For the past few years, I have been working on a series of “Comprovisations,” or compositions for different combinations of instruments and sometimes voices or electronics, that include improvisation by the musicians. There have been many influences on my music in my life, ranging from folk, rock and pop to jazz, different world musics, European classical, and what is now called “New Music.” The Comprovisations are a hybrid of all these influences.
Additionally, I have worked as a sound designer for film, video, games, installations, radio, and even on toy sound effects. With my partner, location recording engineer Richard Links, or by myself, I have recorded live soundscapes from different urban and rural environments, including in Cairo, Egypt, and Ubud, Bali, among other sonically wonderful and diverse locations. I sometimes use elements of “found sound” in my musical works and explore the boundaries between what we often consider “music,” “sound,” and “spoken word” or text. Using digital audio editing and processing software, as well as other equipment, I create sound art pieces that incorporate many different elements of sound to create a new hybrid.
Although I love spending many hours in my studio simply improvising and playing or singing music, I started to realize how much precious creative sound I have lost over the years by not recording much of it, even though some of my works have been performed by myself and other musicians and vocalists, and I have participated in several recording projects during my artistic career. Therefore, to focus on composing, finishing and recording more works, I have started giving myself “15 minute challenges” (and sometimes 30 minutes or longer), where I push the red record button and put myself on the spot—in 15 focused minutes, I must compose on-the-spot and at least get some of it into a machine or my computer so I have a library of compositional ideas or sketches that can then be edited, processed, designed, integrated, arranged, orchestrated, scored and printed out, so I can play them again, or other people can play them.
That’s my goal this year…to push myself to keep pushing the record button and get more of the spontaneous sounds saved and scored. Hopefully, I’ll get some audio clips up here soon, although I don’t often share works in progress because I believe in protecting one’s creative process from outside commentary until a piece is ready to be heard…more on that later.
I’ll be adding more notes here about the music and sound projects I’m working on, whether they’re for public performance or not. I believe it’s important—vital—to acknowledge one’s own creative work, whether or not the artist’s intention is to exhibit, sell, perform or otherwise share her/his work.
Keep checking back here to see if I’ve updated either my blog posts, or added to this Music/Sounds page. Email me if you have any questions or comments.
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