Just before finals last semester, Matt Roberts and I lead a group of advanced Digital Arts majors to Miami during Art Basel where we performed together as Mobile Performance Group, our student-faculty new media collective and laptop ensemble.  We presented all new material inspired by our surroundings in the bustling Wynwood arts district. You can learn all about the experience from our online documentation or get a taste of things from the video below. Special thanks to Juraj Kojs for the invite.

• online documentation @ mobileperformancegroup.com

MPG Miami 12.01.11 – 5 min, 14 sec

Awesome Auto-Harmonizer – 4 min, 2 sec

Triggering Percussion Samples – 4 min, 48 sec

Violin Accompaniment – 3 min, 11 sec

Guitar to Voice Harmonizer – 4 min, 2 sec

From January 20-22, I attended the 2011 Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States national conference with 6 of my Digital Arts students from Stetson. My piece “also apply” was featured in the Genelec Listening Room. I found it to be a nice, relaxed atmosphere for featured composers to gather, hear each others’ work, and chat in between about the music.

I wrote an extended blog post about the trip for the Digital Arts blog which is linked below. It was so great to see my colleagues from around the United States and catch up on some amazing work that people are doing. A great trip!

• MP3 of also apply – 7 min, 40 sec
• A post about the trip on the Digital Arts @ Stetson blog

Banner on campus advertising the SEAMUS 2011 conference.

Title: Enhancing musical skills through sound design

Description: Sound design is the process of crafting sonic elements for film or video projects. Practicing this aural art form develops students’ critical listening skills and ability to make compositional decisions. This session will outline the concepts, vocabulary, artists, and software you need to know for developing a sound design project.

• enhanced podcast of lecture – 26.1 MB

This presentation grew out on my experiences teaching the sound design unit in DIGA 101. The topic of sound design allowed me to overcome much of the early hesitancy that non-musicians had about working with music technology in our Digital Arts program. The goal of my presentation was to introduce the topic to K-12 music teachers with existing technology curricula who may want new project ideas for their classroom. The premise is that although sound design is not equivalent to music, it can enhance students’ musical skills and understanding in new ways.

Thanks so much to everyone that attended my presentation. And once again, thanks to Nick Eggen for the invitation to present.

I neglected to include credits for images and other media within the enhanced podcast, but will provide links in the comments of this post.

Max/MSP Saves Christmas – 4 min, 17 sec

Frank ‘n’ Bots – 4 min, 20 sec

Santa’s Merry Algorithmic Patch of Joy – 4 min, 22 sec

Brownian, Euclidian, and Genetic Algorithms – 7 min, 56 sec

Custom Music Sensor Interface – 6 min, 17 sec

When he is not making custom instruments, Eric is co-manager and bassist for Run Rhino.  I am proud to have advised Eric during his time at Stetson and through this project.  I look forward to seeing what the next steps in his career will be.

Blues Call and Response – 3 min

Loop Station – 8 min, 7 sec

Sonification of Emails – 3 min, 53 sec

CataRT System – 7 min, 14 sec

Accompaniment for Solo Performer – 6 min, 6 sec

Chat Music – 4 min, 47 sec

Scriabin Audiovisualizer – 6 min, 17 sec

Aliens in Baltimore: a piece for electric violin, iPhone and 2 computers – 8 min, 17 sec