Browse Items (868 total)
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Of Dust and Sand
This piece uses the Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano, a device co-created by the composer. The electromagnets vibrate the piano strings while the performer attempts to manually dampen them. Releasing that damping results in a note.
Of Dust and Sand uses the Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano device, a rack of 12 electromagnets which is suspended over the strings of a piano. Each electromagnet is sent an audio signal and in turn excites its respective string, much like a stereo speaker made from piano strings. In this piece a subset of the magnets remains active throughout, the performer physically silencing the strings by pressing down with fingertips. Thus the instrument becomes a kind of anti-piano – lifting a finger frees a string to vibrate, producing sound. In addition, various items, such as paper and a plastic ruler, rest directly on the strings further altering the timbre. Remember – everything you hear is entirely acoustic.
While working on this piece I was deeply immersed in the novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. The title is in part drawn from an image that recurs throughout the novel, that of the hourglass of mortality, which Mann in turn drew from the etchings of Albrecht Dürer. The material of the piece is connected with the novel, though in ways so tenuous as to escape relevance.
Of Dust and Sand is dedicated to The Kenners.
(NOTE – the two channels specified above are for optional -but recommended- amplification of the piano and saxophone)
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On a Raising Value of Ice (from "A.M.A. (Ask Me Anything)")
Clarinet at the centre of an eclectic EDM fusion album -
On Occasion: an algorithm
Using samples recorded in the University of Iowa’s anechoic chamber and constructed in Max, the title references the algorithmic nature of the coded probabilities. -
Once Again to the Light
Commissioned and premiered by saxophonist John Sampen, and recorded on AMP Records: AMPREC 016. Written in memory of Cameron Benjamin. -
One Minute On The Surface Of The Sun
A Sonification Of Gamma Rays and Sine Waves -
Opus Palladianum: Voice and Drums
beat-based rhythmic complexity; integration of stylistically diverse materials; discontinuity
Opus Palladianum: voice and drums explores relations and contrasts, from those that are clear, such as the juxtaposition of opposites (soft, loud), to those that are ambiguous, such as the juxtaposition of synthetic and intimate. Contrast is created by presenting the voice and percussion elements in a variety of rhythmic, harmonic and technological settings. These organizations illuminate timbral identities, associations that are connected to production processes, and the relationship between an object and its development. Such juxtapositions and superimpositions invite listeners to consider how context, and not just timbre, influences the aesthetics of recorded, sampled, and synthesized sound. The piece creates unity and connections among these disparate elements through its formal construction. As a result, there is connection despite heterogeneity; there is fluidity despite disruption; there is peace despite agitation; there is continuity despite discontinuity. -
OSCines
“OSCines” focuses on the process of translating melodies found in birdsongs. The nightingale belongs to the clade Passeri also commonly known as Oscine, from the Latin root oscen meaning “a songbird.” Its birdsong is composed of a wide range of whistles, trills, and gurgles, which create a rich and vibrant melodic contour. Nightingale and clarinet samples serve as source and target materials (interchangeably) for spectral information collected via signal-processing detection systems. “OSCines” explores the alignment and collisions of distinct timbre features and melodic topologies within the virtual aviary of the speaker space.