I went through a couple ideas when working on this project. I, of course, wanted to use a controller that I had not yet experimented with. The KORG nanoKONTROL2 was suggested to me by Prof. Wang, and I began thinking about how I could use that incorporate fixed media with live performance. I recorded a couple different sound and attached them to the controller. These sounds are a C#5 drone, two passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay entitled “Experience,” some vocal exercises, and a combination of breath, body percussion, and lip trills. Using the controller, I introduce the texts and interweave the two over the drone and two other sounds. My brain likes finding all permutations, and while I didn’t use all combinations of sounds and sound events, I had a fun time experimenting with them all to create a whole piece. The live performance aspect includes the spoken text but sung by me through a vocoder. The harmonies here are quite simple, as I was focusing on combining the live and fixed media most.

I chose to use Emerson’s essay, as I have been reading a lot of his work lately. I found pairing it with a more meditative drone music to be appropriate. I recommend anyone who is interested to read his essays and poetry — they are helpful for dealing with self-doubt and nihilism.

Day (2024) is a live-processed electronic piece that is fluid in structure. Taking inspiration from spoken word and naked poetry, the work has a mood that can be described as hazy and loose. Day explores the use of fixed media, live-processing of vocals, improvisation, and musical structure.

This work was inspired by a photograph (shown below) that depicts a forest entirely blanketed by the invasive plant Kudzu. I found this photograph to be both lush and eerie, peaceful and sinister. In my piece, I manipulate live audio from my kalimba as well as use audio signals to trigger fixed media, stacking layers of sound to create a verdant and ethereal soundscape. Many of the sounds in Kudzu originate from the voice or are approximations of the voice (e.g., scraping the wooden body of the kalimba to create a “breathing” sound), inviting the listener to imagine standing in a kudzu-filled forest and finding oneself surrounded — maybe even being watched — by millions of kudzu vines.

Extraterrestrial Conversation is the product of a patch that captures the movements of my hands and transforms them into sounds. The sounds feel organic because of how directly they are affected by the natural movements and rhythm of my hands, and yet they sound alien in the interesting sounds they produce. Because of this, I imagine this piece to be one side of a conversation between two extraterrestrial creatures. It feels distant, elusive, and incomprehensible.

i love the world
and she has kissed my forehead
in a blessing of peace

and from this moment
I have no mother
in birthing maternal being
my mother is the trees
that sigh and call
for one to draw close

being alive holds a certain measure
of strength and fragility
answer the question: why are you here?

trapped in an amniotic sac
awaiting the rebirth of my being
some part of me is not ready to come out
no matter how much I fight and punch and scream
to be free
some part of me, fearing exposure
fearing harm, fearing
standing, vulnerable
and no one noticing
no one caring, to ask:
“who are you? what do you love?
why are you here now?”

what I want for us all
is to see all the little kindness
of this world. in fleeting moments.
in passing gestures. in the gaze
we hold, the words, the nods, the smiles.
to revel in our loves. our joy we share.

do you see it, still?
the littles—all around
busy, bustling about
their own ways, like the ants
they carry so much more
than one might tell at first glance.
a door held, a doubletake hello,
a bright wave from across the way,
a lending of a pencil.

please, don’t let the busyness
of it all squash the littles.
don’t trample over
their faint, glowing selves.

see them, in their strength
as their delicate entity.
see them, gleaming
you cannot deny, you cannot stop
their endless radiance.

The entire composition is a violin solo piece, yet it integrates Max/MSP technology. The composer merges the solo violin segment with a fixed-media section composed of electronic music. The entirety of the piece is freeform and improvised, with even the duration determined by the performer’s own interpretation and execution. Overall, it leans toward emotional expression and the fusion with the electronic music segment. The composition is divided into two parts.

The letter “L” is my favorite because many beautiful words originate from it. Love, life, legato, even my favorite character from the anime Death Note is named L. Therefore, I named the entire piece using my favorite letter. The inspiration for the entire composition comes from Dr. Russell Pinkston's work Lizamander, from which I learned some techniques for writing solo instrument pieces.