About

According to a “baby book” my mother kept, as a baby I was fascinated by the sound of distant church bells, and bell-like and sustained sounds are still what I like best. The way they slow down time and still thoughts.

I wrote tv music for about 10 years, and got so fed up with creating ever shorter pieces that I flipped to the other extreme and began looking for ways to create long, slow soundscapes. I began stretching and filtering sounds to make slowly evolving tones (five second sounds stretched to 30 seconds to a minute) that I put together into slowly shifting harmonic compositions. Then I began to want to create pieces in realtime – which is to say, live performance.

Inspired by a performance I saw by Kaffe Matthews, I began working with LiSa software from STEIM in Holland, and then began building my own software with Max/MSP.

The basic techniques I prefer to use are slowing sounds way down, using a process called granulation, and multiple layering of sounds by continuous looping. The sound sources I use include metal strips and other metal objects, live performances by other musicians, and flugelhorn.

I also work with alternate controllers such as motion sensors and game controllers. I run a week-long workshop for children with special needs using a computer/sensor system I developed, which I am in the process of evolving into a more interactive sensory room.