David Mash - Musician, Educator, Futurist - Music Production Podcast #383

David Mash is a musician, composer, educator, technologist, and futurist. David worked at Berklee College of Music for 44 years, first as a teacher of guitar and jazz. Then he started the Music Synthesis department, which is now the Electronic Production and Design department. David was Berklee’s Assistant Dean of Curriculum for Academic Technology (BADCAT) in 1989, Vice President for Technology in 1997, Vice President for Technology and Education Outreach in 2006, and Senior Vice President for Innovation, Strategy, and Technology in 2013. He is the President of the Bob Moog Foundation Board and Chair of the Board for the Alan R. Pearlman (ARP) Foundation.

It was an honor to speak with David, a man who played a major role in bringing the latest in music technology to the academic world. David spoke about his influential career and how he has evolved over the years as a musician. He shared how a hand injury derailed his guitar-playing career and guided him to a new chapter in synthesis and music technology. We discussed his various musical projects and some of the important collaborators he's worked with along the way. It's an incredible story about a man who undoubtedly shaped the musical landscape for all who follow.

This episode is sponsored by Baby Audio, makers of incredible music software. Use the code MPP15 to save 15%! https://babyaud.io 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.957)

Here we are. David, welcome. Thanks for being here.

David Mash (00:04.233)

Thanks, Brian. It's pleasure.

Brian Funk (00:06.346)

Yeah, it's a pleasure for me. And I think probably everyone listening to this owes you some gratitude just for all the work you've done to open doors for music technology just in general. That seems to be a real big part of your life and your work. sometimes we forget that it takes people to...

David Mash (00:21.106)

Thanks.

Brian Funk (00:30.645)

open these doors and convince other people that are maybe more traditional to walk through these doors. This is not a fad, this is not a game, this is where we're going. So I'm very thankful and love that you did that.

David Mash (00:42.057)

And you know, the funny thing about technology is that it moves so quickly and it has moved so quickly for the last 45 years that sometimes it's strange when you think back that, you know, when I was, for instance, proposing the

the music synthesis department at Berkeley, that the internet didn't exist. know, I mean, it's like, you know, people some, you know, when I was getting ready to retire, people were talking about all the things that I did at Berkeley. And, you know, nobody mentioned, you know, I was the one who helped connect the college to the internet. And it's like, that's a funny thing to think about somebody actually having to do, isn't it, in the 21st century?

Brian Funk (01:14.582)

Right. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:30.472)

You

Brian Funk (01:37.343)

Yeah.

It really is. I feel lucky that I was around before the internet was really popularized, you before people were, you know, had it in their house and stuff. So I can remember those days. And I saw an interview with you talking about, you know, how the library had the old school card catalog that you actually pulled out of the drawer. And I do remember learning the Dewey Decimal System in school. Things that

David Mash (01:50.898)

Hmm.

David Mash (02:02.224)

In a drawer, yes.

Brian Funk (02:08.542)

You know, kids today would never know about, it's funny you say this because, I teach high school English for day job and I have ninth graders. And just today I was saying, you know, talking to them about like, just ask them questions. What do you want to do? Like when you get out of school and it really occurred to me probably more than ever that they have a very unique problem in that the jobs that they're going to be going into either don't exist yet.

David Mash (02:11.72)

Yeah.

David Mash (02:17.266)

Mm

Brian Funk (02:36.966)

or the ones they want to go and won't exist. So much more than any other human of any time before. And as you said, know, technology has been advancing, moving so fast and now faster than ever.

David Mash (02:51.622)

Yeah, it's crazy. And you know, I used to talk about my mother who lived to be just shy of a hundred. was in her late 99s.

when she was sick, maybe when she was 98, so that was probably like 2011, right? And my sister went to see her and she took her iPhone and put it in my mother's hand and FaceTimed me. And my mother had never seen it before. And she was going, am I holding David in my hand? It's like, what is this? Because in her lifetime, she remembers the Iceman coming because they didn't have refrigerators.

And she remembers like getting a radio and she remembers getting a television and just, you know, in her lifetime, so much had changed. And then towards the end of her lifetime, they just went like nuts. you know, mean, you know, Ray Kurzweil, many people question, you know, a lot of what he says and predicts. But the one thing that you can't question is the speed of transformation is exponential.

and it's just shooting really high now. And just think, two or three years ago, AI was not a household term. And now everybody's talking about AI.

Brian Funk (04:07.337)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (04:10.985)

Right.

Brian Funk (04:16.455)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Right. Now I'm trying to determine if my students are writing papers with it. It's a routine discussion.

David Mash (04:24.402)

Yeah, exactly.

David Mash (04:28.263)

Yeah, sometimes it makes me feel old but I guess for me I feel very lucky that I got involved with technology in an early stage and so I had to learn more about the technology than people do today to have to use it because it was in its infancy and that has made it very easy for me to stay current with what things are happening because

have a strong technical background in order to actually understand what these new things are really quickly and actually think about how I can help companies take advantage of those things to make new instruments. That's kind of what I've been trying to do for the last 20 or 30 years as part of my life career is working with the industry on creating the tools that I want for my own work.

So it's fun when I get all these great new software instruments, even hardware instruments today, that I have a hand in helping to bring to the market and develop.

Brian Funk (05:43.498)

Right, because I guess we're so used to getting it already with the interface and the kind of like way to interact with it. And back in its infancy, there's, you know, no one thought of these things yet. It's hard to think of even something like a computer mouse as being an invention. That someone had to think of that arrow. I've...

David Mash (05:52.967)

Hmm.

David Mash (06:03.879)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (06:07.07)

taught my grandmother how to like open email one time when she first got our computer. I was like, all right, just now click on that icon. And all that background information that I already had just took for granted. And I realized that when she looked at me and said, click, you know, just this concept like that this moving this thing will control the arrow to do all that work for you.

David Mash (06:31.731)

Yeah, I remember when the Macintosh first came out and the whole idea of the graphic user interface and the mouse as a pointing device. was well known that Alan Kay was the person who invented the mouse and the graphical user interface when he was working at Xerox PARC.

and Steve Jobs went for an interview there, met Alan Kay, saw the graphical user interface and said, that's the future, and then basically took it to make the Macintosh. And I was really fortunate to meet Alan Kay about 10 years ago. Quincy Jones introduced me to him. Turns out that Alan Kay is a really

great guitarist plays jazz and classical guitar as well as pipe organ. so we immediately bonded around the classical guitar and jazz guitar thing. then I just said, you know, thank you for inventing the mouse and the graphical user interface. It changed everything.

Brian Funk (07:31.445)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (07:48.714)

Yeah, it's something people don't even think about. It's a taken for granted thing. to convince people like they're going to use this technology, to convince people of its importance, you need a tangible thing to deliver them, to show them like, well, we can use it like this. And those were major steps. Without those, we might not have been convinced. We might not have.

Or at least the average person might not have ever got their hands on a lot of this stuff.

David Mash (08:20.892)

Yeah. And now, like, we just take it so for granted. You know, it's just part of the evolution.

Brian Funk (08:26.399)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, it is so funny. And especially, like I said, I work with kids that were born, I think, after the iPhone now. They're at that age. So it's just, they don't know a world without it. And I guess there's so many things that other generations have had too, but probably it just seems more and more and more is happening now.

How hard was it to convince people, like you came up through Berkeley and that's where you really brought this stuff to. Was there a lot of resistance to this? Like this isn't, you know, this isn't how we do things. This isn't music.

David Mash (09:05.404)

Yes.

Well, so I was fortunate. I came to Berkeley in 1973, January of 1973, as a student. And I was a guitarist. And I came principally because I wanted to learn to compose. I was not into jazz much when I was younger. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. And I was into Motown and.

rhythm and blues and rock and roll. When I came to Berkeley, playing guitar was extremely looked down upon. It's like when a teacher would get the class list and call roll and they'd see that you played guitar, it's like they put your name in the drawer. It's like, okay, he can't read, he doesn't know anything about music.

