Browse Items (868 total)

• A BLADE WITHIN

  I find myself sometimes lost and unsure within the compositional process. Whether the work is an acoustic, electronic, or a combination of both, I often find the struggle is the same. A Blade Within is a fix media 2 channel stereo work that found it's conception within the struggle of the composer's processes. I try to express these subjective operandi by means of raw, as well as manipulated sound sources. The final gesture of the work accentuates the nucleus of the main idea.

• 20 (or so) Variations

• "while the earth is still turning"

• "Real-Time Processing Improv"

  real-time signal processing of improvisers

• "…wash yourself of yourself"

  (SCORE AND ELECTRONICS AVAILABLE BY REQUEST – jacob.sudol@gmail.com)

  stereo and multi-channel versions available

  Program Note

  “…wash yourself of yourself” incorporates two electronics techniques that I developed in 2008 and 2009. One technique uses real-time spectral analysis to create timbres by both subtractive and additive synthesis. These timbres imitate the original sounds as well as the combination tones our brains create when hearing these sounds. The other technique uses real-time spectral analyses to create statistically transforming clouds of microtonal samples. In the case of my recent piano works, the samples used to create these clouds are also piano sounds. Both of these techniques aim to provide the listener with novel methods to explore his or her own listening.

  “…wash yourself of yourself” is the second modular part to my other recent work for piano and electronics “Be melting snow…” While the latter work explores strictly notated algorithms, “…wash yourself of yourself” presents the same techniques in an open and structured improvisational manner. The combined quote “Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself” comes from a poem by Rumi. Both these works along with a third work for piano and electronics – “…approaching a prayer” – comprise a trilogy of works that explore similar electronic techniques and contemplative interests.

  Pianist Xenia Pestova and composer Jacob David Sudol premiered “…wash yourself of yourself” in the Experimental Music Theatre at the University of California, San Diego in November 2009. The entire collection of works was written for and is dedicated to Taiwanese pianist and composer Chen-Hui Jen.

  -Jacob David Sudol
  January 8 and 9, 2010
  La Jolla, CA and New York City, NY

• "…ce dangereux supplément…"

  “…ce dangereux supplément…” is a set of phonetic studies for voice, video, and electronics. A suite of three pieces [(tRas), (spɛktʁ), and (sɑ̃dʁ)] the work is based on a close examination of the sounds used in everyday linguistic activity, which are juxtaposed against more extreme vocal effects. The live performance is supplemented with electronic voices which stretch and transform this common vocality. The visuals range from rapid-fire successions of symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet, to more suspended meditations on elaborately arranged orthographic tapestries made from the same symbols.
  
  “…ce dangereux supplément…” is a poetic rehearsal of the Derridean supplement, that unbelonging excess in a binary opposition which is (contradictorily) crucially indispensable. This takes place throughout the work via a dialectic between linguistic articulation (consonants) and voiced intonation (vowels). While moving between these two poles, the performer acts out a futile search for the primary referent (or “master signifier”), but eventually realizes all that is to be found is an infinite hauntology, a spectral chain of traces, specters, and cinders.

• 'Otahiti

  Bregman Electronic Music Studio. A political piece in protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. Source material from French Polynesia and voices recorded in France. Commissioned by the Group de Musique Experimentale de Bourges.

• 'Ofa atu Tonga

  Bregman Electronic Music Studio. Work using real and fabricated source material from the Kingdom of Tonga.

• ...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.

• …approaching a prayer

  SCORE AND ELECTRONICS AVAILABLE BY REQUEST – jacob.sudol@gmail.com

  multichannel and stereo versions available (multichannel version preferred…)

  * * * * *

  Program Note

  …approaching a prayer for piano and electronics was written for composer and pianist Chen-Hui Jen. The work is the second work written by the composer in 2009 and 2010 for piano and electronics. Whereas the other work deals with abstract spiritual concepts, …approaching a prayer work deals with personal meditations and reflections on loss and eternity.

  Chen-Hui Jen and the composer premiered the work at Chapman University in January 2010.