Inertia - for solo guitar with looper & FX
I performed, recorded, and mixed ‘Inertia’ in my home studio. Though the piece is written to be performed live without any backing tracks, I multi-tracked this version in order to have more control when mixing the audio.
The initial seed for ‘Inertia’ was sketched a few months after the world began reckoning with the Covid 19 pandemic. While the piece was not originally intended to function as a statement on global affairs, in retrospect, it is evident how much the worldwide shutdown was absorbed into the fabric of this work. The word, “inertia”, in broad terms, implies that something is static, unchanged. That is, until there is a force great enough to interact with and disrupt its uniform nature. During the pandemic, those lucky enough to not be stricken by illness, loss, grief, and unemployment, remarked on the oppressive nature of monotony. The world ceasing to function as usual, at the normal pace, had led some to feel as if time stood still. Of course, in actuality, time was moving along, and a great deal was happening. Much of it was tragic and in motion, despite the illusion of a sudden halt. ‘Inertia’ speaks to this dissonance in perception of events. To many, boredom and isolation was the greatest affliction caused by the pandemic. To an equal or greater number, though, the stakes were far higher and, presumably, time did not stand still for them, but marched bitterly onwards.
In determining a recipe for stasis in a musical work, a looper is a surefire way to guarantee an element of repetition and stability. Once a musical object is looped, it becomes difficult to change. The challenge then becomes interacting with the loop in interesting ways, determining how to best disrupt its constancy. Through the use of quasi-tonal harmony, polychords, and extended guitar techniques, ‘Inertia’ simultaneously offers tastes of the familiar and the uncanny. As the loops begin to lull the listener into a trance state, they are persistently jolted out of their comfort zone.
Picnic, Lightning - for SATB
I performed, recorded, and mixed this version of ‘Picnic, Lightning’ in my home studio. I wrote the piece with the limits of my vocal range in mind, knowing that I would likely perform it. First, I learned and practiced each part in isolation and then recorded the parts in sequence, beginning with the alto. To simulate a choral effect, I multi-tracked each individual part eight times. There is no processing or pitch correction, except for light EQ and reverb.
The music is set to Billy Collins’ poem, ‘Picnic, Lightning’, a favourite of mine that comments on mortality in a humbling and pedestrian fashion.
To organize the pitch content, I limited myself to the use of Messiaen’s fourth mode of limited transposition. I felt the mode suited the poem, as it is haunting, but still airy and light. The scale lends itself to a wide variety of harmonic colours, which I used to create different atmospheres. Most notably, I exploited the potential of quartal harmony, extended harmony, and poly chords.
To enhance the texture of the piece and make full use of the text and capabilities of the voice, I added spoken and ‘comprovised’ vocal sounds. This provides another dimension to the piece and gives the performers (in this case, myself) a level of freedom that I often try to encourage in my works.
I do not own the rights to the text, written by Billy Collins - the audio and score included are exclusively for portfolio purposes
Love = Labour = Love - Electronic/Electroacoustic
‘Love = Labour = Love’ is a study in heterophony, pandiatonicism, phase shifting, drone, musique concrète, and timbral variation. A massive wall of similar melodies overlap and shift in and out of sync with each other, hypnotizing the listener into a trance like state. The more active, frenetic sections are bookended by sparse, textural sections anchored by layers of drones.
The source materials vary widely and include programmed midi software synthesizer parts, IPhone recordings, and recordings of my guitar and wooden flute playing. The original version was mixed for 5.1 surround sound.