Brian Funk (09:58.591)

you

David Mash (10:02.493)

But I was different because I started playing guitar when I was seven and I studied with a great guitar teacher named Joe Fava. And I learned to read right away and I played, I studied classical guitar with Joe and had a teacher named Jack Monquif who had been on the road with James Brown who was teaching me rock and roll and blues. so I had a strong background.

both in improvisation, playing by ear, and reading. by the time I got to Berklee, I could read very well, especially compared to most other guitarists at Berklee. so, Berklee was grappling with this whole thing of, we'd have to accept guitar players. And I was very fortunate because

During that period of time, it was right at the close of the Vietnam War, and because of the GI Bill, a lot of guys came back from Vietnam and they enrolled at Berklee as guitarists. They were rock and roll guitarists and wanted to be jazz guitarists. So the school grew really quickly in the mid -70s, mostly because of the addition of guitarists.

Brian Funk (11:15.188)

Hmm.

David Mash (11:29.137)

And as a result, they needed guitar teachers. And so they hired me while I was still a student to teach guitar. And that's how I got my start at Berklee was teaching part -time as a student in the guitar department. And then when I graduated, they asked me if I wanted to continue teaching. And I started teaching core music, ear training, harmony, ear ranging, that kind of

And, you know, I'll just tell you a little bit of the story. So I graduated Berkeley in 1976. That's when I became a full -time teacher and I started a band which was called ICTIS, principally to play my music. And it was all Berkeley cats, either students or graduates and some teachers, to play my music. And then in 1977,

I had a medical issue with my left hand and lost the use of the hand. Could not use it at all. constant pain. It wouldn't move. And so I had a kind of a human crisis, right? I thought of myself always as having been a guitarist and now I wasn't a guitarist, so who was I?

It was difficult until I was in pain, so was taking painkillers, which was bad. One morning I woke up and I said, well, you know, I was never a guitarist. I was a musician who played guitar. I'm still a musician, and now what instrument am I going to play from this point forward? I had to think about, what instruments could I play with one hand? I could play trumpet, maybe.

Brian Funk (13:19.187)

Hmm.

David Mash (13:26.057)

maybe even trombone because I could hold it, too bad. thought, well maybe I could hold a stick and I could play drums or vibes or things. And I actually took lessons in all those instruments, just a couple, just to get a sense of whether I connected on a spiritual level with the instrument. And I didn't. And I had this epiphany, hey, one of the things I like to do with my guitar,

is make weird noises. I used a lot of distortion and effects and things to try to make interesting timbres. So thought, there's these new things called synthesizers, maybe I should just do that. And so I sold all my guitars and all my amplifiers and I bought an ARP 2600 and a 16 step sequencer and a small tape recorder.

and rejoined the band playing synthesizer.

literally from the time I got my ARP 2600 until my first gig was three weeks. so fortunately I had written all the music so you know I knew it and what I just had to do is to find a role for myself that I could fit into. And so I thought well you know I play some of the melodies, I can double the melodies, I can write harmony parts and play like

two horns except synthesizer and saxophone. I could double the bass line and do some cool bass kind of things. And then I started practicing with the saxophone player because I was never really a keyboard player. So I had to learn to play the keyboard, first of all. But at the same time, because I was going to play melodies with him or even harmonies with him, he was like an amazing saxophone player, this guy.

David Mash (15:31.677)

Bob Zung, for anybody who knows him. Anyways, he forced me to think about phrasing and how to articulate notes on the synthesizer, which was not easy. This was before there were polyphonic keyboards. This was before there was aftertouch and velocity sensitivity, all the things that today everybody takes for granted. So I had to learn how to...

Brian Funk (15:44.723)

Hmm.

David Mash (16:01.203)

phrase using my left hand to move parameters while I was playing. And then our very first gig, my very first gig as a synthesis was opening for Dave Brubeck. that is like, you know, talk about, you know, trial by fire.

Brian Funk (16:15.077)

Okay.

Brian Funk (16:25.607)

Yeah, and you're on. Let's see what you got.

David Mash (16:29.129)

I drove up to the gig in my little Chevette and I opened the hatchback and I'm taking out my synthesizer in the original cardboard box because I hadn't even gotten a chance to have a road case made for it. And there's, you know, Dave Brubeck's semi with his road crew unloading all the road cases and one of the roadies looks down from the lift gate at me taking my 2600 out of my car.

in its cardboard box and says, hey man, nice road case. And I felt like, that big. And now I'm going on the stage to do a sound check with Dave Brubeck and his band. He was touring with his sons at the time. And I was just petrified. But the gig went well and we ended up doing more gigs afterwards with him. And it was...

Brian Funk (17:02.068)

Alright.

David Mash (17:27.233)

you know, was kind of a start to my career. And then his son Darius introduced me to David Friend, who was the president of ARP Instruments. And ARP was located in Boston where I was living, so I started being a pest. And I got to know Alan R. Perlman and David Friend really well. David Friend's still a very close friend, and Alan was until he died a few years ago. And, but that...

that connected me with the people who were building the tools that I needed to use as a musician. And I was on stage every night with this 2600, like struggling to make it respond like a musical instrument. I didn't have any trouble making sounds because I knew about the basics of electronics, getting it to respond like a musical instrument and feel in my hands like a musical instrument.

was a challenge. So I would talk to them all about, know, and that kind of began my career working with the industry towards building better tools. Anyways, so when I, I, then I became a synthesis and still teaching at Berkeley full time and everybody knew that I was into this weird thing now, right? And it was like,

Brian Funk (18:38.143)

Wow, yeah, continue.

David Mash (18:53.117)

What's Mash doing? He's playing that weird music with electronic stuff, know, those big instruments with flashing lights and stuff.

and

A few years later, I decided to give up touring. mean, we were playing sometimes as much as 100 dates, and I was still teaching full time, which was really very difficult. So I stopped playing with the band, and I got a job with the Boston Shakespeare Theater, which was

never did Shakespeare. This was the director Peter Sellars was doing avant -garde theater in Boston at the Boston Shakespeare Theater. And I got hired to do this musical version of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage. And they built me into the stage. All my synthesizers were under the stage and all the audience could see was my head.

floating above the stage we had to wear, there were two other musicians and we had to wear black turtlenecks. So our heads would look like they were floating on the stage. as luck would have it, the provost of Berkeley, at the time, Bob Scherr, was in the audience for the opening show and he saw my head on the stage and he opened the playbook and he saw my name in the band.

David Mash (20:33.459)

So he came back afterwards and said, hey, I didn't know you were doing this electronic stuff. We need to do this at Berkeley. Would you be willing to develop a new program in this? And I said, sure. And there was a small amount of pushback at the beginning from other people at the college about the start of this new major, but it didn't really infringe on anybody else's thing. It was a separate major.

And so we started it in 1984 and immediately became quite popular. In fact, by the second year we had to institute enrollment caps because so many students wanted to learn how to make music using the technology. And of course, by then, you know, the computer was starting to be part of it. And I got really interested in

more interested actually in how the technology could be used to teach music as opposed to to teach music production using electronics. And so I started, I learned to code in Hypercard, which was a program that came free with every Macintosh in those days. And I started writing exercises for the students to work on to help them

Brian Funk (21:41.759)

Mm

David Mash (22:02.129)

outside of class learn more about the synthesizer and sequencing at the time. We weren't even deep into digital audio yet at that time. But I got a grant from Apple to actually finish a complete tool set for educators to use multimedia in their teaching. And that's when the pushback began.

because then it was like we were talking about teaching music using technology as opposed to teaching kids how to use the technology to make music.

David Mash (22:42.121)

It wasn't until 1989 that the college leadership looked at me and said, I think you're onto something there, and let's start doing this. And so they made me assistant dean of curriculum for academic technology. And my role was to integrate technology throughout the curriculum at Berkeley. And the first thing I had to do was to win the hearts and minds of all the department chairs, because

they were the people who had to make the change. You couldn't force people to do things they don't want to do. And so, fortunately for me, they knew me as a chair because I was a department chair of the music synthesis department, which is now called Electronic Production and Design. And they also knew me as a musician and as a composer and as a teacher at Berkeley for many years. from that perspective, I had their trust in

and support and then it was just trying to convince them to think differently about how they were teaching their students in their majors in order to integrated technology to improve the learning capability.

David Mash (23:59.593)

That was a long -winded talk.

Brian Funk (24:01.482)

That's great. but I, I picked up on a couple of things that I think probably worked well for one that you were already a department chair and an educator. You weren't another person coming in. Like I know how teachers are. I'm one myself. So you, you get skeptical about anyone that's coming in, telling you how to teach that's not actually teaching. So to have somebody with that background is I'm sure was a very important part of the whole process.

