Performance Paradigm, vol. 4. In the nineteenth century, the reputation of Beethoven’s music persisted long after his death, causing younger composers to feel as if they were competing against the “flood” of Beethoven’s influence. Many composers like Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler reconciled themselves in this situation by referring to or adapting materials of Beethoven’s but using them in their own ways. The advent of recording technology extended this effect to every composer that could be recorded, without relying solely on history to recognise Continue reading
This is Not a Guitar, for electric guitar and live electronics
This is Not a Guitar is a performance-oriented composition that exploits the electric guitar as an instrument that is necessarily mediated by amplifiers, numerous processors that remain mysterious “black boxes” to the audience, and physically displaced speakers. Audiences have come to overlook the disembodiment of the resulting sound from the physical actions that create it. As this disembodiment spreads to other parts of musical experience, e.g., YouTube, Second Life, iPods, etc., audiences continue to become desensitized to the effects of mediation on live performance. Instead of assuming equality between live and mediated forms, this work highlights “liveness” and mediation as a new dimension in which musical structure, tension/release, and meaning can be built. All sounds heard come from the live guitarist during performance, but in many moments, the live act of playing is sliced away from the resulting sound and recombined with the sight of other live acts, establishing a counterpoint in this new dimension of musical expression.
Ancient Chinese Secret
Ancient Chinese Secret is a sonic performance piece that exploits the inflated mystery of unseen goings-on: the sounds of a solemn ritual emerging from odd and meaningless tasks given to the performers. The details on the paper cannot be seen by the audience, and the sounds produced are only indirectly related to the main task of the performers, which is to solve a Sudoku puzzle. This is a study in meaninglessness, set up in a way that each viewer’s imagination might suggest different meanings for the actions and sounds of the performers. In recorded or radio performance, the mystery is heightened because the performers cannot be seen, making the sound seem even more ancient, Chinese, and secret (although they may not be any of these things).A demo performance by the composer:
Feedback Instruments: Generating Musical Sounds, Gestures, and Textures in Real Time with Complex Feedback Systems
International Computer Music Conference
Live sampling in improvised musical performance: Three approaches and a discussion of aesthetics
DMA Dissertation. A discussion of issues raised by these works includes aesthetics, ontology, performance, and the role of the composer. Non-interactive indeterminate compositions are ontologically thin, because some composerly agency is required of the performer. An interactive work can be ontologically substantial if it makes distinct and significant contributions to performance, even though it may not make sound on its own. Although reproducibility reduces ontology and eliminates aura, live sampling within a performance can deepen the ontology of the Continue reading
Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Musiker
Live sampling performance with Eric km Clark, violin
Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival
Tappatappatappa is an improvised performance using custom software created by the artist and a cone microphone to amplify small sounds and room resonances. This performance was on the opening gala concert of the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival at the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, November 2006.
A Dynamic Model of Metric Rhythm in Electroacoustic Music
International Computer Music Conference. The possibilities offered by electronic composition tools, while liberating, make difficult the dynamic use of organized rhythm in electroacoustic music. This paper explores a model stemming from interactive electroacoustic work by the author that adapts aspects of the hocketed, disjunct rhythmic textures of funk styles for use as a developmental musical parameter. These methods for generating rhythm that facilitate transformation in ways more naturally manipulated by computer-based tools are demonstrated in theory and in use by
Flash for trombone choir at the Bonk Festival in the Dalí Museum!
flash portrays a single instant in detail, stretched out across time. (Note: it starts very quietly.)
Bonk Festival of New Music 2004 (3/14/2004, Salvador Dalí Museum, Tampa Bay, Florida)—performed in honor of Dalí’s centenary. The Bonk Festival of New Music is produced with the support of the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, The Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Univ. of Chicago performs Quintet for Horn, Woodwinds, and Piano
Eighth Annual Midwest Graduate Music Consortium (2/28/2004, University of Chicago, Illinois)— “Quintet for Horn with Woodwinds and Piano” performed by the University of Chicago new music ensemble.