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Aesthetic and Technical Analysis on Soar!
Soar! is a musical composition written for wind ensemble and computer music. The total duration of the work is approximately 10 minutes. Flocking behavior of migratory birds serves as the most prominent influence on the imagery and local structure of the composition. The cyclical nature of the birds' journey inspires palindromic designs in the temporal domain. Aesthetically, Soar! portrays the fluid shapes of the flocks with numerous grains in the sounds. This effect is achieved by giving individual parts high degree of independence, especially in regards to rhythm. Technically, Soar! explores various interactions among instrumental lines in a wind ensemble, constructs overarching symmetrical structures, and integrates a large ensemble with computer music. The conductor acts as the leader at several improvisational moments in Soar! The use of conductor-initiated musical events in the piece can be traced back through the historic lineage of aleatoric compositions since the middle of the twentieth century. [Score is on p. 54-92.]
Aesthetic Models and Structural Features in Concerto for Solo Percussion and Concert Band
Concerto for Solo Percussion and Concert Band was commissioned by Staff Sergeant Rone Sparrow, a percussionist with the West Point Military Academy Band. Funding for the project was provided by the Barlow Foundation. The piece was premiered April 13, 2005 in the Eisenhower Hall Theater at West Point, New York. Rone Sparrow performed with the USMA band, and Colonel Thomas Rotondi Jr., Commander/Conductor, conducted the piece. The concerto consists of three movements, and each movement features a different instrument: the first features marimba, the second, vibraphone, and the third movement features the drum kit together with a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums). In addition to the piece, the dissertation paper discusses important technical detail related to the piece, including: harmony, form, rhythm, programmatic ideas as they relate to motivic strands, and the process of generating and discarding material. The paper also focuses on a number of factors that were influential to the piece, such as postmodern philosophy.
Among the Voices Voiceless: Setting the Words of Samuel Beckett
Among the Voices Voiceless is a composition for flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), viola, cello, percussion, piano, and electronics, based on the poem "What would I do without this world faceless incurious" by Samuel Beckett. The piece is a setting for disembodied voice: the vocal part exists solely in the electronics. Having no physical body, the voice is obscured as the point of empathy for the audience. In addition, instrumental solos compete for focus during the work's twenty minute duration. In passages including a soloist, the soloist functions simultaneously as antagonist and avatar to the disembodied voice. Spoken word recordings and electronic manipulation of instrumental material provides further layers of ambiguity. The companion critical essay "Among the Voices Voiceless": Setting the Words of Samuel Beckett proposes the distillation of Beckett's style into the elements of prosaicness, repetition, fragmentation, ambiguity, and symmetry. Discussions of Beckett's works such as Waiting for Godot and Molloy demonstrate these elements in his practice. This framework informs the examination of two other musical settings of Beckett's poetry: Neither by Morton Feldman and Odyssey by Roger Reynolds. Finally, these elements are used to analyze and elucidate the compositional decisions made in Among the Voices Voiceless.
And Drops of Rain Fall Like Tears: A Composition for Electroacoustic Music and Video
And Drops of Rain Fall Like Tears is a composition for electroacoustic music with an optional ambient video component. The composition consists of a single movement electroacoustic work twenty-two minutes in duration. The piece creates an immersive sonic environment within the confines of a typical concert space, thereby recreating the powerful temper and subtle beauty of nature from different sonic perspectives. The paper is divided into four chapters, each discussing an element of the piece in detail. The introduction presents background information and compositional approach for the composition. Chapters 1 through 4 present detailed information related to the creation of both the electroacoustic music and video elements of the piece. Chapter 4 contains relevant information to the performance of the piece.
Archetypal Dreams
In the composition Archetypal Dreams, musical imagery is created through motifs and ideas that represent the symbolic messages of the unconscious. These motifs are introduced, developed, transformed, and overlapped in contrapuntal dialogue. This unfolding of material grows in significance and complexity building to a resolution of tension. The relationship of motifs to the row is re-established and the row is reconstructed. In this manner the conscious and unconscious elements of the personality are symbolically reconciled. The four movements of the work are entitled: I. Primordial Images; II. Archaic Remnants; III. Mythological Motifs; IV. The Process of Individuation
Audiovisual Concatenative Synthesis and "Replica"
Audiovisual concatenative synthesis is an analysis-driven granular technique using a corpus of multimedia data to sequence audio and video streams on a microtemporal level. This text outlines my development of this technique as a tool for multimedia composition, using my work, Replica, as a case study. The paper illustrates how the concepts of granular structure, gesture capture, and replication are integral not only to the software but to the architecture of the composition. In doing so, machine learning approaches to music and visual art are reviewed and related to my personal compositional practice. Additionally, I attempt to show how audiovisual concatenative synthesis provides a composer with strategies for shaping one's sense of time through disorienting audiovisual cues and tightly organized counterpoint between sound and image, stage and screen, and the real and virtual.
