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tin birds

generative four-channel audio installation

Machine expressivity is often thought of as involving precision, speed, rhythmic complexity, non-idiomatic (for human performers) pitch patterns and replication. Human expressivity is often thought of involving groove, phrasing, affect, contour, variation, articulation, entrainment and communication. While these attributes help shape our conceptions of what is human versus what is mechanical, they are not confined to one category or the other: humans can be precise and robots can groove. Expressive identity is more analog than digital. This does not preclude expressive spaces that are unique to humans and machines, rather, it suggests the areas between them are ambiguous and that the attributes that define them do not do so in a one-to-one fashion (instead, attribute-space relationships are a function of combination and context). The music explores these areas of ambiguity and clarity. Genre is treated in a similar way such that stylistic exemplars are presented authentically and in transformation. The intersections in expressive identity and style illuminate what is exclusive and what is shared.

Performed by the Juventas New Music Ensemble and the musical robots PAM and CADI, which were designed and built by EMMI and the Music, Perception and Robotics Lab at WPI.

Juventas New Music Ensemble:

Lidiya Yankovskaya, Conductor

Orlando Cela, Flute
Wolcott Humphrey, Clarinet
Nate Tucker, Percussion
Maja Tremiszewska, Piano
Olga Patramanska-Bell, Violin
Michael Dahlberg, Cello

Recorded and mixed by Scott Barton

Penelope's Song

Penelope's Song, inspired by the Odyssey, dramatically combines electronics fashioned from recordings of wood looms with the agile power of the flute.

Penelope’s Song was inspired by Homer’s epic, the Odyssey, the story of the travails of Odysseus, who was away from home for twenty years, first at war in Troy and then, due to the sea-god Poseidon’s wrath, for ten more difficult years. It also tells of his wife, Penelope, Queen of Ithaca, waiting for him, and of the many suitors, filled with greed and arrogance, who tried to woo her so they could become king. To stave them off she devised excuses. In one, she said she would take no suitor until she finished her weaving. But, since she unraveled at night what she wove by day, she made no progress. This piece is a tribute to her, and sings of her own adventures. The electronics were created from recordings of wooden looms. I processed and shaped these, weaving a new sonic fabric. This version of Penelope’s Song was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, Lindsey Goodman. The original was composed for viola, and there are now also versions for violin, cello, clarinet, recorded by clarinetist Andrea Cheeseman; and soprano sax, recorded by Susan Fancher.

Cherry Blossom and a Wrapped Thing; After Hokusai

Inspired by a subtle print by Hokusai, this piece was commissioned by F. Gerard Errante, for his CD 'Delicate Balance.'

Cherry Blossom and a Wrapped Thing: After Hokusai was inspired by a print of the same name by the extraordinary Japanese printmaker known as Hokusai (1760 – 1849). I encountered it in a sumptuous collection of his prints in Tokyo and was immediately struck by the subtle mystery of both its subject matter and execution. The cherry blossom speaks of the beauty and brevity of life; the wrapped thing of its ineffability. My compositional response is scored for amplified clarinet and multichannel audio. The electronics were made from cuttings of a previous piece commissioned by clarinetist F. Gerard Errante, to whom the piece is dedicated. They have been transformed into an entirely different form and take root in new ways, wrapping around the performer and audience, sometimes drifting to earth, sometimes floating above. The sound processing and multi-channel audio path were designed using RTcmix. F. Gerard Errante commissioned the piece for his Delicate Balance CD, available on Aucourant Records. –JS

Spring Tides

Spring Tides, scored for amplified Pierrot Ensemble (fl, cl, vln, vc, pno) was called '...a rich and evocation of the power of nature..." by the New York Times

Spring Tides, scored for amplified Pierrot Ensemble (fl, cl, vln, vc, pno) and interactive electronics, was inspired by the pull of the moon and sun on the flow of the tides, highest when the moon and sun are directly lined up with the earth. The very highest, or spring tides, occur when the moon is either full or new, and the gravitational pull of moon and the sun are combined. In Spring Tides this process animates the pull between acoustic and electronic sound, between controlled improvisation and exactly specified elements, between slow and surging motion, and between shifting fields of timbre and pitch. Spring Tides was commissioned by and is dedicated to Da Capo Chamber Players.

Bought and Sold

Exploration of how context affects the listener's reception of music through contextual manipulation of a famous musical example.

Coelacanth

For Bass Trombone, Amplified Octet, and Responsive Electroacoustic Environment

The bass trombone, in the foreground in Coelacanth, snakes through a landscape populated with brittle noise, buzzing tin foil, homemade rubber-band instruments, and bouncing Ping-Pong balls. Exploring extreme juxtapositions of noise versus pitch, density versus sparsity, and synchrony versus asynchrony, the piece is pervaded by a feeling of tension and disquiet. Like an oscillating spring–mass system, Coelacanth constantly seems to be losing energy, in danger of grinding to a halt, only to receive another push just in time to continue on a bit further. Central to the aesthetic of the work is an eight-foot suspended walnut-wood plank. The sound of this instrument, referred to by Greek composer Iannis Xenakis as a “simantra” in reference to an instrument of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox providence, is rich in noise and high harmonic partials. These pitches, untangled from recordings of the instrument with the help of software, form the basis for the harmonic language of Coelacanth. Equally important to the work is the timbre of another unusual instrument, the bullroarer. Consisting of an airfoil swung around the head to produce an eerie buzzing noise, examples of suspected bullroarers have been found in caves in France dating from the Palaeolithic Era. The timbre of this instrument is explored in Coelacanth through software algorithms that translate the unmistakable pulsing drone of the bullroarer into chords that slowly transform as they disperse throughout the ensemble. Like the work’s namesake, Coelacanth is bony and awkward, but among all the sharp teeth and superfluous fins, a fearful beauty seems imminent.

Armor+2

a piece inspired by classic synthesis techniques and RPG games

In Armor+2, the interactive computer part acts as an extension of the clarinet. it adds harmony, extends melodic phrase, and creates rhythmic accompaniment that are difficult/impossible for a human accompaniment. The computer part’s role is similar to that of a rare enchanted item in a role-playing game.

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