Portfolio of Original Works and Projects
This page is a summary of assessed scores, reflections, and project descriptions from Semester 2, 2023.
This semester sure has been a wild one! Between coursework, 4 WAAPA ensembles, 3 external ensembles, and the rest of living life, the time sure has zoomed by. Despite being overworked, I feel like I managed to develop some key skills from the bucket list. Talking notation specifically, I finally got around to string quartets. While it has never been my favourite sound, I have gained a much better understanding of how it can work texturally and how the different voices can work together. I also got to play around with the love of my life: Percussion. I used it as an opportunity to move away from "melody" and explore more choreographed and narrative aspects. When it comes to electronics, this semester was a whole new pickle. I am brand new to working with DAWs, let alone spatial music and sound art. It took a lot of late nights to figure some things out, but overall I'm happy with what I learnt. I'm still not too confident in my audio manipulation, especially regarding feedback loops and live editing, and will need some more practice. I did find I enjoyed the performance art aspect more than expected, and will be implementing this into future projects. Outside of classes, I have been a part of a few super exciting projects including 2 collaborations in Acting: a new play titled "Splashzone", and Roleystone Theatre's "Shakespeare in the Park". I also had one of my original pieces played by the Artemis Orchestra at Melville Summer Arts Festival, which I was told was a very enjoyable listen. I had the opportunity to work with some amazing artists including Varijashree Venugopul, students from Showa University in Japan, and the phenomenal Shannon Barnett Quartet, two of which I will be getting online lessons from over the holidays. Going into next year, my main priority is on my mental health and well being. I was undeniably overworked in the last few months and it took a toll on my enjoyment and the quality of my work. I have the fantastic opportunity to direct an ensemble called "Ensemble Neoteric" which aims to create a safe and supportive environment for trans and non-binary musicians, including myself. |
The locker of one very busy musician
Contents
Lorelei - String Quartet End Cycle - Percussion Quartet Gospel for a Boy - Choir Standing Ovation - Audio/Visual Performance Collaborations Miscellaneous Activities |
Lorelei
For String Quartet
Lorelei is a game between a Siren and the sailors that dared to disrespect her. The piece flows in and out of atonality, playing with the concept of pattern and how subtle changes can cause unease. Following the Darlington Quartet workshop, I went in and edited it to be more legible and easier to play, including adding longer pauses before and after pizzicato sections. I decided that I would abandon any sense of time for both the intro and outro sections as the players said they were focusing more on the rise and fall in texture than on tempo. I also chose to use approximate pitches and directional lines which created an interesting sense of harmony within these sections. This piece gave me an even higher respect for string players, seeing how difficult it can be to hold certain techniques. The feedback I received was primarily regarding ease of playing and the time needed to transition between various extended techniques. I did find that the way it was read had a sound I preferred over what was initially written, and hence a few phrases were changed to match that. |
Audio from a workshop with the Darling Range String Quartet
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End Cycle
For Percussion Quartet
End cycle explores the downhill spiral of an abusive relationship and the sense of normalcy that can arise under constant stress. Within the piece, the players are split into two narrative roles: the victim and the perpetrator. Through the first few sections, the melody is accompanied by very gentle chords that subtly verge into dissonance, before returning and dissipating. The bass drum moves to actively disrupt any sense of comfort. Movements within the piece are all used as a narrative device, building a performance around the ongoing disruptions and unbalances. For example when parts 1 and 2 are forced to the opposite side (sharps and flats) which is an inherently uncomfortable spot to play from, and when they inevitably return to their beginning positions, returning to comfort. The feedback I received from the percussionists was specifically about how to notate choreography and score diagrams. I was sent the scores to Gene Koshinski's "As One", Kaboom Percussion's "Summer", and Nigel Westlake's "Omphalo Centric Lecture", which provided great examples of how these techniques are presented in professional scores. I changed my setup diagram to allow me to specify positions, for example "To Bass Drum (F)". I also altered the voicings to make life easier for the upside-down players, being primarily on flats/sharps or at least having enough space to reach over uninterrupted. |
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Gospel for a Boy
For SATB Choir with Soloist
This piece is a reflection on the strength it takes to be in love when there are people who believe that who you are is a crime. It is based in the styles of old gospel and church music, with no piano accompaniment. The piece develops in complexity of both rhythm and harmony throughout, building tension and energy before releasing into simplicity. The introduction is taken from a different choir piece I am working on. If in workshopping, this piece needs more material or to develop further, I am considering reintroducing this material, and potentially bringing over more to fully combine the two works. I am planning to create a recording using layers of my own voice, but in the meantime a musescore MIDI will have to do. The biggest limitation is that computer generated playback isn't capable of natural tempo fluctuations that would bring the piece to life. |
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Walk in the Park
Spatial Field Recordings
This collation of recordings explores the normality of man-made sound, and how distanced we can become from other people.
