Three types of things populate this area: MIDI melodies that I plan on turning into compositions; computer music projects that failed to be great; xenharmonic doodles. You can tell which one each is by its corresponding picture.

Sketches (unfinished ideas)

I had to make a dance song for my recording class. With some experimentation in ProTools, this ended up sounding pretty awesome. This was all created with MIDI.

Party Throb

It's an incredible sample of my writing ability in this medium. Baroque meets 20th century meets video games.

8 Bit Fugue-like Round

I created this piece for an Electronic Music festival in Muncie, Indiana. The piece is named for the fact that I completed it three days before the deadline. The last chord in the song is borrowed from A DAY in the Life as well. The number three is also aptly represented throughout the work, as there are:
-three sounds I used in FamiTracker to create this
-three sections that are strongly repetitive
-three types of software I used to get sound 
-3:43 in length
-three different meters used
-three on four polymeter to re-introduce theme at end
-three different musical themes (main, augmented, expanding)
-three sounds that evoke each other (kazoo, cello, boom is one group, and kazoo, FamiTracker, and fan is another)
-three different times hemiola is used in the piece
 
When I was making this piece, my goal was to give it a catchy theme, but make it as varied as I could when venturing out of that theme. Every time I venture out of the main theme, the melody I have in the other instruments is represented somewhere in the main theme again. I expressed similar melodies in the piece, using very different timbres and slightly differing meter. I also tried to associate sounds that were unrelated. I used a cinematic boom which sounded like the cello with manipulated pitch. The kazoo sounds also echo the violin (and some of the FamiTracker sounds). The FamiTracker sounds in the second section of the main theme echo the other noise I provided, which has been pitch manipulated to play in unison with the melody for a gritty, noisy sound. Each section of the main theme was also developed differently on purpose. The first section plainly gives its material, builidng very slightly and slowly when introduced with different sounds. The second section is meant to be gritty and noisy. The third section is meant to be clean and very large sounding, growing into something very big.

Three Days Away

I used MIDI piano synth to have files of some of my better melodic personal compositions. The names are based off what I think the pieces sound like. These were not inspired by significant events, but are simply great melodies that I thought up. 

MIDI To Linger

MIDI Spirit Of Apology

MIDI Prime Fib

MIDI Feeling Of Falling

I've been working on this piece for years and it's been played at Ball State (twice), as well as Un12 2019! This is the Un12 recording, and the tuning is all in 9-tone equal temperament.

Keyboard: Stephen Weigel
Violin 1 and 2: Hans Gunter-Lock
Trombone: Jacob Barton

Conceptually, this piece is about a battle between harmony shared with 12 (the hexatonic, or Augmented[6] scale), and not shared with 12. Each of the four instruments follows their own respective idioms, but as time passes, they start imitating each other more both with motive and with harmony. Asymmetrical meter, strong contrasts between moods, the use of major and minor at the same time, and an overall sense of nothing belonging together define this piece.

As a quirky and absurd showcase of xenharmonics, it seemed relevant to give instruments themselves the idea of "being opposed" to non-hexatonic systems, and also to get them to "accept" non-hexatonic 9edo harmonies after being exposed to them for a while. Hopefully this piece is a showcase of what is possible with lots of different kinds of chords, providing a large gamut of what can be done, with little pockets (or zones) of lasting novelty based somewhat in being perpetually xenharmonic.

Zones of Lasting Novelty (9-EDO)

This work used a drone and long pauses, as well as the voice, to achieve an eerie and otherworldly effect. The drone continually morphs over one chord, but transitions between timbres. I wanted the piece to sound like it was too confusing to understand, but with hints of intelligibility. I also used Max MSP's vocoder capabilities to create the robotic effect in the voice. I also manipulated several sounds using granular synthesis and ring modulation, as well as convolution. The lyrics (which I wrote) are:

'Darkness drips with pallid sheen, and it makes its way to earth, whose halo hung with light cannot handle hubris.'
'Time passes, future and past, what writings ever shall last?
Ideas rock to and fro, never revealed or shown.'

Meant to sound very lofty, inaccessible, and even contradictory by confusion.

Invisible Machines

This piece forms an odd pairing with 'Invisible Machines'. Without vocoding of any kind, but using the same melodic motive, it was simply a computer music project (from the same class as Invisible Machines) that turned into a fun mistuning collage in Tassman. The name should suggest everything you need to know about the piece! Meant to be light and quirky sounding. 

Intoxicated Robots

I used experimental recording techniques on the acoustic guitar, and MIDI 19-tone marimba that I plan to replace with a real marimba. This piece needs more work, and will sound quite a bit better with real marimba (it's being constructed). In the future, I would love to either make it into a live processing piece, and/or turn it into something aesthetically interesting and minimalistic. We'll see where it leads based on the marimba's construction.

