Augmented Third

The beginnings of a Prog Rock song with some Jazz thrown in there. Jordan Rudess influence. Done primarily with garageband sounds and Sythogy's Ivory VSTI. I put in a pseudo false ending as it is still incomplete. The Prognostication Creation

great piece, loved the format of a gradual buildup then deconstruction...and on a personal note I find it more a appealing then an original piano sound itself. The evolving texture is wonderful and its interesting to hear the interplay between the different partials produced by strings as the piece becomes thicker.

I have always loved the live atmosphere associated with jazz especially if your at a jazz club. There's just something about being surrounded by other people and the ambient noises that just enhance the experience for me that lets me know, "Im actually here, live, right now listening to this amazing group. In the Mood is my attempt at recreating not only the music but the entire feeling associated with live jazz. I did all the drums , piano, and upright bass. The sample of people is from outside a theater and various objects, aka nails, glassware, tinfoil etc. were used to recreate the sound of people lounging, eat, and drinking. Hope you Enjoy! In The Mood: listen online

Thank you very much for the constructive criticism. Yes, the piece does have a symbolic value behind it. Its supposed to approach the subject of corruption in extreme forms of religion by juxtaposing islam extremism and christian evangelical extremism. But I also wanted the message to be non biased so that the listener is the judge to question which religious system is more harmful or are they both equally harmful but in different ways.

thanks a lot!

On the first viewing you might think that their is no "music" to go along with the video, but actually the video and the soundtrack that goes along with it were compiled and made completely independent of each other. I used a handheld recorder to capture about 120 different sounds ranging from ambient city noises- streetlight and air conditioner hums, passing cars, helicopters and just about anything else you can think of that would make a noise in a city. For the second portion of the video I recorded noises associated with people such as foot steps (solo and group) mass crowds talking, and focusing in on different individuals that had no idea they were being recorded. Since my recorder doesn't record in stereo I had to manually pan all the cars from left to right and even placed them to sound like they are in front of or behind the listener as if the viewer is actually there, in the middle of the events portrayed. I hope you guys like it.

thanks a lot for your comments! Actually, this is not me playing bassoon nor do I play the instrument at all, haha, I play piano but those trusty orchestration handbooks always come in handy--luckily I had a pretty decent bassoonist that was able to squeeze out those super high notes. I actually do have the score, I apologize ahead of time for the hand written scores, I am not allowed to use Finale for class assignments. Your comment about improvisation is really interesting to me, other people have said the same thing, my main means of composing is through improvising, I guess is shows through. Thanks again! SCORE: http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj146/sciullo273/sc0058e624.jpg http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj146/sciullo273/sc00593bf3.jpg