David Mash (24:30.281)

Yeah, and by that time I had been teaching for 15 years. So it was easier. And also I realized that you can't convince people to do anything that they don't believe in. So you have to demonstrate. You have to show what could be done, come up with some ideas, and let people run with those ideas.

Brian Funk (24:34.175)

Mm

David Mash (24:59.016)

One thing I learned just last week, I released a little video on Facebook and Instagram of 83 fortune cookie fortunes that I had saved over the years that I had saved because they kind of spoke to me. And one of them was

It's amazing what you can do when you don't have to take credit.

David Mash (25:34.96)

So I thought about that one really struck me. And the other one that struck me was a fortune cookie that I got, but actually was a quote by Alan Kay, which is, the best way to predict the future is to build it. And so if you have an idea for what you think the future might be, the best thing to do is to go about step by step figuring out how to get there. so I think that

It was easier at Berkeley at the time to get people to buy into the idea by letting them think of the things they wanted to do themselves and let them take credit for it. And just be, and try to inspire them and lead them with good ideas and let the power of your ideas be the thing that gets things done.

Brian Funk (26:32.218)

That's very cool and a very lack of ego way of approaching it. I would imagine you're probably a good person to jam with. You got to let go of some of that stuff in performance too.

David Mash (26:43.91)

I'd like to think I am. Yeah. Well, that's the thing about, you know, when I was in in bands, all my youth and, even the band that I had that I was speaking about, Hictus.

There is the approach to a band where you have a leader of the band, right? And then you have the approach that we had, which was we're all band members and I'm the spokesperson. I also happen to write the music and I also was part of the business and things. But when you're making music, it's everybody's contribution. And when somebody else is soloing, your job is to make them sound as good as they can.

That was one of the things that I found a role for myself in the band was listening to everybody else and coming up with sounds and lines that would support and help the band grow in sound and texture and dynamics, et cetera. Kind of like an electronic orchestrator in real time.

Brian Funk (27:50.835)

Right? And the synthesizer presents some different challenges with just the timbre because a lot of our band, you know, arrangements, guitar, bass, drums, keys work because everything is kind of out of the way of each other. The bass is lower, the guitar is higher, you know, but the synth can cover the entire range and all kinds of, it can be buzzy, it can be mellow, it can be low.

A lot of thinking that has to go into where you're going to sit, where you're going to play. And then sure you had access to all the different pitches and you've got to really pay attention to that.

David Mash (28:31.079)

Yeah, and you know, I think...

what you have to do is to be aware. You you're in the music and you're listening and you know what you're hearing and so then your decision becomes what is missing? What's the one thing that you could put in that would make it better? And not cover up the bass, and not cover up the guitar, and not cover up the...

And so, you know, that was for me, the difficulty was not in finding the right sounds. The difficulty was in.

the dichotomy between being spiritually inside the music as a group and then cognitively having to make these very specific decisions and then, okay, now I know what I want to do, which knobs do I go for? But if you do it every night, you get fast at it, you get good and while everybody's improvising, they're still playing with their framework.

Brian Funk (29:30.559)

Mm -hmm.

David Mash (29:42.502)

you begin to design these things that seem to work.

Brian Funk (29:47.873)

Was it hard to not be too technical? Because that is a big part of a lot of what we do as musicians anyway, I guess is you've got this kind of like one side of the brain where that's creative and it wants to feel it emotionally and be in the moment. But then there's the kind of technical side that has to judge it and has to actually in the case of synthesizers, dial in filters and envelopes and all that kind of stuff.

David Mash (30:15.945)

And that's the dichotomy that I was talking about. And in the early days, I would have headphones on, and every time I wanted to, there was no memory in these synthesizers. So no presets. So you want to get to that sound in the B section that doubles the bass, you better know how to make that sound really quick. And so I'd have to put on the headphones. I had a switch installed in my 2600.

Brian Funk (30:18.367)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:29.373)

Right, no presets, yeah.

Brian Funk (30:34.897)

you

David Mash (30:45.768)

It was custom modification so that I could remove the signal from the house system but still have it in my headphones. So then I could do what I had to do and then take the headphones off, get back in the music, flick the switch and then come in at the right time.

Brian Funk (30:53.97)

Alright.

Brian Funk (31:04.362)

Wow.

David Mash (31:08.22)

you know, when memory came around, changed my life.

Brian Funk (31:12.25)

I could imagine. Another thing we take for granted these days. Because every time you dial it in, there's probably a little variation, I would imagine, right? A little bit different. Yeah.

David Mash (31:16.892)

Yeah, exactly.

David Mash (31:23.621)

absolutely. And so, you you have to take the approach where you had to in those days where different is okay. As long as it's not like so different that it's terrible. But you have to have some space for yourself to fit in as opposed to it has to be this and only this. And that actually can lead to more creativity.

Brian Funk (31:37.01)

I

David Mash (31:52.357)

You find things that, that's really different. These two sliders just moved a little bit, made a huge difference. Wow, that's cool. Let's go with that.

Brian Funk (32:02.825)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's one of the things that gets a little tricky these days because we can make everything the same. can, especially if you're playing to tracks using something like Ableton Live to program stuff. Sometimes I miss the freedom to have those accidents happen. You know, it's nice. for me, like my two kind of worlds is like very

music production inside the computer, but then it's also a three -piece garage rock band. And sometimes my guitar is crunchier. Sometimes it's a little cleaner and you know, the knobs on the pedals moved somewhere and you discover things that way a lot of times by accident, but just because you can and you maybe don't even, I don't always even have like an actual set thing for a lot of what we do.

There's this sort of cloud of possibilities that I float around in, but it's freeing.

David Mash (33:03.336)

Yeah, and you know, I think that can be a place where you can get so creative. You know, when you are not rigidly bound by, it has to sound just like that.

David Mash (33:21.097)

You know, I mean, I do a lot of work in the DAW with countless hours spent tweaking every single load to make it just perfect. so there is that capability with all this stuff. sometimes we get completely drawn in and we forget about the other thing, which is the happy accidents, which is I'm always looking for those happy accidents.

Brian Funk (33:45.397)

Mm

David Mash (33:50.952)

I'll do like 30 tracks of the guitar and just waiting for something really to happen that I wasn't expecting that then I could go with and then the energy of the moment gets captured.

Brian Funk (34:07.124)

Right. Yeah. That energy in the moment. One of my favorite things to do is just let the track run and just play, play, play. So I forget I'm recording and just get lost in it and then go back. And sometimes you find that like four bars. That's just, Ooh, that's it right there. And I wouldn't do that deliberately, but in the kind of freedom of just, see what happens. Sometimes you get lucky.

David Mash (34:14.042)

Mm

David Mash (34:23.739)

Exactly.

David Mash (34:33.223)

Yeah, you know, there's, the way I look at it, these tools give us so many opportunities for different ways of interacting with them. And there's the time that you're in the creative mode where you want everything to be as transparent as possible while you're actually creating. And then there's the time when you're like, okay, it's tweet time and now I'm really

using the other side of my brain to make sure that that note is perfect and that's the right way. Finding the balance is, I think, the search that we're always involved with.

Brian Funk (35:16.948)

Yeah. Do you have any ways of doing that? Cause that's a hard switch sometimes. Cause it's almost, it's almost opposing, right? Like you have to, and I noticed this most often when I'm trying to record vocals and not a trained singer, I just use my voice, but you have to be in the moment. You have to feel it, but then you have to also be critical. Am I singing the right notes? it?

in time, there's so that's a very challenging place to work. I don't know, it's just, I'm just asking kind of an open ended question. If you have any thoughts on the switch.

David Mash (35:56.04)

Yeah, my, so I'm, I'm living a very fortunate life right now. I'm retired from Berkeley and so, I pretty much can do what I want to do with my day and my time. And so what I've found myself doing is,

David Mash (36:19.067)

If I'm feeling creative and I'm looking for something new, I sit down at the computer, I meditate, I get into a state where I'm hearing music in my head and then I start exploring. And there's a state that I'm in for sometimes three or four hours where I'm just exploring in that place where you're not aware that you're alive. You're just...

hearing and interacting and doing. And there's other times when you're not feeling quite as creative or inspired and that's when I go back and I work on the stuff that I did in the other state and start thinking about as you did, is that the right note, is that the right sound, let me play with that some more. And then what usually happens is I get back into that space again where I'm just inside the sound world that I'm creating.