Augeries, for Flute, Clarinet, Percussion and Tape: Aesthetic Discussion and Theoretical Analysis
Augeries is a multi-channel electro-acoustic composition for flute, clarinet, percussion, and tape. It is intended to be diffused through an 8-channnel playback system. Inspired by the first four lines of William Blake's Augeries of Innocence, Augeries captures the qualitative aspects of Blake's poetry by presenting the listener with an equally aperspectival aesthetic experience. The small-scale structure reflected on the large-scale form - the infusion of vastness and expansiveness into the fragile and minute. Augeries incorporates techniques of expansion and contraction, metonymic relationships, dilation and infolding of time, and structured improvisation to create an experience that is designed to explore the notion of musical time, and to bring to the listener the sense of time freedom. The critical analysis suggests that the increase in the notions of musical time, the aesthetics with which they conform, and the new time forms created, encapsulate communicative significance. This significance exists within a horizon of meaning. Semiotics illuminates an understanding of the structuring techniques used to render time as an area of artistic play. Understanding the aesthetics and mechanisms through which these techniques can be used constitutes a shared horizon of meaning. The concepts of cultural phenomenologist Jean Gebser, as explicated in The Ever-Present Origin, are used to contextualize these notions, through a description of the various consciousness structures with specific attention to the space-time relationships. Of specific concern are the aperspectival manifestations in music in the twentieth century and beyond. Special emphasis is given to the area of electro-acoustic music, particularly spectral music. The theoretical analysis explores how the various techniques are used to create an aperspectival experience, and includes specific descriptions of the technique of refraction as metonymy, and pitch set analysis of the technique of expansion and contraction.
I, Blavatsky: A One-Act Opera
I, Blavatsky is a one-act opera based on the life of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a nineteenth-century Russian princess and co-founder of a religious organization called the Theosophical Society. The libretto, by the composer, involves a cast of three principal soloists and minor roles for six more singers who are also participants in a small chorus. The text format features free verse alternating with regular, rhymed strophes. Accompaniment is provided by a piano. Melodic structure combines some nineteenth-century Romantic idioms with twentieth-century style. Most of the melodic and harmonic material was intuitively composed to express the text. Rhythmic and stylistic contrasts are accomplished in the representation of the extensive travels of the main character. Stage directions involve a stylized set, several scenes requiring minimal set changes, magical effects to represent that facet of Blavatsky's life, and onstage costume changes for several characters. Approximate duration is one hour.
Breakdown
Breakdown is a 17 minute, single movement work for orchestra in five sections. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 Bb clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 Bb trumpets, 4 horns in F, 3 trombones, tuba, percussion, piano, and strings. The percussion consists of a tam-tam, 5 break drums, 4 timbales, 2 gourds, chimes, marimba, vibraphone, snare drum, 2 field drums, bass drum and tympani. The inspiration for this work is the poetry of Bruce Weigl which deals with many facets of the Vietnam experience. One particular work from his collection Song of Napalm, the poem "Breakdown", provided the basis for the emotional and structural content of the music. There are two primary sources of pitch material in the music of Breakdown, both of which have links to the Vietnam War. The name of a soldier who was killed in Vietnam, Miles Cooper, was used to generate a basic pitch set and a series of variation sets that provide much of the harmonic and melodic material in Breakdown. There derived sets are supported by the use of phrases and motives from the hymn Jewels, which celebrates the love of God for his children, and providesan indirect link to the subject of the piece, the war in Vietnam.
Capriccio: A Composition for Symphonic Orchestra
A body of works titled 'capriccio' have existed for over four hundred years. Most of these works are characterized by a composers abandonment of expected stylistic norms. Guided only by the fanciful whim of the composer, a capriccio exhibits extreme contrasts in the various parameters of a musical composition including melody, harmony, counterpoint, mood and texture. The composition embedded in these compositional parameters as its point of departure and development.
Cenotaph: A Composition for Computer-Generated Sound
Cenotaph is a work of fifteen minutes duration for solo tape realized on the Synclavier Digital Music System at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia. All of the sound materials in the work consist of resynthesized timbres derived from the analysis of digital recordings of seven different human voices, each speaking the last name of one of the Challenger astronauts. The work's harmonic resources are derived in a unique way involving partitioning of the octave by powers of the Golden Section. The work is in a single movement divided into three sections which function as prologue, action, and epilogue, respectively. This formal structure is reinforced by differentiation of harmonicmaterials and texture. Although Cenotaph cannot be performed "live" and exists only as a recording, a graphic score is included to assist analysis and study.
Characterizing Noise and Harmonicity: The Structural Function of Contrasting Sonic Components in Electronic Composition
This dissertation examines the role of noise in shaping the form of several recent musical compositions. This study demonstrates how the contrast of noisy sounds and harmonic sounds can impact the structure of compositions. Depending on context, however, the specific use and function of noise can vary substantially from one work to the next. The first portion of this paper describes methods for quantifying noise content using FFT analysis procedures. A number of tests on instrumental and synthetic sound sources are described in order to demonstrate how the analysis system may react to certain sounds. The second part of this document consists of several analyses of whole musical works. Works for acoustic instruments are examined first, followed by works for electronic media. During these analyses, it becomes clear that while the use of noise in each work is based largely upon context, some common patterns do exist across different works. The final portion of the paper examines an original work which was written with the function of noise specifically in mind. The original work is put through the same analysis procedures as works seen earlier in the paper, and some conclusions are drawn regarding both the possibilities and limitations of noise analysis as a compositional tool.