0:00 - (I) Steady
9:39 - (II)Whimsical
(III) - All-Encompassing... coming soon!

Specious Factoid (19 - EDO) ROUGH DRAFT

Metaclown requested a no-vox version of this bad boy. Feel free to download this and sing along to it at some rowdy parties, or in academic recital halls, where they still think this kind of thing is new! For actual info on the piece, check the song with me singing in it. Lyrics again:

(Intro)

I dance and sing to the beat of a drum
Ignoring its sum
With the throng

No time to find the deeper meaning
I’m busy feeling
Hyped for each song

Nothing’s new, tonality’s dead,
Or is it alive? I haven’t checked, for
I don’t hum any serial tunes, 
And theory class abandons its roots.

Only one sound provides that rush
Tuning! Gives me tools, too much 
Resurrecting the new in music here!
Tradition broken, true final frontier!

Its spectrum causes the ear to flinch!
It actually emancipates dissonance and pitch!
Nothing else does that quite like this!

(Interlude in 11-EDO)

Xenharmonics are aplenty
Tuning! Gives me tools many 
Finding the keys to music theory’s youth!
Eclectic, yet it holds to the crucial…
Tonic.

Its beauty causes the ear to stand!
Starving on this dissonance now seems bold and grand!
Nothing else does this throughout the land!

I dance and sing to the beat of a drum
Ignoring its sum
With the throng

No time to find the deeper meaning
I’m busy feeling
Hyped for each song

(Interlude in porcupine scale)

(Spoken)
Chords speak
The ear is piqued.
The voyage into new tunings has begun!
Unlimited sounds, and compositional fun!
And the best part is, it only strengthens the familiar knowledge!

(NO VOX) Emancipate Pitch! (22 - EDO)

My love’s warmest smile 
Is ruby-sunshine
My love’s juvenile 
Innocence divine

She whispers me words
So secret and kind 
What I’ve never heard
I’m lucky to find… her…

(Counterpoint section)

She makes time for me
Opposites of habit
And that’s the reason
Relationships quit

My love’s enticing
Is golden-rosy
My love’s inviting  
Virtuous lovely 

She gives the best gift
Her time and her thought
When I need a lift
She does what she ought

She goes out of her way
Opposites of habit
To serve and to guide
To listen and try

(Counterpoint)

Each time with her is time
I want to live again
Each time our season
That fades from where and when

Her touch is infectious
So full of affection
Such potent confection 
It counts as refection  

She makes time for me
So many wonderful, beautiful, diverse opposites of habit!
Inspired by her efforts
I must make us better

(Counterpoint)

My love’s inspiring
My love’s inviting  
She’s strong and she chooses
My love is my muses

She makes time for me
Opposites of habit
Inspired by her efforts
I must make us better

It’s the good she deserves
It’s the good she’s earned
All the adoration 
I have to offer
And all of the time 
That I can proffer
And ev’ry last song
Deep in my stirred heart
Is hers all along 
And thus my shared art
Is the resistance,
To old ways and cold ways,
My gift to her existence,
And I am in love always!!!

Opposites of Habit (13-EDO)

I wanted to see if I could make 7-limit harmony sound pleasant as a harpsichord solo. Also, this is technically in 11-limit, but I only include 11-limit intervals as decorations on cadential chords, not in the main texture (a reason I justify calling it 7-limit). Other than the tuning, this synthesized harpsichord differs from a real one in several ways:
(1) There's some sawtooth wave added in there for emphasis.
(2) It is sensitive to velocity changes.

Please comment!

Etude for Fantasy Harpsichord (7-limit JI)

This is a progression in 18-EDO that modulates from "Cm" to "G" to "Dm." However, the 733 fifth is sharp enough to push "Dm" into sounding like "Ebm" - so the modulation happens by two 18-EDO 3/2 intervals, which equal an 18-EDO 7/6 interval. (Thus, in RTT terms, this overarching progression could be visualized as tempering out 28/27... I'm not sure what that temperament would be called. It's a very large comma, at 62.9609 cents)

Chord analogues in 12-EDO:
(C minor)
Cm    Eb/Bb    Bb    Fm/Ab     (x3)
(Modulation to G)
Cm    Eb/Bb    A7    D/A
(G Major)
G         Cm    Cm/D  D7           (x2)
(Modulation to Dm)
G        B7/A    Em7   A7
(D minor, a m3, NOT M2, higher than our original C minor)
Dm      F/C       C    Gm/Bb      (x6)

Modulation Cm G Dm (18 - EDO)

Here's a little 4-bar progression comparing the neutral triads of 10-edo and 7-edo. Both progressions sound xenharmonic in their own way! :) Which one do you think sounds more xenharmonic? Let me know in the comments!