Islamianity: listen online Hardware imac Yamaha cs6x CME VX-8 Software Audacity Garage Band Ivory VSTI Sound sources People reading Bible passages Recorded singing and chanting Chinese Baoding News reporter clips Clip of USF Evangelical preacher outside of Cooper Electric Toothbrush Explosion sound clips Final Project Summary: This piece fuses together the acts of radical Islam extremists and radical fundamentalist Evangelicals, whose crimes, although vastly different, embody the same amount of hatred. Islamianity is a representation of this hatred. The piece follows an abstract ABA format with a short recall of the choral introduction at the end. Part A starts with juxtaposing a made up monk like chant to the psalm for Agnus Die and The Islam Call to Prayer. The Catholic chant was recorded in three parts and reverb was later added. The call to pray is a mixture of 3 different clips I found on various websites, with which I edited the sustaining portions of singing together into block chords, that actually goes well with the chant. Going on under this are Chinese Baoding balls being struck, with the two different tones layered together and struck several times with later added reverb to get the heard bell toll effect. Then some pads and percussions effects from Garageband's VSTI library are used, controlled by a CME-V8 MIDI controller. A progressive rock like theme emerges with a Bosendorfer piano played through the VSTI Ivory and accompanying horn ensemble and electric guitar, also from Garageband's VSTI library to emphasize certain passages. Under this fast paced rock theme are a number of news reporter clips from Britain, cut and pasted together all dealing with the possible threat of terrorism in Europe and rebellion of British Muslim extremists. Also white noise is heard back and forth in the left and right speakers that separate important words and phrases in the various news reports. The song then enters a B section that represents an innocent child born into the world that is surrounded by the religious chaos that is occurring in sections A and C. This section features an electronic sound constructed on a Yamaha cs6x that is mainly composed of a square wave, saw wave, xylophone wave, and string pizzicato wave all of which have are assigned to a portamento effect giving the sound its childlike playful quality. A light flute also contributes to this section with which the last to notes are layered with the words "God" and "Allah" indicating the start of the C section. These two words are used in the jazzy choral type sound where it is exhaustedly layered and reversed then pitch shifted and layered together to form the chords heard. Also going on is a male voice with distortion on it reading the Bible passage John 3:16 in the left speaker while in the right an extremist Evangelical lady condemns Harry Potter. Once again bursts of white noise are used to emphasize different parts of her speech. Also the word "death" is stretched out at the end of the clip. While this is going on a variation of the progressive theme is played with a guitar solo this time also played through the midi controller. The C section then moves into a more abstract soundscape that is characterized by the words, "God", "Allah", and "Bible" are mixed together in a very rapid succession, although the majority of the time the sound is severely cut up or reversed. Also, an electronic toothbrush is featured with reverb, echo flange, and distortion. The toothbrush suggests the progressive theme with its slow pitch shift in a pentatonic scale and is also played in reverse. This sets up for the emotional climax in the piece, where an array of police sirens are mixed together, played on the cs6x, followed by several explosion samples and a news sound clip of the second plane hitting the world trade center with a reporter describing the devastation as the public at the site are in disarray. The Bell toll effect is synonymous with the first explosion heard. The piano takes the place of the Bell toll, which later comes back in after the powerful phrase "there are no words". The end of the C section reinstates the choral theme from the beginning of the A section along with various clips of extremism on both the Evangelical and Islamic side.

This is the first piece I wrote for my comp. class last semester, its supposed to be a blend of atonal and jazz idioms.The structure of the piece is in a very abstract rondo form where the reoccurring leading theme is 2 8th notes followed by 2 quarter notes (or really just 2 shorter notes followed by 2 longer notes) which shows up in different forms throughout the piece. Tell me what you think. Zappa's Headache: listen online

After playing around with this chorus piece I am wondering if it would make a better sting ensamble piece. I could definately expand the range. The piece seems to have an awkward feel flow to it because it is being written to the poem Birches by Robert Frost. The feeling and mood conveyed by the words is tried to convey within the chordal structure of the piece. The poem is pretty long too. The strings would eliminate the words but it might be a better choice. Maybe I should just pick out the important prose in the poem to write for. I am stumped on the next step I should make, please help me. -Sam Birches.MUS

Nice. I it has a sense of accomplishment, that later morphs into triumph, in it pertaining to the graduating classes. There is a section at about 2:43 where a brass instrument and xylophone sound come in that sounds a little off to me. This might just be a personal opinion but my ear wants to make the half steps whole steps to flow more with its joyous Major theme. -Sam

The strings sound kind of monotonous. The begining for the most part goes back and fourth between a perfect 4th for a while. Also, mybe have the piano and strings dual. Lastly, try to come up with different themes for the piece. I think it is sounding good for an unfinished work. Best of luck! -Sam

very cool idea

If John Cage could write an extremely famouse and respected piece consisting just of silence I think it's okay to to have fluxtuation of resting and music in a piece. This is a website that's really good for orchestration: The Orchestra

Hello, I'm new here. I wrote this string quartet for a competition; the results have not come in yet. I am looking for some feedback on what everybody here thinks. My influences for this piece are mainly Stravinsky, Ravel, and Jordan Rudess. I hope you enjoy it! (I couldn't figure out how to directly upload an mp3 so the link to my myspace site is given, the song is labeled on the audio player, it should be the first one to play) EDIT: Ethereal Motion - eSnips, share anything -Sam