A Gold Star family is one who has lost a loved one in military service. Stemming from Jewish tradition, many Gold Star families place stones on grave markers in Arlington National Cemetery, which is one of the largest military cemeteries in the United States. Having visited friends in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where many who were killed in Iraq & Afghanistan rest, I took the mental image of the place as inspiration for the piece.
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#Ferguson
#Ferguson is a solo percussion work based upon Twitter feeds surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO on Aug. 9, 2014. The work has three characters: Michael Brown (tenor drum); Darren Wilson & the police (snare drum); the public response via Twitter (woodblocks). After Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson, there were demonstrations and civil unrest. These demonstrations were met with police resistance and curfews. The shooting and following events underscore the racial disparities of the justice system.
In August and September 2014, #ferguson and other tweets pushed past 100,000 per day. By the time the piece premiered in February 2015, there were less than 10,000. Fading interest and mishandling of the situation by law enforcement and government officials leaves us not with resolution, but instead with questions. How can we construct positive changes after the shooting of Michael Brown? Has our political system (local, regional, state, and federal) opened any channels for dialogue surrounding racial profiling, or inequalities in the prison system? Or, have prejudices towards minorities, specifically towards African Americans, remained the status quo here in America?
I sincerely hope my last question is proven false.
Credits:
2.20.2015 concert performed by I-Jen Fang
For anyone wishing to perform #Ferguson, please contact me beforehand. All I ask is for an advance handshake, a performance recording, and a program. Here is the score.
Performance at Dartmouth College
On Feb. 10, 2015, I participated in Dartmouth’s Eyewash festival, a bi-weekly showcase of experimental film and music. I was able to present 45+ minutes of solo material, including live performances on the Wacom tablet using Kyma.
Set list:
AUU (2010) – Wacom tablet & Kyma
San Giovanni Elemosinario (2013) – film/music using Iannix & Kyma
Smooch (2014) – Wacom tablet & Kyma
Height of the War (2003) – from Sound Memorial for the Veterans of the Vietnam War
HMW (2015) – Wacom tablet & Kyma
#Carbonfeed (2014) – Twitter API, Max/MSP, Processing
CDM (2015) – Gametrak, Wacom tablet & Kyma
Hope Is The Thing
Hope is the thing with feathers is based loosely on a poem by Emily Dickinson. The poem floated by at a timely moment, and the flute contains many of the sonic qualities expressed.
Score of Hope is the thing with feathers.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers – (314)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
Surfaces
Surfaces uses the walls of the room as the score. Each surface is a movement, and every performance may be 1-6 movements in length. The objective is to play, and sonically reconstruct, the environment the performers are currently within.
The video is Null Set performing in the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University on 10.04.2015 during their AfterSound exhibition, which featured works by John Cage, Paul DeMarinis, Caroline Record, Marina Rosenfeld, and others.
The image and recording below is the New Music Ensemble performing at The Bridge PAI in Charlottesville, VA, and thus the performance is a sonic construction of the surfaces of the venue. Here’s an image of the concert space (Mvt I is on left, Mvt II in back, Mvt III on right, Mvt IV up top, and Mvt V down below)
Surfaces score (pdf).
jpb.mod (data modification tools) Max 6 package
jpb.mod is a Max 6 package with ready-made data modification modules. These modules address each of the five data modification types (interpolate, thin, offset, scale, smooth [itoss]). jpb.mod modules handle the modification of a one-dimensional data stream. Rapid prototyping is one of the core purposes of the jpb.mod package library. You may find the jpb.mod.scale object especially helpful for non-linear scaling.
Download. (version 0.0.7, updated 07/02/2017.)
Previous Version. (version 0.0.6, updated 06/22/2016.)
Read the paper on jpb.mod.
#Carbonfeed
The project #CarbonFeed directly challenges the popular notion that virtuality is disconnected from reality. Through sonifying Twitter feeds and correlating individual tweets with a physical data visualization in public spaces, artists Jon Bellona and John Park invite viewers to hear and see the environmental cost of online behavior and its supportive physical infrastructure.
CarbonFeed works by taking in realtime tweets from Twitter users around the world. Based on a customizable set of hashtags, the work listens for specific tweets. The content of these incoming tweets generates a realtime sonic composition. An installation-based visual counterpart of compressed air being pumped through tubes of water further provides a physical manifestation of each tweet.
To see a running counter of the carbon footprint of digital behavior, learn more about this project or even listen to a song based on your personal twitter feed, please visit http://carbonfeed.org
Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition Finalist
This is a performance video of AUU (for eMersion wireless sensing) at the 2014 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held at Georgia Tech. I performed as a finalist representing Chet Udell’s eMersion wireless sensing system (unleashemotion.com/). The eMersion system is now commercially available. In this performance, the eMersion wireless sensors control both the sound synthesis (Kyma) and DMX stage lights in real time. No foot switches or third party help.
Thank you to Chet Udell for allowing me the opportunity to represent eMotion Technologies, playing some of my own music using the eMersion wireless sensing technology.
simpleKinect
simpleKinect is an application for sending data from the Microsoft Kinect to any OSC-enabled application. The application attempts to improve upon similar software by offering more openni features and more user control.
simpleKinect Features
- Auto-calibration.
- Specify OSC output IP and Port in real time.
- Send CoM (Center of Mass) coordinate of all users inside the space, regardless of skeleton calibration.
- Send skeleton data (single user), on a joint-by-joint basis, as specified by the user.
- Manually switch between users for skeleton tracking.
- Individually select between three joint modes (world, screen, and body) for sending data.
- Individually determine the OSC output url for any joint.
- Save/load application settings.
- Send distances between joints (sent in millimeters). [default is on]
Download simpleKinect.
Projects utilizing simpleKinect
Casting. Electronic composition for solo performer with the Microsoft Kinect and Kyma.
Youngman/Overholt
Youngman / Overholt is a piece for piano and electronics, written in honor of my grandmother, Betty Jane Youngman Overholt, who passed away in early 2013. BJ performed the accordion and piano from a young age and had perfect pitch. Although she become completely deaf the last 20 years of her life, she taught herself to read lips, and she could still play classic tunes on the piano perfectly from muscle memory. Sadly, because of her hearing, my grandmother never could listen to the music I wrote for her, even while alive. The electronics for Youngman / Overholt are based on a 2011 voice recording of BJ talking about her husband (my grandfather), David Overholt, while he was in the ICU several weeks before his death at age 90. They had been married for 68 years.
Dictation of BJ’s voice
“You know, the older you get I notice, you don’t have as many either. Uh, highs or lows. You don’t feel all that bad, but you don’t feel all that good…it…it… e..ev..everything it just, you know it used to be, “Oh my god—aahh”, and then, but now it’s just all kind of comes… I find that with me too.”
+ Download the score.