The first movement of my Woodwind Quintet, composed between 2004 to 2018. Though the movement follows the architectural methods of the Baroque passacaglia, it is also very abstract in its use of melodic transfiguration and tonal schematics. 

This movement is dedicated to the memory of Chuck Bond, a man I worked with while I was employed as a manager for a newspaper delivery company in the Hudson Valley.

Woodwind Quintet - Passacaglia (In Memoriam Chuck Bond)

I experimented with an untuned grand piano. It had a peculiar tuning, intriguing and alluring. I opted to adjust the tuning of select keys, preparing them with a wooden objects to achieve a desired resonance then I used the material from one of my compositions titled "Sweet Dramatic." I am grateful to Rubén Widén for his help and for capturing the sound with his tape recorder.
17 May 2022, University of art, Stockholm

Sweet Dramatic v.II-prepared Piano (2022)

music composed in 4 channel for ToBe Continued - Stop TB Day music marathon 2017.

this piece is inspired by thinking about traveling between two worlds, whether they represent metaphorical worlds of one's own imagination, mythological worlds of the living and the dead, or different worlds as conceptualised by modern physics. The music reflect the uncanny presence in the unfamiliar space in-between.

Another (2017)

WEAVING LISTENING event, 2023
Composer: Mehdi Hesamizadeh
Ney: Bastian Duncker
Blockflute: James Etherington
Performed at HilbertRaum, Berlin

This piece is a reimagination of Siāwčamāna.
Siāwčamāna is a well-known traditional Kurdish song from the villages of Uramanat, an ancient cultural region in the Zagros Mountains. The song belongs to the rich musical tradition of the Hawrami people, and it is thought to have evolved from a song performed in religious ceremonies in Zoroastrian times or possibly earlier.

A reimagination of Siāwčamāna (2023)

When living things gain the ability to extract information from their environment and react to it, they can have a survival advantage.   So did our senses evolved;e.g. an animal might "hear that" a predator approaches and evade it.  

Complex beings process complex stimuli for all manner of information, so the cognitive effort after the raw sensation can take time.   This necessary delay, for human beings at least, means experiencing sense-data-in-itself even while reflecting on the question "What is it?"  For music this gives rise to a duality: even as we surrender to an immersive experience we might parse it and deduce some of its structure (or at least experience the mere presence of structure through its artifacts).  

Perhaps "duality" make this too simple: we can also reflect on the feeling of surrender, we can also reflect on the feeling of deductive experience.  We can "hear that" a sound got made in a certain way, we can hear that a sound is similar to different from some other sound, and we can "hear that" a variety of sounds enjoy some order or pattern.   Music is not just how it sounds, it is at least(!) all that the stratified listening mind does.

To Hear and Hear-That, as a kind hypercanon (a canon on a canon on canon on a canon) depends on "transposition up the steps of the overtone series (as opposed to up or down a fixed interval).  

From another but equivalent viewpoint, the many chords here correspond to solutions of the problem of expressing any given beat number, if possible, as the sum of four distinct fourth powers (a.k.a. biquadrates).   From the choice of that problem, and for mathematical reasons, a kind of rhythmic steady state emerges, a flow that neither thins nor thickens on the average, but nevertheless projects predictable/unpredictable variation (depending on the computational power of the agent who would predict).   In contrast to the rhythmic steady state, as the piece progresses the larger beat numbers require solutions with larger biquadrates, so the timbre of the piece slowly evolves from consonance to some kind of resonant dissonance.

For an ending, both a bit arbitrary but also a bit natural, the piece goes on only as long as 32 harmonics suffice.  



To Hear and Hear-That

five parts in a 99-98-97-96-95 ratio with tempo changes, and trumpet 1 in 17-19-21-23-25-28-31 partials tuning; trumpet 2 in Pythagorean, Horn in Just 7 limit, Trombone in quarter tones, and Tuba in 19/53tet. This piece has other related versions, but this is the final poly version. For now. Composed 2025. Score in process. 

Brass Quintet 2b, in Polytempic Polymicrotonality

This music has been another journey into the marriage of the human brain and technology, and what one is willing to keep or edit out. There are many passages here that are unplayable; nevertheless, I am keeping it, as I believe there are either electronic trumpets or piccolo trumpets that can or may be able to replicate it. The harmony is all Pantonal, neither atonal nor tonal, and is driven mostly by voice leading and horizontal motion rather than verticalities. Therefore, there are no chord progressions, per se, yet, due to the voice leading, there are small pockets of centricity that approach tonality. This music, uncharacteristically, is not microtonal. The technology I am using allows me to explore ideas that are beyond human performance. Since we are in AI territory, anyway, I am keeping most of the score for a future robot ensemble driven by AI performance algorithms that will be able to negotiate these rhythms. Composed 2025.

Music for Brass, Cello, Contrabass, and Piccolo Trumpet

This Brass Septet features only acoustic, but polymicrotonal, brass instruments. There's a range of different tuning methods employed here, from Wendy Carlos Alpha, Beta, Gamma, to Just 7, to Pythagorean, and even Partch's 43. The trumpets are quick and squiggly rhythmically which pushed the microtonal changes with portamento into a rather insect sounding result, which I decided to keep, as a novel mistake, turned discovery. It will annoy many listeners, but I am beyond caring now. The bottom is nice and round, just like Jennifer Lopez. And if that's sexist, I still don't care. 

Polymicrotonal Brass Septet: Lord of the Flies

This bit of Tuesday fun is a new piece created in Reaper, new, with Oddsound microtuner, and a plethora of vst instruments, and some contrabass to round out the bottom. composed in the year of 2025. 

Polymicrotonal Etude #51.15145987

Polytempic polymicrotonal etude # 52

This track is the second version of 53, with added tunings and instruments: 12tet poly strings, and Nordic Whistle in Partch 43, in addition to the already established 22, 48, 53 and I forgot. Cats will soon join this eternal topic making it a trialogue betwixt myself, mat and David. coming soon. maybe. 2025

polyetude 53a, version 2: David Feldman and Mat Ward Converse on Moths and Dogs

Composer, mathematician, visual artist. 
Seeks collaboration with performers and choreographers.

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To Hear and Hear-That

David Victor Feldman