Episode 2.13 - Devin Clara Fanslow
Episode 13 features Devin Clara Fanslow, Chicago-based composer, game designer, and musician. We talk with Devin about her musical background, getting into game design, her experiences in music institutes, and the prejudice that transgender women face in the music world. Transcripts to all podcast episodes are created by Hollyn Slykhuis and are posted below!
To learn more about Devin, check out the links below!
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:03
Welcome to Diversify the Stand. Together we build a community to listen and learn from the stories and experiences of passionate musicians. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:12
And I'm Ashley Killam. In our second season, we talk with musicians, performers, educators, historians, and entrepreneurs to expand how we think of the music we perform and follow non-traditional career paths. For Episode 13, we're joined by a composer, video game designer, and creator Devin Clara Fanslow. Devin favors writing for unique instrumentation, and her recent compositions stem from a world building project that she talks about in this episode that's influenced her game design and her musical visions. And as a transgender woman in the arts, she hopes to contribute to breaking down barriers of expectations from her unique lived experience.
Carrie Blosser 0:51
So Devin, thank you so much for joining us.
Devin Clara Fanslow 0:54
Yeah, it's good to be here amidst the sounds of my neighbors doing a lot of sawing or something. You gotta know that this is real.
Ashley Killam 1:04
Definitely real.
Carrie Blosser 1:06
So we wanted to ask you, how did you get started in music?
Devin Clara Fanslow 1:09
I guess when I started in music would have more loosely been when I was, like, seven years old. My sister started taking piano lessons. And when she learned her first piece, I was, like, jealous and wanted to learn. And she stopped playing and then started dancing. And she was great at that. I didn't want to dance, but I was really bad at the piano. So I had that. Which is why I spent my entire childhood skateboarding and hating the piano. It was an awful experience. I considered it like water torture, I don't know. It was probably good that I learned how to, like, read music kind of early on. And then I started playing trumpet in middle school, didn't really take it seriously until I was like a sophomore in high school. And I realized that like, when I hunkered down, and actually practiced every day that it was pretty easy, at least in high school, to like, get better than the baseline average. If you've actually practiced, and so played a absolute shit ton of trumpet in high school, eventually went on to the music conservatory at Roosevelt University for trumpet performance, transferred out of there to Ball State, and finished my degree there in General Studies because I switched my major too many times. And I have ADHD, which was one of the reasons why my mom at least was so adamant in having me in piano lessons way back, thought it would help, and I don't know if it did. But I still have ADHD as an adult and turns out it only gets worse. So like, you know, I wasn't a very good student. And admittedly I especially struggled in, like, music theory and those sorts of things. And a General Studies degree was like, basically two minors, and so I had, like, a technically a minor in composition and a minor in trumpet performance. And spent some time away from school, actually had almost a whole year where I didn't play any trumpet because I had hurt my jaw and I had TMJ. And then I did my graduate studies at DePaul University. And I got a master's in jazz composition. Still play the trumpet a bit. I can only really play in short spurts these days. But it's a nice, like, recording companion still, and my primary instrument these days is actually the mandolin.
Ashley Killam 3:50
That's awesome. And now you're going back to school for game development. How did that kind of transpire from all of this?
Devin Clara Fanslow 3:58
Yeah, because I didn't become very theory literate until I was approaching my graduate degree, I got most of my inspiration from the countless hours spent playing video games. And so, I mean, like, a lot of my early music was really just inspired by video game music. I was done with my jazz degree and I was kind of struggling financially and I ended up being homeless for a little while. So like, while that was kind of going on, you know, because I couldn't do, like, anything. You know, I was just like, it really like, threw my priorities, like, out in the open. It's like, you know, what do you really want to do with your life and eventually, when I was able to find housing again, you know, I just went hardcore practicing. I was just like, I need to like, be a better musician for myself. And a friend who is a really talented musician had also passed away recently and I was, I kind of felt like I didn't want to, like, slack off because it's like he kind of, like, left this, like, void, you know, and it's like that void just shouldn't be there, and you know a lot of his friends kind of felt the same way, we all, you know, started really just, you know, shedding essentially in memoriam. My music is almost always programmatic, so I started working on my own sort of world building project, yeah, and I'm like, this could be a video game. You know, and I still really like video games. They always said stay in school so I started looking for another graduate program. Turns out DePaul had a good game design program. Already got one degree from DePaul, and so I just kind of like worked my ass off writing tons and tons of dialogue and putting together a game design document and composing, sent a lot of that stuff over and got accepted, and now I just, like, I'm really interested in being, like, a narrative designer writer and composer sound designer on a game design game studio, that would just be, I don't know, that to me just sounds like an ideal career.
