This piece is my first attempt at writing for string quartet after years of experience playing in quartet settings. I decided to focus on ostinato and repeated material throughout the piece, hence the title. I created scales for each movement by using pitch sets separated by a major second, beginning with minor third sets for the first movement. Read the rest of this entry »
Revolving around only one pitch set (F, G, A-flat) which is transposed throughout the piece, this serenade might be the pinnacle of consistent composing and artistic expression in my serenade writing.
Serenade in Fm rendered through EWQL Orchestral Gold:
Simple. Emotive. Powerful. This piece really hams it up in the violins, lets the violas moan, and even gives the basses a melodic line. Throughout the piece, pizz accents are used interspersed with the flowing melody to keep momentum going. Read the rest of this entry »
A custom playback unit coded in PD combined with a cello, a used speaker, and one home-built transducer all came together for this piece. It’s terribly unfortunate that I lost the majority of the working code for this project before securing a recording Luckily, I was able to find this recording of a test run.
Based on the introduction of a string serenade I was writing at the time, this piece combines recorded audio with MIDI signals. The source for all noise is the 8-measure serenade introduction, which I recorded with various MIDI patches and then edited with filters and reverb. Read the rest of this entry »
used body percussion as the source for this entire piece. The only identifiable sound is now the snapping which opens and closes the piece. Some of the lower pitches come from the sounds of me hitting my chest, and the higher pitches come from rubbing my hands together. Read the rest of this entry »
This piano trio evokes the feeling of emptiness and lonliness. Although many of the themes are minor and depressing, there is a bittersweet quality to the music as if the time alone is introspective and relaxing.
I wrote this wind quintet during the Spring 2007 semester. I decided to further explore a phrygian cluster (C, D-flat, E-flat, F) idea which I first used in a string serenade. The cluster expands outwards while maintaining the inner two pitches to B, D-flat, E-Flat, F-sharp. This harmonic movement is really the basis for the entire piece, though it is transposed and reinvented several times. Read the rest of this entry »
Percussion, brass, WAR! This piece is designed to rev the player up for some truly epic battles. It’s tough to think of better music to listen to while charging into battle with a bunch of friends and allies.