Sound of Paper Words – "Every Word A Risk"

Writing Is A Pariste of Speech (Without Intro)

Nokes - Alone Together (2019)

ALEX MINCEK on Tenor Sax, ERIC WUBBELS on Piano, NATHAN NOKES on Electronics. Performed at the Walden Creative Musicians Retreat 2015.

Skinny, Skinny, Don't You Know Me? - I. Cooing Voice and Nice Skin

Performed by INVOKE Quaret.

This work was written on behalf of Landmarks for The University of Texas at Austin. To be premiered in the Robert B. Rowling Hall in celebration of José Parlá’s Amistad América. The 25x162 foot mixed media mural depicts the landscapes –both culturally and natural– of Texas and the Americas. My work focuses on overcoming cultural and digital isolation. By having the quartet literary turn their backs on each other it removes the ability for the players to visually communicate with each other. Such communication is essential for normal performance, and removing it limits the communication to auditory cues.
Landmarks Website: https://landmarks.utexas.edu/artwork/amistad-am%C3%A9rica José Parlá website: http://www.joseparla.com/

Alone Together

The internet has fundamentally changed society, it allows us to stay in touch with loved ones and communicate and coordinate with large numbers of people. But it is also used for the decimation of hatred and disinformation. Don’t Feed the Trolls explores the sociological and political challenges of the information age - from its beginnings in the early age of dial-up to the present day, in which information warfare is used to influence elections. The title takes its name from internet slang, urging people to ignore the attention seeking comments from malicious accounts. Modern internet trolling can have multiple manifestations ranging from light-hearted pranks to mob bullying and doxxing, and perhaps the most dangerous, the attempts by organizations and governments to alter society and democracy by sowing disinformation.

The work opens with the spectrum of a dialup modem orchestrated into the ensemble. As the material is stretched it takes on a musical life of its own, invoking the birth of the information age. Eventually the stochastic and nostalgic noises die down and a new theme is introduced. The source material for the second theme is loosely based off of modified fragments of a 1980’s pop song that serves as a light-hearted internet bait and switch. This recontextualisation gradually deviates from its playful nature, becoming increasingly erratic before yielding to the return of the opening material. This final section grows increasingly forceful and mechanical, before ultimately reaching the apex of the work.

Don't Feed The Trolls

Dont Feed The Troll

Alto Saxophone Calvin Wong
Piano: Noah Simon

When I wrote “You Also” I was thinking about the direction of melodic lines. When a line changes direction from ascending to descending, or vice versa, how do we emotionally react? I wrote this piece as an attempt to subvert the change in melodic direction, by making almost every line in this piece is ascending. This constant direction gives the music a somewhat stubborn characteristic at times. It is (in part) because of this stubbornness, that I titled from a latin phrase, “tu quoque”. Tu quoque is a fallacy known as “the appeal to hypocrisy.” It is used to criticize one’s accusers, by attaching them as hypocritical.

Nokes - You Also (2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLTwhr3hzk0

When composing this work I was fascinated by the mechanical limitations of the disklavier.The piano, while associated with human expression, is a rather strange and unnatural instrument - resulting from amazing feats of engineering with its complex levers, industrial parts, and chemically processed wood. The disklavier highlights this in a way that is at times jarring and uncanny. The human player has physical limitations – hand-size, speed of movement, and number of simultaneous notes. Limitations of speed and notes are shared by the disklavier as well (although the disklavier is still super human in these traits). But the disklavier has some limitations the human does not; pedals and keys are all operated by voltage through solenoid motors. These motors struggle at producing softer dynamics, they often squeak with unwanted noise, they have timing errors from their inability to play soft notes as quickly as loud notes, and the release of the keys and pedals are often jarring. I included the toy piano to augment these, at times, clumsy and mechanical sounds. I installed solenoid motors and a transducer inside the toy piano. Some are meant to strike the metal bars of the toy piano, and some are meant to strike the metal bridge that holds the bars in-place. The title, of motor, bar & wire draws its name from the materials used in this work.

of motor, bar, & wire

Skinny Skinny MVN2 Live EDIT

Skinny Skinny Movement 3

Of Motor Bar And Wire

Covid-19
Edited improvisations.

Eurorack:
Make Noise 0-Coast
Michagain Synths Monsoon,
Behringer Neutron,
Make Noise René

Untitled  Piece

Nathan Nokes is a composer, musician, and sound artist whose works contrast heavily calculated precompositional processes with intuitive, freeform lyricism. Much of his work is written for chamber and live electronics. His work often explores the topic of nature and human interconnectedness in the information age. Works of his have been performed by members of ensembles such as Wet Ink, Loadbang, Mise-en, Ulysses European Ensemble, and Invoke Quartet. His music and sound installations have been featured in concert series such as Fusebox Festival (TX), New Voices Festival at COA (Washington DC), Foot in the Door (CT), Cohen New Works Festival (TX), and Festival of Contemporary Art Music (WA). 

His fellowships, scholarships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship (TX), Hartt Talent Scholarship (CT), Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship (TN), I-Park (CT), and The Walden School (NH). 

He is a currently a graduate fellow, composition D.M.A student and associate instructor at the University of Texas in Austin. He received his M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and B.M. in Composition from Washington State University. 


His fellowships, scholarships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship (TX), Hartt Talent Scholarship (CT), Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship (TN), I-Park (CT), and The Walden School (NH). 

He is a currently a graduate fellow, composition D.M.A student and associate instructor at the University of Texas in Austin. He received his M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and B.M. in Composition from Washington State University.

Nathan Nokes

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