So, I’m a bit behind in my update. July was a productive month though. Not only did I finish Landscape 8: Palm Glade, but I edited and mixed the Musiversal recording of the orchestra part for Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. Unfortunately, the horn players were absent for this recording session, which doesn’t matter too much as the horn parts were not super crucial to the orchestration. However, Musiversal has promised to email me recordings of the horn parts in the near future, and the isolation on the recordings should be excellent.
As noted in a previous update, the Musiversal 30 piece orchestra has some issues with reading syncopated rhythms. Both orchestral excerpts used in Landscape 4 have orchestral chords once every three eighth notes in common time, forming a hemiola. Knowing that this rhythm would pose a problem for the ensemble, I rewrote the orchestra part, which was originally at 120 bpm to be at 80 bpm in a compound meter. That way those chords that hit once every three eighth notes are now consistently on the beat. When mixed with the other recordings, nobody is the wiser. I was also able to take some of the chord hits out of the mix and place them at some other parts of the piece to add a bit more orchestral goodness to the movement.
Thus, the musical example for the month is Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. This recording not only features the Musiversal orchestra recordings (sans horns), but also has Carl Bugbee’s guitar tracks and my harmonica tracks (bass and chromatic) . . .
In the month of July I also managed to write an orchestral part for Landscape 7: Mountains, which I hope to get recorded in the next few months. Unfortunately I am a bit behind my August work on Landscape 9: Desert, but I hope to catch up a bit on my writing quota this afternoon.
It has been a productive month. Not only did I finish Landscape 7: Mountains, but I am half way through my goal for July, to compose Landscape 8: Palm Glade. On the recording side of things I re-recorded some of the bass parts for Landscape 3, and recorded the bass part for Landscape 5. I am also halfway through recording the bass part for Landscape 6. Finally, I took some time this month to revise the solo parts for the first six Landscapes.
A few days ago I had a recording session with Musiversal for orchestral parts for Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. It went well, but I have not received the files from them yet, let alone taken the time to edit them. Therefore, this month I’ll be sharing Landscape 4 without the orchestral part. However, don’t be disappointed because not only do they contain Carl Bugbee’s guitar tracks, but they include harmonica tracks that I recorded.
I used some professional development money I had left over at the end of the year to buy a Swan bass harmonica and a Hohner Chromonica 64. This latter instrument is nearly identical to a Hohner Chromonica 64 that my father bought when he served in the Navy during the Korean conflict (though he served in the mediterranean). Thus, this instrument is pretty special to me. I have my father’s Chromonica, but it needs about $200 of work on it to bring it back into tune. I intend on having the instrument repaired in the next year or so. The Chromonica 64 is a four octave instrument, and is played by none other than Stevie Wonder. While the Swan bass harmonica is built in China, and is significantly less expensive than other bass harmonicas, as you’ll hear from the recording it has a really fat, robust tone to it.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the realization of Landscape 4, and I’ll update you all on the progress in a month or so.
Well, summer semester is clearly here. Not only have I completed my May goal, I’m already two-thirds of the way through my June goal of composing Landscape 7: Mountains, which means I’m officially halfway finished with the composition for the project. I have also found time to record a little bit. I recorded some harmonica parts for Landscape 4, as well as the bass part for Landscape 3. At the end of the month I have a booking with Musiversal to record the orchestral part for Landscape 4.
But for now, the musical example I’ll leave you with is Landscape 3: Pond. This largely synthesized / sampled version contains a guitar track played and recorded by Carl Bugbee of the prominent Rhode Island cover band Take it to the Bridge, as well as my bass track.
I’m a little behind on my Landscapes update for May, but I am pretty much on schedule for my composing. In April I finished work on Landscape 5: Marsh. I am more than a third of the way through my May goal of composing Landscape 6: Beach.
Carl Bugbee, guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist for Rhode Island cover band Take it to the Bridge, has recorded the guitar parts for the first four Landscapes. This month I’ll share with you a synthesized realization of Landscape 2: Snow featuring Carl’s guitar tracks . . .
Now that my semester grades have been submitted I hope to find the time to record some parts myself, and I hope to have something to share in that regard next month.
