Category Archives: new composition

144: Camping sites are clean and have bear-proof lockers

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In mid-August, I spent about a week camping. The majority of the time I was at Mancos State Park. There was a no-burn order for the entire state, so most nights I would sit and read and write until my solar-powered lights grew dim, listen to music via my phone while watching the stars appear in the sky, and I also would sit, drink a beer, and listen to the sounds of the park. My campsite was about two miles from the edge of the Arapaho Forest, about ten miles from Mesa Verde National Park, and an hour in the car from Durango, CO.

There are two main aspects of this piece, a stereo recording from just outside my tent, and a series of midi files. The title is from one of the reviews of the campsites, a very apt description.

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136: How do you think I began in the world (part one and interlude)

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The piece centers on the repetitive nature of daily life, and even when the world is fragmented, seemingly destroyed, there is hope that it can be repaired, and restored. Based on “The Sow took the Measles” a folk song from colonial New England. The original verse tells of Yankee practical idealism, of making good out of a bad situation.

Featuring field recordings, synthesized instruments, and digital signal manipulation.

This is part one and an interlude of an album of the same name. Please visit my bandcamp page to purchase the entire album.

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134: What would be a better place

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In an experiment on the Moon, Apollo 15 Commander David Scott, dropped a geological hammer and a falcon feather simultaneously*. I can’t imagine Galileo ever considered that his thought experiment would be realized, or maybe that’s what he was thinking about in the fall of 1609 when was looking at the moon through his telescope and created, in watercolor, the first realistic depictions of the moon in human history*.

Episode 134 of the podcast features recordings from the moon (Apollo/NASA), recordings from earth (boat ride, coffee shop, and driving on a highway), sounds made on my computer (a Roland TR-606 drum machine emulation, and a computer assisted composition: flute, clarinet, and piano).

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133: What Became

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A low rumble. A repetitive flute and then piano — moving slowly up and down, finding a path in through the dark night — the two play at the same time, not really together. A strumming rises and falls on the left. The tune is never playful, never mournful, not quit even, looking for its way. A held note, hoping to be propelled forward. Are those voices, is it a crowd? The harmonic shift keeps it from resolving. The nervous energy, the pace quickens, but somehow a moment of calm within the noise. The piano returns, still going up and down, spinning it’s wheels, changing keys, but not finding a way. Its ‘friend’ the flute returns as well…. No hope to find its way, the struggle is heard.

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131: Before they would return again

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An old song on a computer generated piano; a theme from a 1950’s instructional video; miscellaneous bits, clicks and static; unintelligible voices; a river; a slow bell.

This episode continues to collage together samples and sounds as an accompaniment to a melody based on the folk songs, this episode features The Avondale Mine Disaster.

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130: Oh, life is toil and love is trouble

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An old song on a computer generated piano; field and foley recordings; miscellaneous bits and pieces of digital sounds; a sine waves; the ocean; a train.

Episode 130 of the podcast re-edits past episodes as an accompaniment to collaged piano based on the folk song The Housewife’s Lament.

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