An electric guitar meditation on J.S Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor (Prelude). [One take - warts and all!]

Meditation I on J.S Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor (Prelude) [2021]

A different electric guitar meditation on J.S Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor (Prelude). [More "accidentals" and major deviations from the noted rhythms]

Meditation II on J.S Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor (Prelude) [2021]

Another one-take electric guitar meditation on J.S Bach's Cello Suite No. 2 - Menuet I. Shout-out to Jason Hoopes! Much love brother!

Meditation I on J.S Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor (Menuet I) [2021]

"i.v." is for flute, alto saxophone, trumpet, percussion, vibraphone, electric guitar, piano, voice, and contrabass. 

By juxtaposing strictly notated music and indeterminate musical structures, the work challenges listeners to distinguish whether the performers are improvising or following a conventional score. The piece is composed of four movements — alternating between strictly notated and through-composed movements — that are performed  "attaca." Each movement elaborates on previous musical materials by developing variations in pitch, timbre, dynamics, and rhythm. Knowing each ensemble member, I integrated specific performer musical idiosyncrasies into the strictly notated sections as a way of establishing a thread that unravels throughout the sections. " i.v." premiered on March 12, 2009 at Signal Flow, Mills College.

Akiko Hatakeyama (fl.), Jacob Zimmerman (sax.), Alex Vittum (perc.), Jordan Glenn (vib.), Karl Evangelista (gui.), Paul Naughton (pno.), Zeina Nasr (voi.), Jason Hoopes (cb.), Steed Cowart (cond.)


i.v. [2009]

"Piano Roll" takes inspiration from Conlon Nancarrow and his studies for the player piano. While composing the work, I was interested in convergent and divergent distributions and different ontological problems that emerge when visualising and sonifying them. While the eye can be used to survey histories of consequence, the ear is only concerned with the immediate. Thus, I wanted to draw attention to the ear via the eye. To do so, I generated different distributions from a statistical feedback model and used them to sequence material, playing with ideas of ratio and space. "Piano Roll" was commissioned by the Laboratoire Musique et Informatique de Marseille.

Please note that this is the audio only and does not include the video. The Vimeo link to the complete work follows: https://vimeo.com/166412688

Piano Roll [2016]

"embed (live)" is a recorded improvisation for electric guitar and interactive electronics. When faced with a new electric guitar sound, some audience listeners might brush it off as just another effect. However, it is the effect itself that is the focus of their attention, which, in turn, minimizes the electric guitar and its role as a sound producer. Thus, in a sense, the effect supersedes its source. One way to get listeners to distinguish the instrument from that which is being processed is to invite them to confront the discrepancies between live and recorded sound. While recorded sound is a fixed representation or history of some sonic event, live sound is (sometimes) heard for the first and only time. In "embed (live)" the electric guitar acts as both an instrument that produces sound and a controller of another. While one sound is a live product of electromagnetism, the other, although composed in real-time, is a fabrication of fixed recordings contingent on the electric guitar input.

"embed (live)" premiered at Radical dB Festival 2015 in Zaragoza, Spain.

embed (live)[2015]

Live recording of an improvisation for Japanese shō and interactive electronics, written in the audio programming language SuperCollider. Performed by Chatori Shimizu (shō) and Benjamin O'Brien (electronics).

Improvisation for shō and electronics [2017]

"Six4 for Eight Spaces" explores my interests in indeterminacy, computer music, and acoustics. It shares themes related to John Cage’s Number Pieces. Upon executing an algorithm designed in SuperCollider, a number of iterations are calculated from the summation of six die values. Per iteration, the sum of virtually flipping three coins determines a type of playback synthesizer. The probabilities of six die determine: a random sample from one of the libraries; playback duration; envelope shape for playback; number of playback repetitions; frame to begin playback; and wait time between iterations. Audio is then ported to Paul Koonce’s PVC where impulse response convolution is applied. Eight different spatial renderings of the work are created, and intuitively mixed.

Six4 for Eight Spaces [2012]

Another one from the vault! Another free improvisation for electric guitar and supercollider processing.

Goûté [2017]

"OSCines" focuses on the process of translating melodies found in birdsongs. The nightingale belongs to the clade Passeri also commonly known as Oscine, from the Latin root oscen meaning “a songbird.” Its birdsong is composed of a wide range of whistles, trills, and gurgles, which create a rich and vibrant melodic contour. Nightingale and clarinet samples serve as source and target materials (interchangeably) for spectral information collected via signal-processing detection systems. "OSCines" explores the alignment and collisions of distinct timbre features and melodic topologies within the virtual aviary of the stereophonic speaker space.

OSCines [2013]

Another étude for an upcoming album of electric guitar and digital signal processing. . .

Etude [2020]

Benjamin O’Brien (PhD) works with sound in the fields of psychoacoustics, human movement, and linguistics. His interests in composition involve electro-acoustics & free-improvisation.

Benjamin O'Brien

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