off lots of people and ideas. Working up new pieces and getting them rehearsed and performed weekly. Truly a great experience. Probably the single teaching moment that most directly led to the existence of Doctor Nerve was a composition class taught by Baikida Carroll and Dave Holland. There was this one simple assignment of writing two musical lines that work together. I spent all night composing these lines and brought it to class the next day. After some fumbling, there was a moment when the room exploded with energy when these 30 student musicians got the riffs locked together. I remember running around the room, dodging in and out between people, just flipping out at how intense the whole thing was. I have a vivid memory of Dave Holland with an electric bass looking up at the blackboard where I'd written the lines... he had this beautiful smile as he was sight reading it. That look on his face went deep into me. I became very hungry to repeat this experience: heavy rhythm section, electric strings, and horns blasting out melodies. That was the beginning of the Doctor Nerve model in terms of instrumentation, musical form, and energy. PROGNET DENMARK : What music genres do you yourself listen to, and is there some kind of music that inspires you?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : I listen mostly to metal these days. I have a ridiculous amount of Sabbath concert recordings. I learn more about music from that band every time I listen to them. Lately I’ve been really digging into Bill Ward’s drumming style. He’s got such a strong jazz influence, and he made that band swing so hard. Incredible player, incredible chemistry in that band. My favorite young band is Lazarus A.D., a thrash band from Kenosha, WI. Lazarus deeply understands and has really held on to the extraordinary power of “the riff”… they compose great riffs and structure their tunes in a perfectly balanced way… the attention to detail is just glorious; love that band. Behemoth’s latest record “Evangelion” is monstrous – it’s a sonic artwork that stands above music.But right now my iTunes is on shuffle play and I am listening to Cornelius Cardew’s “Song and Dance” which is truly lovely.
PROGNET DENMARK : If you should mention 10-15 records that have meant something to you and your music, what would they be?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : In no particular order:
Deep Purple – Made in Japan
Bela Bartok – Sonatas for violin and piano
Stravinsky – Rite of Spring (Boulez conducting Cleveland)
Art Bears - Winter Songs
Queen – Queen II
The Beatles – Meet the Beatles
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Guitar Solos (Frith, Reichel, Bailey)
Cage/Tudor – Indeterminacy
Xenakis – Metastasis; Pithoprakta; Eonta
Jethro Tull – Minstrel in the Gallery
Pere Ubu – 30 Seconds Over Tokyo (EP)
Phill Niblock – music for film (live performances)
Lazarus A.D – Onslaught
Lamb of God – Sacrament
Public Image Ltd – Second Edition
Alice Cooper – Love it to Death
Kiss – Alive!
PROGNET DENMARK : You are in my ears a musician who is in constant movement and going in many different directions from track to track and from release to release. Where do you get your ideas from and what is your secret (if you have one)?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : I find I get interested in something and then I obsess over it and dig in. If it lights something up in me then I go for it. So there’s no telling what it’s going to be. I might be working on a computer program that sonifies the Mandelbrot Set at one point in my life, and really drive that idea hard, explore it and get as deep into it as I can. Then I might get into transcribing Tony Iommi’s solos, and make YouTube lessons with detailed guitar transcriptions. There’s no big picture which I suppose is unfortunate from Careerist point of view (!). I bump into things by accident sometimes and it’ll light up something in me that I trust is worth pursuing and will make my life richer. When I think back to the beginnings of my now heavy involvement in computer music: that was spurred by an article on knot theory that my father mailed me in 1988. On the back of that article there was another article by Douglas Hofstadter about Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Theory. Hofstadter’s article was extremely inspiring, although it had nothing to do with music. It made me want to create a musical piece which was modeled on a particular kind of Prisoner’s Dilemma. And to do that piece, I needed a computer music system. And so I bought a computer (Commodore Amiga) and a music programming language (HMSL) and the obsession began… 20 years later I’ve created my own computer music language JMSL which is what I use to compose today, and teach students how to use it at NYU.So I can’t say I have a secret but re-reading this response I suppose the common thread is an openness to chance ideas and trusting my instincts: that if something is that deeply interesting to me, no matter how obscure, that pursuing it will almost certainly have value to some other people.
