http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bII72KLZVc

Transvolution (for Vietnamese Gong and live electronics)

Ùuuuu is to, once again, challenge my concept of having maximum output from minimal input. An intermittent cable hum (by having the tip of audio cable touched different areas of my face during the live performance) is the only input sound source exploited. The computer isolates then heavily processes each successive frequency band of the hum, attenuates, enhances, and manipulates each of them in various ways.

Ùuuuu (excerpts from live at Brutal Sound Effects Festival, San Francisco)

Above, for garden bells and live electronics, exploits sounds in the higher frequency range that sometimes challenge the listener’s auditory system. Certain frequency bands are segregated and processed by the computer, forming a gradual richness in texture as the piece unfolds in time. Counterpoint and rhythmic content are slowly developed by different delay techniques on isolated imperfect harmonies.

Above (excerpts from live at San Francisco Electronic Music Festival)

Reminiscence, No. 2 is a new work for moon lute (also called ‘đàn nguyệt’, a two stringed Vietnamese traditional musical instrument) and live-electronics in both score following and improvisational setting. The computer transforms the sound of the moon lute in real time by various techniques of harmonizing, frequency shifting, time stretching and spatializing. Reminiscence, No. 2 explores different methods of communication, interaction and response between laptop and performer by using triggers that detect pitch and amplitude. The piece features a sonic mixture of the East and the West with various sound elements from the acoustic instrument and the electronics.

Reminiscence, No.2

"Solitary Mountain" is my very first electroacoustic work for solo piano, using pentatonic scale, with live electronics and it was written in my garage on an old out of tune spinet piano. The piece represents the state of emptiness, stillness and placidity, when human's memory becomes just a continuous and steady stream of illusions. Using different signal processing techniques that are partly controlled and activated by amplitude triggers, "Solitary Mountain" sonically interprets erratic patterns and ambiguous images generated by the brain from the memory. 


Solitary Mountain (live at Mills College)

"Hallucination" is inspired by a true story between father and son. After his sudden death, the father spirit refuses being ascended into Heaven and remains earthbound. The father and son communicates to each other in the son's dream every night and their lives unconsciously go on in the mysterious hypnagogia... "Hallucination" is written for prepared piano, Vietnamese sixteen strings zither and live electronics. Using signal processing techniques in various states of manipulation for rendering the sound of the acoustic instruments in real-time, the piece tries to recreate the dialogues between father and son. "Hallucination" invites the audience's perception to wander between reality and illusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-ERIntVK8

Hallucination (live at Littlefield Concert Hall, Oakland)

Improvisation, No. 1 is a new work for Vietnamese sixteen string zither and computer. A Max/MSP patch is made to capture and analyze the acoustic sound of the zither. The analyzed data, which comes from pitches, frequencies, amplitude and attack, is sporadically used to trigger the FM and AM synthesizer in the Max patch, as well as to shape the timbre of the sounds. Couples of other signal processing techniques are also employed to enrich the electronic elements.

Improv No.1 for Zither and Computer (live at Luggage Store Gallery)

When poor oxygen blood cells is carried back to the heart in the veins, it reduces the blood flow in the arteries and causes a drop in sensation in parts of human body. After being freshly oxygenated, the arteries circulate the blood throughout the body, wake it up from the numbness and bring it back to normal state. Blood Flow, written for piano and live electronics, tries to sonically sketch out the feeling of the numbness and tingling when sensation fades away, as well as the feeling when the oxygenated blood is circulated back through each vein to wake up every single part of the body. With this concept, I think of the sound of the piano as the blood that flows inside the body. Different techniques of synthesis and signal processing in Max/MSP are used to manipulate the sound of the piano in real time. In other words, I use computer to "oxygenate" and "circulate" the acoustic sound again and again in many different ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDASBqo8jM

Blood Flow (live at Berkeley Arts Festival)

Duodecim is a four audio channel electroacoustic work for guitar tuned in Just Intonation and computer. Using the twelve-tone composition technique, the piece experiments the interactive responses between the acoustic instrument and the computer. The attack and frequency of the acoustic timbre trigger the computer to react with corresponding sounds. The electronic sounds are spatialized by the collected information of their own amplitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmjlR6aQK-M

Duodecim

The metaphor of contagion has crossed the boundary of medical science and infiltrated the discourses across the social science and humanity. Such terms as 'social contagion', 'financial contagion' and 'cultural contagion' seem to be the bywords for multidimensional concepts crossing and interconnecting society, business and culture. Contagion is a series of conceptual compositions for sounds from natural elements in nature and live electronics. The computer listens to and analyzes the rich timbre of the acoustic signal, then responds to it with corresponding synthesized sounds. The sound of natural elements is also played back after being heavily manipulated in realtime by the computer. The information of rising and falling amplitude of each sound controls its own panning in a four audio channel setting. Contagion I is a work for three glasses and live electronics, exploring the seamless timbre relationship and interaction between the two.


http://youtu.be/MF-f_T4qLqw

Contagion I

Xo Xinh is a Vietnamese American electroacoustic music composer, performer, improviser, and educator. Most of his works aim to re-contextualize the essence of traditional instruments through spectral processing and interactive manipulation of the acoustic sound by the computer, as well as to explore the transformation of traditional music through the contemporary and experimental medium. His main interest and passion is to experiment the new sounds and new techniques that are able to merge the old with the new, the tradition with the contemporary, while mending the gap between them sonically and musically.

Xinh's compositions have been selected to be performed throughout the U.S., and in Europe, Australia, and South America including Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, Australasian Computer Music Conference, Electronic Music Midwest Festival, PNEM Sound Art Festival, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, International Electroacoustic Music Festival of the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research.

Xo Xinh received an MFA in Electronic Music & Recording Media from Mills College, California, where he studied electroacoustic composition and computer music with Chris Brown and John Bischoff. He is currently an Electronic Music Instructor at Evergreen Valley College and Interactive Audio Instructor at Ex'pression College for Digital Arts in Bay Area, California.

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