Concertino for Orchestra
Concertino consists of two movements, Paean and Dithyramb, either of which may be performed independently. Paean, a work of calm and majestic intensity, is characterized by a rhythmic pulse which is more consistently regular than that of the Dithyramb. Its three major sections form an arch, the final measures (mm. 87-95) returning to the material of the opening (mm. 1-14). The first section begins quietly, Maestoso ma sostenuto, in a very slow tempo. The activity and intensity increase until a brief, more active middle section begins in a faster tempo (Ancora piu mosso, m. 55). A fff climax (m. 63) begins in the third section (Tempo I). After a brief poco piu mosso (mm. 72-81), the opening tempo is restored (m. 82), the opening material returns (m. 87) and the final chord fades away. Dithyramb is a free and dramatic movement in which the musical material of the wind group usually contrasts with that of the string group. The piano, which has its own material, occasionally takes on the character of one group or the other as though mediating the conflict.
Creating Musical Momentum: Textural and Timbral Sculpting with Intuitive Compositional Systems and Formal Design
This dissertation explores the analysis and creation of compositions from the standpoint of texture and momentum. It is comprised of four chapters. The first presents a number of concepts as tools for analysis, including textural typography and transformation, perception of time and psychological engagement of an audience, and respiration as a metaphor for musical momentum. The second and third chapters apply these tools to Gerard Grisey's "Periodes" and "Partiels," and Brian Ferneyhough's "Lemma-Icon-Epigram." The fourth explores specific methodologies used in composing my dissertation piece, "Phase," including the application of number systems ranging from formal to local levels.
The Creative Process in Cross-Influential Composition
This dissertation describes a compositional model rooted in cross-influential methodology between complementary musical compositions that share generative source material. In their simultaneous construction, two composition pairs presented challenges that influenced and mediated the other's development with respect to timbre, transposition, pitch material, effects processing, and form. A working prototype first provides a model that is later developed. The first work Thema is for piano alone, and the companion piece Am3ht is for piano and live computer processing via the graphical programming environment Max/MSP. Compositional processes used in the prototype solidify the cross-influential model, demanding flexibility and a dialectic approach. Ideas set forth in the prototype are then explored through a second pair of compositions rooted in cross-influential methodology. The first work Lusmore is scored for solo contrabass and Max/MSP. The second composition Knockgrafton is scored for string orchestra. The flexibility of the cross-influential model is revealed more fully through a discussion of each work's musical development. The utility of the cross-influential compositional model is discussed, particularly within higher academia.
Cultural and Technical Perspectives on Winter Landscape
Winter Landscape is an interactive composition for erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle), flute, piano, and Max/MSP interactive computer music system. The total duration of the piece is approximately 15 minutes. Winter Landscape serves to demonstrate one particular approach to exploring the possibilities afforded in an interactive paradigm within a cross-cultural context. The work is intended to convey my personality and identity as a contemporary Chinese composer through diverse cultural and musical influences drawn to this particular piece while creating a balance between traditional and modern sounds. The influences of Chinese philosophy (especially Chán) and the essence of Chinese traditional music play a prominent role as demonstrated in the formation of structures, expressions, and concept of Yun in the work; these influences also play a great role in determining the instrumentation and basic pitch structures of the work. However, this work is equally influenced by techniques and practices of modern Western classical music. These diverse influences hopefully have resulted in a unique work that truly does represent a cross-synthesis of these varying influences. In Winter Landscape, the interaction that takes place between the computer and the live musician is intended to reveal the responsive human/machine relationships. The computer constantly shifts its roles as a musical instrument, conductor, performer, and improviser to facilitate the sonic realization of the solemn, nebulous, and peaceful nature of Chán philosophy, thus exploring the cultural and musical potentials; meanwhile, the design of algorithmic structures simulate the modeling of human performance, enabling the computer with intellectual ability and musical expressivity as a decision-maker, resembling its counterpart-the live performer.
A Different Drummer: A Chamber Opera
A Different Drummer is a chamber opera adaptation of Donald Davis's story "A Different Drummer" from his collection Listening for the Crack of Dawn, published by August House. The opera lasts about seventy minutes, and calls for a cast of three and an orchestra of sixteen players. It contains a prologue, epilogue and four scenes in a single act. The score is prefaced by a paper describing the musical strategies employed in setting the story as an opera. Three chapters describe the adaptation from short story to opera, the essential musical elements, and details of the application of the musical elements in each scene of the opera. The libretto is presented in the fourth chapter.
Distant Thoughts: Dreams and Reflections
Distant Thoughts: Dreams and Reflections, A Suite for Symphonic Winds, is a seventeen-minute work composed for the high school level wind ensemble. The instrumentation is based on the typical high school band resources. Instrumentation includes piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two alto saxophones, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, two bassoons, four trumpets, four horns, two trombones, bass trombone, two euphoniums, two tubas, timpani, and four percussionists.
Dream of a Thousand Keys: A Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Dream of a Thousand Keys is a concerto for piano and orchestra, which consists of four movements presenting multiple dimensional meanings as suggested by the word "key." I trace the derivation of Korean traditional rhythmic cycles and numerical sequences, such as the Fibonacci series, that are used throughout the work, and explore the significant role of space between the soloist and piano that are emphasized in a theatrical aspect of the composition. The essay addresses the question of musical contrasts, similarities, and metamorphosis. Lastly, I cover terms and concepts of significant 21st-century compositional techniques that come into play in the analysis of this work.
