In 1998, Mark Menzies asked me to write a piece for violin and computer that somehow captured the spirit of the blues. A couple of years later, when my father died, the idea came back to me. My father was a big fan of early ‘downhome’ blues, so the piece ended up being an amalgam of elements of downhome blues and my memories of him. Besides direct references to early blues made through sample modulation, oblique references are made by a certain amount of flamboyancy, virtuosity, and quirkiness.
- Excerpt (mp3 Music File – 1.6MB)
- Score (PDF Document – 197KB)
The video for this piece was shot in the winter of 2000/01. I wanted to use video that needed no processing and explored the framing of objects and scenes. The excerpt below is the most recognizable in the whole piece: it is of Niagara Falls (Canada side) during The Festival of Lights.
Most of the sound was produced in Max/MSP. I wanted to play similar sounds over each of the five channels in 5.1 surround, which produces a very immersive effect. For the part heard in the excerpt I used a technique I call Temporal Filtering (or more specifically Spectral Cataloguing) that is described in this paper published in the proceedings of the 2001 International Computer Music Conference.
Some images from the piece:
Interact I was written for flutist ElizabethMcNutt. The score consists of three large pieces of paper, all of which must be visible to the flutist in performance. The flutist chooses materials to play according to some simple rules in response to the computer. The computer follows the flutist and makes changes in output according to where it determines the performer is in the score and how much it has heard the flutist play sequentially. Thus, the flutist shapes the piece in performance. Score following techniques developed for this piece were further enhanced by John Lawter, who developed an external object for MAX. Thanks John, thanks Elizabeth. Here is a paper written about the following object, published in the proceedings of the 1998 International Computer Music Conference.
This was my first finished piece using Max-fts. It explores the role of the voice in singing and the space between intelligibility and musicality. Much of the computer part consists of assembling melodic and phonetic patterns by playing back short (<600msec) pre-recorded samples. These samples are replaced towards the end of the piece with live input from the singer.
The text comes from Shakespeare’s Richard II:
(And now) my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
Within my mouth you have engaol’d my tongue,
Doubly portcullis’d with my teeth and lips;
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
- Excerpt (mp3 Music File – 1.5Mb)
- Score (PDF Document – 293KB)