And then I lose track of time and a few hours go by and go take a break. But I've learned in my own work that there are, so I'll usually have five or six things going at a time. And depending on how I'm feeling and what mood I'm in and whether my creative side or my intellectual side is more active at the time, then I choose that role to be in.

Brian Funk (37:25.032)

Hehehe.

David Mash (37:51.368)

I don't know that makes any sense.

Brian Funk (37:52.778)

It makes a lot of sense. I think about it in a similar way. If I'm not particularly inspired, you know, I know I want to do something, but I'm not, you know, the sounds aren't coming to me, then I'll get into something more technical or more like exercise based even. And I find usually it doesn't take long before I slip into it. And I use that to almost fool myself, you know, to get to work.

David Mash (38:23.132)

Yeah, I think it's.

Brian Funk (38:23.677)

I wanted to ask you, you said meditate. Do you mean that in like a formal practice kind of way or just kind of sitting there thinking about what you want to do?

David Mash (38:37.032)

Yes, both.

Brian Funk (38:40.19)

Okay.

David Mash (38:43.208)

I've had a lot of medical challenges in my life and I've learned over the years that

David Mash (38:55.637)

the best way for me to cope with everything is to be able to find that place, that meditative state where I am not conscious. I mean, everybody who plays a musical instrument has had that experience where you're in the music, you're not alive. You're just part of the act of making this sound.

For me, I used to do yoga and I do formal meditation kinds of tricks to get my mind to quiet. But, you know, when you do it all the time, for me it's mostly breathing and relaxing and then I just can get into that place. And when I'm in that place, that's when the music happens.

you know, as you said, sometimes you get into that place by using your conscious mind doing something until you forget that you're doing it and you get pulled into it. But I always start with, you know, relaxation, breathing, concentration, and then I start.

Brian Funk (40:16.502)

I've dabbled in meditation, you know, mostly like paying attention to what I'm thinking and letting it go, know, letting it pass, realizing it's just thoughts. Anyway, it's actually helped me a lot as my job as a teacher.

Because I'm sure you might be able to relate to these late night worries sometimes when you've got a class tomorrow and not really sure about what you're doing or questioning it. And then you start questioning everything like, well, who am I? And as an English teacher for me, always like turns into like, that rock and roll teacher. Who does he think he is? Like they're going to find me out. know, everyone's going to realize I'm a fraud. And now I'm like in the whirlpool.

David Mash (40:59.717)

you

Brian Funk (41:02.72)

but through some meditation and just paying attention to realize like, well, that's just thought, you know, I'm just thinking this. It's only happening here. No one's really thinking that. And it's like, I'm watching a movie and the movie's called like, you're terrible Brian. And everyone's about to find out. I literally like take the movie out and put a different one in. And that one's called like, well, you figured this out before. You'll do what you think is right.

Brian Funk (41:31.945)

But those moments, I guess it's so vulnerable, right? Like when you're music and when you're teaching, you're doing anything, I suppose we can be really vulnerable to kind of let yourself be okay with that and relax. I've done it in the opposite way. Sorry, with exercise though too, where sometimes that gets me there as well, which is.

David Mash (41:50.696)

You know, it's funny.

Brian Funk (41:59.867)

weirdly relaxing even though it's strenuous.

David Mash (42:03.336)

Yeah, a lot of people find exercise is a good way to get into that place. It hasn't worked for me in my life, but it's funny, I never had stage fright as a musician, because I always had an instrument between me and the audience. But I spent a good part of my career doing public speaking, going to

national conferences and being a keynote speaker about how technology is changing X, Y, or Z, about using technology in education, especially music educators. And the night before any of those speeches, I would wake up and I'd be like, who are you to be talking to these people? And what do you know? You never even studied this stuff. You learned it on the streets. And they're going to find out you're a fraud. And I'd pace around in the middle of the night. And then it would go fine.

And eventually I learned the tools of quieting my mind so that even when that was happening, I could breathe and focus on either a sound or do the focus on different parts of your body and just get into that space.

Yeah, I mean just doing it for so many years now, it is a practice. it's not like I sit in the lotus position and I do a specific thing. I worked a lot in my Berkeley career with Gary Burton, the great vibes player. And Gary used to always say that when he went out on stage, he basically cleared his mind and let the inner musician come out and play.

and that he was there only to gauge what the audience was doing and decide whether the next tune should be faster or slower. And the music was just coming out through him, not from him. And that was a really inspirational way of thinking about it.

Brian Funk (44:23.082)

Yeah, the instrument is a protective barrier in a way. Sometimes I think, like I guess as teaching you do a lot of public speaking, but my audience in those situations are captive. And I don't mean like, because they're very attentive. mean, cause they can't leave, you know, they have to be there. There's an attendance policy. So some of the speaking stuff, like

David Mash (44:26.758)

Yeah.

David Mash (44:37.716)

They can't leave, yes.

Brian Funk (44:49.909)

say like a stand -up comedian to me is that's unbelievable that anyone can do that. And sometimes even just the talking between songs during a show is scarier than the show itself, the actual playing.

David Mash (45:08.646)

Yeah, when I had a guitar on my shoulder, the...

David Mash (45:18.855)

then speaking to the audience was much easier than just walking up to a microphone naked. And for all the years that I performed as a synthesizer player, I'd have to leave the stack of instruments to get to the microphone. And then I just felt a little more naked. It wasn't until I learned, hey, you know, they have these things called boom stands on microphones. And I could pull it around in front of me and keep the synthesizers.

Brian Funk (45:39.541)

Alright.

Brian Funk (45:45.13)

you

David Mash (45:48.666)

in between me and them. Then I got a little better at talking to the audience.

Brian Funk (45:53.969)

Another beautiful piece of technology, The boom stand.

David Mash (45:59.624)

Yeah, and then, you know, I had mentioned how I got into synthesizers, but 10 years after they told me I would never play guitar again, I hurt my right hand and went back to the doctors to see about what was going on with it. And they said, it's just a soft tissue injury, but I think we can fix your left hand now. And so they actually took a tendon out of my...

Brian Funk (46:00.319)

you

David Mash (46:28.956)

left arm and they rebuilt this part of my hand with it so that I can play again. So then I got into the whole thing about combining guitar and synthesizers and guitar MIDI and started working with companies around that agenda.

Brian Funk (46:50.538)

That's amazing how technology came through again for you. That must have just been such a, like you said, your identity was wrapped up as a guitar player. And I think we do that to ourselves a lot with our identity. And I've noticed this with my own students, a lot of times when they get upset with other students is because their identity is threatened. Ultimately, that's what it is.

I'm just kind of curious about that realization, that moment you had when you realized I'm a musician that plays guitar, because that seems like a huge step, probably therapeutically, I would imagine, too, emotionally, just to come to terms with it. Because I think, you know, for a lot of people that play instruments, a lot of musicians, that's like a worst nightmare kind of situation.

David Mash (47:47.846)

Yeah, well, you know, when I tell the story, it takes about one second between the bad time and then I've made my decision to become a synthesis. It was actually a long time and there was there was a lot of depression and abusive substances and such that and I just more than anything else, I woke up that one day and I just said, I can't live like this. This is not a good way to live. I can't.

Brian Funk (47:55.935)

You

David Mash (48:17.511)

I can't do this anymore. I've got to find a different solution. then it occurred to me, you know, the idea that I never was a guitarist. I was always a musician who played guitar. I'm still a musician. What will I do from this point forward? And, you know, today when I meet people and they ask me, what do I do? You know, it's like, well, I'm a musician. And then they want to know, well, what do you play? And, you know, then I...

it's like really hard. play everything. I play synthesizers and guitar and synthesizers can make any sound. so because I have the tools and because I have spent the last 40 years mastering these tools, I can make it sound like it's a bass player or a horn section or a string section and make it quite believable. And so, know, it's...

Brian Funk (48:50.761)

Yeah.

David Mash (49:17.872)

It's kind of a difficult way to describe yourself when you say, I'm a musician. And I express myself through these different tools. And then people want to know, what kind of music do you make? Well, I make lots of different kinds of music, depending on how I'm feeling on a given day. then it's an interesting way of constructing your identity, as you were saying.

Brian Funk (49:35.839)

Right.

Brian Funk (49:46.877)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, I'm sure that, that, mean, obviously it changed everything for you. Was your relationship to the guitar, it feel different when you came back to it? When you were able to play again?

David Mash (50:01.294)

No, it was amazing.

