Generative Music from the Untitled Microtonal Gardening Game.

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19 EDO 3233323 secundal pentads

Ikarus-Azur is a musical response to humankind's ambivalent relationship to both nature and technology. We value technology for its ability to lift us out of adverse natural situations and environments, yet we rely on those natural environments for their ecological productivity and beauty, things which can be degraded by technology. Our Promethean flames, our Icarian wings, the fruits of our technological labors have become as powerful as any natural phenomena. Truly, the sublime, that pleasurable sense of terror when faced by forces more powerful than any single human, is now the purview of both nature - and technology. What are we to do? Shall we reject the offspring of our minds, our concepts corporealized as metal and electricity, in favor of nature's harsh dominion? Or will we trample and decimate our habitats as fuel and raw materials for the inexorable march of reason and technology? Ikarus-Azur dwells upon this dialectic by synthesizing celebrated poetry by Stéphane Mallarmé, Gottfried Benn, Henry David Thoreau and Aeschylus into an emotionally charged narrative. Ultimately, we have no answers, only questions - for we are haunted by the azure.

Ikarus-Azur, performed by the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus

Light from Outside is a re-presentation of shattered pieces of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Die Erblindende (The Woman Going Blind). Rilke depicts his characters from the perspective of an outsider looking in upon them; the setting is a banal and gentle one: afternoon tea. Yet there is something wrong with one of the women at the table, and Rilke reveals slowly, through a series of sudden realizations (in collusion with the title of the poem), that she is going blind. I took this text, broke it, removed the narrator, and observed the way the internal components and characters could reveal different affects by changing perspectives, as if shining a light upon the stage from different angles, silhouetting one character while spotlighting another. The woman going blind and the others at the table each observe and relate upon the other, retaining Rilke’s words but shifting pronouns, or inverting certain adjectives. For instance, though the woman going blind moves slowly throughout the house from the perspective of the narrator, to her, the others move throughout the rooms of the house quickly and with an ease that she has lost. Rilke depicts this stricken woman as attaining a sort of grace despite her ailment, which I was extremely attracted to when I found this poem. Yet I was left wanting by that the way Rilke glosses over this truly horrible situation – impending blindness – without addressing the potential for danger, panic, and despair. The shattered remains of the poem allowed me to more thoroughly juxtapose the tragedy and transcendence of the situation.

Light from Outside, performed by the Aurora Borealis Duo

To grapple is to engage in a struggle for dominance, often in a physical manner, with someone or something. Grāpple is also the brand name of a suspiciously tasty, grape-flavored apple, obviously the result of some kind of unnatural, mad-science experimentation.  The word is a perfect encapsulation of this piece.  The percussionist must struggle for dominance over both a glockenspiel and a drum-kit, creating an unnatural synthesis of the two instruments.  Furthermore, the percussionist’s sound is processed with live electronics, using a variety of techniques to hybridize both the different instruments and the different sections of the piece.

Grapple, performed by Dustin Donahue

The title "Werkstoffwissenschaft" is the German word for “materials science,” a field of study that is both personally and metaphorically connected with this work.  My brother's experiments with the viscosity of metallic glass at high temperatures during his time as a Ph.D. student in Germany provided the inspiration and impetus for this work.  Changes in the “viscosity” of the melodic material in "Werkstoffwissenschaft" create much of the drama, as melodies seem to flow at various rates due to large scale tempo “waves.”  Further changes in “viscosity” are achieved through subtle changes in a variety of musical aspects: the recycling of pitches in melodic cells, the conjunct or disjunct nature of melodic intervals, and the rhythmic interval of tight-knit contrapuntal imitation.  Werkstoffwissenschaft also seeks to fuse together the harmonic and timbral material of various bowed metallic objects in the digital audio part with the live ensemble players, creating a meta-instrument, capable of making uncanny utterances that are neither completely human, nor completely technological.

Werkstoffwissenschaft, performed by ensemble et cetera

I'm intrigued by the glitch-art technique of pixel-sorting and other creative misuses of sorting algorithms.  These algorithms were ostensibly created for rationalization and organization, but in the wrong (or right?) hands, they are capable of just the opposite.  Curiously, many sorting works simultaneously erode the original identity of their object while revealing other aspects of that object through the observers flouted expectations.  A variety of sorting works abound, including Cy Kuckenbaker's sort of San Diego traffic and Peter Harkins' Well-Sorted Version of the King James Bible.

