Browse Items (868 total)
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...beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony in all things
beneath the universal strife, the hidden harmony in all things… for Percussion Trio and Live Electronics is my thesis that was performed on October 30th 2015 in Bryan Recital Hall at Bowling Green State University. This piece represents the elusive pursuit of peace and balance being interupted by chaos and disorder. Drone tones vocalized by the performers and augmented by the electronics are representitive of our attempts to attain balance, and are interupted by flurries of activity and chaos in the percussion. Throughout the piece the sections of order become longer and longer before they finally achieve a tenuous balance with the rhythmic gestures in the percussion.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Kelly Gervin, Felix Reyes, and Michael Keller for performing this piece, and to Jen Meister for conducting it. This could not have happened without your talent and dedication.
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Live in the Moment; Live in the Breath
Live in the Moment; Live in the Breath, was written for Sam Wells, and premiered at the 2015 SPLICE festival in Kalamazoo, MI. When I was asked to write this piece (my first for solo wind instrument), I immediately was drawn to the power that the breath has for this type of performer. Their breath empowers them to do amazing things with the instrument, just as our breath empowers all of us to do amazing things with our lives if we learn how to harness it. This piece focuses on the con- nection between our breath and the greater natural world around us, and begs the listener to always live life to the fulllest and make the most out of the time they have here on this earth.
Thank you to Sam Wells for your collaboration on, and performance of this piece!
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...and veiled between
This is a stereo mix down of my 5-channel piece “…and veiled between”
We have all felt the tug of our conscience at one time or another in our lives. …and veiled between is a sonic realization of the battle that rages between our pride and our conscience as we struggle to make the right decisions in our lives. Memory and morality can become subjective as the voices in our head jockey for control of our soul. The text was sourced from the poem “Conscience” by Madison Julius Cawein, and Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche. Text recorded by Suzanne Pergal and John Mink.
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Reverberance
Reverberance is an exploration of the many timbres and textures that the Tam-Tam can produce. Through the use of a variety of implements and techniques, the performer takes us on a journey beyond our normal perception of the Tam-Tam, and with the help of Max/MSP creates a lush world full of color, warmth, and light.
Rather than using traditional score notation, Reverberance uses notes and cues hosted directly in Max/MSP to instruct the performer which gestures to perform throughout the piece. This allows the live performer and the electronic elements to remain organically and seamlessly intertwined.
Through the use of electronics, the reverberant qualities of the Tam-Tam have been isolated from their attacks, and augmented to show their range and depth. Decays have been impossibly extended to create rich harmonic textures and often overlooked sonorities have been moved into the spotlight. Reverberance is truly an expansion of the under-utilized characteristics of the Tam-Tam.
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Fluid Dynamics
My original intent for Fluid Dynamics (2002) was to use two rhythmic sounds I recorded—a raucous faulty faucet in a men’s restroom near the Concert Hall and a gently squeaking gas service regulator outside of Lisser Hall, both on the Mills College campus. As the piece developed, though, the rhythmic elements were set aside as the more subtle sound of gas traveling through the pipes and the soft purring sound that the faucet made on its way to the clacking rhythm became the foci. To these sources I added the sound of a large steel ball and a small brass ball bearing being propelled across a wooden floor, a spare MCI tape machine part rolling on a linotype sheet, and very thin brass sheeting gently swaying. The other main sound is that of a large steel ball rolling down two strings of a miniature koto-like instrument.
The sources are processed using phase vocoding, convolution, granular synthesis, equalization, and extensive layering. Although residual attachments to the original sounds remain, often their origins are rather obscured. The spatialization is natural. At times more static sources are convolved against naturally moving sources so that they take on the spatialization of the moving sources.