Tenney suggested that For Ann (rising) be "regenerated" using the golden ratio (phi - 1.618...) for the minor sixth between partials, this is a version I recently did in PD using that ratio. For the 1992 CD, we used a ratio of 1.6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Ann_(rising)

James Tenney - For Ann (rising) - golden ratio version

The low-pass filter design used in the Benjolin and as one half of the Twinpeak filter in the Blippoo Box and Hordijk modular systems is designed to exhibit certain chaotic properties when overdriven. By overdriving the Benjolin's line-level external audio input with the "modular level" square wave output of the first oscillator (which becomes saw-like with the addition of even harmonics from said overdrive), resonant bifurcations are created as audible subharmonics of the oscillator frequency as the filter resonance is increased and the cutoff frequency is modulated.

The control portion of the patch began as a crude attempt to imitate the Blippoo Box's sample-and-hold arrangement by using the XOR output of the Benjolin to trigger the Stepped Generator, which is sampling a mix of signals from throughout the patch; extensive cross-modulation to and from the Benjolin, the Smooth Generator, and the Voltage Controlled Slope is in play. The patch is played in real time, with numerous knob turns and manipulation of the Cycle switch on the VCS and the Loop switch on the Benjolin.

This recording is one improvised take. Eventide EQ65 provides some corrective EQ, Cherry Audio Stardust provides delay and reverb, and Martinic Colorsound Tremolo indulges my toxic boomer trait of liking a little slow auto-panning now and then.

Dedicated to Rob Hordijk shortly after the anniversary of his passing. Rungle with you on the other side, space cowboy.

Recursion and Bifurcation (for Rob Hordijk)

World Premiere, 7.17.25
Jennifer Gersten, violin
Hannah A. Barnes, electronics
Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn

“Caminante, no hay caminos, hay que caminar.”
—anonymous inscription on a Spanish monastery
“In my beginning is my end.... In my end is my beginning. —T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”
The paths one takes are rarely, if ever, clear and straightforward. clouded winding paths reflects upon the above mantra, which has guided me for several years, as well upon as the circumstances surrounding the composition of the piece and the physical recovery of both myself (before the composition) and my collaborator, Jennifer Gersten. After an injury necessitated a drastic change in how Jennifer played the violin (taking up an improvisation practice with the violin on her lap), creating uncertainty around performance possibilities, I was eager to continue this collaborative project, finding a connection between her situation and my own years of chronic scoliosis-related back pain as a young woman.
Before intensive physical therapy, which led to significant and lasting positive change, I had to adapt and limit certain activities for years as a teenager and young adult. In clouded winding paths, I took an adaptive approach to violin writing, which led to certain discoveries in our collaboration that I would not have found otherwise—wispy harmonic sounds that come from inserting a knitting needle between the strings; or different approaches to overpressure or molto sul tasto bowing that are only possible with the violin positioned horizontally; and so on. As Jennifer was able to return to playing in the “traditional” position, in the finished piece, these adaptive materials are present in the electronics, which augment or contrast with what takes place in the live violin. This adaptive playing also influenced materials and development in the “traditional” position, which is modulated by the filtering and delays within the live electronics.
At the heart of the piece is a complex network of material and textural relationships, which includes polyphony between the solo violin and its fixed electronic counterpart. Materials and structures that are created and used in rigorous manners (including a thirteen-note microtonal tone row) come into contact with messy, unpredictable materials and processes. While some of these paths were determined at the outset, many were illuminated along the compositional process and could not have been anticipated at the origin of the journey.
clouded winding paths, which pays homage to Luigi Nono, was composed for and is dedicated to Jennifer Gersten. It is a cousin to my piece for electric guitar, Negative Capability (2020).
— HAB

Poster/thumbnail design by Jennifer Gersten.
All fixed media recordings by Jennifer Gersten.

clouded winding paths (2025, world premiere)

"Selenetrope" is a short study on bow nuance and timbral shading. Composed over three days during the 2025 Darmstadt Summer Courses in close collaboration with violinist Karl Jõrgi, the miniature explores fragile, unstable materials at the threshold of sounding. I want to express my gratitude to Karl for his fantastic collaboration and sensitive playing, and to mentors Rebecca Saunders and Sarah Saviet for both creating the environment for this collaboration as well as providing guidance on detail and notation.
A “selenetrope” is a mythical plant which blooms in the presence of moonlight.
-- HAB

*Headphones recommended; any background noise is part of the Darmstadt Experience.

31 July 2025
Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Karl Jõgi, violin

Selenetrope (2025, world premiere)

Clicker & I'm Gibber

Bikini Atoll Wave Multiplier

2 Schlappi Nibblers, 1 Joranalogue Collide4, 1 Delay1 

center of the hotdog

Today's little Easel exploration delving into the custom program card patch and panning experiments. Video of this here: https://youtu.be/eikH6PEiP-I

easel improv 92625

Slow slider moves on the Buchla Music Easel with looper.

SlowScape

The Gardens Between The Pillars

The Gardens Between the Pillars is one of five movements of The Elemental Cycles, where each cycle uses a primary element as the principal character.  In fact, all five cycles are considered works for “cinema for the ear.”  For this cycle, the sole element used is wood, including sound images pertaining to wood.  There are books and creaky doors, wood surfaces where steady and irregular footsteps walk, the flow of trees pertaining to The Pillars, as well as divine and earthly creatures, and pure and warpy, rough music to accompany this cinema for the ear.

The Gardens, first and foremost, are made up of interior and exterior scenes, motions and projections, and the emergence of figurative and explicit sounds from the decentralization of The Pillars.

In search of a narrative, doors open and close, pages turn,
The duality of images that represents:

Theory and Knowledge
Beauty and Violence
Life and Death
Temptation and Enlightenment

The duality of these sound-images contains the same motion ‘not two’: Advaya
The Pillars points at transcending this duality through 
The reallocated sound images, sound function, and motions
As ways to navigate The Gardens Between

The Pillars¬ are the paths, which reveal the interconnection of the natural, the inter-complexity of the nurtured, and the intervening of scenes through insertion
Which often feel that what is represented is horrific and cruel

We recognize from the far plane The Gardens as a gestalt labyrinth
Up close we perceive the many, many paths and narratives
Between The Pillars, we are presented implications of sounds that have neither beginning nor end

A wanderer severed from illusion in the infinite forest
An area of the Everblossom trees, a life of fleeting beauty 
It is the worldly sculpture of the Bas and High-Relief 

Realms of the Divine and Mortal

An immersion of boundless rhizome—a chiasmus of sonic ascription
An immersion of all materials of wood perceived 
A duality must be understood to walk the way broadly 
And you will hear it in everything 


The Gardens Between The Pillars

My research catalogue exposition, “Selective Retention: Interfacing the Past through Queries and Graphs”, is now published in the 36th edition of The Journal for Artistic Research (JAR).

Fracas is an accompanying Bandcamp release of four 'network pieces' exploring graphs, emergence, and relationships between sound material as it evolves through computational systems.

The title track was first released as a one-track album on Superpang and later as part of their No Catalogue compilation. This new edition places Fracas alongside three related works that have grown from the same research environment.

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JAR, Issue 36:
www.jar-online.net/en/issues/36

JAR article available here:
www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2938321/3620117

Fracas:
bjarni.bandcamp.com/album/fracas

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Averse

for sketches and sundries that don't warrant commercial releases

Recursion and Bifurcation (for Rob Hordijk)

EVEN MORE MAOIST THAN CORNELIUS CARDEW