I decided to try my hand at sorting all of the events (single tones, dyads, or chords) in Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 (Sonata Pathétique), movement 1, by their three lowest notes.  This MIDI-sort was accomplished in more programs that I'm willing to admit, but most of the work was done in Pure Data, and playback was done in Reason.  The relative durations of the chords are retained, but there is a global acceleration, and the tempo accelerates over time on each new bass pitch.  The frenetic result is unmistakably Beethoven's sonata, but infused with a little black-MIDI spice.

Beethoven, Sonata Pathétique MIDI-Sort

0:00
Nimbus (2011) 
Palimpsest ensemble, Aleck Karis, conductor

0:59
mUTTERANCEs (2010)
Kate Hatmaker, violin, Travis Maril, viola, Erica Ereyni, cello, Jennifer Torrence, percussion, Steve Schick, conductor

1:35
Passion (2009-10)
Meghann Welsh, soprano, Ariana Warren, clarinets, Dustin Donahue, percussion, Mark Dresser, contrabass, Aleck Karis, conductor 

2:36
Werkstoffwissenschaft (2013)
ensemble et cetera, with Paul Hembree, computer

3:49
Blue Sky Catastrophe (2011)
Peter Evans, trumpet

4:44
Light from Outside, duo version (2012-13)
Tiffany Du Mouchelle, soprano, Steve Solook, percussion, Paul Hembree, computer

5:48
Grapple (2011)
Dustin Donahue, percussion, Paul Hembree, computer

6:50
Lumière: Glacée et Réfractée (2012)
Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pascal Rophé, conductor

7:26
Ikarus-Azur (2013)
La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, David Chase, conductor

Hembree: Excerpts of 9 Works

Passion, with text by German Expressionist poet Georg Trakl (1887 - 1914), offers a disjunct, hallucinatory narrative of shifting images and figures, juxtaposing Orphic and Christian myths, all tinged with death and sexual guilt. This musical interpretation plays upon the fused dualities and fractured unities within the text.  Succulent, incestuous dissonances arise from the inter-breeding of equal-tempered and justly-tuned harmonies, while melodies spawn halos of encircling doppelgängers, only to draw them back in with a stony embrace. The English translation is by Petra Watzke (PhD candidate, Washington University in St. Louis), who collaborated with the composer on the poem's interpretation. 

Passion, performed by UCSD faculty and grad musicians

mUTTERANCEs explores the communicative potential of kinesthetically conceived instrumental gestures moving through non-traditional timbral spaces.  Organizational procedures motivically stylize these gestures, though the inescapable embodied character of their constituent sounds often imbues them with the quality of direct utterance.   This struggle between the imposed musical structure and the unstable intrinsic morphology of the chosen sounds always tends toward entropy and paralysis.

mUTTERANCEs, performed by UCSD and San Diego musicians

Instrumental fragments in "Lumière: Glacée et Réfractée (Light: Frozen and Refracted)" are multiplied and filtered, occurring at different speeds and densities (refraction), often slowing to the point of “freezing.” The frozen materials bloom into variegated clouds, orchestrated among the twelve players. This work is in a family of pieces related to my large "Pierrot Lunaire" companion piece, Light from Outside, which a setting of text based on Rainer Maria Rilke's "Die Erblindende."

Lumière: Glacée et Réfractée, performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain (3 min. excerpt)

Descent into the Amygdala is a virtuosic yet idiomatic work for amplified viola and computer. This work paints a sonic picture of what it might be like to immerse oneself in the amygdala, the part of the brain that is responsible for base emotions like fear and dread.  From a technical standpoint, a the computer creates a variable-speed delay-line that creates a copy of the viola, moving at a slightly faster speed, but always a few moments behind the live player.  The delayed copy is antiphonally opposed to the live player. By manipulating the length of the delay, imitative contrapuntal forms with rhythmic complexity reminiscent of Johannes Ockeghem or Conlon Nancarrow can be created. This piece is essentially a series of polytemporal fugues, with unison points of repose. Without the computer, the polyrhythmic ratios used in this piece would be very difficult to play.  Depending on the player's preference, overdrive, bit-crushing and ring modulation can be added to the piece. The computer part exists in SuperCollider and MAX formats.

Descent into the Amygdala (2007-2008), performed by Megan Edrington

for Contrabassoon and Live Electronics (2007)

Der Doppelgänger, performed by Helena Kopchick

SynGen Procedurally Generated Hip-hop & R&B Genres Sample Reel

Between 2022 and 2025, the BandLab SynGen team curated rhythmic and harmonic data, while developing decision-making scripts to procedurally generate music to fit more than 300 genre-mood combinations.  All data was developed internally by staff composers - no "scrape and steal" methods were used.

