Scott Barton compositions

Fall 2013

Figure <-> Ground interprets the idea of negative space in the context of rhythm and time.  In one formulation, the subjects are percussive sound points and the negative spaces are the durations that connect those sound points.  As the piece progresses, the elements that constitute a sound point are increasingly displaced in time, filling adjacent negative spaces.  The original metric positions and rhythmic identities become more ambiguous as a result, inviting us to both find boundaries between a subject and its negative spaces and to superimpose remembered structure on an increasingly diffuse texture.  The idea of negative space is also explored in rhythm by sonifying sound points and silencing intermediary durations, and then sonifying intermediary durations and silencing sound points.  Negative space is further interpreted in the context of rhythmic stylistic conventions.  The rhythmic configurations in the latter half of the piece are beat-based but also convey quickly-changing meters, syncopations, cross-rhythms and an avoidance of repetition on smaller time scales.  This sort of rhythmic expression inhabits a space between subject-points defined by contemporary Western art music and popular music.


Figure <-> Ground

For narrator, voice and electronics
2011-2014

narration: Art Cohen
vocals: Scott Barton
piano: Aurie Hsu

Eroding Mountains is about a slow epiphany.  It is about one’s realization of the value of nonhuman animal life in a culture that typically defines ethical standards along speciesist lines.  It is about the realization and remembrance that such lines are and have been drawn within the boundaries of the human species.  It represents confusion and conflict that results when what was normal and comfortable is recognized as ethically untenable.  It is about remaining connected with those you love in spite of differences.  It is about frustration with apathy.  It is about the hope of things getting better.  

Musically, transformations and re-orderings of recognizable materials represent emotional conflict, confusion, and the feeling of a voice that doesn’t reach its listener.  Larger trajectories, such as de-tuned -> tuned and distributed -> isochronous represent the journey of coming to clarity.  The three sections represent how individuals can come to this realization in isolation and how, unless they connect with others, will continue to inhabit that state.  Each section features expression that refuses to compromise its humanity in spite of the confusing factors around it.  The piece concludes with a musical statement of hope.


Eroding Mountains

Rise of a City excerpt

Breeding in Pieces excerpt

Antiprism excerpt

Arc of Braided Movement excerpt

Assemblage of Gears excerpt

Birth of a Machine excerpt

composed and programmed by Scott Barton in 2015

Performed by the Juventas New Music Ensemble and the musical robots PAM and CADI, which were designed and built by EMMI and the Music, Perception and Robotics Lab at WPI.

Juventas New Music Ensemble: 
Lidiya Yankovskaya, Conductor
Orlando Cela, Flute
Wolcott Humphrey, Clarinet
Nate Tucker, Percussion
Maja Tremiszewska, Piano 
Olga Patramanska-Bell, Violin 
Michael Dahlberg, Cello

Recorded and mixed by Scott Barton

Intersections

Summer-Fall 2016
In “Pleasure Beats: Rhythm and the Aesthetics of Current Electronic Music”, Ben Neill describes how popular and art music are distinguished along rhythmic lines. He predicts a future music where such distinctions are less clear; where the rhythmic vernacular of pop music is spoken in artistic territory. Much of my recent creative compositional efforts, including this piece, exemplify movement in this direction, both in terms of rhythm as well as other musical elements. Here, a foundation is set with materials from the pop world: verse-chorus form, 4/4 time signatures, fuzzy synth basses, rock grooves and EDM breaks. These materials are then manipulated in electroacoustic-art-music ways: timbres are transformed, grains are made and re-ordered, meters are changed, and earlier materials are restated in discontinuous sequences. The result is less a fusion and more a congeries where non-ironic choruses and dizzying jump-cuts cohabitate. These combinations are not motivated by a desire to influence the language of art music for its own sake, rather, they are expressions of cultural heterogeneity that is not compartmentalized.