My Process

Brass, percussion, and electronic instruments in particular leave a vast universe of timbres for me to explore. 

One of the mediums I most often choose to explore these soundscapes with is the wind ensemble, with its large and variable instrumentation.  Another medium I like to explore is the combination of live instruments with electronic elements.  The nature of the electronic medium affords infinite possibilities of color and varieties of presentation, from fixed media to live interactive media.  Two other mediums that I have often explored include chamber music for trumpet ensemble and for brass quintet.  Both are made up of brass instruments which can utilize a vast array of colors simply by use of various mutes to alter the sound of the instrument.

One of the different soundscapes I’ve explored within the wind ensemble was the mysterious yet warmer and softer color of The Dreams That Haunt Us, which used a smaller ensemble than the standard concert band model, yet also used a proportionally higher amount of woodwinds and percussion.  The crystal glass, alto flute, and the tuba player singing the crystal glass’s pitch through the tuba combine to create a unique color that the rest of the ensemble surrounds and enriches.  On the other hand, pieces such as Nuclear Ratchet and Ares use a more “standardized” instrumentation but are still characterized by the use of percussion in Nuclear Ratchet and low reeds and brass in Ares.

Within the electronic medium, I have mostly explored fixed media and the combination of live instruments with fixed media.  Fixed media lends itself to ethereal and minimalistic soundscapes.  It also leads itself to mathematical precision that would not be possible with an ensemble of solely live instruments.  In the fixed media piece I presented at the Electronic Music Midwest Conference in 2014, Melting Clocks, I based the musical design off of the Fibonacci Sequence, staggering the entrances of a clock ticking soundbite by proportions of time based on the sequence.  I went on to reproduce these entrances later on in the piece as a proportional mirror image reflected across an axis of symmetry at the golden ratio point of the piece.  In pieces that combined live instruments with fixed media, I have focused more on an ethereal soundscape.  In the piece The Fifth Dimension, performed by Keith Benjamin at the Electronic Music Midwest Conference in 2015, the fixed media accompaniment creates an atmospheric backdrop to a trumpet part that explores the range of different timbres that can be created with a cup mute.   

In the past, I have explored different coloristic possibilities of brass instruments within the mediums of the trumpet ensemble and brass quintet.  The main purpose of one piece I wrote for trumpet ensemble, Incongruous Hues, was to explore as many different colors as possible on the trumpet using different mutes and the composite colors of the combinations of various mutes.  In Brass Quintet No. 2, not only did I explore the range of possible colors created by having the players play on their doubling instruments (flugelhorn for trumpet players and euphonium for the trombone player), I also explored the alternate soundscape created when traditional instrumental roles were changed within a traditional style of piece and by incorporating simple percussion instruments that added a further layer of color outside the reach of brass instruments by themselves.