Studio

Visit my new studio extension at GarageBand.com where you can download and listen to a wide selection of my compositions. And if you enjoy them, get yourself a copy of my new CD Magnetic Domains, from The Temporal Doorway Storefront.

Where It Comes From...

“Music offers man the singular opportunity to reenact, on the adult level, the primary process of his method of cognition: the automatic integration of sense data into an intelligible, meaningful entity...

“A composition may demand the active alertness needed to resolve complex mathematical relationships - or it may deaden the brain by means of monotonous simplicity. It may demand a process of building an integrated sum - or it may break up the process of integration into an arbitrary series of random bits - or it may obliterate the process by a jumble of sounds mathematically- physiologically impossible to integrate, and thus turn into noise....

“Music gives man’s consciousness the same experience as the other arts: a concretization of his sense of life. But the abstraction being concretized is primarily epistemological, rather than metaphysical; the abstraction is man’s consciousness, i.e. his method of cognitive functioning, which he experiences in the concrete form of hearing a specific piece of music. A man’s acceptance or rejection of that music depends on whether it calls upon or clashes with, confirms or contradicts, his mind’s way of working. The metaphysical aspect of the experience is the sense of a world which he is able to grasp, to which his mind’s working is appropriate...

“To a conceptual consciousness, it is a unique form of rest and reward...” (Ayn Rand - The Romantic Manifesto)

The focus of the music presented here is my Tachyon Chamber Orchestra project. The music is experimental, but not in the deconstructed sense of the avant-garde. Instead, it offers new melodies and new combinations that integrate smoothly with the life of man.

The Concepts And Compositions

Tachyon Chamber Orchestra would be a group, if it weren't one person. The name is a sort of pointed compound pun on the name of a theoretical particle which (theoretically) can only travel faster than light (the tachyon), the physicist's tool for tracking conventional particles (the cloud chamber), and the term for a small orchestra (usually less than 10 instruments) - the chamber orchestra.

Tachyon Chamber Orchestra usually uses between four and ten instruments. The result is a classical / jazz / progressive rock fusion, which develops clean, layered, and intricate melodies from conventional and synthetic sampled instruments. The intent is to produce a small combo / small orchestra feeling, and to provide a personality for each part that allows the listener to visualize a live performance - though often with some very unusual instruments.

The compositions make extensive use of odd time signatures, including such combinations as 7/8, 27/4, and 9/4. 5/4 is also common. But the unusual time signatures are not allowed to detract from the focused structure and melody of each piece. Instead they provide a framework that I use as the limits of the single phrase. Obviously, the longer the time signature the greater the challenge - because more notes must be managed before the phrase resolves. The temptation to break a time signature like 27 into 9 measures of 3 can be difficult to resist. Of course, simultaneous and sequential mixtures of longer and shorter multiples of a time signature are part of the style, too.

The Sound

My music is intended to sound like music played by musicians, not like that played by a computer. But while it uses highly accurate samples of real instruments in some parts, the intent is not merely to reproduce the sound of conventional music.

Conventional instruments are used in conjunction with high-fidelity synthetic instruments in most of my works. It's often enjoyable to imagine these unusual synthetic instruments actually being played. Many of them have their own special characteristics and resonance which suggest a specific physical construction, like horns modulated with air bags, or huge hinged contraptions, or massive autoharps. In some cases, the synthetic instruments are built upon conventional instruments, with alterations to filters, envelopes, and pitch. In one case, I assigned a marimba-like sound to the separate downstroke and upstroke of a note, which created a unique sound that suggested a marimba suspended face down above another marimba, so that the instrumentalist must strike a second note as the mallets bounce between the lower to the upper plates - the rhythmic implications were fascinating.

The Production Process

Much of this music was developed on an Amiga personal computer which operates an Ensoniq EPS sampler, and HR-16 and HR-16B drum machines via MIDI (software: Deluxe Music Construction Set v2). The material is mixed down through a Studiomaster 8 into 4 onto a Yamaha MT-3X four track cassette deck with dbx noise reduction. The output from the master tape is then sent by stereo cable though a Radio Shack Ground Loop Isolator (to eliminate hum) to a Dell PC with a Diamond MX300 Monster Sound card where it is recorded to a .wav file using the Diamond Wave Editor. The resulting wave data is then cropped and its amplitude normalized to provide the greatest possible dynamic range. Music Master Jukebox is used to create the .mp3, because it applies the Xing encoder - as far as I know, the only CD quality MP3 encoder. The Xing attains a 12:1 compression ratio at CD quality, so that a 3.5 min song which is a 37Mb .wav becomes a 3.5Mb MP3.

My current setup is a 2GHz Dell machine using Magix Midi Studio Deluxe. New works are coming soon.

What You Need

Real Audio or an MP3 player. But almost everyone has one now.

Friends

Have a look at some of the work of my friend Greg Sandow. Read the reviews he writes, and listen to his compositions, which include classical (Romantic), opera, and popular forms.

My Musical History

I spent the usual childhood time learning classical guitar, trombone, and voice. I had an influential music teacher who taught me about polyrhythms when I was in grade school. But I really had only an hobbyist interest in creating and performing until I met Tony DePass, a fine guitarist / bassist and fusion composer.

I was improvising with my bass out on my porch one afternoon when Tony introduced himself, and invited me to jam. Since I didn’t know any standards (I was about as complete an amateur as one can be and still know how to play at all) we ended up writing something... well, odd, but interesting. Tony and I subsequently became a duo, which we called Window - a recording team. We used his four track reel-to-reel tape deck, prerecorded drum lines, and ingenuity. Tony helped me to see ways to take risks and carry them off.

