Life & Work with Michael John Wiley of TUCSON

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael John Wiley

Michael John, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m an award-winning multi-cultural Composer, Musician and Educator from Mexico City & Tucson, AZ. I grew up with engineering and the fine arts as central pillars to my family, and would you guess it? I became an “engineer of sounds”, a composer.

I always knew that I wanted to make music. When I was a kid, I was always playing my guitar, which was a custom Mexican folk classical guitar that my dear grandparents purchased for me from an old master luthier in Coyoacán. I would learn to play songs by memory, create my own songs, and just strum deep sonorous chords against my chest all day long, while droning with my voice, or humming along and singing with the sounds. I still have that beautiful instrument.

I herald from a multi-cultural background epitomized by the Southwestern Desert. Being born in New Mexico, reared in a bilingual Mexico City, and later educated in the US, afforded me with a rich artistic world view and deep seated human understanding of these two neighboring countries. Although piano was my first musical instrument, by the time I was nine years old, I’d taken to the guitar as my personal favorite and continued this passion into my college years. Here is a link to my personal site: https://www.michaeljohnwiley.com

I was born in Clovis, New Mexico on June 1, 1970, with dual US/Mexican nationality. Having my family life and formative years in Mexico City with my grandparents, Martha Joy Gottfried and Mario Héctor Gottfried Gutiérrez, I acquired an early bilingual foundation and an appreciation for the arts before relocating in 1979 with my family to Miami, Florida. While a Junior at Palmetto High School in 1986, at the age of sixteen, I joined the Alexander Muss High School In Israel foreign exchange program, which gave me the opportunity to study and tour the historic Israel, as well as earn future college credits.

I returned to the U.S. in 1987 and, along with my family, relocated to Litchfield Park, Arizona where I completed my high school education in 1988 at Agua Fria Union High School. After a couple of years of serious Engineering studies at Arizona State University, I shifted my major to Guitar Performance at the School of Music there. One year later in 1991, I found myself further south, at the University of Arizona, where I later graduated in 1996 with honors and a Bachelors Degree in Music Composition. During those previous five years I became interested in musicology, as I had developed a system for teaching instrumental music, in tandem with color-coding the fretboard of my classical guitar.

After graduating in 1996 I became employed with the Tucson Unified School District through a new “Imaginarium” program, designed to bring local working artists to elementary schools, as scheduled visitor substitute teachers. At that time, I began work on two personal projects: transcribing the Mayan Calendar to music, and writing a comprehensive and interactive music theory manual based on my color-coded guitar, which I had developed out of necessity while composing in 1991.

While at the University of Arizona, I also became intimately involved with the mathematics of the Mayan culture. I consequently began to meet with, the legendary and at the time local Dr. Jose Arguelles, whose work had a tremendous impact on my life. As a result, I became involved with the Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement. My studies of the Mayan calendar inspired me, over a period of six years, to make scientific and musical discoveries about the Overtone Series that ultimately led to the composition Tzolkin in C Major, a study for full orchestra.

Shortly after releasing my 2000 debut album OXLAHUN, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra honored me with a world premiere performance of my composition Tzolkin in C Major (based on the sacred 260-day Mayan calendar), which took Third Prize at the prestigious Toru Takemistu Orchestral Competition in Japan, 2002. Here is a link to the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmnmN_pk5rY&t=946s

“That night I touched a beautiful light at the center of my being, and I am eternally grateful to the Tokyo Philharmonic, its conductor Ken Takaseki, the Tokyo Opera City, and our judge Joji Yuasa for the opportunity to perform my work.”

During this time at the university, I publicly displayed my color coded guitar a great deal throughout the four years I was enrolled in music college; and since then, the system that I had developed, has evolved into a wonderfully artistic and deeply theoretical and practical approach to music appreciation which has truly made music more accessible to many. This was the beginning of Musical Colors® A Visual Music Color System, and what would come after many years latter: https://www.musicalcolors.com

Realizing all the possibilities for pedagogical instruction using this simple idea were awesome. I began to create a manual of color coded scales and chords in order to accelerate my learning. I then began to use these same principals to instruct elementary school children on the foundations of how music is structured and how it moves in time. Students caught on very quickly, just as I understood very clearly that children learn better when they are having fun, and color we all know is fun!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When I was enrolled at the University of Arizona Music College in 1991, I ran into problems of practical realization when composing as well as staying in key when improvising on my primary instrument, the classical guitar. So I developed a colorful method for my need to remain in key while improvising, as well as being able to apply music theory and composition while noodling on my guitar. I quickly came to realize that it would be easier to learn to play music on my guitar if there could be some kind of visual reference that showed me clearly where all musical notes fell on the fretboard of my instrument.

