Made on my laptop computer with low-end composing software, the music from my first set of studies is described by the few people who've heard it as "deranged avant-garde cartoon music as played by an '80's synth-pop band." I've recently begun a second set of studies, in musique concrete style, composed of found sounds and musical samples. COMPUTER MUSIC VOL. 2 Another unlikely duo of musical sources, spliced into some kind of harmony. A series of musical odd couples each takes a turn, their music promiscuously spliced together. Samples from solo piano music are spliced together in the form of a sonata. My first experiment with sampling from musical sources splices together 10 diverse tracks and arranges them in rhythmic patterns. My voice, reading a line from William S. Burroughs's "The Ticket That Exploded," is slowly deconstructed. I recorded the sound of me striking a soup spoon against all of my apartment's glassware and then spliced them into a tune that sounds sort of like out-of-tune windchimes. The sounds my phone makes, arranged into a composition using random processes. COMPUTER MUSIC VOL. 1 A twenty-note theme repeats, with two notes changing each repeat. Deconstruction of six-measure improvisation. An unholy mixture of randomly chosen notes from pieces by Bach and Joplin. Ten variations on a motif, each following a basic 12-bar blues progression. Within constraints, most of the musical parameters were selected using chance operations. In each measure, the instrument, pitch and beat of 24 notes are chosen at random. Then 18 of these notes are copied to the next measure, and 6 new ones are chosen. Rolls of the dice determine the placement of 48 one-measure motifs (4 motifs for each of 12 instruments). Each of 8 tuned-percussion instruments has a 6-10 measure theme. Each theme plays throughout half of the composition, with the silences evenly dispersed. A 30-second segment of quasi-free-jazz riffing is spliced up into 2-measure clips which are then reordered in a repeating pattern. A series of motifs appear, each repeated three times. An homage to Conlan Nancarrow, using his signature form, the multi-tempo canon. A piano theme slowly fragments into multiple instrumental voices, evolves, then recomposes itself into a new piano theme to begin a new cycle. A genial theme evolves to a certain point, then reverses course. Composed entirely of themes from keyboard music by Byrd, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, and Webern, all spliced together and distributed across 14 instruments, roughly in the form of a sonata. Six themes, united only by the "golden thread," the hyper-fast kalimba run in the background that eventually overpowers the other themes. With apologies, based loosely on the chord changes of "Mood Indigo." A pointilist experiment. A single theme is distributed among 7 instruments. Two contrasting, chaotic themes alternate, slowly shedding extraneous voices, slowly sounding more and more like each other, until the two themes come together in a unison melody. Meant as a model for those whose conflicts seem intractable. Four voices, each repeating four times, but staggered, so that one voice changes every two measures. My first composition to experiment with this form. My first experiment, based loosely on the form of a piano rag. |
Reviewed recently: "Four Trials" by John Edwards and "Madam Secretary" by Madeleine Albright. Recent authors: Robert Hughes, Gail Collins, and Benita Eisler. 
A review of the first volume of David Levering Lewis's biography of the civil rights leader. A series of email rants I sent to my friends and family during the Florida election fiasco. A review of two books about the Marx Brothers, written for a now-defunct Web zine. A short story describes the labors and epiphany of a temporary copy boy at Phruit of the Earth Biotech. 
Schmeltfisch is a cartoon character satirizing my own political idealism during the years after college when I was bumming around San Francisco, hoping to be part of some unspecified revolution. A text collage, also imbued with the revolutionary spirit of my younger years. |
My geometrical felt-tip pen doodles are further expressions of my compulsive personality. The basic idea is to introduce human error into freehand drawings of intricate, regular patterns, causing pleasing distortions that seem like naturally occuring chaotic designs. I've also tried some computer collages based on photos I took. COMPUTER DOODLES PEN DOODLES 
 
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Email praise only to Mick Sussman.\
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