Earth Ascending: A Composition in Three Movements for Female Voice, Electroacoustic Music, and Video
Earth Ascending is a composition in three movements scored for female voice, electroacoustic music, and video. Composed in the Year 2000, Earth Ascending lasts approximately sixteen minutes and was created specifically for live performance in which all three elements combine to create a sonic and visual environment. As such, no single element has greater importance than any other, with each of the three performing forces assuming a foreground role at various times throughout the work. Earth Ascending is defined by a single poem written by contemporary female British poets Jeni Counzyn, Jehanne Mehta, and Cynthia Fuller. The movements are named according to the title of each poem: Earth-Body, Light-Body; Wringcliff Beach; and Pool. The movements are separated in performance by five seconds of silence and black on the video screen. The paper accompanying the score of Earth Ascending is divided into five chapters, each discussing in detail an element central to the composition itself. The Introduction presents background information, general ideas, and approaches undertaken when creating the work. Chapters 1 through 3 investigate in detail the content of the electroacoustic music, voice, and video. Chapter 4 discusses scoring techniques, revealing approaches and methods undertaken to solve issues relating to notation and ways of accurately representing sound, pitch, and rhythm within the context of a mixed media work. Chapter 5 presents information relevant to the live performance of the piece.
Elatio: Praises and Prophecies
ELATIO: Praises and Prophecies is an allegorical composition based upon a collection of carols, poetry and prose in selected verses, phrases and fragments from medieval Christian liturgy, the canonical Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament, and portions of various non-canonical Dead Sea Scroll texts. The languages used in the selections presented here are English, Medieval Latin, and transliterated Biblical Hebrew.
Fidget, Sway, and Swerve: Three Works Inspired By Movement From the Intricate Maneuvers Series
Intricate Maneuvers is a series of musical works that were composed using movement as a model for compositional processes and forms. This essay presents in-depth analyses of three works from the series; Fidget, Sway: The Mildest Form of Falling, and Swerve for Chamber Ensemble. The analysis of each work highlights correlations between the musical characteristics of that work and the temporal, spatial, contextual, and psychological implications of the motion after which it was modeled. The third chapter also demonstrates the ways in which the creation of Sway was influenced by materials and processes taken from Ruth Crawford's String Quartet 1931. In order to investigate the question of how life experiences can function as models for compositional processes, the essay examines precedents for the compositional modeling of extra-musical ideas and images in the works of Bed?ich Smetana, Elliott Carter and Roger Reynolds. It also discusses approaches to modeling movement in music created for dance. Throughout the Intricate Maneuvers series, movement is modeled not merely to create an association between a musical work and a particular movement pattern, but rather to infuse the compositions with the dynamism that defines a particular kinetic experience.
Five Soundscapes for Acoustic Instruments and Taped Computer Music
Inspired by Chinese poems, the overall characteristics of the work reflect the assimilation of several non-Western musical and philosophical influences such as the use of pentatonic scale patterns, the principle of embellishing a single note, and the application of the I-Ching in dealing with active instrumental passages over a long-sustained computer music drone. Traditional Western compositional techniques such as aleatory counterpoint, serialism, and moment form are also employed in the treatment of thematic material, developmental processes and formal design.
Galileo's Eyeglass: An Orchestral Work Celebrating the Discovery of the Moons of Jupiter and the Rings of Saturn
Galileo's Eyeglass is a celebratory work for full orchestra with standard instrumentation commemorating Galileo Galilei's discoveries of the four largest moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn in 1610. The composition is approximately 14 minutes in duration, and although divided thematically into four parts, the music is continuous. The work exhibits primarily a blend of contemporary styles and compositional elements, yet it is rooted in traditional tonality; furthermore, the piece is interspersed with references to Galileo's life and times, including quotations of a toccata composed by the scientist's brother, Michelangelo Galilei, transcribed from lute tablature. Chapter 1 of Part 1 investigates relevant historical threads extracted from the backdrop of Galileo's life, from reflections on the events that shape the musical program, to the selection and preparation of the period music composed by Galileo's brother. Chapter 2 discusses specific musical components of Galileo's Eyeglass, including form, musical quotations, motivic and thematic material, harmonic language, orchestration, and notation. Chapter 3 examines the principal philosophical themes behind the composition, including expressions of victory of a life well lived in spite of many obstacles. Part 2 contains the orchestral score.
General Process in the Creation of Estruendos and Principal Structural Elements of the Composition
My composition, Estruendos, is a work for large symphonic orchestra, guitar and computer-generated and processed sounds on CD. The work lasts 23 minutes and 45 seconds. My dissertation is composed of two parts: Part One comprises the analysis and Part Two comprises the score. Part One gives a brief background of my compositional dialect and aesthetics. It also includes a discussion of the compositional process and general overview of Estruendos. In addition, it illustrates the primary role the placement of sonic events in time and timbral structure play in the pathos of Estruendos.
Gestures and Fields
Gestures and Fields is a twenty minute work for chamber orchestra and dancers. It is scored for flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling English horn), Bb clarinet (doubling Eb clarinet), bassoon Bb trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, percussion, piano, and strings. The percussion consists of a suspended cymbal, large tam-tam, 5 temple blocks, xylophone, marimba, tumba, snare, tenor drum, 4 tom-toms, bass drum and timpani. The work is in 5 movements, each inspired by an abstract expressionist painting: Autumn Rhythm by Jackson Pollock, Light, Earth and Blue by Mark Rothko, Mahoning by Franz Kline, Vir Heroicus Sublimus by Barnett Newman, and Excavation by Willem de Kooning.
