[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hey, everyone. Jad here from Radiolab. This is Radiolab, the podcast. Something a bit different this week. We're not gonna do science. No big ideas today. Actually, I want to introduce you to an amazing musician. Can you do like a loop? So I can just make sure that that's getting a ...

[bowed cello ]

JAD: If you happened to catch our War of the Worlds show, this was our live show that we did in Minnesota, you may have noticed some really beautiful, lush cello textures threaded all throughout that hour. Well, those textures were played live by Ms. Zoe Keating, who is right here next to me. Hello.

ZOE KEATING: Hello, Jad.

JAD: How are you?

ZOE KEATING: I'm great.

JAD: And we're sitting in San Francisco, so this is a bit of an excursion. But lucky enough I get to sit here and listen to you play. Because during the performance, there was a point where we actually stopped chatting and you just played for people. And it was amazing. People loved it, but it was only people in the audience that got to hear it. So this gives everybody else a chance to hear it, too. So maybe you could start by explaining all of these blinking lights that are near you. Liie, you're sitting here with a gorgeous kind of mahogany colored cello, but then behind you is a laptop and some computer electronic type stuff. So what exactly is all this?

ZOE KEATING: Well, I'm basically doing layered cello by playing cello, and then using a combination of a foot controller and a computer to record each layer and then play it back for the audience. So what I might do is I'll just sort of play a loop and then you can see how it happens.

JAD: Am I in your way here with your foot pedal?

ZOE KEATING: Okay, so I basically I've got this foot pedal and I'm going to record a single line like this.

[bowed cello]

ZOE KEATING: Sometimes you get little artifacts in there, but it's kind of nice. So I've done that. Then I might add another one.

[bowed cello]

ZOE KEATING: So that can just play and I can wander off and chat with the audience or have a drink. [laughs]

JAD: It's like little bits of you from the past keep coming into the present.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, it is like that. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, hearing your past over and over again can get a little boring, so you might want to start changing it.

[bowed cello]

ZOE KEATING: And you can also do things like I might take them away like that.

JAD: So essentially it's like you can create multiples of you, and then sort of just using your feet, you can make some of you go away and then some of you come back.

ZOE KEATING: Yep.

JAD: So when we're listening to these pieces, you're hearing these giant washes build and suddenly they drop out, and you hear just one of the lines. And then all of a sudden they're back. There's a sort of a bowed bass line. All that is sort of being crafted with your right foot.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah.

JAD: Okay.

ZOE KEATING:

Pretty—you know, pretty simple.

JAD: Yeah. But it's neat to see that you're funneling this just slightly past a version of yourself into the present over and over. It's kind of quantum in a weird way.

ZOE KEATING: You know, I never thought of it that way, but you are. For better or worse.

JAD: For better or for worse.

ZOE KEATING: Because if you make a mistake—like I make lots of mistakes—then that mistake is repeated over and over and over and over again. [laughs]

JAD: Yeah. Which must make you very comfortable with your own mistakes at a certain point.

ZOE KEATING: It does. You can't do this and be afraid of failure.

JAD: You were in a band called Rasputina. Tell me a little bit about that. How do you go from being a classically-trained cellist to a rock—rock star-y kind of cellist? Like, what is that? What is that transition like?

ZOE KEATING: I didn't ever see it as a transition. It just seemed completely natural. I mean, I like rock music, and I think probably if I played guitar or bass, I'd probably play guitar or bass, but I just happened to play cello.

JAD: Well, before we talk too much, what are you gonna play us first?

ZOE KEATING: Well, I'm gonna attempt to play a new piece which—it doesn't have a name. It's gonna be on my new record.

JAD: Well, whenever you're ready.

[cello interlude]

JAD: Wow!

ZOE KEATING: That's kind of how that works.

JAD: Okay! Lord, let me just—before I fawn too much, let me just plug this in. Wow!

ZOE KEATING: See, it's so much more fun when you can have all those layers and you can control them.

JAD: Yeah. I'm just curious about you said you didn't have a title for that piece that we just heard.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah.

JAD: What does a title really do for a piece like that? Like, I guess what I'm asking is, what do you see or feel? Or where does a piece like that begin? Does it begin as just a purely musical line, or is it a picture in your head or a feeling?

ZOE KEATING: A feeling. It's all really abstract. That's why I have a really hard time coming up with titles because I don't like to assign specific meaning, since they mean everything and they mean nothing. And so as soon as you put a title on something, that gives it a meaning. And so sometimes I like to make up words or have something completely random. Kind of like the Mad Libs version of making song titles. [laughs] But it usually starts as an idea, and so there will be some sort of like, emotion about it. And I just try to keep that emotion and see where it goes in a song. And that's all it is, really.