It was inspired by a story told by American Saxophonist Dick Oatts, wherein after a late-night gig in NYC, him and Charles Mingus were walking through central park, which at that time of night, was pitch-black and dead silent. Mingus held his hand the entire way across, and they never spoke of it again.
This project was a collection of entirely new concepts for me. For one this is my first experience with digital noise and audio manipulation. All my noise music experience before this has been entirely acoustic, with very little exposure to any noise artists. I’ve found that letting go of tone and rhythm has allowed me to be more aware of my surroundings and the natural soundscapes I was already a part of. I used this project as an
exploration into pure experience, taking recordings of my journeys from rehearsals to my home.
All sound sources in this piece were taken on a zoom h4N, primarily on Fitzgerald St after 10pm. I would like to personally thank iZotope for removing what sounded like a hurricane's worth of wind that not even the fuzziest windsock could hide. Learning to use the zoom in these situations helped me learn a lot about not just field recording, but also about managing portable technologies including loading times, how many GB a device can handle, and maintaining battery life. In future I will be looking into getting an adjustable stick to hold the mic closer to the source as I found I had to turn up the sensitivity to get a consistent sound.
I had a little too much fun with the bitcrusher plugin when I initially started to manipulate the sound quality, which I have since turned down and separated into its own bus to more accurately control it. The manipulation process has made me much more confident in how plugins, sends, and busses work as a concept, however I am still in need of some practice in the more technical side including setting up feedback loops which I was unable to manage in this project.
Overall I feel that the final project is very close to what I intended, however I need to develop my skills further to best work with the software. As I don’t have access to Logic at home, I will take the holidays to explore how similar techniques can be done in other programs such as ProTools, despite the limitation without Dolby Atmos.
This collation of recordings explores the normality of man-made sound, and how distanced we can become from other people.
It was inspired by a story told by American Saxophonist Dick Oatts, wherein after a late-night gig in NYC, him and Charles Mingus were walking through central park, which at that time of night, was pitch-black and dead silent. Mingus held his hand the entire way across, and they never spoke of it again.
This project was a collection of entirely new concepts for me. For one this is my first experience with digital noise and audio manipulation. All my noise music experience before this has been entirely acoustic, with very little exposure to any noise artists. I’ve found that letting go of tone and rhythm has allowed me to be more aware of my surroundings and the natural soundscapes I was already a part of. I used this project as an
exploration into pure experience, taking recordings of my journeys from rehearsals to my home.
All sound sources in this piece were taken on a zoom h4N, primarily on Fitzgerald St after 10pm. I would like to personally thank iZotope for removing what sounded like a hurricane's worth of wind that not even the fuzziest windsock could hide. Learning to use the zoom in these situations helped me learn a lot about not just field recording, but also about managing portable technologies including loading times, how many GB a device can handle, and maintaining battery life. In future I will be looking into getting an adjustable stick to hold the mic closer to the source as I found I had to turn up the sensitivity to get a consistent sound.
I had a little too much fun with the bitcrusher plugin when I initially started to manipulate the sound quality, which I have since turned down and separated into its own bus to more accurately control it. The manipulation process has made me much more confident in how plugins, sends, and busses work as a concept, however I am still in need of some practice in the more technical side including setting up feedback loops which I was unable to manage in this project.
Overall I feel that the final project is very close to what I intended, however I need to develop my skills further to best work with the software. As I don’t have access to Logic at home, I will take the holidays to explore how similar techniques can be done in other programs such as ProTools, despite the limitation without Dolby Atmos.
