Conference program 41 International Computer Music Conference

Softie’s Volcano for Piano, Dance and Electronic elements was inspired by my poem with the same name. The poem explains
that the human body’s physical existence is not independent from mental feeling. Rather, they are tangled together. Each
supports and, in some instances, destroys the other. This piece mixes these elements, which are both reachable materials
and extreme untouchable emotions. The pianist is on the side of the stage alone, which is the reality of how we individually
exist in this world. The dancer, electronic music, and visual elements reveal an indefinite universe that is powerful but vulnerable.
All the elements twist with each other, emerge together, fight, some explode like a volcano, and some die away like
a firework. One cannot hold them. One cannot avoid them. One can only feel them because they are you. They are in you.
Softie’s Volcano
The world is too quiet to ignore the heart beating,
That makes me feel heavy, stifling, and unbearable.
I am struggling to get up from the floor,
Like shaking off the weight of a mountain.
The murmur in the fireplace,
The raindrops dripping on the leaves of the palm trees,
Shallow the clouds flowing through memory.
The sky shrouded by the fog is your sketch of my dream.
However, the rain in my eyes starts the dances of despair,
Then ignites my tears.
I am a softie, watering.
Today, the laughter that plays around the hillside,
Is cheerfully accompanying our sullied flesh to sleep.
But nobody can remember the hurt,
When that bloody lava was burning through my body.
My world turns into a seething cauldron,
Burning vapors flowing through my heart with screams.
All memories instantly disappeared, leaving only the hot imprints.
You are the volcano, destroying.”
Floor Exercise: As a kid, I was very involved with gymnastics. Inherent in any gymnastics event, such as the still rings or floor
exercise, is a sequence of movements whose bodily tension and release create a kind of kinesthetic rhythm. To this day,
those movements remain an integral part of how I perceive rhythm, tension, and release in music. This piece was created
with the idea of a gymnastics routine in mind. The gestures wield momentum in a way that reminds me strongly of a gymnast
tumbling on the floor. For example, a gymnast begins in the corner of the floor, sprints toward the center, and throws his or
her momentum into a series of twists and turns that conserve the momentum until, say, a final flip. In this piece, long and
short sounds are juxtaposed to evoke the mixture of sweeping movements and short bursts.
Commissioned by soprano Mikaela Sullivan for performance in April 2014, Excursus explores the methods in which modern
television broadcasting attempts to fulfill different facets of human desire, thus propagating the continued use of the
medium. The composition consists of three songs, each of which focuses on instinctive desires, quick fixes that palliate, or
intellectual satisfaction. Current television programming attempts to satisfy these desires and fabricated need with sitcoms,
pharmaceutical ads, and political slander, respectively. Instead of communicating this message traditionally via voice and
piano, prerecorded media serves as accompaniment to the soprano. I make the distinction in the title that the work calls
for “soprano and flexible media”. This word choice stems from the desire for the media to truly act as an accompaniment;
therefore, I constructed a set of twenty advancing electronic tracks, each of which have head room to quickly crossfade into
the following clip. While utilizing Max 6 in performance, an “accompanist” advances these tracks upon careful observation
of the vocalist and knowledge of the score. In order to present an intimate and personable demeanor throughout the composition,
the sound world of the prerecorded media focuses on an apparent lack of reverb with particularly “warm” sound
layers created by band passed EQ and apt sound sources.
Duo Spectralis consists of diverse spectral analysis DSP-based processes, which transform the sound coming from the two
live instruments in real time. Together with several Phase Vocoders, which transpose the pitches of both instruments, the
main DSP process herewith is the SPECFILT, a MAX patcher by Dr Ron Parks (Winthrop University, USA), which was
strongly modified by me for this particular piece. The SPECFILT analyses the incoming spectra from both instruments,
and is able to make an accumulation of those bandwidths analysed (FFT bins), which then can “evaporate” one by one by
another algorithm included in the SPECFILT. Other processes involve Ring modulated COMB filters, envelope following/
cross synthesis, convolution and different types of delays and reverb (the latter, a special version of the Schroeder type).
The music of Duo Spectralis is based on two elements: a glissando and a motive, which first appears in the Tárogáto. They
serve for the entire structure of the piece.
Giffen Good: I certainly wasn’t expecting David Whitwell to ask for a piece that was “economics-themed.” When he approached
me with the idea I thought back on my years of study (One of my undergraduate degrees was in economics.)
and realized how much has changed since then. This was just before the financial crisis of 2008. Our speculative financial
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