The Heidegger Collection
The dissertation consists of two parts: (1) the essay and (2) the composition. The essay elucidates the composer's creative process of the orchestral works, The Heidegger Collection. The Heidegger Collection has five movements. The titles of each movement are derived from the key philosophical concepts from Heidegger's most significant writing, Being and Time: (1) State-of-Mind, (2) Idle-Talk, (3) Moment-of-Vision, (4) Dread, and (5) Being-towards-the-End. The essay discusses the meanings of the five concepts, and explains how I express my reaction to Heidegger's thinking through music composition. The essay also discusses the essential musical language of The Heidegger Collection, such as interval cycles, polyrhythmic patterns, algorithmic elements, portamento effects, chaos theory, and oriental influence.
S'I' Fosse Foco, Arderei'l Mondo
The dissertation is recorded computer music. It has a duration of fourteen minutes and fifty seven seconds. The source sound material is a reading of a sonnet of the same name by thirteenth century Sienese poet Cecco Angiolieri. It utilizes Linear Predictive Coding and Short-time-fourier synthesis in addition to postprocessing by spatialization and digital filtering. The discussion of the piece includes an explanation of the synthesis techniques, the pitch manipulation algorithms and the programs written by the composer to generate computer scores based on these algorithms, and finally how the individual musical events were generated and mixed together. The computer scores and programs used to generated these scores are provided after the discussion.
Iconographs For Microcomputer and Chamber Orchestra
Iconographs is such a composition in which mathematical techniques are brought to bear. Nine separate number series have been generated and carried out to 1024 units. These series are combined by addition to calculate a single number by taking the remainder after dividing the sum of the series by nine. This mod 9 reduction is used to choose a set of pitches. Iconographs is a composition for microcomputer and chamber orchestra written in proportional notation with 1024 time segments grouped into 32 pages of 32 time segments each. The duration for each segment is .618034 seconds, which is the Golden Mean of one second, represented in a horizontal space of .34375 inches. The horizontal space/time-frame proportion is consistent but the actual duration of sounds are only approximate. The duration of the entire composition is 10.54778 minutes with a total horizontal space of 352 inches. The structure of the composition as a whole has no relationship to any of the traditional forms does contain a focus of formal structure at time-frame number 632, the Golden Mean. This focus is expressed by a density of sound events in all parts.
Images of Remembered Earth
Images of Remembered Earth is a musical composition scored for full orchestra. The composition was inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's painting, Light Coming on the Plains I (1917), which depicts a sunrise over a flat and empty landscape. In the painting, the expanse of the sun's rays is expressed through an even-blended transformation of color from goldish-blue at the light's source to progressively darker shades of blue near the edges of the canvas. The progression of color is interrupted by thin gold bands which sectionalize the sunrise into seven concentric arches. The construction of the musical composition derives musical materials directly from elements found within O'Keeffe's painting, specifically the shaping of structure, expansion, and color in arch patterns. Arch patterns, an integral element in O'Keeffe's painting, govern elements in the musical composition, including pitch selection, the overall tempo scheme, rhythmic activity, and formal shape. Pitch materials are expansive by design; this expansive quality is exhibited through the employment of wedge-shaped musical ideas and through the utilization of higher and lower registers. O'Keeffe's use of color in the painting influenced the orchestration of the music and is manifested in two ways: 1) gradual transformation of timbral colors and 2) the juxtaposition of contrasting instrumental groupings.
In Nomine Domini
In Nomine Domini is an eighteen-minute composition for two chamber orchestras with two soloists using real-time interactive signal processing techniques. The first chamber orchestra is scored for flute (piccolo), English horn, trumpet in C, trombone, two percussionists (cowbells, wood blocks, tenor drum, suspended cymbal, gongs, tam-tam, temple blocks, tambourine, snare drum, timbales, and bass drum), horn in F (soloist), viola, and string bass. The second chamber orchestra is scored for oboe, clarinet in Bb (bass clarinet in Bb), bassoon, tuba, two percussionists (crotales, two marimbas, vibraphone, chimes, and tom-toms), piano (soloist), violin, and cello. Real-time interactive signal processing techniques are achieved through the use of a stereo multiple-effects signal processor and a personal computer running MIDI interactive software. The work is based upon the four-hundred and seventy-five year old in nomine composition tradition begun by John Taverner in the Benedictus of his Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas (1520) and continued in over one-hundred and fifty Renaissance settings. In Nomine Domini consists of three movements: "Taverner* derived from the Benedictus of the Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas (1520), "Byrd" derived from the Benedictus of William Byrd's Five-voice Mass (1592), and "Tye" derived from Christopher lye's In Nomine XIII "Trust" (1578). In Nomine Domini applies the English art of change ringing and three computer-assisted composition techniques: stochastic processes, fractal applications, and conditional probabilities.
In the Midst of Spoils: A Composition for Mixed Chorus (SATB) and Small Instrumental Ensemble
In the Midst of Spoils is a setting, for SATB choir and small instrumental ensemble, of the poem "Blight," by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's poem contrasts modern man's exploitative attitude toward nature with the more reverent attitude assumed by ancient or primitive cultures. This setting is in a single movement, approximately twenty minutes in duration, consisting of fifteen distinct sections.