Carrie Blosser 6:19
That sounds super interesting. I'd love to hear your take on how maybe you write. Does your writing style change at all when you're writing for, like, kind of game design versus, like, the work that we commissioned for you to do or other works that you've written in the past? Like how does that, is your process different? Or is it the same, or what's that like for you?
Devin Clara Fanslow 6:42
For sure, it's usually pretty different because it depends on, you know, like what kind of game I'm working on. Like if I'm just doing, like, a game jam or something, which, like, usually is, you know, make a game in 24 hours or 48 hours or something like that. And, you know, I'm not trying to fully compose some detailed work out, but usually, like, the main difference between writing for concert and writing for video games is either I'm working in a DAW more often than in notation software. And then usually the details in the concert music is much more focused on, you know, the actual notes, you know, the articulations and expressive dynamics and more details that are relevant to a live musician with human emotions than a computer who I will be, you know, manipulating the sound to precision just based off of my tastes at the time.
Ashley Killam 7:49
That's awesome. There's so much there just with how you got to where you are and all the groups that you're a part of, and it just shows that there's so much beyond just, like, the, you know, university ensembles.
Devin Clara Fanslow 8:01
Yeah, and to be honest, I found that stuff incredibly suffocating, because it's like I came here to play, and there's all this bureaucracy that's, like, keeping you from just playing, you know, and I found the favoritism and privileges that other students have would literally suffocate you out of having the experience that you are essentially paying for. And you know, that's why I think, like, as much as I learned a ton from DePaul and, you know, I got a lot out of my lessons with, like, Chad McCullough and Bob Palmieri, I think that if you're not necessarily already at a professional level, like, you don't need to be going to a big, like, conservatory-level program, or—kids, learn how to use Ableton or Bitwig or Reaper or something, like get really good at music production. DAWs are the instruments of the future. Get with it.
Carrie Blosser 9:06
I remember you talking about that in the virtual clinic, and you're so right, because especially if the last essentially two years have taught anyone anything, is that you can make music all by yourself and it can be super cool if you have the right technology in your home and you can play, you can multitrack yourself, you can do anything with—almost anything—with the DAW.
Devin Clara Fanslow 9:26
Yeah, and, you know, synthesis is just, you know, to the roof, like, the more I've been getting into using synthesizers, the more I'm just, like, oh my god, like, this never ends. The amount of sounds, the wealth of aesthetics and textures never ends, you know, and that isn't to say like, you know, screw real instruments, like, we don't need those anymore, those are obsolete, like no, definitely pick up an instrument also. Because there's really nothing that matches the feeling of acoustic production, you know, on your own like the the act of making an object vibrate. Synthesizers are emulating that and, like, I think first and foremost it's super helpful, like, even if you were, like, primarily wanting to be a, you know, producer, like, pick up a saxophone, I don't know, like, it’ll help.
Ashley Killam 10:30
Here's a clip from a soundtrack that Devin created to the game called Light Sucker.
We'd love to hear about your experience transitioning, kind of in the music world and if there were any, like, hurdles you experienced or, you know, if you have any advice for the trans community or for the cis community, educators, performers, this is kind of very open ended.