Brian Funk (50:03.668)

Yeah.

David Mash (50:07.016)

When I started playing again, the first thing was my hand is not a normal hand. I mean it's shaped, it's misshapen. And I had to kind of figure out moving these muscles that hadn't moved in 10 years. They were atrophied. And you know, first I did physical therapy and then I had the balls and the squeezing things and all the things that you do to get those muscles moving again.

The strangest thing was when I finally got to a point where I decided to pick up the instrument. I had to go out and buy one. I didn't own any guitars, so I had to go get one. I finally did that. It was like everything that I learned when I was eight and nine, it was right there. They talk about muscle memory, but the muscle memory isn't in your muscles. It's in your brain. And I didn't have a brain injury. I had a hand injury.

And so it was really getting my mind out of the way to let the muscle memory come from my brain and tell my fingers what to do. And then it was, you probably took six months before I felt like I could play in front of another person. And, you know, I'm still self -conscious because, you know, I can't play the way I did when I was a little kid and, you know, monster chops and stuff. But

Chops don't matter if you have music. mean, the music is what is ultimately what it's about, right? And the chops that I have is the decisions I make in my music and the control I have over the tool sets that

Brian Funk (51:44.671)

Right.

Brian Funk (51:54.773)

Yeah, it's something you learn, I guess, as you start playing instruments that it's not all about the chops. mean, there's plenty of people that are proving that on the internet right now that have short 30 second videos playing whatever, but it's just kind of, it's almost like a circus act in a way. It's not the music.

David Mash (52:16.915)

Well, you know, the thing about chops is that technique builds on the past. And just like technology is growing at an exponential rate, people's chops ability is growing at an exponential rate. You see people coming up with new ways because they saw one person do this thing. Well, then if I did that and also did this, then it just keeps building and building.

Brian Funk (52:41.919)

Hmm.

David Mash (52:44.616)

And that's a wonderful thing. I'm just, you like you said, you watch these videos and you just go, man, that's amazing. But what, like for 30 seconds, but you know, where is the music eventually? And then you find the kids who have the music too. And then it's like, wow, that's amazing.

Brian Funk (53:06.483)

Yeah, right. Yeah, that's a great point too. guess like, you know, when people were introduced to things like tapping on the guitar, like, wow, like now what can we do with that? Now you come into guitar knowing that's an option. And a lot of the tapping techniques these days are, blows my mind, like what people can do.

David Mash (53:29.96)

Yeah, you know, in the, it was about 14 years between the time that I stopped playing guitar that I bought that guitar. And in that 14 years, guitar technology changed completely. And it was like, you know, I never did tapping when I was a kid, you know? It was like, so there's all these things to learn. And of course, I was an adult with a job and kids and

and a career doing something else and trying to find the time to learn all those things. So eventually I just said, you know, there are plenty of young kids that can explore that. I'm just going to continue exploring my thing. I'm just going to look for the music in me.

David Mash (54:20.912)

and be happy and complete in that.

Brian Funk (54:28.032)

When you were talking about the muscle memory thing and how it's actually really your memory. again, it just reminds me of some of this meditation stuff where everything is a thought.

Everything we experience in the world is filtered through our mind first and even what we see they've shown is just our interpretation of what's out there. It's what we're capable of processing in our brains and we're all looking at a kind of our own approximation in the world. I guess that's just a powerful lesson.

pretty extreme way to learn it and to really see it firsthand from what you went through. must have been a pretty cool moment though to go back to that.

David Mash (55:20.731)

It was in.

You know, I...

When I lost use of my left hand, there was, as I mentioned, deep sense of loss and depression and, woe is me, what have I done to deserve this? I thought I was a good person, blah, blah, blah. And yet now, 50 years later, basically, that incident,

turned my life in a way that I never would have predicted, gave me a whole different career trajectory than I ever would have had just as a guitar player. And now I look at it as what an amazing thing that happened to me, positively. And so I used to counsel students at Berkeley because people, a lot of the teachers, for instance, knew about my experience with the loss of my hand.

Brian Funk (56:08.915)

Hmm. Yeah.

David Mash (56:25.481)

you know, students would get injured and they'd get all depressed. And teachers would recommend that they come and talk to me. I would try to, you know, at least talk about my experience and maybe that might help them look at things a little differently. And also, you know, just, you know, I think the most important thing is looking for the door, you know. It's like,

Brian Funk (56:43.924)

Yeah.

David Mash (56:57.76)

There's a song lyrics that one door opens another one, one door closes another one opens. You just have to be kind of open to not feeling like everything has to be linear and direct. In fact, when you talk to most people, their lives do this. They don't go linear and direct. And accepting that and taking advantage of that is an important part of growing as a human being.

Brian Funk (57:28.639)

Hmm, another song lyric, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. But what a great, you know, to offer that to other, young students going through that, to be able to be an example. Like, hey, look, you know, it's terrible what happened, but look, it's not over. There's other options, there's other choices. I guess,

David Mash (57:33.76)

busy making other plans.

Brian Funk (57:58.358)

You know, it's hard to play like what if, but in your case, it might even mean some of these like electronic music and synthesizer programs never would have come about.

David Mash (58:12.594)

Who knows? It would have been an alternative universe. And you can think about what would have happened had I chosen a different path. I'm very fortunate that...

Brian Funk (58:13.897)

Yeah. And all their new unit.

David Mash (58:28.723)

you know, that my career gave me the kind of the platform to institute a lot of change and that those changes ended up to be in line with the way the world was changing. you know, I think...

David Mash (58:50.272)

I can't imagine that Berkeley would not have adopted technology if somebody else had done it, but it might not have happened the way that it did. And it would have been okay too. you know.

I was at Berkeley for 41 years and when I retired everyone was saying, you what are you going to do now? It's like, I don't know, just going to wake up in the morning and try to decide what to do. And now my wife tells me I'm busier than I ever was when I was working full time. And my response is, yeah, but I'm only doing things I want to do. You know, I feel like I was very fortunate to have a career at Berkeley that

Brian Funk (59:22.197)

Thank

David Mash (59:36.425)

allowed me to get to a point where I can retire and do what I want and I owe it to give back as much as I can. And so, you know, I do a lot of volunteer work. You know, I'm the president of the Bob Moog Foundation Board of Directors and I'm the chair of the Board of Directors for the Eleanor Perlin Foundation. I sit on the board of Berklee City Music. I try to do things that give back to the industry.

and the people that allowed me to have a career. Same thing with working with companies like Korg on the ARP 2600 reissue. That was a fantastic opportunity to participate in making an instrument that really changed my life available to a whole new generation of young people. What a cool thing.

Brian Funk (01:00:31.36)

Yeah, absolutely. Really kind of reflects the creative process in a lot of ways. Like, as you said, like, is one door closes and other opens. And that's a lot of what we face all the time. It's, you know, today we have infinite possibilities, essentially, right? With our technology, with our DAW, if you just have a garage band, you're, you're pretty set, especially compared to what artists in the past had to work with.

And I find a lot of times that makes it really hard to do anything. It's almost like when you've run into limitations or obstacles or challenges, then you get the chance to be creative. Like I never feel that creative when I'm searching through 9 ,000 kick drum samples. Like probably literally have 9 ,000 kick drum samples on the computer. But.

David Mash (01:01:24.227)

Probably me too, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:01:26.813)

I feel creative when I take the one kick drum that's sitting behind me and repitch it or time stretch it or do something to make it fit with what I'm trying to work. And that's stimulating and it's exciting to solve problems. And it's, it's, know, where you went with all of this found other ways.

David Mash (01:01:48.294)

Yeah, and you know, I...

David Mash (01:01:53.224)

People used to ask me, like, you so where did you learn to do all these things? You know, and I say, music. And, you know, music teaches you so many things if you just allow yourself to think about it differently. I mean, like, what does a composer do? They, they, they have an idea and they have an idea of where they want to go. And then they have to figure out how to get from here to there. Right.

And that's exactly what large -scale project planning is. You have an idea, you know where you want to go, you know where you are, you kind of analyze what it will take to get from here to there, and then you design a plan to get there. And the same thing with leadership. When you're in a band, sometimes you're the leader, sometimes you're the follower, but you figure out the right role to play at the right time.

based on what's happening around you. And that's when you're leading a project and you have lots of people who are involved, part of it is just getting them to know what the end result is supposed to be. let them help find the right path to that end result. If they can see it as clearly as you can, they'll bring a different set of sensibilities in, so working with them can make that happen.