Interactive Networks in Forgotten Lyres: Critical Analysis and Original Composition
Forgotten Lyres is a musical response to Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Mutability, which depicts the fragility and unpredictable nature of human life. Four independent chamber ensembles make up the performing forces of Forgotten Lyres; the musicians evoke the topics of Shelley's text as they interact and coordinate with one another according to a variety of paradigms and without the use of a conductor. This essay focuses on the approaches to coordination within and between ensembles, and the ways in which the musicians' interactions can evoke and convey Shelley's texts. The essay also examines works by Mel Powell, Toru Takemitsu, Witold Lutoslawski, and Pierre Boulez as examples and precursors for the coordination strategies employed in Forgotten Lyres.
Jasmine's Secret: Narrative Cantata for Five Solo Voices, Narrator, and Orchestra
Since Jasmine's Secret contains elements of cantata and follows a dramatic story or program, the work may be classified as a narrative or dramatic story or program, the work may be classified as a narrative or dramatic cantata employing five solo voices, narrator and orchestra. This work attempts a revival of these two genres as a combined entity due to the decreased popularity of both cantata and programmatic music in the 20th century.
jn4.gesture: An interactive composition for dance.
jn4.gesture is an interactive multimedia composition for dancer and computer designed to extend the possibilities of artistic expression through the use of contemporary technology. The software produces the audiovisual materials, which are controlled by the movement of the dancer on a custom rug sensor. The software that produces the graphic and sonic material is created using a modular design. During run-time, the software's modules are directed by a scripting language developed to control and adjust the audiovisual production through time. The visual material provides the only illumination of the performer, and the projections follow the performer's movements. The human form is isolated in darkness and it remains the focal point in the visual environment. These same movements are used to create the sonic material and control the diffusion of sound in an eight channel sound system. The video recording of the performance was made on April 22, 2002. The work was produced in a specialized performance space using two computer projectors and a state of the art sound system. Arleen Sugano designed the costumes, choreographed and performed the composition in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theatre (MEIT) at the University of North Texas. The paper focuses on the design of the program that controls the production of the audiovisual environment. This is achieved with a discussion of background issues associated with gesture capture. A brief discussion of human-computer interface and its relationship with the arts provides an overview to the software design and mapping scenarios used to create the composition. The design of the score, a graphical user interface, is discussed as the element that synchronizes the media creation in "scenes" of the composition. This score delivers a hybrid script to the modules that controls the production of audiovisual elements. Particular modules are discussed and related to sensor mapping routines that …
Latin Mass for Choir, Orchestra, Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano Soloists
The Latin Mass is a musical composition in five movements, scored for large choir, standard orchestra, and two soloists. The movements are the standard parts of the Roman Catholic Mass Ordinary. The language is set mainly in Latin with two exceptions: the Kyrie movement is set in Greek (which is the standard Roman Catholic setting), and the Credo is simultaneously recited in English and sung in Latin. The work is scored using conventional notation techniques and employs rather conservative technical demands on both the choir and orchestra. No extended techniques are required of any of the performers. It is set in a modal harmonic language.
Let Me Make it Simple for You
Discusses the creation and performance at a concert on Feb. 12, 1990, in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater at the University of North Texas of three computer music-intermedia compositions: Shakespeare quartet for 4 acoustic guitars; A noite, porem, rangeu e quebrou, for instrument of low pitch range, tape and computer; and Help me remember, for performer, Synclavier, interactive MIDI computer music system and slides.
The Light, for Two Narrators and Chamber Ensemble
The Light is a twenty-four minute composition for two narrators and chamber orchestra. The two narrators perform the roles of the Apostle John and Moses. After an overview of the piece and a brief history of pieces incorporating narrators, the essay focuses on my compositional process, describing how orchestration, drama, motive, and structure work together in the piece. The Light is organized as a series of five related scenes. In the first scene, God creates light. In the second scene, God places Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden to tend it, allowing them to eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appears, Adam and Eve succumb to his evil influence, and God banishes them from the Garden of Eden. Many generations have passed when Scene Three begins. Moses relates a story from Israel's journey in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The people had become frustrated with Moses and with God. When God sent serpents among them as punishment, they appealed to Moses to pray for them. God's answer was for Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever looked at the serpent would live. In Scene Four, John relates his vision of final redemption. New Jerusalem descends from heaven, with the River of Life and the Tree of Life ready to bring healing to the nations. Sadly, some people are not welcomed into the city, and the drama pauses to give respectful consideration to their fate. Finally, the fifth scene celebrates the eternal victory over sin, death, and the serpent of Eden. As I composed The Light, I had in mind the dramatic profile, the general motivic progression and the fundamental structural progression. However, most of the intricate interrelationships among orchestration, drama, motive, and …
Mass/360
Mass/360 is computer music in the sense that the audio tape was realized with a computer language for digital synthesis. This tape is combined with traditional choral and instrumental forces, and demonstrates only one technique available for the use of computers in composition. The work displays a number of elements which afford both unity and contrast. The arch span of the whole is supported by timbral, melodic, rhythmic, and textural parameters. Recurring events include tone clusters, chant-like melodies, angular melodies, and counterpoint. Special vocal effects are found in all movements, and the large scale tonicizing effect of the movement from f to b-flat gives the composition a sense of direction over a long temporal span. The single pitch (doubled unison/octave) arises as the major event in the work, and other events are generated from this element. The use of different formal designs within each movement corresponds to the natural textual divisions found in the liturgy, and affords a contrast from one movement to the next. The relationship of the Gloria/Qui Tollis to the Sanctus/Benedictus, which is not a mirror relation, contrasts with the chiastic design of the whole. Traditional contrapuntal devices juxtaposed against contemporary vocal techniques and the use of diversified timbres from movement to movement add variety to the composition. Controlling parameters in the Mass are timbral, harmonic, textural, and formal. Rhythmic and melodic parameters are of surface importance, and not considered in the higher structural levels of the composition. This particular handling of musical parameters as elements of unification and diversification is the foremost structural force at work in Mass/360.