Standing Ovation
Audio-Visual Performance Work
This assessment was a perfect opportunity to attempt a new art form. I have only participated in one other “sound art” piece, however that performance was much more based in traditional music. It was interesting to look at various different performance artists and see how they used both sound, visuals, and silence to create emotional responses. I took particular interest in two collections of text scores: Yoko Ono’s “Grapefruit”, and George Brecht’s section of the Flux Workbook (2002). I found that the openness of these scores allowed for multiple vastly different interpretations. For my piece I followed a similar concept, exploring the expectations of European performance traditions and the discomfort of being a performer. The score, attached above, only contains 9 words, leaving the medium and format completely unspecified. As I was unable to attend the concert in person, I chose to do a video submission. The timestamps of each action (entering, sitting, standing, applause, and exit) acted as a sort of frame for the other compositions as the time from sitting to standing was exactly 10 minutes. The audio included was the footsteps of entry and exit as the intention was to not add cacophony to the overall performance. This audio was edited in LogicPro to remove background noise as well as to add depth. In the creation of the piece itself there were a few major obstacles to attend to. One is that the RGA (performance space) is booked at all hours of the working day. The only time it was available to film in uninterrupted was at 11:45pm. Security helped me gain access to the space with the expectation that I would lock up after myself. The other was my limited experience working with video and audio together. Thanks to the powers of youtube I was abe to complete this quickly, including using Logic’s time stretch capabilities to ensure the video was an appropriate length. The most significant difficulty in the rehearsal process was working with a lack of timing/planned performances. Having such a static medium meant that there was no way to adjust in the event that pieces ran short or were overextended. Once the other performances were rehearsed, it felt much more in-tune as part of the space, especially after being provided entry points for each piece. As I wasn’t able to participate in-person I got feedback from the other performers. The general consensus was that there was “an appropriate level of discomfort” and that it felt like the audience was exposed. This matched my intention to work as commentary on the passive observation expected of traditional audience settings. If I was to produce this piece again, I would like to do it with slightly less time in the beginning (30”), and use a total of 5 performers, reflecting the often sparse audiences in experimental concerts. |
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Collaborations
Splash ZoneSplash Zone is a stage play devised and directed by Simonne Matthews (Curtin Stage Management) and Sharni Andersson (WAAPA Diploma of Acting). It explores the stigmas surrounding the porn industry and the effects it has on people of marginalized genders.
It was first performed as part of an assessment by Curtin Acting students and is being published later this year in a currently hush hush secret location. I created the track in GarageBand using open-use samples and AI voices. It was intended to sound like "a mix between Gwen Stefani, a 70s porno and a SoundCloud rapper's backing track"; a prompt that had a bizarre research process. There are a handful of subsets: a long track used for a scene within the play, a shortened version used as a title, and soundclips for scene transitions. |
As You Like ItThis year's Shakespeare in the Park, presented by Roleystone Theatre, added a little something special.
The character Amiens, who is often simply a fool, took on the role of the bard in this production, with a spattering of songs to replace what would typically be spoken dialogue. I was asked to write for five scenes using voice and ukulele, to be performed by Zac Skelton. This included a few sillier tunes, something serious, a folk wedding song, and a big audience particiation moment. After some chord learning and key changes, it all went phenomenally, despite the annual duck interruption. "Original music - cleverly composed by Fred Johnston-Horstman - added a touch of whimsy to this incarnation and an audience sing-along is tremendous fun." - stagewhispers |
Miscellaneous Activities
Artemis Orchestra
First performance of my piece "Defiance" for big band - Melville Summer Arts Festival Recording session @ Crank WAYJO Wednesday Night Orchestra - Bass Trombone - Recording Session @ Loop Studios - Perth Jazz Festival ft Shannon Barnett SHOWAYJO - Bass Trombone - Working with exchange students from Showa University (Japan) - Perth Jazz Festival - Recording Session @ Loop Studios - Corporate performance WAAPA Performances Jazz Vocal Ensemble - Varijashree Venugopul performance - Perth Jazz Festival HearNOW Anime - Tenor Trombone, Bass Trombone, Notated Ukulele, Reduced Choir WAAPA Gala - Big Band Bass Trombone, Mass Choir, Conch soundscape Symphonic Wind Ensemble - Spooktacular Zac Skelton's 3rd Year Recital (Marimba) |