Professor Neil Thornock Discusses the Value of BYU and the Beauty of Creating Music
Music is the art of the soul. For Neil Thornock, creating music is a spiritual journey of self discovery and personal growth.
Thornock, a professor of music theory and composition, reflects on the impact BYU has made on his life and career as a musician.
Q: How long have you been playing music?
Thornock: I’ve been playing piano since I was nine, so 39 years now. My parents weren't musicians, but one day they bought me a little MIDI keyboard from Costco. That was the beginning of it — very quickly I fell in love with classical music.
Q: How has BYU had an impact on your musical journey?
Thornock: I knew I wanted to come to BYU because of my experience at the BYU Young Musicians Summerfest in 1992. I wasn't one of the best pianists there, but the faculty were really supportive and noticed me. I came to BYU as a student for both my undergraduate and my master's degrees. I was a composition major, but I also fell in love with the organ and learned to play the bell tower on campus. Four years later, I came back to teach at BYU.
Q: What do you enjoy most about teaching at BYU?
Thornock: I love teaching our upper division theory class because it's an opportunity to look at the big picture. We get to zoom out and ask, “What does all this mean for creating a meaningful musical experience?” Students learn what story is being told and how the drama plays out in a song. I also teach a class where we discuss how to write music in the style of J.S. Bach. This master composer established the precedent for the way music is made. It's a very rigorous class, but in the end, students are able to hear how something 300 years old still remains essential today.
Q: What makes the School of Music at BYU unique?
Thornock: I value BYU’s mission of joining faith with creativity. I feel that my faith gives me permission to live a life that is moral and and righteous, while crafting an art that is somewhat transgressive and exploratory. Music is a place for me to explore sides of my spiritual self that I wouldn't explore otherwise. BYU has been a perfect place for that to happen, not just in my office, but also in the classroom and with my colleagues. It is valuable to be surrounded by students who bring their own creative and aesthetic worldviews.
Q: What is your creative process in producing music?
Thornock: For me, the process always starts with getting to know other composers' music so I can feel some spark of what I want to do. When I was young, I would listen to 40 LP records. The music was wildly experimental and got me interested in tuning schemes. As a young college student, I had a great desire to write microtonal music. I spent years learning how the tuning worked, getting comfortable with it and writing music. Eventually, the tuning started to make sense to my ears and the music felt good to my soul.
In May, I released an album of solo piano music that draws upon various harmonies and microtuning systems. It is a culmination of many years of work. The album is called Another and Still Stranger World, and reflects a transcendent experience and my ambitious personal exploration.
Q: What have you learned about yourself or the Savior through creating music?
Thornock: For me, creating music is a spiritual journey. The Lord has given a huge universe to explore where we can take risks and discover the beauty in order. There's an interesting dichotomy I love in making music where I can take risks without actually risking anything. I can make a mess and try things out on the one hand, and on the other hand, I can work on refining technique and striving for perfection. I am able to take wild ideas and try to bring them together in a creative thinking process that is like our journey towards the Divine. For really, we are all creators with divine potential.
Q: What would you share with young musicians?
Thornock: I was turned down on my first audition into the BYU School of Music. Don't let some little hiccup in the road stop you from trying again. Invest in what makes you unique, and you will create work that nobody else can. That is what the world needs: your unique voice.