Matador
Matador is an opera scored for orchestra, mixed chorus and soloists (mezzosoprano, 3 tenors, 2 baritones). The work is in one act divided into two main sections. Each of these sections is divided into subsections. The libretto is aphoristic in nature and dictates the form of each of these subsections. The division into two parts also serves as a means to evoke a sense of hopelessness of emotions in the first and a transforming disposition that culminates in a jubilant song in the second.
MCABC 0475 an Original Composition
MCABC 0475 is the first composition generated by MCABC (Music Composition Aided by Computer), a computer program written in PL/1. Its duration is approximately 14 minutes. Using a North Texas State University computer library program, the full score and parts were drawn by the CALCOMP plotter. The text, which discusses processes and procedures in developing MCABC 0475, as well as indeterminacy, aesthetics of computer composition, and pro gr am user information, was printed by the IBM 1403 line printer using an ALA chain which has both upper and lower case characters.
Memento mori: Concert for Violoncello and Orchestra
Death, as a subject, has been treated extensively throughout history, both in literature as well as in music. The focus of Memento mori is to portray the inevitability of death through music. The first part of the document is an essay exploring the topic of death, its inevitability, unpredictability and the fragility of life. This section also includes a number of examples of composer's whose works have influenced the composition of the piece. The title of the work is meant to reflect that death catches up with all of us and that humans no matter how invincible they feel at certain stages of life will, eventually, succumb to death. The second part of the document is the notated orchestral score. The work is for full orchestra and solo violoncello. It is in three acts that loosely resemble three stages of life; Youth followed by life in adulthood and finally death. The work is not programmatic and the piece's formal structure varies from a traditional concerto, for although comprised of three distinct acts, there are no pauses between them. The entire work is meant to be dark and morbid and the specter of death looms throughout the piece.
Mysterium Cosmographicum, for Orchestra, Narrator/Actor, and Computer Music on Tape
Mysterium Cosmographicum is a musical chronicle of an astronomy treatise by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). Kepler's Mysterium cosmographicum (Tubingen, 1596), or "Secret of the Universe," was a means by which he justified the existence of the six planets discovered during his lifetime. Kepler, through flawless a priori reasoning, goes to great lengths to explain that the reason there are six and only six planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) is because God had placed one of the five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octa-, dodeca-, and icosahedron) around each orbiting body. Needless to say, the publication was not very successful, nor did it gain much comment from Kepler's peers, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). But hidden within the Mysterium cosmographicum. almost like a new planet waiting to be discovered, is one of Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, a law that held true for planets discovered long after Kepler's life-time. Mysterium Cosmographicum is a monologue with music in three parts for orchestra, narrator/actor, and computer music on tape. All musical data structures ape generated via an interactive Pascal computer program that computes latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates For each of the nine planets as seen From a Fixed point on Earth For any given time Frame. These coordinates are then mapped onto selected musical parameters as determined by the composer. Whenever Kepler reads From his treatise or From a lecture or correspondence, the monologue is supported by orchestral planetary data generated From the exact place, date, and time oF the treatise, lecture, or correspondence. To the best oF my knowledge, Mysterium Cosmographicum is the First composition ever written that employs planetary data as a supporting chronology to action and monologue.
I Never Saw Another Butterfly: A Composition for SATB Choir and Chamber Orchestra
...I never saw another butterfly... is a twelve movement chamber work scored for SATB choir, narrator, percussion I [vibraphone, and tomtoms (4)], percussion II [timpani (4), tam-tam, snare drum, and bass drum], guitar, violins I and II, viola, and cello and is based on the book of the same name. It contains a variety of compositional techniques, forms and genres.
Night of Glass
Night of Glass is for chamber orchestra with an estimated performance time of 14 minutes. The instrumentation for the work, using one player per part, is Flute (also small glass wind chimes), Oboe (also 1 tuned water crystal), Clarinet in A (also small glass wind chimes), Bassoon (also 1 tuned water crystal), Horn in F (also 1 tuned water crystal), Trumpet in C (also 2 tuned water crystals), Percussion (Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Chimes, Bell Tree, Hammered Dulcimer, 3 Suspended Cymbals, 1 Large Tam-tam, 4 Roto Toms, 3 Tympani), Piano, 1st Violin, 2nd Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass, While not programmatic, the work is divided into six sections each expressing a predetermined emotional content: fragility, anxiety, solitude, fear, catharsis, and reconciliation. All are emotional contents which are found in the dream-state that is reflected in the work's title. All aspects of Night of Glass (i.e., pitch material, form structure, and structural density) are centered around the unifying factor of emotional projection within each section. The work seeks emotional content through the expansion of composition procedures while being accessible to listeners.
