improvisation for grindcore band and AM radio.
William Hayes, guitar
Joe Eck, drums
Will Smith, bass
Will Smith and William Hayes, AM radio

RADIO AND GRIND

Signal generators. A swarm of electric bees.

20 GRIT

THEY LONG

Difference frequencies create rhythms. All waves are pure sines. The form follows a sequence of Fibonacci numbers, first in reverse, then in order from smallest up.

FIBONACCI SINE

Second half of my senior composition recital for Cornish College of the Arts. 

This piece consists of two principal components: a custom-built piece of software, played as an instrument, and a feedback suppressor/microphone system that causes the room to play itself based on its own resonance. 

The room is configured with a quadraphonic sound system with a subwoofer. The software instrument contains: a dual oscillator to create low frequency drones and LFO-style beat frequencies with a precision of .01Hz; a 4-channel noise generator (so that all 4 channels of the PA fluctuate independently); and a 4 channel sample player that randomizes which samples in a given folder will be played from which channel of the PA. 

The feedback suppressor system creates a way for the room's resonance to express itself. Effectively this system consists of a digital EQ and a measurement microphone that detects when a certain frequency is starting to feed back and attempts to suppress it through aggressive EQ curves. However, when the system gain is high enough, adjacent harmonics of said frequency will begin to ring and the EQ will not be able to keep up. Thus, the room begins to play melodies and chords that are only dictated by the system gain, speed of EQ tracking, the room's acoustic properties, and whatever else is going through the system. Interestingly, the noise generator has a major impact on the speed at which the feedback suppressor "catches" the ringing. It seemed that the more random energy the suppressor took in, the slower the response would be to a new frequency, even if that frequency rang very loud. 

As one might expect, this piece was difficult to capture and makes use of a wide frequency spectrum, so try to listen to this piece on good speakers and a subwoofer if possible. 

VIGILS

Piece for "tape" using encrypted credit card data as source material.

SKIMMER

you're beginning to have a dream
your body looks and feels
warm pleasant beach
just the way you want it to be

JUST THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE

NIGHT GUARD

nonduality between subject and object
knowledge of the ground

two / not two

Der Halberstadt: An Evening With Randy.
Music made from samples of one year of classes with Randy Halberstadt, professor of Jazz Theory, Eartraining, Vocal Jazz, and Piano at Cornish College of the Arts.
Recorded by Tai Niblack. Samples edited, manipulated, and arranged by Will Smith. Video by Andre Couture.