I’m a bit behind schedule with my April update on the Landscapes project. However, I’m glad to say I’m not not behind with the project itself. I am currently halfway through the fifth piece in the series, Marsh. Last month not only did I finish writing Landscapes 4: Sand Dunes, but I wrote an orchestral part for the movement, which will be recorded on June 2nd. While the orchestral part is heavily syncopated, I rewrote the orchestral score in a different meter and tempo to make the piece easier to sight read, but more on that in June.
I mixed and edited the orchestral overdub for phrases eight and nine of Landscape 1. I also received guitar tracks for the first four pieces in the series that were played and recorded by Carl Bugbee. Bugbee is a keyboardist, guitarist, and vocalist for the prominent Rhode Island cover band Take it to the Bridge. While I have incorporated Carl’s guitar recordings into the first two Landscapes, I still have to add his tracks to Landscapes 3 & 4.
Listening wise I have included a largely synthesized realization of Landscape 1: Forest that incorporates the mixed and edited orchestral tracks as well as Carl’s guitar tracks. Enjoy!
I completed Landscapes 3: Pond this past month, and am currently 2/3 of the way through Landscapes 4: Sand Dunes. Last Saturday, March 2nd, I had a reading session of the orchestral overdubs of phrases 8 and 9 of Landscape 1. The session went well, but I have not received the audio files yet. Thus, for this month’s installment I’ve mixed the orchestral overdub of phrase 7 with a synthesized realization of the piano, guitar, bass, and drums to give you an idea of what the final version might sound like . . .
Last month I managed to complete Landscapes 2: Snow. I’m a little bit ahead of schedule, having completed the first three phrases of Landscapes 3: Pond. I also managed to do a mix down of the orchestral overdub of phrase 7 of Landscapes 1: Forest. I think you can hear the oboe better in this mixdown, and the stereo placement is pretty good (standard placement for most instruments, but panning flute and oboe) . . .
Due to the rhythmic mistakes in the orchestral overdub of phrase 8 of Landscape 1 (see previous update), I decided to call that recording of the phrase a loss. I’ve scheduled another orchestral reading session for early March, where phrase 8 will be rerecorded, and a new phrase, phrase 9 will be added.
Happy 2019 to all. Last month I promised everyone monthly updates on my project Landscapes. In order to stay on track in the project, I have to write one movement per month, which comes out to writing two to three phrases per week. Due to my dilligence in December, I’m ahead of schedule, having written the first five phrases of Landscape 2: Snow.
Rather than give you folks any samples or details from this work in progress, I’ll share with you an orchestral reading session from November 4th, 2018 of the orchestral overdub of Landscape 1: Forest (phrases 7 & 8). This recording session is courtesy of the 99 dollar orchestra (based in Lisbon, Portugal) . . .
While I am satisfied with the recording of the phrase 7, the orchestra majorly screwed up phrase 8, they played the rhythm of the main motive as 1+2+3+(4), while it is supposed to be played 1+(2)+3(+)4+.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to edit it sufficiently to correct this problem, so I may have to do a second reading session. Disappointing to say the least.
I am pleased to announce that I have been awarded a faculty professional development grant from the office of provost at Stonehill College. The funds are going towards a composition project called Landscapes. This project is a series of 13 pieces totaling an hour of music, each depicting or representing a different landscape. The individual movements travel through the circle of fifths, beginning and ending on C Major.
The core ensemble for the project consists of piano, electric guitar, electric bass, and drumset. Each movement will alternate using theremin and pedal steel guitar as soloists. Cello and synthesizer are used as occasional color instruments. Ultimately, I may be using other color instruments as well such as bass harmonica, melodica, and electric sitar.
Those particular solo instruments, theremin and pedal steel, were chosen to highlight myself as a performer. I’ve been playing theremin for the past several years, and I recently started playing pedal steel guitar. While I have a long way to go with pedal steel, having pieces to practice and work on will help me develop skills on the instrument. Having a series of pieces that utilize these instruments as soloists will give me pieces that I may be able to take to music festivals.
Part of the funds will be used to contract orchestral recordings from Musiversal. This organization offers a seven minute orchestral recording session with a 30 piece orchestra for 99 Euros. In seven minutes it is really only practical to record one minute of music, provided the music is sight readable by professional musicians. Thus, while it may not be possible to use orchestral backing through the entire piece, there can be individual sections that use orchestral scoring. Part of the funds may also be used to pay local musicians to record instrumental parts for individual movements. The goal of this grant is to compose the music, but I will be using some of the grant money to get some of the individual tracks recorded as well.