JAD: Yeah. Now you were doing all kinds of things. I didn't actually catch all of it because I closed my eyes and just sort of like, sort of got sort of taken with all of the washes of sound. But you were doing all kinds of things that were not strictly traditional cello bowing. You were hitting the cello. Can you explain to you how you were making all those sounds?

ZOE KEATING: Well, I only have one cello, and I like to make rhythms. So I might do this. I might like a [thumping]. Which is like hitting the bow on the side of the cello. Or I might use my palms and go like this [slapping sound] and things like that. And then also I might do little tapping things like, [tapping]. You know, or I might do little, like, things like that. And it's—I'm taking sort of—I like to think of it as like a DJ scratch approach to the cello.

ZOE KEATING: And, you know, you can make all these like little electronic sounds. But I like to see how many kinds of electronic sounds I can make using a 17th-century instrument. At first I wanted to get a whole orchestra to play this music. And I actually got—like, when I first started doing this, I started working with a couple other musicians to see if I could, like, translate the ideas. And I was like, "How do you write this?" You know, like, how do you write, like, "Okay, take the back of your instrument, turn it around and hit it with your [thumping]." How do you write that? And then how do you write, like this?

JAD: Like bowing the wood directly.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah. Like, what's the notation for that? I guess I could make something up, but I like the immediacy of having a computer. Like, if I have some sort of idea, I can just do it. I don't have to explain it. Like, you asked me what my music is about.

JAD: Yeah.

ZOE KEATING: I have to try to put into words some abstract feeling and then it's already—like, it's removed.

JAD: Yeah. Tell me about some of the projects that you're involved in right now. Because you're on your own. You're doing your own stuff and releasing those. But you're also what?

ZOE KEATING: Mostly I'm working in film right now. Like, just writing music for film scores. And it's something I really like doing. So I'm finishing up a documentary right now it's called Ghost Bird.

JAD: Is it about the woodpecker?

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, the ivory-billed woodpecker. And then last year I did—I got into horror, which is very strange for me because I'm a very sensitive person and I can't actually watch horror.

JAD: What sorts of cello gestures would end up in a horror film?

ZOE KEATING: Like, sort of ...

[ominous, scratching cello strings]

JAD: Oh, suddenly I can hear it. [laughs]

ZOE KEATING: [laughs] Can you hear it?

JAD: Yeah, sure.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah. Or, like, really detuned.

[low, bowed cello]

JAD: Ooh, that's scary. Yeah, that was. Particularly that squeak at the end.

ZOE KEATING: But isn't it amazing, like, you can just do that. Like, that was what was really interesting about your show, the War of the Worlds thing. Like, you can just add, like, one note, and then add another note to it, and suddenly it's ominous.

JAD: Can I hear another?

ZOE KEATING: Sure, sure. I could do—let's see. Anything, really.

JAD: You tell me. I'll get out of your way. But if you could introduce it. Just tell me what you think you're going to play.

ZOE KEATING: Let me think about it for a minute first.

JAD: I can make a request, but I don't know if it's one you've prepared.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, sure.

JAD: Album number two, Sun Will Set? Sunsetting?

ZOE KEATING: Oh, yeah. The sun will set.

JAD: Is that something that's easy for you to play?

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, it's extremely easy.

JAD: Oh, I love that song.

ZOE KEATING: Sure.

JAD: Okay, I'm gonna—give me one second. All right, so introduce it.

ZOE KEATING: This piece is called—it has a name. It's called the Sun Will Set. Which it will.

[cello interlude]

JAD: That piece is just beautiful. It's just so pretty.

ZOE KEATING: It's really fun to play.

JAD: Yeah, I love that piece. When did you start on the cello?

ZOE KEATING: When I was eight.

JAD: You were eight?

ZOE KEATING: Yep.

JAD: And when you started, was it—I mean, you certainly weren't looping and doing all these kinds of things. How was it at the beginning?

ZOE KEATING: I really liked the sound of it, you know? Like, I don't know if this will come through on the microphone, but I would just do this. [bowing] Now that's slightly out of tune, and you can hear them pulsing.

JAD: Yeah.

ZOE KEATING: But I like that. You have two notes playing together, but they make a shape. They make this sort of, like, wave, pulse-y shape. And I would just—I would just, like, get lost in that for a long time.

