nashNET

album the tcd collection

After an extended lull in writing music, brought on by a nasty bout of Computer Science, Trinity College's Music and Media Technology group has been instrumental in putting me back on track. Time has been limited to pursue my own direction, so the following tracks represent my efforts on the course itself. In certain cases, the tracks have drawn on previous works as a basis for explorations in various areas of sound...

	*the child*
	This piece was a reversion of an earlier work of mine (covered here). This new approach was conducted using a sequencer, rather than a tracker, and uses professional orchestral and choral samples. With the equivalent of a 75-piece orchestra (excluding choir), the added realism brings significantly more prescense to the offering.
	*numbered*
	Written as a submission for a course on Minimalist music, this track draws on influences from Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Two foundations underpin the opus: the first is a short melody, which is overlapped with varying delays and and various integral tempos; the second is a simple descending scale on strings akin to Arvo Pärt. In my opinion, this is my most 'beautiful' piece.
	*through the haze*
	This piece also draws from a previous work (here), albeit loosely. The new take incorporates live performances on bass, guitar, piano and drums, and combines it with synthesizers and sound effects. The piece addresses criticisms, from magazine reviews, regarding the engineering of the original.
	*the lost art of romance*
	Armed with only 5 audio files (samples) and the standard features (plugins excluded) of Sonic Foundary's Sound Forge, this was an assignment to produce a piece of music. The samples included: a converyor belt, a door closing, an extract of percussion from a piece by Varese, a single violin note and a sample of a far-eastern string instrument. Far from the atonal / dissonant submission that was probably expected from the students, I rebelled to bring something that appealled more to my aesthetic.
	*saint nimmerlein's eve*
	As with "The Child", this former piece of mine benefitted from a reversion utilising professional orchestral samples and a sequencer. The new arrangement is more of a classical take, but retains much of the original's 'traditional' flair, with the previous' rock beat has been replaced for a more ethnic performance (tablas, etc.).
	*the saint*
	In this assignment, rather than writing the music, I programmed the synthesis engine. The MIDI file (sourced from the Internet) was based on Orbital's remix of the theme from the film, "The Saint". Using a programming language, called CSound, the track employs synthesis methods such as AM and FM, and also uses samples to provide a percussion track.
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