As Lead Programmer, I wrote algorithms to solve everything from voice leading, to melody generation, to rhythmic humanization in MIDI generation, in addition to developing many of the rhythmic motives and harmonic progressions used in the music.

This reel contains excerpts from five of SynGen's hip-hop and R&B genres, with seven moods:
Proud Trap
Intriguing Drill
Wicked G-Funk
Shadowy Trap
Sultry Chillhop
Exciting R&B Pop
Distressed R&B Pop

SynGen Hip-hop and R&B Demo Reel

SynGen Procedurally Generated World & Dance Genres Sample Reel

Between 2022 and 2025, the BandLab SynGen team curated rhythmic and harmonic data, while developing decision-making scripts to procedurally generate music to fit more than 300 genre-mood combinations. All data was developed internally by staff composers - no "scrape and steal" methods were used.

As Lead Programmer, I wrote algorithms to solve everything from voice leading, to melody generation, to rhythmic humanization in MIDI generation, in addition to developing many of the rhythmic motives and harmonic progressions used in the music.

This reel contains excerpts from seven of SynGen's world and dance genres, with seven moods:
Thrilling Prog House
Serious Afro Pop
Hypnotic Baile Funk
Brooding Drift Phonk
Mesmerizing R&B House
Muscular Reggaeton
Reflective Drum & Bass

SynGen World & Dance Demo Reel

Paul Hembree: Ouroboros (2015)
for ensemble and audio-visual media

May 17th, 2015 – 7 pm
Conrad Prebys Experimental Theater

Rachel Beetz, flute
Curt Miller, clarinets
Drew Ceccato, saxophones
Rachel Allen, trumpet
Dustin Donahue, percussion
Stephen Solook, percussion
Todd Moellenberg, piano
Eric Moore, cello
Matt Kline, bass
David Medine, conductor
Paul Hembree, computer

Ouroboros (2015), for ensemble and audio-visual media

Music and ambiences from original soundtracks to Woolgatherer and Rite of Tephra.

Woolgatherer OST

Game Music Demo Reel

Preview of the electronics for Des Wahnsinns sanfte Flügel, for solo voice and electronics.  To be premeired on November 20th, at the Mengi Gallery in Reykjavik, Iceland, by Leslie Leytham.

Des Wahnsinns sanfte Flügel - Excerpt

44 EDO 0 4 5 7 37 39 40 heptatonic

Amper Procedurally Generated Electronic Genres Sample Reel

Between 2018 and 2020, Amper's assets department curated rhythmic and harmonic data, while developing decision-making scripts to procedurally generate music to fit more than 400 genre-mood combinations.

As Lead Asset Developer, I collaborated with the engineering department to program the creativity software used by our asset creators.  The result was a flexible program that would generate musical decision making scripts based on asset creator input.

This reel contains excerpts from four of Amper's electronic genres, with six moods:
Exciting Chiptunes 
Wondrous Synthwave 
Brooding Trap 
Idle Trip Hop 
Driving Synthwave 
Determined Chiptunes

Amper Electronic Genres Sample Reel

Amper Procedurally Generated Cinematic and Documentary Sample Reel

Between 2018 and 2020, Amper's assets department curated rhythmic and harmonic data, while developing decision-making scripts to procedurally generate music to fit more than 400 genre-mood combinations.

As Lead Asset Developer, I collaborated with the engineering department to program the creativity software used by our asset creators. The result was a flexible program that would generate musical decision making scripts based on asset creator input.

This reel contains excerpts from four of Amper's cinematic and documentary genres, with nine moods:
Hopeful Cinematic Impact
Groovy Cinematic Quirky 
Tense Cinematic Minimal 
Mysterious Cinematic Minimal 
Eerie Cinematic Ambient
Dreamy Cinematic Ambient 
Content Cinematic Underscore 
Determined Documentary Futuristic 
Frantic Cinematic Epic Percussion

Amper Cinematic & Documentary Sample Reel

Amper Procedurally Generated Rock & Folk Sample Reel

Between 2018 and 2020, Amper's assets department curated rhythmic and harmonic data, while developing decision-making scripts to procedurally generate music to fit more than 400 genre-mood combinations.

As Lead Asset Developer, I collaborated with the engineering department to program the creativity software used by our asset creators. The result was a flexible program that would generate musical decision making scripts based on asset creator input.

This reel contains excerpts from eight Rock and Folk moods:
Energetic Modern Folk 
Bittersweet Acoustic Rock 
Dreamy Shoegaze 
Romantic Modern Folk 
Tender Acoustic Rock 
Hopeful Indie Rock 
Fun Indie Rock 
Angsty Indie Rock

Paul Hembree | composer

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