PROGNET DENMARK : Are you a full-time musician or is music your second job?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : It’s my second parallel life. I write software for a developmental neurobiology lab at a research university here in NYC.
PROGNET DENMARK : If a new listener were about to buy his first recording with your music, which one would you recommend as the best introduction to your amazing music?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : Thanks for the nice words. If that person were into high energy music I’d point them to Doctor Nerve “SKIN”. If they had a more contemplative “deep listening” vibe about them I’d recommend “Tube Mouth Bow String” or “Ice Cream Time.”
PROGNET DENMARK : Your music is hard to put in any musical boxes, because it has so many different styles mixed with each other. In my opinion you belong in the progressive/experimental part of the music world. Do you agree with that? And what are your opinions on that genre, and genres in general?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : Well I think genres reflect the way the human mind works. Our brains evolved to put things in categories as a matter of survival and understanding the world we live in. I think humans can’t help but categorize, but some healthily resist categorizing, because it can be so limiting. It’s better to try to describe music for what it is and how it’s being received, rather than the genre it’s in of course. But often genre is a good starting point for a description. I don’t have a big problem with genres as a quick conversation starter. The problem starts when the listener expects something else due to the genre description that predated the hearing of the work, and then complains that it’s not X enough or Y enough to fit the genre. There’s a truly insipid conversation online about the Doctor Nerve tune “Plague”; a conversation by educated people who should know better. One comment went something like, “I can’t get into the rock guitar because the horns are in the way, and I can’t get into the jazzy horns because the rock guitar is in the way.” I am paraphrasing here; I don’t remember the exact words, but it was a genre based argument and just so cringingly, painfully stupid and culturally retarded… but at least it serves as an excellent example how the devotion to genre interfered with at least one person’s ability to listen.
PROGNET DENMARK : What's your best advice for young aspiring musicians, who want to make it in the progressive music world or any world for that matter?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : Innovate don’t imitate. Trust yourself and don’t feel obliged to change your music because of some phantom voices in your head or some club that you want to belong to.
PROGNET DENMARK : Could you tell us a little about your many different projects ?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : I am looking forward to a premier of a guitar quartet next weekend by the DITHER Guitar Quartet. Wonderful young band of great players.Also we have this crazy $100 Guitar Project that really took off. ChuckO’Meara and I bought a crappy guitar for $100, as we were charmed by its no-name vibe and this single pickup that looked like an old radio. Within 48 hours we had 30 guitarists on board who wanted to join the project (!) E.everyone will have the guitar for a week and record anything they want with it. It’s so much fun. Keith Rowe just was over my apartment on Monday to record his track. It’s going to go through a lot of hands, including Henry Kaiser, Elliot Sharp, Joe Bouchard (Blue Oyster Cult), Ava Mendoza, Thomas Dimuzio, Fred Frith, Teisco Del Rey, the guys in Lazarus A.D., a rich list is fabulous people. Really a blast to be in the center of this storm.
PROGNET DENMARK : Finally, what are your plans for the future and what will be the next release from your many projects?
NICK DIDKOVSKY : Working on new Nerve tunes. We recorded about ½ an album’s worth of music last summer. Now I need to compose another half and get that cooking. Of course the $100 Guitar is generating a lot of energy for now – we’ll look forward to a double CD sometime next year maybe. My piece “Human Dog” for Electric Kompany and ETHEL String Quartet is going to be recorded along with “Rama Broom” which I wrote for Kathleen Supove. Discussing a release with Bridge Records. Nerve’s going to Zappanale next summer, which is a huge honor. Thanks for this opportunity to talk about my work!