JAD: Just play the fifths. Yeah. How did you begin? I mean, what sorts of cello stuff were you doing at the beginning? Were you playing—were you a classically-trained musician?

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, I did all the standard things, you know, play some Bach, play in an orchestra. But I suffered from really debilitating stage fright to the point where I couldn't play in public at all. I would never—I would always think it would be fine, you know, and then I would get up there and I couldn't hold the bow. Like, I couldn't remember how to play the cello. It's like I wouldn't be able to do it. Like, I actually did have a concert once where I got up there, and my hand was shaking so much that I just couldn't even get it on the strings. And then I just dropped it.

JAD: You just dropped the bow?

ZOE KEATING: I just dropped the bow. My fingers, it didn't make any sense. It was just really, really, really difficult for me. And so it was like my—the more I progressed as a musician, and it became just this, like, terrible nightmare. So I decided not to—not to pursue classical music as a career, and I instead went to study liberal arts. But in college, all my friends were filmmakers and dancers, and so it was just inevitable I would start playing the cello in all their little films, or I would, you know, be like the piano accompaniment to the dancers. And so I would—I would just improvise and they would dance.

JAD: And that new—that new version of yourself where you're just playing improvised stuff and it's dancing and this film involved, was that easier?

ZOE KEATING: Yeah. I've never had stage fright doing that. Like, if I can play my own music, I'm fine.

JAD: Huh! And that's the difference. If it's the notes come out of your head versus out of Beethoven's head.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah. There is something about it's not me. It's like I have to recreate something that already exists, and it's supposed to be a certain way. And there obviously is some part of me that just rebels against that.

JAD: When did you get this idea? And I mean, the idea to take a cello and run it through a computer and loop it and all that.

ZOE KEATING: Well, I lived—you know, I always lived with musicians, and most of them would be rock musicians or electronic musicians. And they'd always have, like, little pieces of gear lying around. And I'd be like, "Oh, I'll try that. You know, let's try the cello through this delay, or let's try the cello through this vocoder. You know? And I would—I think I spent I don't know how many hours doing that. Just like me, you know, me plugged.

JAD: What would you describe the wow? What was the wow, exactly? Was it that you were with you?

ZOE KEATING: No, it was that the cello is such a linear instrument. Like, the pianists can play all these notes at once, but with cello, I can play, like, two notes at once. And with the looping pedal, you could play some notes, and then you could play notes on top of it. So it's like you were playing more than one instrument. And I could also hear all the things I was doing badly. That was really interesting.

JAD: I imagine it must have been interesting because you—I mean, because of the stage fright, you know, to hear the things that you didn't do right come back and then come back and then come back.

ZOE KEATING: [laughs] Yeah, but they didn't bother me.

JAD: That's interesting.

ZOE KEATING: Because you really—you never get to fix your mistakes from the past. Like, that very rarely happens. When it does, it's this great moment. But with looping, you do because say you record something and it's a mistake, you might be able to add something to it that might make it sound right.

JAD: Ah!

ZOE KEATING: It's like that thing I've heard jazz players say where they say, like, if you make a mistake, do it twice. [laughs]

JAD: [laughs] That's interesting.

ZOE KEATING: Have you ever heard that?

JAD: I haven't, but that makes total sense, though. Can I hear another?

ZOE KEATING: Sure, sure.

JAD: Okay. Let me switch headphones again. All right. So can you introduce this piece?

ZOE KEATING: Sure. This piece is called Legions (War).

[cello interlude]

JAD: Well, wow. Thank you. So that was—tell me the name of that piece one more time.

ZOE KEATING: Legions (War).

JAD: Legions (War). And that was on your second CD, right? Is there a third coming out?

ZOE KEATING: Yeah, I'm trying to finish it in between finishing up these movies, but I really, really hope to have it out this summer. So ...

JAD: And if people want to know more about you and hear more of your music, where can they do that?

ZOE KEATING: The best place is probably my website, which is ZoeKeating.com. Or if you just type 'Zoe' and 'Cello' into Google, I think I'm the first thing that comes up.

JAD: No kidding. That's pretty cool.

ZOE KEATING: Yeah.

JAD: We'll also link to you at Radiolab.org and maybe put some clips up, if that's okay with you.

ZOE KEATING: That'd be great. Thanks.

JAD: Okay, so can you—can you take us out with something?

ZOE KEATING: Just improvise.

JAD: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Improvise.

[cello interlude]

JAD: That was so freaking cool! As an ending? Wow. I guess that's it for us. Thank you, Zoe. And this is Jad signing off. Radiolab is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Science Foundation.

ZOE KEATING: Bye.

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