Artist of the Week | Josh Sturm strums folk, classical guitar

Unless you plan on participating in the Fun Run, Founder's Day 2010 may well kick off with Joshua Sturm's '11 11 a.m. acoustic guitar set on Ballantine Field. "I'm playing first, so I'll probably be performing for little tykes," said Sturm. "Luckily, I think they'll like my set. The music I play now sounds a lot like the music I grew up with: old timey with elements of the Irish ballads my dad used to play at home," he said. Sturm's current repertoire may be reminiscent of his childhood, but his relationship with the guitar has undergone many permutations along the way.

Sturm began playing classical guitar at age nine. His lessons taught him music theory and standard classical songs, but failed to hold his attention through the tumults of adolescence. "As I approached my teen years, I got fed up with how regimented the style was," said Sturm. He quit playing classical guitar, choosing to use the skills he had acquired as a member of a hardcore metal band called Lucky Pierre.

"I liked that it was completely different from what I'd been playing, and I enjoyed being able to play in a group. Classical guitar, for me, was very solo oriented," said Sturm. Lucky Pierre played gigs in New York City, commuting from Sturm's suburban hometown of Orangeburg, NY. Around his junior year, however, he changed directions again. "I really wasn't into the violence of the metal scene anymore, so I switched back to acoustic," he said.

It was around this time that Sturm heard the music of Kaki King for the first time. "She was playing rhythms with her right hand, and tapping on the neck of the guitar," said Sturm. This technique, which Sturm soon adopted, is called "fingerstyle guitar." The name refers to the way musicians pluck the guitar strings with multiple fingers instead of a single pick. The style emphasizes use of the guitar as a simultaneously melodic and percussive instrument. "The method employed a skill and knowledge of music that was lacking with the metal style," Sturm said.

He started playing solo again. "I'd get out of school at 2 p.m. and go play open mics in the city," he said. Sturm continued performing once he got to Vassar, playing regularly at venues such as the Cubbyhole Coffeehouse as well as at After Hours shows organized by Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE). But to arrive at the kind of music he'll be playing on Saturday, Sturm's style had to go through one more dramatic evolution.

"My music was totally instrumental until last year, when I started adding vocals," Sturm said. His lyrics are allegorical. "I don't sing about anything in particular. I write the melody and rhythm parts first, and then just kind of talk while I'm playing. If whatever comes out of my mouth fits with something I want to get across, I keep it. Many of my songs follow a character through some weird story."

"The King's Daughter," a fairly typical example of one of Sturm's songs, is about a seaward journey undertaken by four brothers. One of the brothers has sex with the daughter of a distant king, and the song follows them through their escape from the kingdom. "In a way, I think all the characters are different sides of myself," Sturm said. "They represent different impulses I have towards people and relationships."

Though his song lyrics contain mythic subject matter, they aren't accompanied by obtuse morality. "I find that when I try to be too direct [with my lyrics], it sounds like I'm trying to get my audience to think in a certain way. When you perform, you're sort of putting yourself on a pedestal, and if you take that as an opportunity to preach, that's problematic," said Sturm. "At the same time, I'm definitely trying to communicate something."

Throughout the school year, Sturm has been working on recording his music with the help of Adjunct Artist in Music Terry Champlin. While it seems highly unlikely that Sturm will ever halt his process of musical development, he seems comfortable in his stylistic niche for the time being. "I started playing at one radical end of the spectrum, moved to the complete opposite end, and then found my place somewhere in between," said Sturm.