Those are all things you learn in music and by playing with people.

David Mash (01:03:29.91)

It's an amazing thing.

Brian Funk (01:03:32.243)

It is, and a lot of times on this podcast we're talking about music, but it feels like a metaphor for life. We're really talking about life and so many of the things that you pick up along the way and playing with other people and realizing that the best thing I can do right now is not play. Just sit out and let other people do it or trusting.

in other people's ideas, even though they might be different than what you have and realizing that that leads you to new ideas that you never would have had due to that back and forth. It comes up all the time where I think it's for me, I think it's helped me be a much more, much easier person to be around, just understanding some of those things and how they really apply to a lot of life too.

Brian Funk (01:04:25.641)

That's a great teacher.

David Mash (01:04:25.671)

true.

David Mash (01:04:29.798)

Yeah, and somebody told me that the way to really learn something is to teach it. And the more you're teaching, the more you understand about things that you thought you knew, but you didn't really understand the whole of them until you're trying to impart them to somebody else.

David Mash (01:04:52.208)

I used to, I mean I still love teaching. I don't do as much of it as I could, but I do enough of it to get my fix.

Brian Funk (01:05:02.537)

Yeah. I can clearly remember having to learn grammar for real when I had to teach it.

David Mash (01:05:11.623)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:05:13.646)

you start thinking about it in different ways. Well, how am going to get them to understand it? And I started thinking of it almost like traffic signs or like manners. I teach my kids like making paragraphs in your writing. It's like holding the door open for somebody. You're trying to help them understand or just so many different ways you start thinking about it that solidifies how you understand it and deepens the way you understand things.

David Mash (01:05:40.53)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (01:05:42.549)

And the cool thing is you don't have to really be much further ahead than another person to exercise that. And again, for me, when I first started teaching the first book my classes ever had to read, I came in the middle of the year, another teacher was having a baby and I came in to fill in. They were in the middle of catcher in the rye, which at 25 years old, I'd never read. So

At that point, they knew it better than me. I did a couple of things to stall it and then I caught up and just stayed like one ahead. And it was pretty cool to see it, to feel it, guess, you know, and that's just when I really learned that, that by teaching it, you have to, it really helps you absorb something. It helps you come to a deeper understanding.

David Mash (01:06:33.212)

Well, and the other thing is, like you said, just being one step ahead of your students, the key is that you're bringing something to it from your vantage point, which is always going to be different than anybody else's vantage point. And just being comfortable with that as being something that you're bringing to the interaction, you don't have to know everything there is about something.

to be able to bring your own perspective and be helpful to somebody else as they learn and think about it.

Brian Funk (01:07:08.105)

Right? I always feel like I learn the most as the teacher. Even in the Berkeley online class I teach, it's sampling class with Ableton Live. And just by the sheer fact that I listen to every single person's assignment, try to give feedback, try to understand what their struggles are.

David Mash (01:07:14.161)

Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Funk (01:07:31.727)

There's always something that comes up. There's questions that I don't know the answer to that I then have to learn the answer to figure out. it's one of the best things you can do for your own learning.

David Mash (01:07:44.379)

Absolutely.

Yes, sampling. I think when you just said that, think back to the way that I met Bob Moog was I got hired to do some consulting work for Ray Kurzweil when he was building the Kurzweil 250. And Bob Moog was hired to consult on that project as well, as was Alan R. Perlman, which was really interesting. None of us simultaneously.

Brian Funk (01:08:14.575)

nice.

David Mash (01:08:18.604)

But.

Bob did hire me when he became vice president of Kurzweil, he hired me to write the manual for the Kurzweil 250 because it was such a deep and complicated instrument that people just didn't know what it could do. So, and I took the perspective of not the engineer's perspective of telling everything what every knob could possibly do.

or what every button or what every parameter could do. But rather, if you want to do this, this is how you get into that place. Musically, you want to do this, here's where you go and how you get there. But being involved with one of the very first sampling instruments, at the time, this was 1985, the world was responding to sampling as

the end of musicians. Because if they can sample your sound, what do you have to offer? And the musicians union was like going crazy of anti -sampling. Don't take those gigs sampling your sound on your instrument. It's a terrible thing. It's going to put musicians out of work. And I don't think it did.

Brian Funk (01:09:46.474)

No.

David Mash (01:09:48.786)

But it's one of those things about how...

David Mash (01:09:55.622)

Resistance to change is not the answer to change because change is going to happen. everybody was talking to me about, do that because the technology is going to get too powerful and we won't have work. No, it's going to make jobs that don't exist today.

there were people making sample sets like you and people making Ableton Live construction sets and things that other people used to make music and those are jobs that didn't exist 40 years ago. They just weren't here. So there might not be as many jobs for trombone players, that's true. But again, if you think of yourself as a trombonist,

and not as a musician who plays trombone, you're not necessarily going to find all things that you could do with music in your life.

Brian Funk (01:10:57.587)

That's a good point. Yeah, think it's, I mean, where we are now so far, you know, there's so much opportunity for, to work in music, to work with music. And it might mean looking beyond some of the older ways that we had.

I guess the big one everyone's worrying about now is AI, right? Because, I mean, you can tell AI to make the whole song for you. Make me a song, tell it, and sculpt it and work it out. But I don't really feel too worried about that myself yet. I'm curious how you feel. I mean, there's so much joy in making a song.

Like, I don't want the computer to do it for me.

David Mash (01:11:49.424)

Yeah, I I saw a meme on the internet a month ago or so. Somebody said, you know, I don't want AI to make the music for me so that I can spend more of my time cooking and cleaning. I want AI to do the cooking and cleaning for me so I can spend more time creating.

Brian Funk (01:12:11.192)

I think I saw the same thing. Why are we making it do all the fun stuff for us?

David Mash (01:12:16.07)

Yeah, I think it's just like it's always been, which is you look for what you can do with something new, right? And, you know, I keep saying what I want is my tools to be smarter. I want my dog to recognize that I'm recording and just give me the tools for recording, leave everything else off the screen and then recognize, he's editing now and give me my editing tools, put the recording stuff away.

Brian Funk (01:12:19.157)

You

David Mash (01:12:46.381)

I want the tools to understand how I'm working and to use that artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand what I'm trying to do better so that I can focus on being creative. But that's harder than scanning all the music that's ever been written and making some assumptions about it and just spitting it back out, which is really what's going on right now.

Brian Funk (01:13:12.212)

Right.

Thank

David Mash (01:13:15.772)

You know, I think I've seen so many technologies, you know, start off in that direction and then become mature. so I'm not worrying. I think the human spirit wants to create. And I think, you know, I've heard people say, well, when AI can make me cry, you know, by creating music that makes me cry, then I'll know it's all over. It's like, I don't know, that's a weird way to think about it. I mean,

Brian Funk (01:13:44.639)

Hmm.

David Mash (01:13:48.666)

So if AI can, I mean there might be some things that they can do faster, quicker, and cheaper than a human could do it. But it's like synthesizers putting string players out of work. They only put them out of work if they were playing footballs for eight measures, right? If they're actually playing violin -y kind of stuff, synthesizers didn't replace them. They're still violinists, right?

Brian Funk (01:14:09.139)

Yeah.

David Mash (01:14:17.48)

and they still work for violence. So you know, I try not to think about the doomsday effect of AI. I mean, it may happen. I could be totally wrong and we could all be doing something else in 10 years, but I don't think so. think...

Brian Funk (01:14:18.09)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:14:27.999)

Hmm.

David Mash (01:14:40.712)

I think the human creation and human to human communication through music is so deep that I don't think machines can get in the way.

Brian Funk (01:14:57.705)

Hmm. And it's a funny point about synthesizers. A lot of those early patches were called regular instruments. This is a, you know, flute. is, this is piano. This is all of that. And now like people don't really, I don't think that's what they're trying to do with their synthesizers. And a lot of stuff now you're trying to make it sound like a synthesizer. You want that like kind of electronic, computery sound.

David Mash (01:15:17.414)

No.

Brian Funk (01:15:25.663)

You're not trying to mimic something real world.

David Mash (01:15:29.412)

Or in my personal case, sometimes I want both together.

And sometimes, you know, I can do that. Sometimes I need other humans to come in and do that.