One of the interesting things I learned came from working with these prerecorded drum tracks. I saw how we could change the mood and the character of even the most commonplace lines (despite the constraints of their immutable substructure) just by selecting the right note and rhythm combinations to ride on them. And that we could even erect completely different moods on the same substructure. I also learned that the right substructure should force a specific melody - just as the best rock climbs require specific and perfectly executed moves.

After a couple of years, I was a more experienced bassist, and I was tugging at the restraints of “recording-only”. Tony knew it, and when I asked, he advised me to find a band and try performing; I auditioned for an original progressive rock act called “Feathered Serpent”, and spent a couple of years with them, writing bass lines for their songs, developing my own style and energy. In Serpent, I worked with John Boyle, a powerful drummer who had interesting ideas and taught me to play in 9/4. I gained a love of odd time signatures from working on his song.

After Serpent broke up, I formed my own original group, “Quartz Movement”, and did my own composing in a progressive rock-oriented genre. I pushed some of my limits by necessity, and eventually took on both vocals and managing the band in addition to my role as bassist and composer. At the same time, I was involved with former Serpent members Mike Zappula (keys) and John Boyle (drums) in a completely improvisational avant-garde project, “Throbulators”. In Throbulators, the rule was - no planning, no discussion, no agreement - just play. Any time signature (maybe more than one), any key (maybe several). The object was to attain fluidity and surprise while maintaining cohesion, based on the gentle signals the other musicians generated. Sometimes we were four; once we were twelve. Strange instruments were encouraged.

These projects were enough, until I discovered computers for music. In 1989 I purchased an Amiga computer, primarily for art. But I discovered that I could also make music with it, using its internal sound hardware and Deluxe Music Construction Set. I still use DMCS for all of my compositions. It's a great tool, because it uses standard notation (though I don’t claim to be a strong reader or writer of notation), and it allows notes to be changed while the composition is playing - so it can be almost like improvising. With a sound development package, Synthia, I could create my own instruments for the Amiga. After a while, I wanted greater clarity and dynamic range, so I bought an inexpensive CZ-101 synthesizer and began working with MIDI. I built up a couple of hours of compositions and had an interesting time learning what I could do with this new medium. I could express almost anything I could think of, and I could ignore the performance limits that my fellow musicians might have - because there were none: the computer could play anything, no matter how fast or how intricate or how intertwined. It didn’t need rehearsal space, never failed to show up when I needed it, and never got buzzed at rehearsal or on the job. And I liked the unusual instrumental textures that were possible. This was my first compositional period.

With troubles in Quartz Movement building up as we entered our third year, I decided that computer-based composition and performance were a better way to go. I titled my effort "Tachyon Chamber Orchestra". I decided that I wanted to create the feeling of a small orchestra of humans, playing unusual instruments. The style as it developed, was a fusion of classical, jazz, jazz / rock fusion, and other, more obscure influences, including such things as temple bells.

For a while, I was an adjunct professor of art for Springfield College (working on software during the day and teaching a couple of afternoons a week). They purchased a Kawai K3, an Alesis HR-16 drum machine, and a four track. All this could be controlled with one of my art class Amigas - so, between classes, I composed some pieces - including Sessions.

Finally, when I left Springfield, I needed a synth that was better than the CZ, so I purchased the Ensoniq EPS I use today, and an HR-16 B drum machine, which has harsher, more modern percussion than the HR-16. Later, I added an HR-16 for its more unprocessed acoustic percussion sound. And there I am today, still using the Amiga and DMCS to control it all via MIDI.

My post-Springfield compositions fall into three major categories. The first represented a great break in complexity and maturity, though they are foreshadowed in some of my Springfield work. They climaxed in "Clang", a piece which mixed harps and large bells with cellos and powerful kit percussion. The next phase was represented only by Ripples and by its sister work, where I think orchestral richness and complexity reached their climax. A long hiatus ensued as my attention focused in other areas. That was followed by a sort of "restart" composition, then two new works, and now a third in progress, which I think represent my current style - these include Southwestern Driftwood .

As you can see, I was “informally” trained. In a way, I've been glad of that. I believe it has given me the ability to draw my own boundaries, to use whatever musical styles I want to echo or alter or suggest. At the same time, it means that I have to depend a lot - perhaps more than might be comfortable - on sense of life and on a sort of visual-artist understanding of musical tools. This, the way an artist learns how to handle pencil, brush, paper and canvas, working with intellect, emotion and philosophy to integrate visual perception, seems to me to work for music, where notes and sounds and structures are analogous to the tools of art. Still, it has been up to me to discover, almost intuitively, what works, how, and why.

My influences

As with my art, I suspect relatively little of what I like to listen to has ended up in my music. On the classical side, I like relatively few composers, but Prokofiev is a favorite for his dense and rhythmic compositions. I especially love his piano concertos. And I like the more classical works of Gershwin. In progressive rock, I'm fond especially of a variety of obscure artists, including Happy The Man, Brand X, Brian Eno, Automatic Man, Cocteau Twins, and PFM, and some more well-known artists like Rush and Vangelis. In fusion, I enjoy modern players like Bela Fleck, powerhouses of the fusion era like Return To Forever, Weather Report, and more obscure artists like Jan Akkerman, Joachim Kuhn, Alan Holdsworth, Hermeto Pascoal, and, of course, big bands of various sizes and types.

From these artists I learned that I wanted to create music which suggests exaltation and which provides the challenge of integrating dense and complex relationships in rhythm and melody. It seems to me that in at least some cases, pushing the relationships to the most complex and extended resolution which I can handle adds to the joy of wrapping those threads into integration once the barrier has been passed.

I'm happy to be back working on it, and I'm happy to have the opportunity, at last, to present this to an international audience. Enjoy!

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