nightclerk

One And Three Chairs

One of the perks of living in Bozeman, MT, is that I get a great view of the sun rising and illuminating the Bridger mountain range on my way into town every morning. It’s simply breathtaking to watch the sun crest the range, and watch a sliver of light appear over the ridgeline, splitting the view to the east as the mountains seem to rise to the sky. 

Since moving to Bozeman, I’ve also been very involved in the local Bluegrass scene. As a result, the sound of the live synthesizer part is heavily influenced by the sound of string instruments. It’s an eight -voice synth in eight parts, with each part generating fifteen harmonics (for a total of 960 oscillators!) with frequency and amplitude deviation of each harmonic to keep things interesting. The various parts are then tuned similar to an Appalachian (mountain) dulcimer, allowing for I-IV-VII and I-V-VII tunings, with string volume and presence controlled by TouchOSC, while the synth is played with a Haute Pro hitbox controller, set up with “harmonica tuning” (diatonic C scale, with a button to transpose everything to C#). 

Combined with sounds recorded in the mountains (a stream on the Hyalite Lake trail and stones from Black Mountain), this is a short sonic depiction of dawn in the mountains. 

Mountain Rise

Rosario Di Rosa: real-time manipulation of audio and video. 
Mixing, mastering and editing

www.rosariodirosa.com

fhdhjkdfghjkdfghjk (mix 2025)

Braced 1

What did the twin do to you?

live improv with my first maxmsp creation, using a gaming controller.


creation #1 - live electronics improv

tongue less bells

brass

coast

loop with clicks

Scrub

JitterHeart is an acousmatic work that explores how AI can reimagine traditional musical notions of the score, performance, and expressivity. In this piece, I use the Max MSP programming environment in conjunction with Jitter (Jit.GL) to create a self-regulating, quasi-organic audiovisual system. The core material stems from a StyleGAN3 neural network I trained at the Yale Center for Research Computing (YCRC), using an ethical dataset composed entirely of frames from my own digital music scores. The resulting AI- generated video is not merely representational – in a sense, it becomes a new score itself: the “heart” of the piece, the motor for both its sound and structure – the difference being that this score is read in a completely different way.

Rather than interpret the video visually, I process it technically. Jit.GL extracts its pixel-level data into four dynamic matrices – like the pulsating chambers of a heart – converting the video into long lists of numbers. These are mapped to musical parameters such as frequency, resonance, envelope shape, articulation density, and velocity. The video’s abstract jitteriness becomes a kind of LFO constellation – a network of oscillators – governing the sound in ways that feel both organic and alive.

The composition’s harmonic and timbral structure is shaped by a custom-built polyphonic subtractive synthesizer I programmed within Max, using noise as the foundational signal – conceptually echoing the visual noise matrices typically used as generators in Jit.GL. Its behavior is refined by a “modalizer–microtonalizer” module I developed this semester for spectral control. I quantize this filtered pink noise using scales, and further sculpt it with delay, reverb, and sequencing tools. The audio processing mirrors the structure of the video –turbulent, layered, yet precise and self–contained.

The idea of the score is further expanded in this piece through a new mode of “reading” and extracting musical information: a data-rich object interpreted and generated by machines from its prior incarnation as a man–made symbolic system for human musicians. In JitterHeart, the score becomes both performer and performance – simultaneously visual archive and generative code. By giving the video agency over sound, JitterHeart poses a speculative question: what if a score could not only instruct performance, but become it, pulsing with its own synthetic jittery heartbeat?

JitterHeart

brbkokjbjo

4tetosc - B side - 2405025

4tetosc - A side - 2405025

The official profile for Music & New Technologies Department at Conservatory of Music Luigi Canepa, Sassari (Italy)

Ben Fuhrman, is a composer, musician, programmer, and coffee aficionado. As a result, he writes music with a focus on technology, including acousmatic, interactive, and improvisatory works. His degrees are from Michigan State University (D.M.A and M.M in composition), and Hope College (B.Mus in violin performance). His teachers include Ricardo Lorenz, Mark Sullivan, Steve Talaga, Rob Lunn, and Mihai Craioveanu. 

He has had works commissioned from a number of performers, including Keith Kirchoff, Drake Dantzler, Violet, Jeffrey Loeffert, Nathan Boggert, the H2 Quartet, the East Lansing High School Orchestra, REACH Studio Art, and the MSU National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, and has been performed throughout the world. He was also the recipient of a billboard dedicated to his music from the Arts Council of Greater Lansing – possibly the first composer in the US to receive one. His solo albums Concrete Oasis and Synthesizer and Computer Works are available online, among others on the Albany Records, Argali Records, Blue Griffin, Elmstreet, and SEAMUS labels.

He maintains an active role as a performer and as assistant professor of music technology at Montana State University, and has previously taught at Oakland University and Mott Community College. For more information, check out www.benfuhrman.com

Composer and scholar of new acoustic and electronic music at the Yale School of Music

Composer, Jazz Pianist, Electronic Musician

CONTACT: 
www.rosariodirosa.com
mail:rosariodirosa@yahoo.it

New tracks tagged #MaxMSP