My approach to composing is by ear with cursory attention to the interesting structures proposed by standard music theory. Theory can provide prompts that can be useful in creating soundscapes. When composing, I use my ears to discern THIS-> (from my Artist’s Statement).

When I play and create sound art, my intention is to listen for the song that is being played in eternal sonic space-that space where The Big Om resides. All kinds of songs bounce around and make and remake themselves in that space. Sometimes I capture snatches of these melodies or rhythms and can use them in a work. In performing soundscapes, my intention is to wake up the ears of those who can deeply listen, massage the sonic environment, and be a loving sound presence.
I combine the “song in the moment” with “archetypal” sound riffs and rhythms that may be recognizable and evoke feelings and memories. We each have our own bag of tunes that we love. And what we love is often times some particular part of these songs such as intervalic tone relationships or harmonic interplay or a syncopated rhythm. Many of my favorite songs begin with a major fifth interval. The very first interval of a tune establishes a path of expectation that the next step can either reinforce or break-and you are on your way. Just a few notes in and a certain rhythmic relation begins to stimulate people physically and emotionally. It is so amazing. So I say that I “steal” riffs-I may use the first 3 to 5 notes of a phrase from a particular song (sometimes I am concious of the song and sometimes not) When I hear that part of the work, the whole of the song is there for me-not the notes, but the feeling it evokes. My access to this approach is my own bag of earworms, and so I use them and hope that other people can hear something that resonates with their own bag.

Far Afield (A Response to the Art Of Nancy Tuttle May) was the first attempt at executing these ideas. From this I learned that the composition becomes a new thing when diffused into an environment of talking people. I had moments during that performance when I was competing with the voices by pushing the volume to the max. This was a mistake that moved my attention to discovering ways that the composition can mix in with the voices rather than compete with them. This is an area that I explored in the next soundscape at The Carrack Gallery of Modern Art.

Libby Lynn, a tornadic force in the Durham art community, has been working in encaustic art for a number of years now. Encaustic media is beeswax, pigment and heat. It dates back to Ancient Egypt, where it was used to create life-like death portraits of Egyptian personages, mostly upper class. Libby uses it to envision cells, hearts, painted ladies and much more. In November of 2013, Libby had a showing of her work at The Carrack. The show was called 250 Degrees which is the ideal temperature for wax used in encaustic expression. I created a soundscape that was performed at the opening, and diffused into the gallery for the run of the show. I came into this situation knowing I needed better sound diffusion and less volume, that subtle nuances were to be used sparingly as space creators, that lower and higher frequencies can be used to carve out space in the middle for the voices in the room. and that I wanted a live collaborator to play with the soundscape.

Luckily for me, Libby was more accessible as a person and I was able to use sounds from the encaustic process as well as some thrashy guitars in tribute to her love of Nordic Heavy Metal. The soundscape for this event was shaped by those sounds as well as the sound of bees buzzing in a hive. Bees were featured in this exhibit with a live hive installation by Matthew Yearout and Inside the Beehive, a sound installation that you could listen to while looking at the hive. Pushing the high/low frequency envelope in honor of all these sounds – I went for the buzz (I just heard someone laugh! Oh….it was me.) This soundscape was laced with buzzing frequencies or “pink noise.” The soundscape begins with the sounds of the encaustic process; scrapping, chopping wax, lighted torches sealing the layers of wax. Then into some clanging bells, thrashy guitars and a moody section called ShadowDoubt that I have pulled out of the larger soundscape as a piece in itself. Finally, Bee Synthony, which used the beehive recordings plugged into a synth in Ableton. I had fun here as I had the bees sing tunes like “What’s the Buzz” and “The Flight of the Bumblebee” interspersed with some mournful droning.

I created a 30 minute soundscape in three movements. The “hard copy” recording played in the gallery for the run of the show. People had a nice comfy chair to sit and listen to the piece.

The night of the opening, I performed the soundscape with the help of Steve Cowles, my favorite sax player. Since the soundscape itself was very buzzy and on high and low frequencies, the sax filled out the voice frequencies and added alot of splash to the whole piece. Each section of the soundscape was developed more fully. I rented two QSC speakers set up in opposite corners and spanning the entire room. People in attendance described hearing chanting, howls and whispers through the room interwoven with Steve’s solo sax and flute statements.

The Carrack is a nice room for sound in that it is nearly square with reflective windows and absorbent brick walls and wood floors. So it has life but is not too reverberent. Then with all the people in the room, everything was on a fairly level playing field. Steve was mic’ed through the QSCs along with the sound piece, the interplay of all of the layers (soundscape, voices, sax and flute) was not as maleable as I would have liked. This performance was much more successful in that the soundscape was a friendly, if, at times, overwhelming presence but not an overbearing one. The interplay of the voices in the room and the layers of the soundscape were better enmeshed. The overtones were featured (hence, the chanting, howls and whispers), which was a delightful new facet in this performance. This was when I started thinking about the performed soundscape as another manifestation of the electronic one.

Here is a hard copy recording of the HotWax/ShadowDoubt/BeeSynthony soundscape that played in the room. Unfortunately, Steve’s contributions are not in the recording. However, this is the base he played over. (35 minutes run time)