Ambient Music

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Septieme

I have been interested in the issues of tuning and temperament since I was in high school. A couple of years ago I joined the Just Intonation Network to gain a better understanding of the “why and how” of using pure, “just” intervals. Septieme was my first real experiment in just intonation and focuses on accustoming the ear to the use of the seventh harmonic. It was written between Oct. 2005 and July 2006.

Downloads:

Septieme [30:08 – 27.5 MB]
Csound orchestra   Csound score

Whales

Whales was written in May 2006. It uses a 19-tone equal temperament scale. Whales is the longest of my finite ambient works so far and it “modulates” about a third of the way through to a higher pitch level, and then back to the original level at about two-thirds of the duration.

Downloads:

Whales [42:47 – 39.1 MB]
Csound orchestra   Csound score

Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray was written in the Spring of 2001. It was the first piece that I wrote using Common Music and Csound.

Notes

Downloads:

Dorian Gray [21:00 – 19.2 MB]
Common Music code
Csound orchestra   Csound score

Septieme blues

Septieme blues is a continuation of my experiments with just intonation. The scale for this piece incorporates three pitches derived from the seventh harmonic to develop a “just” blues scale. Septieme blues was written in July 2006.

Downloads:

Septieme blues [24:48 – 22.7 MB]
Csound orchestra   Csound score

Changes no. 2

Changes no. 2: I. Benedictus qui venit was first realized using a MIDI sequencer in 1996. The present realization was done with Csound in 2004. This is one of my few pieces to actually have a physical score. It makes use of a musical fragment from a Mass for two voices by the 16th-century composer Orlande de Lassus. I have doubled each voice part and staggered the entrances. Then each part repeats many times with different amounts of augmentation applied to the note durations. This process was inspired by Brian Eno‘s treatment of Pachelbel’s Canon on his album Discreet Music.

Downloads:

Changes no.2 – movt. I [8:20 – 7.6 MB]
Csound orchestra   Csound score

Ambient Nouveau

Ambient Nouveau is a series of three ambient explorations begun while I was living in Champaign, Illinois. (1998-99)

Notes

Downloads:

“1” [20:54 – 19.1 MB]
“3” (excerpt) [2:34 – 2.3 MB]

FM-scape no.1

This is some unfinished work from 2005.

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