Brian Funk (01:15:45.683)

Yeah. I've caught myself saying like, I want some really fake sounding strings on this, you know, like various synth fakes for that. Cause it's like its own thing now. It's not because I'm trying to replace strings. don't want strings. want these kind of like eighties, you know, sounding things that a synthesizer can do.

David Mash (01:16:10.162)

Yeah.

Well, and for somebody like me who spent years and years and years just designing sounds, synthesizers, from scratch, for me it's the world that I'm creating. I'm always trying to create a new sound. different.

David Mash (01:16:33.544)

Sometimes I get new synthesizers not because I need a new synthesizer but because the user interface presents something new to me that brings me to a different place more quickly. It's not necessarily that I don't have enough synthesizers because I have 972 plugins.

Brian Funk (01:16:46.719)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:16:52.316)

you

Brian Funk (01:16:58.227)

That's it. Yeah, that's kind of the thing I think too that excites me is like the interface. How am I going to work with this? What direction is this kind of pull me into? That's exciting. One of my favorite synthesizers is the OP -1 by Teenage Engineering because it's...

David Mash (01:17:20.936)

Mm

Brian Funk (01:17:22.077)

It's only four knobs and when you start turning parameters, you're changing pictures and you don't even know what you're doing. You know, like you, I'm no longer being technical. I'm adjusting the filter frequency down to one K. You know, I'm not thinking like that. I'm like making this weird guy, you know, get angry looking and that's the interface is exciting and it's playful. It makes you wonder about.

the sound and not the technical stuff. And it's limited compared to so many other things, but that's the fun of it.

David Mash (01:17:55.185)

Yeah, and.

David Mash (01:17:59.592)

But sometimes limitations can make you creative. You have to set some boundaries. If you have the world of possibilities all the time, it's hard to even get started. So you have to set, OK, I'm looking for this kind of sound and start looking for it. And nine times out of 10, I'll find a different sound that turns me on, and then I just go with it. And it's like,

There's nothing wrong with like, turning left, you know? Sometimes the world wants you to turn left.

Brian Funk (01:18:37.843)

Yeah. And to stay open to that is important to realize like, yeah, I didn't get that particular thing I was going for, but this is really cool. I love that because that's so much about what I do with my sounds. just, I often think I'm making a certain pack of sounds and realize like, I'm not doing that at all. I'm having way more fun over here if I mistake.

David Mash (01:18:47.762)

Yeah.

David Mash (01:19:03.645)

Yeah. And that's important, you know. And you can always go back to looking for that thing you were trying to create before. But it's that excitement of the moment that says, is really cool, that draws you in and lets you be creative. And then, you know, that's a great thing. That's, you know, sometimes people will say, how did you make that sound? I don't remember.

Brian Funk (01:19:27.465)

Yeah.

David Mash (01:19:33.2)

I was like in the space. I was just in there and I was moving things around and I knew I wanted it brighter. I knew basically go to the filter but boy that filter did something really weird. Boy that was exciting when that happened and just go with it until you get what you're hearing in your mind.

Brian Funk (01:19:54.503)

Are there any particular synths that are exciting you right now? For those reasons.

David Mash (01:20:05.864)

So I have like half a dozen that I just go to all the time, but I have to say recently I started doing some testing of soft tube synthesizers and...

David Mash (01:20:23.432)

They have a really interesting design concept, is they design, they'll take, they'll make like a take off on the CS80. So right now they have, I think they call it the Model 70.

get what the year is. But it's a takeoff on the CS -80 synthesizer with the Omaha, which I used to play, so I went at it. But the cool thing is, in the process, they make every single one of the modules available as the module in their modular synthesizer. So I've just been making these really cool synthesizers with the Softube modular.

Brian Funk (01:20:52.831)

Hmm.

David Mash (01:21:12.072)

by taking a filter from the CS80 and the oscillators from Prophet 5 and then using all these different matrix modulation concepts because you can patch anything to anything in the modular system. The only problem is it's all on screen and you don't have any really tactile interface.

Brian Funk (01:21:19.276)

cool.

David Mash (01:21:41.756)

The other synthesizer that I really like is I have a Novation Summit, which is not a new instrument, I use it with Spectrosonics Omnisphere, which is also not a new instrument. Omnisphere has these hardware profiles, and you can choose the summit for one of those profiles. And then every knob on the summit does that on the Omnisphere. And so...

Brian Funk (01:22:10.165)

that's cool, yeah.

David Mash (01:22:11.015)

you get into the very physical thing of knobs with the very limitless thing of software. it's a pretty cool way of working and it's recently been exciting me.

Brian Funk (01:22:25.759)

That's clever. So Omnisphere kind of molds to your MIDI. It's basically, I guess, a MIDI controller at this point, the Summit, right? Instead of us always trying to make our MIDI controller connect to the other thing, now I just, I got to try that out. That's cool.

David Mash (01:22:34.002)

Mm

David Mash (01:22:44.944)

And the other instrument that I'm really playing a lot with right now is the Korg Wave State.

So they have a hardware module and they have it in software. And they link up so that you can explore everything on the hardware, but then save it into the software. And then when you're using it in your production, you've got it in your software in the dock. And then if you want to tweak something, you just move the knob and it tweaks the software too. So I really like that kind of hardware software interface.

Brian Funk (01:23:17.877)

Mm.

David Mash (01:23:25.02)

the physical nature of touching the sound is pretty important to me.

Brian Funk (01:23:30.483)

Yeah, I agree. There's some strange satisfaction turning those knobs and, you know, just connecting with it. Maybe we spent so much time on computers doing emails and spreadsheets and whatnot that sometimes it can almost feel like that when you're making music.

David Mash (01:23:49.736)

Well, for me, there's a time, there's another song like, there's a time for everything. To everything, turn, turn, turn. like the precision you can get with entering a numeric value into the software is a great thing when you're in the edit mode. But when you're in the creative mode, the physical connection with the sound is enticing and gets you to a place quicker.

Brian Funk (01:23:54.965)

You

David Mash (01:24:18.78)

than you can with choosing a parameter and putting the value in. And so there's a time for both of those and a place for both of those. And I love instruments that let you do both.

Brian Funk (01:24:33.85)

Yeah, so that the wave state is called, right? The Korg one. That allows you to have both because they're both digital, I believe, right? The wave state's digital since, so it should be kind of a one -to -one thing if anyone's hairs on their analog versus digital. You don't have to worry about it here.

David Mash (01:24:37.339)

Mm

David Mash (01:24:50.119)

Yeah. Okay, we could have that fight. I've been having that fight for years. In the end, it all comes out of the speakers, right? So how it gets into the speakers makes no difference. Eventually, everybody's hearing it. People ask me which synthesizers I used on tunes, and I tell them it was all software. They just don't believe me. it's what you do with it.

that's important. In the end, the list of equipment used to make this piece of music is meaningless to the listener. Does it move you or not?

Brian Funk (01:25:26.129)

Mm -hmm. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard a lot of music, great music made right in the laptop and a lot of music that didn't do much for me. All hardware, DAW -less, know, whatever it is. it's, sometimes I think that's a, maybe missing the point or like you said, the connection is really nice.

and in the creative process it's nice to have that where you're typing in numbers and things like that where you're feeling more than thinking I guess.

But the bottom line here is, how does it affect you? And if it came out of a plugin, no one cares.

David Mash (01:26:11.324)

Right, yeah.

David Mash (01:26:16.838)

right. Only the person who made the plugin cares because they sold the copy to you, hopefully.

Brian Funk (01:26:23.677)

Right. Hopefully. That's very true though. It's interesting. Yeah. I think sometimes we're looking in the wrong direction, you know, like, like you were mentioning with the technology, is it going to take away our creativity? And, it might allow us to do things without being creative, but I think we're going to

find ways to be creative with that. And some of the things you mentioned are really interesting applications. I love the idea of a DAW kind of morphing, because there's so many features that to sometimes just have things cleared out and I can only see this would be really cool.

We face this a lot in school with students and their AI papers and they can produce papers that are like really pretty good analysis of the books they're reading and all. And it just kind of makes me think like, maybe we should stop asking those same questions. If that's what we're doing, that, if we're asking them questions that computer can do for them, then why do they need to do it?

David Mash (01:27:06.246)

Yeah, if only.

Brian Funk (01:27:34.286)

There's obviously skills that they're learning, this, there's other ways to do that, I think. And with music is similar.

