Pultixima

Wilmington

Doug Cannon Headshot
Doug Cannon / Pultixima

Emerging
Music: Composition

By: Gail Obenreder

“When someone says they really understand what I’m saying, the world seems just a little less lonely than it did before.”

Singer/songwriter Doug Cannon has always been seeking and finds solace in creating music. The self-professed shy youngster would come home from school and just play “whatever came out of me. Music was the escape, and it still is today.”

Cannon grew up in Hockessin in a family of five, and except for a time in Tempe, Arizona for education, the Wilmington resident has lived in Delaware for most of his life. Always involved in music in some way, he tried playing several instruments, especially piano, saxophone, and clarinet. These music lessons were invaluable in giving him a range of experiences. But “I often wandered off on my own melodies,” something that presaged his compositional future. When he got a laptop and audio workstation in high school – and his grandmother gifted him a guitar – Cannon found his musical direction.

In his compositions, whether instrumentals or with lyrics, Cannon is always searching for the authenticity of his own voice. Influenced by musicians like Simon and Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, or Radiohead, he found that it was “easy to fall into the safety net of sounding like an approximation of the things you already love.”

 

“Cold Heart,” 2023
Length of full work: 5 minutes 44 seconds
Role in creation: Composer

Accepting his own sound – described by a listener as “beautifully imperfect” – has been a lifelong challenge and goal for him. “People can sense inauthenticity, or when an idea is forced,” and Cannon finds that the more he strives to create the perfect song, “the less intimate and human” it becomes.

As a composer, he begins writing without a goal for how something should sound “other than broad strokes,” finding that too many details at the beginning of a project can “crush the idea under the weight of expectations or stifle [his] natural intuition.”

Responding to this deeply felt musical exploration, one young person sent him a painting, saying that hearing one of Cannon’s songs “got them out of a really dark place.” The composer keeps that painting as a reminder of the artist’s responsibility to be truthful, cognizant of the fact that no matter where you might hear a song – whether in a club or online – “music can influence anyone at any time.”

Cannon is also passionate about hiking and nature photography, capturing images of wildlife and making a connection with the outdoors that often surfaces in his songs. At the University of Delaware, Cannon majored in film theory and criticism, and he’s written and directed a handful of short films. “Who knows, maybe I’ll make another movie someday.”

 

“Ease,” 2022
Length of full work: 4 minutes 51 seconds
Role in creation: Composer

The Division’s fellowship is an artistic turning point for Cannon, giving him increased access to new compositional tools and equipment that will allow him to fund a project that he’s been working on for the past two years. “I’m very excited to share what I’m working on!” Since he was a home studio artist, the pandemic didn’t dramatically change his working environment. But it did make Cannon “reach out to others online” and forge relationships with musicians around the world, another opportunity to enhance the lifelong goal to “skill up and find my voice.”

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