Bloated Portion (2024), fixed audio:
Bloated Portion started out as an experiment in scoring a video I found on YouTube; in its current form it's completely divorced from the original video, but I may later decide to put them back together. Outside of this orign, it's mostly an experiment in tuning - each instrument is in a different system. The string/pad sound (which I made using some Karplus-Strong-esque techniques in Vital) is also tuned without a perfect octave, which is something that I've been trying to experiment with more (I actually use the same tuning system in the first part of Sleep Study II). Overall, I just wanted to make a discomforting atmosphere.
Sleep Study II (2024), fixed audio:
Sleep Study II was my attempt at making something misleading; two different ambient drones juxtaposed with a collage of whatever I could think of. This is the first piece that I made in Ableton, and I think it's a bit apparent that it was made in Ableton in some moments, but I tried hard to make it stand out as its own sound. I was really influenced by hyperpop and PC music while working on this, but I think it ended up being far removed from those aesthetics. Many of the sounds present in the chaotic collage in the middle come from different experiments in Max, especially with different feedback systems built in the gen~ environment.
Crawling on Elbows (2023), live processed vocals:
When I started working on Crawling on Elbows, I was faced with a problem; I felt like I needed another piece for my junior recital, and I had been working on something using a game controller interface, but I felt like it might be uninteresting for audience members to just see me barely moving my fingers; this may have been an issue that could be solved by changing the mapping and adding more planned choreography, but I also felt like it wouldn't fit to just have one piece using the controller. Because of this, I tried to think of ways that the voice could be used as a control interface beyond the typical straightforward pitch or envelope following. I came up with a system for control that uses nested envelope following, in an attempt to separate the envelopes of a phrase from the envelopes of the words or syllables contained within it; from there, you could derive information about the amounts of syllabic envelopes within each phrasal envelopes, or the average lengths of either envelope, etc. etc. etc. I then created a ping-pong delay feedback system, attempting to make something that would increase the delay time by integer multiples depending on the amount of syllables in a phrase, thinking that this would result in a subharmonic series of pitches. Instead, the system ended up being extremely chaotic, sometimes giving harmonics or subharmonics of the input, sometimes reversing the input, and occasionally giving aliasing or ring modulation of the input (I don't entirely understand what's going on when it does that). I created a basic score or guide for myself in Google Sheets for performances lasting roughly 5-8 minutes, including singing, inhale screeching, and yelling. This recording is from the premiere of the piece at an Electrophonics concert at Oberlin, OH, on November 2, 2023.
Sleep Study I (2022), fixed audio, Buchla 200:
This piece was the result of spending a potentially unhealthy amount of time in the analog synth studio at Oberlin. I was incredibly lucky to have access to the Buchla 200 modular system there, and I developed an in-depth knowledge and understanding of how to use it. I went through hours of practice and recording in the process of making this piece. Originally, I was thinking of making it in a rhondo form; it ended up having a sort of refrain, but I realized that it worked better to let it ebb and flow beyond what a traditional rhondo form would let it.