Selected tracks

This work was improvised using sliders and button controls in a MaxMSP patch, the sliders and buttons controlling parameters to music-generating algorithms I devised and programmed in rtcmix~.  The rtcmix (real-time cmix) object runs in a loop whose input variables are adjusted in real-time. I call it comprovisation.
The parameters control such features as harmony/melody (pitch material) as well as texture, rhythm, tempo, and so forth.

Licorice Loops No.2 (2013)

Audio capture from a full-body improvisation (comprovisation) with the FluxNOISations interactive system, which continuously tracks the flex of right and left wrists, the relative position of shoulders, distance between hands, between feet, between elbows, and xyz coordinates of the torso in the room.  These data streams steer looping rtcmix~ objects (score scripts) by providing input parameters which control the sound. No sampled sounds were used.  All the sounds are generated through physical models implemented in rtcmix.

When improvising with the system, I often explore by trying to attain sounds that are "in between" two or more sounds I've just made, thus striving for increasingly finer grained nuances, while listening and responding to what emerges sonically and visually. This process of improvising with Fluxations and FluxNoisations is discussed in "Improvising Synesthesia" in Leonardo Electronic Almanac v.19/2, 2013. (link below)

program note:
http://enoughrecords.scene.org/100_years_of_noise/xtra/joshua.txt
interview:
http://www.joshuabanksmailman.com/compositions/modern_compositions/JMailman_noise_interview.txt
article:
https://www.leoalmanac.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/LEAVol19No3-Mailman.pdf

Murmurs Of The Moist: 'moist' = hybrid of human (wet) and machine (dry) (2012)

Program note by Jon Forshee:
Heraclitean Dreams (2008)
The aural delights of Joshua Mailman's electro-acoustic work Heraclitean Dreams emerge differently upon each hearing. Each time it suggests anew how best to hear it this time.
So far, to my ear, the global changes in sound color set the overall pace of this music. The choice of sound colors and their transformations linger in my ear long after each audition.  Recalling the opening pluck-and-vocal-fanfare when arriving at the end of the piece, it occurs to me that the sound color of the final pure wave sine tones, seemingly inspiring the work, lend this music its aura of cohesion, while the attenuations and tweaks to, and transformations of, this sound color give the work its shape. How Mailman transitions between these transformations fuels the action of the piece, and though these transitions (usually) feel subtle throughout, the cumulative sound color tweaks and adjustments with which Mailman achieves these transformations move my ear to listen softly...a zoomed-out kind of listening wherein local details flocculate into larger musical figures and draw my ear to increasingly broad musical gestures and stances. In this way, my ear traces the flow of one sound color into the next, and luxuriates surprisingly in the more unabashedly palpable sound color changes: around the 5-minute mark, the ear encounters for the second time the opening pluck-and-vocal-fanfare (though re-framed this time around); or the 8:15 mark, where the smooth profile of earlier sound color transitions seems to crystallize in a brazen rhythmic figure outfitted with a successive iteration of higher and higher frequencies at shorter and shorter durations--here the music relishes in the unsullied exuberance of the sine wave, and again the field of listening suddenly sounds broader. This music suggests many more ways to listen, and I do not feel compelled to privilege any one of them over another...with no single way to listen to Heraclitean Dreams, multiple listenings ought to feel rewarded with new ways of engaging the piece, and so far I have not heard the work the same way twice. 
—Program note by Jon Forshee

Heraclitean Dreams (2008)

performed by Joshua Banks Mailman, Arthur Kampela, and Rhonda Taylor
on June 7, in the New York Philharmonic Biennial 2016 at National Sawdust as part of the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF)

Material Soundscapes Collide is a trio improvisation between interactive audiovisual technologist-improvisor Joshua Mailman, composer-guitarist Arthur Kampela, and baritone saxophonist Rhonda Taylor. Kampela’s extended guitar playing involves entirely new playing techniques, combining in a compelling and seamless manner, traditional playing with noise oriented, percussive effects. Taylor explores parametric extremes: clear vs. distorted, low vs. high, etc. and varying states of activity and intelligibility, through traditional and extended techniques. Mailman performs using his FluxNOISations sensor-based full-body audio-visual interactive system, developed by him (with Sofia Paraskeva who also designed the system’s wireless sensor gloves). Using physical modeling algorithms, FluxNOISations generates three streams of digitally synthesized unpitched percussion-noise sounds: wood, metal, and noise (water, sandpaper, pebbles, sticks). These sonic streams are controlled through gradual motions of feet, elbows, shoulders, hands, wrists, and torso. Through these same body motions, the FluxNOISations performer also simultaneously manipulates generated visual imagery. The projected graphics present shifting harmonious symmetries of shape and color, like Oskar Fischinger’s and John Whitney’s “visual music.” Thus, through body motions, FluxNOISations coordinates its “visual music” with its “aural noise.” (See “Improvising Synesthesia” in Leonardo Electronic Almanac v.19/3, 2013.) The trio, duo, and solo sections of Material Soundscapes Collide present call-and-response interactions, as well as oppositions and trajectories of percussive-noise from classical guitar (Kampela), baritone sax (Taylor), and audiovisual streams of FluxNOISations (Mailman), in an unprecedented style of multisensory improvisation.

Note: No sound samples (pre-recorded elements) were used. All sound (and graphics) are generated in the moment of performance.

Video links:
MSC at NYCEMF2016: 7-minute partial-view excerpt: http://vimeo.com/fluxations/msc_2016_nycemf
MSC at NYCEMF 2016 ending: vimeo.com/171484645 
NYCEMF Improv FluxNOISations 2015 selections: vimeo.com/167590039 
NYCEMF Improv FluxNOISations 2015 complete: vimeo.com/141239112

Audio excerpts:
https://soundcloud.com/joshua-banks-mailman/msc-arthur-and-josh-wood-duet
https://soundcloud.com/joshua-banks-mailman/msc-rhonda-solo-followed-by-metal

Artist links:
• Rhonda Taylor: @rhondataylor
• Arthur Kampela: soundcloud.com/search?q=Arthur%20Kampela
www.kampela.com
• Joshua Mailman: www.joshuabanksmailman.com

NY Philharmonic / NYCEMF program: https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/7b128c53-56e1-4825-a4c0-82cdfd7e42b7-0.1/fullview#page/1/mode/2up

Material Soundscapes Collide, June 2016 NYCEMF / NY Philharmonic Biennial

Joshua Banks Mailman is a theorist, analyst, critic, philosopher, performer, technologist, and composer of music, teaching at Columbia University, and previously at NYU, UCSB, U of Alabama, and U of Maryland. A graduate of University of Chicago (AB) and Eastman School of Music (PhD), he researches musical form from flux, temporal dynamic form and is published in Perspectives of New Music, Music Theory Spectrum, TEMPO, Music Analysis, Sonic Studies, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and others journals and books. He is co-chair of the Analysis of Post-1945 Music interest group of the Society for Music Theory. 
	He developed interactive technologies presented at the 9th Sound and Music Computing Conference (Copenhagen 2012) and International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC) and European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) (Thesseloniki, Greece). www.joshuabanksmailman.com and http://soundcloud.com/joshua-banks-mailman