Devin Clara Fanslow 11:59
Yeah, extremely open ended. So I mean, like, transitioning as a musician, and I preface this with, like, the cis perspective—people who don't know what cis means, it just means not trans—on trans people tends to be very focused on the experience of transition. In my view, especially after the first couple of years that you decide or that you start to transition, it kind of becomes old news. Like that was just a thing that happened at one point, really, you know, like, the the trans experience, which is not some singular or solid concept exists primarily, I think, before and after transition, actually. There's a lot of, again, discrepancies around, like, what kind of conditions trans people have before the transitioned and those kinds of things and you know, and I hear it's a lot of, like, TERF rhetoric where—again, if you're unfamiliar with the phrase TERF, it's a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, there’s nothing radical about it, they just think that they’re radical, TERF to them has been constituted like a slur at this point, which is great so call your local TERF a TERF today—but keep a lookout for terms like gender critical or whatever, those are just TERFS. Anyway, there's a misconception around especially trans women that we experienced male privilege before transitioning, and, you know, being read as male kind of comes with, like, a weird, like, almost auto-advances, you know, into, like, these strange fraternity-like spaces, you know, but I never involved myself really in those, I, you know, I attempted to avoid them if at all possible because they're just gross and, like, you know, I just don't like being around a bunch of men who are making really creepy jokes about women, like, constantly, it's like you know, you really have no idea, like how—I think even cis women really have no idea how many things are said about them behind closed doors in spaces where there are supposedly aren't women, and I experienced this sort of thing while I was at DePaul, and I'm not making, like, a call-out or anything like that, and you know, I experienced this at Ball State too, I experienced this everywhere, literally everywhere, where if I was in a space where I was perceived as male and nobody knew I was trans or, you know, you—part of, I just got used to, begrudgingly, the idea that people are going to be saying a lot of weird disparaging shit about women. And, you know, now I kind of carry a lot of those messages with me and it's kind of weird, where I see some of the same people who then, you know, kind of 180 into being—it feels performative, of being performatively supportive of me now. Yeah, trans women don't experience male privilege, it's not a privilege to have to pretend to be something you're not for years and years under a, again, suffocating level of oppression, you know, and while you're just getting more and more depressed, and more and more dysphoric, and more angry, like, I was just, like, a very angry person, because I just, like, felt trapped and uninformed. And, you know, there was just, like, a point in my life where I feel like I was just, like, becoming a very hard to be around person, just because I just, like, I couldn't deal with anything around me. So I was very hostile of a lot of things, and it wasn't until I realized that there's actually help available for somebody like me, and there's vocabulary for somebody like me, and there's, you know, avenues and all these things to take that could, you know, help alleviate this constant discomfort that I’d always feel, and if I knew that I had those much sooner I, you know, like I, you're want to wonder how your life could have been, but then that ends up just being this, like, terribly sad exercise. And, you know, and I've, I think I've like, wasted enough, like, nights, like, crying about that kind of shit. So it's like transition then ends up being a very both magical kinda and awful experience, in a lot of ways, because you're having to readjust and you're literally going through, if you're medically transitioning, you're literally having to go through puberty again, as an adult, but you don't have the same, you know, institutions where that can be vented safely. You're having to experience all these things anew that, you know, like basic stuff, like, just like, how do I dress now? How do I do my hair? Like, how do I dry my hair now that it's longer, you know, oh, I'm supposed to brush it all the time now, and you know, it becomes this exploration of, like, you know, what would have I have been, you know, taught and, like, should I kind of, like, go through those motions, and what parts of it are actually relevant, you're just, like, sifting through so much new and old information. I, you know, I kept a journal the whole time I was transitioning, and it's like, 300 something pages of like, rambling basically, like, some of it gets real dark. Other parts of it are very positive, you know, and it's just, like, a lot to have to go through, let alone being a musician, you know, like, I'm lucky that I was just able to focus on something else, you know, as hard as it was to be thinking about anything else. I at least was still, you know, practicing and writing music, and I still had this degree that I needed to finish, and all those things. Yeah, I mean, because I did transition in grad school while I was in my Jazz Studies program. So that also had kind of some, some of its unique challenges. You know, I came out to a couple of professors relatively early on, because, frankly, I wasn't that close to the other students there at the time. And I meant to keep things kind of under the hat. I realized people were trying to be, like, supportive but I think word got around a little quicker than I wanted it to, at least among the professorship and staff. And you know, I think that they were, like, gearing up to be ready to be supportive or something like that, which was, okay, you know, if they're gonna go under the table about this, like at least they went under the table in a positive—question mark—sense, because I remember getting invited to this, like, this forum for diversity, you know, that was supposed to be a dialogue between students and staff. And I'm like, why did they invite me? Because I wasn’t out yet, and then, you know, then I was like, oh, somebody spilled the beans. Those beans were supposed to stay in the barrel. What did you do with those beans? So I was real, I was actually kind of annoyed