Ocean of Forms: for Soprano and Computer
Ocean of Forms is a cycle of five songs for solo soprano voice and electronic/computer music accompaniment on poems by noted Bengali poet, musician, philosopher, and author Rabindranath Tagore. This work approaches the song cycle as a vehicle for expressing and highlighting the poet's words. Word and syllabic stress, text painting, melodic development, and formal structure all function in relation to the text and its meaning. the replacement of the traditional piano accompaniment with electronic accompaniment provides further possibilities for new timbral structures and transformations, expressive microtonal intonation, algorithmic and aleatoric formal structures, acousmatic and spatialized sound, and a broad sonic palette. This work strives to provide a more fully developed expression of the text as afforded by these expanded musical means. the critical essay primarily explores the interaction between text and music in the work. the first chapter explores the historical precedents for the genre of the song cycle and other texted music as well as specific influences on the work. the following chapters explore the connections between the text and the vocal line and electronic/computer music, respectively. the final chapter deals with the formal structure of the work, especially the justly-tuned harmonic scheme and its relation to the text.
Postmodern Multiplicities in Three Original Works
My recent compositions are situated within a postmodern theoretical framework. The heterogeneity of materials and hybridity of musical formation in these works are interpreted and contextualized within a personal reading of postmodern theories. The critical essay traces my aesthetics through a historical investigation into the definition of musical postmodernism. Through extensive citation and analysis of the writings of Julius T. Fraser, Italo Calvino, and Richard Rorty, the essay aims to provide a theoretical context for the interpretation of the musical examples. The creative documentation contains three newly-composed musical works: Piano Trio from Opus 3/c, Opus 6 for Violin, and Opus 7 for Piccolo. The works' postmodern features include creative approaches to the fragmentation of musical time into separate levels, historical allusions, and the exploration of multiplicity.
La Primavera: Concertino for English Horn and Chamber Orchestra
La Primavera: Concertino for English Horn and Chamber Orchestra is a work in a traditional chamber orchestra instrumentation: single woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon), two French horns, trumpet, timpani and strings. A through-composed work of 14 minutes in duration, the Concertino is conceptually based on the idea that spring is not the first of the seasons, but rather the last. As a result, all of its motivic materials are organically linked to one another, and function as paired forces that struggle for supremacy. The introduction of the third motive functions as a motivic synthesis, since it contains intrinsic elements of previous motives. There are several important compositions based on the topic of the seasons among them we find: Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso Le Quatro Staggione, Haydn's oratorio The Seasons, and Piazzola's chamber work Las Estaciones. While researching this topic, the conceptual dilemma of spring as the last season was considered. This became a turning point in the compositional process strong enough to consider the spring as a singular topic of interest. The analysis of this work through Derrida's Deconstruction theory first came to me while reading Rose Rosengerd Subotnick's Deconstructive Variations: Music and Reason in Western Society. The Linguistic approach, was inspired in part by Leonard Bernstein's lecture “The Unanswered Question,” and Jean J. Nattiez's Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music.
Recent Approaches to Real-Time Notation
This paper discusses several compositions that use the computer screen to present music notation to performers. Three of these compositions, Law of Fives (2015), Polytera II (2016), and Terraformation (2016–17), employ strategies that allow the notation to change during the performance of the work as the product of composer-regulated algorithmic generation and performer interaction. New methodologies, implemented using Cycling74's Max software, facilitate performance of these works by allowing effective control of generation and on-screen display of notation; these include an application called VizScore, which delivers notation and conducts through it in real-time, and a development environment for real-time notation using the Bach extensions and graphical overlays around them. These tools support a concept of cartographic composition, in which a composer maps a range of potential behaviors that are mediated by human or algorithmic systems or some combination of the two. Notational variation in performance relies on computer algorithms that can both generate novel ideas and be subject to formal plans designed by the composer. This requires a broader discussion of the underlying algorithms and control mechanisms in the context of algorithmic art in general. Terraformation, for viola and computer, uses a model of the performer's physical actions to constrain the algorithmic generation of musical material displayed in on-screen notation. The resulting action-based on-screen notation system combines common practice notation with fingerboard tablature, color gradients, and abstract graphics. This hybrid model of dynamic notation puts unconventional demands on the performer; implications of this new performance practice are addressed, including behaviors, challenges, and freedoms of real-time notation.
Relent: a Composition for Alto Saxophone, Double Bass, Two Percussion, and Interactive Electronics
relent is a sacred work within the genre of interactive electronic music. the 20-minute composition is a multi-movement piece for four instrumentalists (saxophone, double bass, and two percussion) and computer that is inspired by the gospel message. relent is specifically about the gospel message that Christ died for man’s sins, rose from the dead, and through faith in him man can be reconciled to God. This project was an experiment in creating a work with a programmatic extramusical structure. in preparation for writing a piece based on Christian programmatic content, this paper presents an overview of research conducted on the intersection between art and Christianity referencing authors such as Harold Best, Nikolai Berdyaev, Hans Rookmaaker, Calvin Seerveld, Daniel Seidell, A. W. Tozer, Steve Turner, and Cornelius Van Til. This work was an experiment in trying to make very direct and specific musical ties to the narrative of the Gospel. Another highly experimental aspect of relent was in the way interactive electronics were used. Each acoustic instrument in the work has its own input and module within the Max patch, extending each acoustic instrument rather than adding an electronic accompaniment component. Additionally, non-traditional notation, both codified and real-time computer generated, improvisation, theatrical instructions, and a completely computer generated movement makes relent a piece that challenges and pushes the boundaries of current interactive electronic music.
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