COMPEL Omeka Dev

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  • Arctic Winds transports me to the Arctic (where I’ve never been, but dream of). The piece is sparse, with occasional frantic “windstorms” stirring up the vast frozen expanse. Everything is suspended, in near silence, with occasional forays dropping low into blasts of “wind.” Each sound is crystallized, exaggerated, as in our dreams.

    The primary sound sources are dry ice and several sizes of ball bearings rolling across a variety of drumheads, attached and unattached. I started working on this piece when I had a 102 degree temperature coupled with chills for three days. I suspect that experiencing those internal extremes conjured up those beautiful arctic dreams and this somewhat playful piece.

  • I started gathering video images for Apparent Horizon six years prior to its completion. These shots slowly reveal information in various landscapes by holding still on an image for several seconds, then zooming in or out or panning to reveal more detail, an unusual vista, rock formation, etc. It occurred to me that it also might be interesting to see what might be “revealed” from an overhead view. Since it was impractical to rent airplanes for this purpose, I incorporated NASA footage taken by the Space Shuttle and Apollo series astronauts. At times it is difficult to distinguish views of the earth from space from those taken on the earth’s surface.

    Many of the earthbound shots are of rather “alien” landscapes—those where I, as a human being, don’t really fit in—I’m the alien there. In these often desolate places the only sounds one hears are wind, insects, a scant number of birds and animals, and a rare rainstorm. I decided to take our constant human chatter and transpose it into sounds somewhat reminiscent of nature’s sounds in the landscapes to which they are attached or to transform them into somewhat “otherworldly” sounds. This was an attempt to convey an aural impression of the sensations I have experienced while in these earthbound landscapes and those sensations I imagine the astronauts might experience while viewing the earth from space. Sound sources consisted of transmissions from/through space and were from Space Shuttle and Apollo missions, satellite transmissions, and shortwave radio broadcasts. Often I chose sections that were full of static and distortion—signals that were reaching unintelligibility. There are Morse Code “crickets” at Bryce Canyon and static “rain” at the Canyonlands. This is the third work in a series of video pieces based on transformations of human-made or generated sounds, the previous two being Airwaves (realities) and Liquid Metal.

  • For me Distant Thunder conjures up images of being in the desert while watching distant thunderstorms roll across the sky, accompanied by the unforgettable sweet smell of desert rain. These storms are particularly beautiful as the rain clouds build, break apart, and re-form, sending tendrils of rain down, most evaporating long before they touch the desert floor.

    I intended to use the sounds of a resonant floor furnace and various adhesive tapes slowly unrolling as the primary sound sources, but after recording the furnace, I boiled water for tea, and could not resist recording the sonic patterns that emerged. I did use the sound of the furnace, but the tape unrolling was used only to impart spatialization through convolution to other, more stationary sources.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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!

  • 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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