Electronic Music
I’m ashamed to admit that when I began graduate school, I
was somewhat intimidated by the idea of electro-acoustic music. I’ve been a user of Sibelius since
1999, and had plenty of experience with computers in non-musical settings, but
the idea of composing music that is purely electronic, or that is based on
electronically produced sounds was somewhat daunting, so I put it off for a
year, which, in retrospect was a mistake.
On the other hand, the time I spent learning the technique of
electro-acoustic music with Thomas Wells is so far the only opportunity I have
had to do so (I just haven’t spent the money to set up my own studio,
because I haven’t had it, and we don’t have the resources in my
current position). I found it to be
quite seductive, though, and enjoyed my work in the medium thoroughly. I hope to one day add to this short
list. I have delved only once into
computer-assisted composition, to create some of the piano accompaniment for my
Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano (see Chamber
Music), using OpenMusic. I can’t say that I was
particularly satisfied with the results.
If you want to hear a composer who I feel is a true master of
electro-acoustic methods, visit David Morneau’s
homepage, www.5of4.com.
Synthetic Etude for electroacoustic
sound (6 minutes)
My only purely electronically generated piece, this one comes from
my early 2007 experiments with pure additive synthesis, generated using
Max/MSP, combined with some ideas about randomization that played out fairly
well. More a
study than an actual composition, though, and not nearly as interesting as my
first two pieces.
Listen to
a sample—from just a bit past the beginning
Out of Doors for tuba with electronics (7 minutes)
Commissioned by Michael
DiCuirci
Premiered March 2007 by Michael DiCuirci,
Cedarville University (
Performed March 2007 by Michael DiCuirci,
Heidelberg College (
Mike DiCuirci was
a fantastic collaborator on this project, from late 2006. He asked for a piece to include on a
planned recital at the two schools where he is the adjunct instructor of tuba,
and specified that it should have some connection to rock music. I channeled my discomfort with
electro-acoustic means into the creative process by building the piece as a
palimpsest on another composition which initially made me
uncomfortable—The Doors’ 1967 hit “Light My Fire.” When I first heard this song, at about
eleven years of age, its extended solo section was unlike anything my
three-minute-pop-song-trained mind had dealt with before, and I remember riding
in my parents’ car thinking that there was something wrong at the radio
station. My piece lasts exactly as
long as “Light My Fire,” and includes the entire song as a
substratum. I also utilized the
technique of granular synthesis to create additional layers of sound, and
manipulated samples of Mike playing, singing and using the tuba as a percussion
instrument, both as layering and as a tuba-based beatbox
in some sections of the song. In
every performance, Mike played like a rock star. Tuba is much cooler than anyone ever
thought.
Listen to a sample of the accompaniment
part (one day Mike and I will go into the studio, but he’s too busy
touring… his mad tuba skills go up to eleven).
Let Everything that Has Breath Praise the Lord for
trombone and electronics
Premiered October 2006 by Matthew Saunders,
Performed February 2009 by Matthew Saunders,
Performed March 2009 by Matthew Saunders,
I composed my first electronic piece in
early 2006 by combining musique concrete techniques with effects
plug-ins available in Cubase. This work for trombone and recorded
sound makes use of liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music from Bach to Messiaen, humpback whale song and the calls of birds common
to
Listen to a sample of the
accompaniment part (let me know if you’re interested in performing
it)