Like most of the pieces I have written over the past decade, this piece is based off of Sudoku. That is I use a Sudoku matrix to indicate how many notes are used by a given instrument in a phrase, as well what those individual notes are. I also use a Sudoku matrix to determine the tempo of individual movements and the dynamics of a given phrase. All this precomposition material has already been written out, along with phrase length and meter information.
I have already begun working on the project. I have completed the first movement, Landscape 1: Forest. I also have had a recording session with Musiversal to record two phrases of orchestral backing for this movement, although I haven’t edited those recordings yet. This past week I wrote the first two phrases (each movement is nine phrases long) of the second movement, which will be depicting a snowy landscape.
I will be giving updates about this project through this blog. I hope to give at least one update a month, in a large part to encourage myself to develop and keep to a production schedule. However, if I have particularly productive weeks, I may give more frequent updates, so stay tuned for more information!
I have been playing theremin for a little less than a year. The instrument has quickly become a passion for me. As a composer, it is desirable for me to be able to publicly perform some of my own works. Thus, the challenge is to write a piece for an entry level performer that is still going to engage an audience sufficiently.
Setting the piece at a slow tempo allows the theremin to focus on slow lyrical lines that are within my grasp as a performer. The fixed audio part, created using Apple’s Logic Pro, serves as a compliment to the slow, lyrical nature of the theremin. The fixed audio uses faster, often syncopated rhythms that add a surface level energy to the piece.
Another way to add energy and excitement to the piece is to add a visually engaging video to accompany the work. The concept behind the work attempts to bridge the visual and audio worlds. In the visual realm, pantone refers to a color classification system. In sound, I offer pantone as a description of an instrument, like the theremin, that can create any frequency that exists between its highest and lowest possible notes.
Creating a video for Pantone creates another set of problems, related to my relative inexperience as a visual artist. Years ago I wrote a chamber opera, Into the Cautious Season, that used projected images that were similar in nature to a graphic novel representation of the plot and libretto to both set the scene, as well as to display the libretto. I created the graphic novel version in black and white as well as a version using some color. Inspired by the water color skies used in It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, I used watercolor paints on the black and white images to create a limited color version.
Due to my lack of skill as a visual artist, I cannot say that the graphic novel version of Into the Cautious Season was successful. However, I can say that it was good enough to be a proof of concept, and that I believe a version done by someone with decent illustration skills could work well. Moreover, I began to think that simple scans of single color fields of watercolor paint could make an interesting basis for a video.
For Pantone I started with nine black and white images from the patent drawings for the theremin. Then, I used watercolors to paint single color designs that mimic the designs on top of the drawings. After scanning the images into a computer, I then made nine glitched versions of each, by changing each image file to a text file, copying, pasting, and deleting material before changing the file back into image files.
For each musical phrase of Pantone I superimposed nine of these glitched images on top of each other in Apple’s Final Cut Pro. I set each layer to zoom in and out and to move about independently of the other images. Furthermore, each layer was set to only let a percentage of colors through. This approach resulted in a detailed, yet slow moving texture of colors. One final detail added to the video involved adding an increasing number of visual accents that coincide with musical accents. These were achieved by exporting specific frames as images, glitching those image files, and superimposing them for about four frames over the video.
Sonically speaking Pantone is an homage to the future of my youth. When I was a child, commercially available analog synthesizers were relatively new. Artists like Wendy Carlos, Don Dorsey, Jean-Jacques Perry, and Isao Tomita created sonic palettes that will always sound like the future to me. In creating the fixed audio accompaniment for the piece, I emphasized timbres that emulated these analog synthesizers.
Ultimately I believe that Pantone offers several features that can engage listeners: lyrical melodic material performed on a novel instrument, a fixed audio part that is rhythmically energetic, a sonic palette that invokes a nostalgic science-fictionesque world, and a colorfully meditative visual component filled with detail.
(in performance in Pawtucket, RI on December 4th, 2016)
(in performance in Bridgewater, MA on March 1st, 2017)