about the beans. And, you know, but I still went to the meeting, because I'm like, alright, well, you know, but, like, I went to the meeting, and I, like, I couldn't say anything, I was so, like, I was just stiff as a board. Like, I couldn't bring myself to, like, weigh in on the conversation, because as far as I was concerned, like, I was showing up there as a cishet male, or at least, had identified myself as a gay male, just because it felt like a compromise in a weird way. There's a lot of weird shit that you end up doing when you're, like, dealing with gender dysphoria and trying to rationalize it to yourself, you know, like, I was never a gay man, you know, but it seemed safer. And that's, it's a weird, I'm not the only person that ever, you know, kind of did that. But, I went that route. But anyway, so I was at this meeting, and I eventually was asked a direct question like, Devin, do you have anything to say? Well, okay, you know, my experience at DePaul in some ways, you know, and they're making hats off to DePaul, they've been making a lot of really positive changes lately, I still will quickly call them out on being a majority white institution. And that is a serious problem. But they did make steps towards making the environment much more queer-friendly. Sort of. I could speak more on that, but I'm still in this meeting, and I keep getting sidetracked. Anyway, I just, I basically just told them that at the time, like, you know, there's an awful lot of like, conservative, backwards thinking that ends up getting, you know, spilled over into the jazz community, especially within the universities where it's, like, you know, we're spending so much time like, in this, like, 1950s mindset as artists that I think that that kind of attracts a certain type of person, and some of those types of people were there. The stifling-ness that comes with prejudice, I think also stifles the prejudiced in their ability to be self expressive, because it narrows their ability to even perceive their self and how they fit in the greater scheme of society and humanity. So I was just talking about that. And then I very slowly, like, I paused, I was like, am I gonna say this? Alright, fuck it. I'm just like, you know, I've been keeping, you know, it under the hat about my gender identity and, you know, and I felt like I've been having to do a lot of testing the waters to see whether or not it's really even safe for me to come out. And thankfully, you know, and I was really pleased with the response of that. They were they were immediately like, yes, you know, see that's the huge problem is there's this massive, like, oppressive force here and we're supposed to be an institution of creativity. And, you know, and how those two things just don't go hand in hand. You know, and that's like, it comes down to, like, the very essence of, like,what is music for? You know, it's communicative, it's it's a society and a culture, and it's a it's a language, and you know, and while it, you know, languages can be as distinct as Japanese and German. There's still a way to, you know, cross-culturally, you know, interact and interact within your own cultures. And, you know, I'm just looking at it and thinking about Japan. Incredible Irish folk music scene there. And they have an amazing jazz scene in Japan. They have some really great Prague rock bands over that way like Terco and, I don't know if they pronounce it Terco, but like, I'm missing Toe, this awesome Prague rock band, anyway, no I, like, I think, like, assimilating each other's, like, languages as part of how this all, like, is jazz, you know, is music, is, you know, it's why bossa nova is, you know, not just a Brazilian art form now, it's a global phenomenon because it incorporated American jazz, came back to the US and, you know, and then those sounds spread. It's like the Black diaspora in music is everywhere and being able to acknowledge how these diasporas, you know, spread and become integrated into society and the respect that they demand and, you know, deserve, and it allows us a means in which to be able to have respectful dialogue with one another based on celebrations of our differences. And so it's like you can't have that if we're not celebrating the things that make ourselves different.
Carrie Blosser 26:07
That's fantastic. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing I think there's good stuff there. Man, so good, so so good. So we're gonna end with one question, one final question for you and that is what is on your music stand this week, and how are you diversifying your stand?
Devin Clara Fanslow 26:23
So this week I got some socks—
Carrie Blosser 26:29
So there’s an actual music stand in the video with Devin and there’s clothing on the music stand.
Devin Clara Fanslow 26:38
They’re drying.
Carrie Blosser 26:39
Hanging clothes and flat clothes. There's a multitude, quite the variety on your actual music stand.
Devin Clara Fanslow 26:51
My music stand’s primary use is a drying rack. But I guess, like, on my metaphorical music stand, which exists as a file in my computer, a lot of Bach. So I'm not—you know old, old dead white guy. But I've been reading a lot of Bach violin sonatas and partidas like a real slow tempos does really good with finger dexterity on mandolin. Ways I guess I'm diversifying my stand, I just finished a concert that was part of the Ear Taxi Festival in Chicago with my ensemble Fire Thief, and we had a roster of music written by Latinx composers, and among them Inti Figgis Vizueta, David Mendoza, I wish that we could have played some of the more electro acoustic pieces as well. It was really fun. It was a lot of, like, guided improvisation pieces. I don't usually do, like, a lot of, like, new music-y or, like, noise music kind of things. It was just super fun to be able to go [crazy sounds] like, fucked up stuff. Wow. Anyway, yeah. So.
Carrie Blosser 28:18
Devin, thank you so much for joining us.
Devin Clara Fanslow 28:20
Yeah, absolutely.
Ashley Killam 28:24
Thank you for listening to Diversify the Stand. I'm Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 28:27
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, find us on social media and visit our website. We now have a store where you can pick up some Diversify the Stand gear.
Ashley Killam 28:36
And as always, a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers websites are listed in the podcast description.
Carrie Blosser 28:54
Until next week, what's on your stand?