COMPEL Omeka Dev

Browse Items (868 total)

  • An important solo Synclavier work using both electronic and sampled sounds. Synclavier Concert, Lionel Hampton School of Music, University of Idaho, March 18, 1986.

  • Bright Waves is inspired by the concept of a luminescent ocean wave. In some tropical oceans, bioluminescent plankton (drifting organisms) in the water column glow when the sea is disturbed. A wave containing these microorganisms can be seen simultaneously on the micro and on the macro level; each individual swirl and eddy within the wave approximating a fractal (self-similar reproduction) of the wave as a whole. In Bright Waves, I use a series of dynamic loops and randomized delays to move musical material seamlessly between foreground and background. The slow rate of change, simple macro structure, and micro polyphony are meant to evoke the gathering, cresting, and chaotic breaking of a single powerful ocean wave.

  • Bright Waves was inspired by the concept of a luminescent ocean wave. In some tropical oceans, bioluminescent plankton (drifting organisms) in the water column glow when the sea is disturbed. A wave containing these microorganisms can be seen simultaneously on the micro and on the macro level; each individual swirl and eddy within the wave approximating a fractal (self-similar reproduction) of the wave as a whole. In Bright Waves, I use a series of dynamic loops and randomized delays to move musical material seamlessly between foreground and background. The slow rate of change, simple macro structure, and micro polyphony are meant to evoke the gathering, cresting, and chaotic breaking of a single powerful ocean wave.

  • Hardware-based analog modular synthesizer music; a combination of vintage and contemporary analog modular synthesizers.

    Breathing Voltages is a purely electronic piece of music, which was created in 2014.  It uses as its source material, sound which has been generated on a combination of old and new analogue modular synthesizer components.  I chose this title, because there is a kind of “breathing” character to the music, which is generated through the application of continually varying control voltages articulating long amplitude and filter envelopes.  It is also somewhat evocative of wave action.

    The piece employs my fragment-based compositional process, wherein discrete musical gestures and textures are recorded and then used as source material for the creation of the finished work in the computer, through the use of extensive audio editing and signal processing.  One can hear shades of minimalism in the piece, and it also makes fairly extensive use of chance operations and what one could call controlled randomness, though always refined in the crucible of my own relentless drive to create aesthetically satisfying musical experiences.  It is structured in three clear sections, which segue into one another.

    This is a piece which celebrates its electronic character, and in particular the sound of analog (as opposed to digital) synthesizer timbres.  It never tries to evoke the timbres of traditional acoustic instruments.  In addition, I would consider this piece to be more on the beautiful side, though my aesthetic dark side does make its presence felt from time to time.  I was striving to remain somewhat more tonal, at least with most of the primary musical elements.  For example, there is a decidedly tonal pentatonic pitch set that is presented as randomly generated melodic material at the heart of the second section.

  • fixed audio piece using recordings of breath sounds, toys and whistles. Best diffused over a multi-channel playback system.

    Breathing 2: Re/Inspiration has its origins in a piece I composed roughly 20 years ago entitled "Breathing." That was a very early work for me, and I have wanted to revisit the idea for a long time. This new work uses some of the original source recordings of toys and whistles (which I have been using for teaching demonstrations for years), combined with breath sounds made by my wife that I recorded nearly 10 years ago, and just a few small portions of the original piece. The composition is inspired by various aspects of breath: breath as necessary for the functioning of the body, breath as related to life force/energy, breath as meditation, breath as rhythm, and breath as self-expression.

  • A paper score is not used for performance; because there is very little to no sense of pulse in large parts of the work, video files of the scrolling score are provided (in three segments), for the players to read from. These files include the piece’s audio as well.

    A good set-up is: one person cueing the 3 videos on a laptop, which is fed to a larger monitor for the players to read from. Stereo audio comes out from the laptop. The only other component is the separate amplification of the violins, for blend purposes.

  • Bregman Electronic Music Studio. Source material 1950s American pop music with voices of Colette Gaudin and the composer.

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

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If you see an error or would like to add content to COMPEL, please leave a comment or contact Hollis Wittman at hollisw@vt.edu.