WORKS

DÉPART

Départ is a piece for solo piano that focuses on the idea of permutation from one sound spectrum to another. The two spectrum I chose for this piece consist of the harmonic spectrum of B⁰ and a stretched spectrum of A¹. The piece consists of two layers of pitch material that share motivic ideas. One layer is fixed on the B⁰ spectrum, while the other layer travels from the spectrum of B⁰ to the distorted spectrum of A¹. The piece ends with both of the spectrum played simultaneously to finalize the sense of shifting within the piece.

PERSPECTIVE

Perspective is a piece written for cello and live electronics based off of the painting Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelusby Salvadore Dali. The piece explores intense emotions depicted through the different perspectives within the painting. These perspectives include the viewer's perspective, the perspective from the two large structures, and from the small people in the painting (believed to be Dali and his father). The pitches in the piece come from four different samples of ringing rocks from the Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania.

REDWOOD

Redwood, for bass trombone and electronics, is the fourth movement of the Tree Suite. The piece's pitch material was generated from overlaying an image of redwood and creating frequency bands in the Spear software for every grain in the wood. The electronics explore the concept of "frozen reverb" where the frequencies of the trombone are stretched and sustained indefinitely. In addition to the frozen reverb, the combination of the sine tones and the bass trombone create psychoacoustic frequencies that combine together to realize the redwood frequencies without physically producing the frequencies outside of the listener's ears. Redwood was written for Noal Mclimore and premiered 30 November 2017.

MAHOGANY

Mahogany, originally for soprano saxophone and electronics (revised for alto saxophone in 2020), is the fifth movement of the Tree Suite. The piece's pitch material was generated from verlaying an image of mahogany and creating frequency bands in the Spear software for every grain in the wood. Mahogany focuses on summation and difference tones to produce the mahogany spectrum psychoacoustically. Mahogany was written for Jacob Swanson in 2017 and is featured on the album "Wired" which can be found on both Apple Music and Spotify.

WISTERIA

The second movement of the Tree Suite, Wisteria utilizes carefully tuned sine tones combined with the straight tone of the flute to create summation and difference tones. The produced frequencies are based on a spectral chord generated from overlaying a picture of the rings of a wisteria tree on top of the Spear software to create frequency at every tree ring location. The electronics are designed to produce a random order of predetermined sine tones creating a unique psychoacoustic melody with each performance. Wisteria was written for Emily Brown and premiered on 30 April 2016.

PROLOGUE

The first movement in a suite of four movements titled Tri Suite, Prologue is a solo piano work with the idea to treat the piece as if you are looking at a percussive triangle horizontally. Spectra were analyzed from three different triangles and the three spectra were assigned to each point on the rotating triangle. The amount of each point you hear depends on how the triangle is orientated. To distinguish the different sets of pitches used, a different articulation and style were assigned to each point on the triangle as well as dynamics to match the depth in the visualization creating an acoustic spatialization effect.

PERCEPTION

Often overlooked, the suspended cymbal is an acoustic phenomenon in and of itself; with such a rich and complex sound spectrum, the suspended cymbal consistently conforms to its surrounding sounds through sympathetic resonance (the science behind why they always sound correct and in tune with the ensemble). Perspective creates a pseudo-orchestra with sine tones playing groups of 2, 3, or 6 pitch clusters. These clusters will then reinforce their own frequencies in the cymbal creating a different overtone structure.