Browse Items (868 total)

• For Daniel Frantz: an algorithm

  Samples recorded by Daniel Frantz and Will Huff in the University of Iowa’s anechoic chamber by percussionist Andy Thierauf (theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS). The piece is algorithmically generated in Max and can last for any duration desired.

• Flurry

• 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.

• Flown

• Fizz

  Two sounds primarily sparked FIZZ. The first was a disequilibrium in a toilet tank that caused almost inaudible cyclic, but constantly changing, sounds: a faint rising squeak that occurred at the valve where the rod attaches, coupled with water trickling down the refill pipe, resulting in a squeak, trickle, squeak, trickle sequence. I stretched this sound using granular synthesis and layered the results. There is an ebb and flow that floats naturally across the space. It provides the long section that occurs after the rhythmic filtered faulty faucet valve that begins the piece. Disk drives turning on and off then spiral us into a section in which a malfunction in my system caused cyclic low frequency feedback. This is accompanied by fizz, a sound that I never captured satisfactorily until a student, Alison Johnson, played her wonderful recording of fizzing for me. She divulged her method of producing fizzing, providing the second spark for this piece.

• Five Songs

  In Five Songs, analyses of the flute performance drive the electroacoustic music, modifying various parameters that affect its realization in a way that is closely related to the flutist’s sound and gesture. Each part complements the musical capabilities of the other: sometimes they fuse into a compound voice that is simultaneously narrative and abstract, and at other times they oppose one another in stark relief. Inspired by the poetry of Stephen Crane, the five brief sections of the work manifest contrasting moods, interaction strategies, and approaches to material.

• Filhos da Nana

  The first of several songs for children in Brazilian orphanages sung by those children and Marlui Miranda.

• Fantasy in Earth Tones

  Fantasy in Earth Tones takes its name from Earth Tones, a piece for fixed media written by the composer in 1978 on the Moog Mark IV and the Arp 2600 synthesizers. The sounds of the times were dominated by the warm pulsing of square wave pads and glissing lead lines. Groups like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the Moody Blues fixed these sounds firmly in my ears when I was a high school student. So when Jay Gilbert and his 26 colleagues asked me to write a piece combining fixed media with high school band, my mind and my ears went immediately to those days, and those sounds. The opening runs in the synth and the last 30 seconds of the piece borrow from Earth Tones, but the remainder of the piece is pure fantasy.
  
  I am delighted to have been asked to write this piece for them, and to bring a little of my own youthful musical experiences to the ears of the talented young players of a new decade.

• Fanfare for the Velasca Tower

  The astounding view of Velasca Tower as a sort of score.

• Failing to Resist

  It was my wife who pointed out to me that I tend to fidget with objects for long periods of time. Feeling, manipulating, figuring them out as if touch were the only sense available to me. The resulting sounds tend to annoy her after some time. It was this vice that became the germ for this piece. Sound sources include a bicycle, foam, paper, metal water canteen, bicycle helmet, a lamp, and my wedding ring taped on a number of different surfaces.