David Mash (01:27:41.478)

And I think that's one of the big challenges, I think, today with teachers and students. mean, the fact is everybody has the answer to every question in their pocket. Right? I mean, that's what the iPhone did. The iPhone and the internet put everything that you could ever want to know. And I notice young people, you say,

he said, wonder if that actor is still alive. And then people say, I heard he died. No, I think he's alive. And older people, they'll just argue about it. And the kid will pull out his phone. Is so -and -so still alive? Yes. and yeah. And so I think you're right. We have to think differently about what we're asking people to do and how we ask them to think about it. Cause learning the dates of the

Brian Funk (01:28:25.322)

And a story.

David Mash (01:28:40.147)

you know, Civil War at one point showed that you had memory and you could remember something. You read it and you memorized it. Who cares about memory? Well, except if you don't have it. I mean, that's not, it's critical thinking skills. It's creativity that make us human. And those are the things that we have to think differently about with all these tools, both from the perspective of making music and also

in your case teaching English to ninth graders. What's really important? Can they communicate in the language? Can they understand in the language? Those are the things that we have to be thinking of what kind of questions to pose.

Brian Funk (01:29:29.417)

Yeah, I think like if I was asked to make some generic music for some cause or whatever it might be, maybe we'll say like a TV commercial where it's not the focus. We just need some kind of like action music, you know? And then if I can get the AI to do it and it fits and works well, all right. But if I'm trying to express myself, you know, and I'm trying to go somewhere else or the music is more important than that.

That's how I see a lot of the stuff we're asking them to do now. They're kind of saying like, why should I do that? And you feel kind of funny. Like you said, the iPhone, like telling students they can't use the most powerful learning device ever created. It's something weird. It's not allowed in school. I mean, obviously they're not always using it for that, but it's...

David Mash (01:30:18.748)

you

David Mash (01:30:22.784)

Thank

Brian Funk (01:30:27.881)

I think we're in that weird phase where we don't know what to do with all this stuff yet, whether it's in school or music. And once we start learning of interesting ways that are helping us be more creative and express ourselves more, it's going to get really exciting.

David Mash (01:30:46.108)

Yeah, and I think it's all about that kind positive attitude about being open to what's about to happen, what can happen with these new tools. Not being afraid of the future and instead saying, can use this to make a better life or to make some better piece of art that will move another human being in a way that is profound.

David Mash (01:31:16.432)

It's just an amazing time to be alive. There's so many opportunities and things are moving so fast.

Brian Funk (01:31:28.361)

Yeah, it really is. It's never been a time like this before. I want to mention, you you mentioned that you have all this time to do the stuff you want to, and it seems like you're fairly prolific lately with your music, with the releases. I was thinking the newest thing we were going to talk about was Sonic Doodles, which is your latest release. And then you told me there's more to come. Not too far off.

David Mash (01:31:45.99)

Hmm.

David Mash (01:31:58.268)

Yeah, well, it's been going great. You know, Sonic Doodles was...

Brian Funk (01:31:58.281)

How's that been going for you?

David Mash (01:32:11.003)

I had some medical issues and it took me away from, kept me from being able to make music for a while because I just, couldn't get into the space. There was something going on in my body that wasn't allowing me to relax and get comfortable. And I could only do it for short periods of time. So I decided I'm gonna do, instead of.

making big pieces, I'm just going to make these doodles, little pieces, when I can sit for an hour or two and just do them. And they were all visually based. The whole thing was all about visuals that I had in my mind as I was trying to relax to get to this place. So that project kind of happened real quickly, especially once they figured out how to manage my...

medical situation. And so I started delving back in. when I'm working like that, there's sometimes I'll be, that album is very focused on sound. That's what it's called, Sonic Doodles. I'm manipulating sound and it's a pretty electronic record. And then I also really love

R &B and know jazz fusion and prog rock and so I'll be working on a piece separately on that and then there's a second one and then there's a third one. So while Sonic Doodles just came out this past May, which is what six months ago or so, I have another album that's in the final stages of mixing and mastering and it's way more in the fusion vein and another

It'll be released under the Machine Music moniker, Persona, because it's like a fusion band, except it's me and my friend Bruce. I'm collaborating with a mix and mastering engineer named Bora Ulsusoy, who's from Turkey, and recently came to teach at Berkeley. And so he's helping me with the mixes and mastering, and it's amazing.

David Mash (01:34:35.74)

He seems to live in my head and know what I'm trying for in these mixes. So I'm pretty excited about it. And I'm hoping it'll be out before the end of the year.

Brian Funk (01:34:38.399)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:34:47.669)

All right. So that's like one of Sonic Doodle's sound, but then you're thinking more like composition in the new one.

David Mash (01:34:54.502)

Yeah, so these are, yeah, they're kind of funky fusion, lot of raucous guitar playing. Some synthesizer stuff, but mostly for effect and color. It's more like the band than I had in the 70s and 80s.

Brian Funk (01:35:03.199)

Nice.

Brian Funk (01:35:16.486)

Okay, fun. Yeah. Yeah. You've got so many different kind of, like outfits you wear musically, from what you've just mentioned and then the bar of two productions with Peter Bell, who Peter, I, you know, got to know a bit about a year ago on a songwriting retreat.

fun guy and amazing guitar player. One of the highlights of that whole time was he played guitar for me during our live performances that we did at the end. was like a little afraid to ask him like, hey, you want to play a little guitar? I didn't want to put him out. But man, just, what a player. Yeah. So you guys do a lot of cool work too. Nice partnership.

David Mash (01:35:57.478)

No, he loves to play and he's a really good player.

David Mash (01:36:06.994)

Yeah, we try to have fun. That's what it's all about. Friendship, partnership, collaboration.

Brian Funk (01:36:15.023)

It's really special when you find those people that you connect with. Like you said, your producer is in your head. Those musical relationships are, magic. They really are. And I try to remind myself often when I'm playing with those people, the music, whatever, the song is one thing, but the relationship here is the most important thing.

that's what I'm really working on and once I start thinking that way, like the music just happens.

David Mash (01:36:49.618)

Yep. It's human. And humans.

Brian Funk (01:36:52.149)

there.

Brian Funk (01:36:56.014)

You go to that place together that you were talking about the meditative thing. It's a wonderful.

David Mash (01:37:03.036)

Yeah, sometimes I look back at pictures that I have of my band and all of us, our heads are tilted exactly the same angle, our eyes are looking in the same direction, and we're clearly all on the same plane. it's really, know, visually it's amazing to see, but remembering what we were playing was amazing.

Brian Funk (01:37:28.597)

Hmm. Yeah. Well, don't they say like people's heart rates kind of start aligning and interesting physiological things happen when you're really connecting?

Usually makes me laugh. I get kind of like giggly when it's getting good, even if it's like kind of a sad song. Sometimes it's not a funny laugh, but it's just like amazement.

David Mash (01:37:43.624)

you

David Mash (01:37:48.816)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:37:59.493)

So I've kept you for a long time and I know I could probably keep you much longer. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Peter was right. Davidmash .com is definitely a home base for you. Any other places you like to send people so they can check out some more of your work?

David Mash (01:38:05.51)

It's okay, it's been a fun time chatting with

David Mash (01:38:21.5)

Yeah, machine .com, is the play on my last name, -A -S -H -I -N -Y, because I make music with machines. yeah, and the other place that you can find interesting music from me that nobody knows is me, some people know it's from me, is Steffen. And steffenthemusician .com, that's where I do my meditative and...

Brian Funk (01:38:25.706)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:38:43.283)

Yeah, I found that too.

David Mash (01:38:50.31)

electronic minimalist stuff. That's my middle name.

Brian Funk (01:38:53.066)

Hmm. It's nice. okay. I think I saw that in the, in the books you wrote, you have the S initial there. I didn't realize that. That's cool. It's a lot of great work. And like I said, in the beginning, I think I want to thank you and I think everyone else, you know, whether they know it or not, you've had a big role in welcoming some of the things that we take for granted every single day into the, you know, the common space.

for all us musicians, it's important that we've had people like you to make it accessible and bring it to the masses and recognize it too. That's another amazing thing just to have the vision to see that this is gonna be big and then pursue it, do the hard work. It's really cool stuff and very thankful to you. Thank you for taking the time as well.

David Mash (01:39:39.068)

Hmm.

David Mash (01:39:44.22)

Thank you so much.

David Mash (01:39:48.69)

Great. It's been a pleasure. 

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, David mash