Confusing Chatter

Crash!

ADVENTURE Fan

Gong Concert

After having done some studying on the Dada-ist movement in music of the early 20th century and listening to both music from that era and the music wanderings of John Cage, I created this piece of music, which includes an interview with French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp from 1956, a piece of music from Dada musician Luigi Russolo from 1920, a sound sample of USAF Thunderbirds taking off in formation, and the music of a band called Baikal Story, who play music on ice formations on Lake Baikal in Crimea.

Marcel Takes Off

My very first piece of found sound including the Adventure Science Center in Nashville; Backyard sounds; North Country Wind Bells; and Confusing chatter gleaned from my niece's birthday party at Spooky Pizza in Murfreesboro.

When MC Escher Played Guitar, Gillian Anderson Danced Pirhouettes

I decided to experiment with adding voice to a track. So I read the first verse of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", his landmark poem included in LEAVES OF GRASS, published 1892. This track also shows me beginning to play with effects, including echo, stretching, and reverb, among others.

Lyrics:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Channeling Walt

More playing with effects like "paulstretch" which stretches the sound sample as long as you want it to be but also squashes the sound and adds an echo-like quality to the sample. Other effects include reversing a sample, echo, and phaser. In this track, you hear me reciting the first verse of "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman...in reverse.

E.T. CALLS HOME

Getting serious, I chose to read Verse 52 from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself". This piece of poetry is, traditionally, spoken at funerals and memorials because of its poetic contents (see lyrics). For the first time, I used a sound sample from Freesound .org, which has since become an incredible resource for sounds otherwise difficult to find. Listen closely to the poem and the sounds, which are suggested in the lyrics.

Lyrics:
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Verse 52

Here is where I began to stretch my wings by creating a slowly progressing combination of sounds, almost entirely gathered in my backyard and just a very few gathered at YT or at the Adventure Science Museum in Nashville. The very slow and gradual build of the samples creates an almost ethereal blend of sounds. Best heard through headphones for deeper understanding but still heard if simply turned up louder to hear all of it. Perhaps my first delving of ambient sounds.

Conversations with Ganymede

After Cheffing most of my life and reviving from a 2-week coma 2 years ago, I'm now rediscovering myself in a new state with new directions.

vrstylvlln