An example for my Electronic Music Technology Class at Baltimore School for the Arts on how to make a beat out of samples taken from recordings: the samples the beat is made out of precede the track. All samples taken from Lady Gaga's fantastic ARTPOP album

ARTPOP Beat With Origin Story

Icona Pop – I Love It (Metrosexual Black Death House Metal REMIX)

"Wondrous Sufferings" (1/7/2011) surpasses the boundaries of genres but has been classified as contemporary classical music and as performance art. In this, his second composition, Benjamin Buchanan uses English translations of text from Clara Schumann's (1819-1896) diary from 1854-1856 when Robert Schumann was in the mental asylum, Endenich, Benjamin Buchanan creates an incredibly powerful experience through this depiction of the pain that was felt by both Robert and Clara Schumann during his mental deterioration. Set for a female soprano and a male pianist, the singer plays the role of Clara and the pianist plays the role of Robert. The title, "Wondrous Sufferings," comes from a translation of something Robert Schumann scribbled in his
diary describing his auditory hallucinations.

Dedicated to his grandparents, Judge Lee Town Adams (1922-2010) and Muriel Kathryn Stang Adams (1914-2009), Buchanan writes "May those who hurt always have someone who loves them."

This recording is of a live, abbreviated, performance of the work on 2/9/2011 and features the lovely soprano and incredible actress Kirsten Johnson with the composer at the piano.

Score provided upon request.


Wondrous Sufferings

Barack Obama and George W. Bush wish you a happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth Of July (feat. Barack Obama & George W.)

Physical Arrangement For String Quartet

Some crazy glitchy beats and dance feels made in early 2013.

"NOW THAT'S what I call Sydenham Chorea Dance Music" vol. I

My 'Basic Musicianship I' class at the Peabody Preparatory performs Faber & Faber's "Firefly" with beatbox accompaniment by me!
11/5/16

Firefly  Performed by my 'Basic Musicianship I' Class at the Peabody Preparatory

By popular demand, this is the "dubstep" portion from the larger work "Some Assembly Required". This was created in Logic Studio using Apple's samples. No loops were used.
Score available upon request.

Dubstep from "Some Assembly Required"

Performed by Alex Rosen, voice; Celeste Marie Johnson, piano

Commissioned by Celeste Marie Johnson
Completed April 3, 2014; revised Winter 2018/2019
Dedicated to Celeste Marie Johnson and Alex Rosen — with my gratitude, love, and indebtedness


Alban Berg adapted the play that first explored the mind of an insane murderer for his opera Wozzeck. Portraying the title role as an emblem for the oppressed Berg considered the work “an appeal to humanity through its representatives: the audience.” Although partially well-received Berg’s opera additionally caused much commotion: the manager of the Berlin State Opera quit his job in the months leading up to the premiere, and at the premiere actual fistfights broke out among disagreeing audience members. The premiere also inspired this critique printed in the Berlin Deutsche Zeitung and now anthologized in Nicolas Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective. In Nicolas Slonimsky’s Prelude to a Lexicon (ibid., 3) he writes about the phenomenon he describes as “Non-Acceptance of the Unfamiliar:”

The music critics whose extraordinary outpourings are details here are not necessarily opinionated detractors, grouching and grumbling at anything new just because it is new. Many of them are men of great culture, writers of brilliant prose, who, when the spirit moves them, excel in the art of imaginative vituperation. They are adept at effective figures of speech, and they apply metaphorical language with considerable inventiveness to demolish the musical transgressors. Their only failing is that they confuse ingrained listening habits with the unalterable ideal of beauty and perfection. In his introduction to the lexicon Slonimsky explains how the included critics’ “only failing is that they confuse their ingrained listening habits with the unalterable ideal of beauty and perfection.” 

Wozzeck: A Review – Berlin, 1925 is meant to poke fun at those who experience similarly stern deportments such that their perception of what constitutes “beautiful art” is narrowly framed and severely limiting. In this composer’s humble opinion one of the greatest presents available for the gifting to one’s audience is a window through which the glimpse of a strange new beauty may be caught. The presentation of a style of music not previously conceived as able to be a vessel of beauty, but now is firmly understood in this more favorable light. If nothing else, perhaps to spark a bit of laughter, some knowing chuckles, because we all regretfully fall victim to the experience of our preferences exercising themselves over our perception of that which is, or is not, artful. This is meant to be humorously disarming rather than maniacally viscous; genuinely felt and engagingly seductive rather than dogmatically didactic. Such a vast quantity of so many varieties of beautiful art exists today and they are all waiting to be beheld. There’s not a moment to spare to such firmly held views as those that inflicted themselves upon Paul Zschorlich.

Celeste Johnson's Master's Recital

Wozzeck: A Review – Berlin, 1925 [Revised]

4'33" 24/7  is in honor of the centenary of John Cage's birth. Having recorded a special 24 hour-long performance of Cage's masterwork 4'33" on the 60th anniversary of the work's original premiere, Benjamin Buchanan has sped up the day-long recording thousands of times faster so that the whole day now fits into 4'33".
Special thanks are given to all of those who assisted in the performance by interacting with Ben throughout the day.

4'33" 24/7

Peace-loving beatboxing toy-pianist / composer / producer / all around music-loving individual.
“if there is any secret to this life i live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. and there is nothing more to it than that.” ― Brian Andreas

Benjamin Buchanan

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