So naturally, that is exactly what I did and everyone around me, including my teachers, were amazed at the visual system and how my musicianship had improved. As I did not have a strong background in Sight Reading music on an instrument like my guitar, the system still ended up visually solving my necessity to know what I was playing, to know how to play what was being asked of me, to know how to play what was displayed in front of me, and to write down what I was playing.

I needed a simple and elegant solution, and I began taping colored construction paper cutouts to my guitar fret board, which was really cool. Later on, I did some extensive research and found out that this idea was really nothing new at all, but it did not matter. The visual music color system was still incredibly useful at helping me know what notes I was playing while composing a work of music, honing my improvisational skills with other musicians and simply just getting through Sheet Music. I branded this as Musical Colors® A Visual Music Color System: https://www.musicalcolors.com

Despite the recognition and acclaim that I’ve garnered over the years as a composer, some of my projects are seen as controversial, and some people have mixed feelings about them. I want to do and say things through my music that matter and help us all understand one another better to find shared purpose. That desire to uncover a common ground through music, is what continues to inspire me to this day.

Will I be able to manifest some of my grandest musical plans and aspirations? Will there be individuals who step forward to help me share this message? Some conductors have stepped forward, yet they have had their directors say things like “Don’t make me touch the immigration issue.”

I know that some of my music is ahead of its time, just as I know that the time for its message is approaching.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I compose large orchestral works based around my world experiences and I’m highly perceptive and visionary in my approach to making music. Music has the power to cut through all of our human faults and thread them together with renewed talent and dignified purpose.

In 2004 I embarked on a one year international head teacher position coordinated by local Tucson-an educators, at a brand new and exciting English speaking kindergarten school in Northern China. While there, I further developed my color-coded music curriculum and upon returning home, I channeled my creative efforts into Musical Colors – A Visual Music Color System, an education company focused on music pedagogy and musical instrument appreciation, through color-coded musical instruments that use keyboard, fingerboard and fretboard sticker guides that are directly applied to musical instruments: https://www.musicalcolors.com

In 2007, I released my first edition Tzolkin DVD, which showcases my award winning music, presented my audio visual calendar experience, Tzolkin Cultural Meditation, and detailed my musical theories and projects to date. It was also in this year that I received a five year commission to write a requiem, which has since been produced, for full orchestra, mariachi, grand choir and voice soloists, titled Lamento De La Frontera, and is currently seeking a live performance in the US and Mexico. Here is a link to the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCn6EbJ0NhE&t=325s

In 2014 I spearheaded, along with coffee caballero Andy Newbom, an against the grain but noble effort, International Premium Coffee Corporation (IPCoffees), which worked directly with farmers to bring specialty coffee from Mexico to the US. I continue to surround myself with all aspects of music to this day, while inspiring others to do the same and find their own personal relationship with music. I currently live in Tucson, Arizona, with my amazing wife and likewise two fast growing teenage boys.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Music and music education is huge and nearly half of everyone in the United States of America studies it in some fashion. The technological side of this type of education is broad reaching and innovative, however simple elegant solutions that get results fast and efficiently, are few and far between.

I believe that extremely accessible resources, affordable products, as well as relatively low costs and high value one-on-one instruction is the future of music education. After all, we are human and the human connection is something that cannot be replaced.

Pricing:

• Free Online Musical Resources
• Affordable Musical Products
• Custom Solutions
• Educational Packages
• Higher Learning Tuitions

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.musicalcolors.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musical.colors.stickers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musical.colors.stickers/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-john-wiley-400b4a17/
• Twitter: https://x.com/musical_colors
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@musicalcolors/videos
• Other: https://www.michaeljohnwiley.com

Image Credits
Musical Colors®