Paino
old stereo version of canned piece featuring piano and looped found sounds arranged in protools. The piece will feature live 8 channel diffusion. it can be heard at this link because it is over 2MB
http://www.myspace.com/alexbeachmusic
One sound
which i have yet to record is a partially planned improvisation featuring electric guitar recorded and looped, and fed through filters and effects in Max/msp
i would be happy to perform either one not necessarily both, of course
Alex Beach
April 11th, 2010 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
As a composer I created something very unique, and this being my 1st real concrete piece I think I did an excellent job. After listening to the piece, I want my audience to feel as if I am taking them into my world, and bringing them out. I want them to gain a feeling of being alone with nothing but signs around, and trying to escape from them. This is a fixed media piece from Pro Tools LE, I used various unique sounds that I recorded and synthesized and combined into one concrete piece.
April 9th, 2010 | Category: View the Blog | Comments (1)
Self Help (excerpt) is a piece centered around a spoken self-hypnosis/self-help track. The stress of the repeating tones increases with layers as the male hypnotist attempts to bring us to a tranquil place (and maybe he does…). The work uses cello and piano samples, a circuit bent children’s book sound strip run through a delay and looper, a circuit bent Speak &Math toy, and a contact microphone.
April 9th, 2010 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
The Human Body is an exploration of the living, active body. Designed using only Jasuto Pro for iPhone 3.0 and Max/MSP for Mac OS X, it is a unique journey through the innards of our active biology.
Albert Contreras 
April 9th, 2010 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
fRICshen, for Rickenbacker 370 12-string electric guitar and electronics
The title refers to three things: friction (the obvious), the guitar for which it is written (RIC is a common “short” for Rickenbacker) and an essence of spirit (my interpretation of the Chinese word “shen”). The friction presents itself in two ways: juxtaposition of dramatically different musical sensibilities; the friction between the quintessential sound/performance style one might expect representing this particular guitar (for those who know something about this instrument and its glorious history) but which is not invoked in this piece, and the non-quintessential sound and style that is actually presented.
April 9th, 2010 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
Black Allegheny by Evan X. Merz
Black Allegheny is a meditation on the Allegheny Mountains in the winter. The Allegheny Mountains are a range in the Appalachian Mountains that runs through West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This piece was written with a vision of the rolling, snow-covered Alleghenies in the Pittsburgh area.
Black Allegheny was assembled using swarm processes. For each section of the piece, sounds were organized on cartesian graphs. Then a virtual swarm was allowed to walk over each graph, triggering sounds as it crawled around.
April 8th, 2010 | Tags: Annex Concert, Evan X. Merz, Pittsburgh, procedural, swarm intelligence | Category: View the Blog | Comments (1)
A diverse group of pieces and great turnout made for another big success at the Annex computer music concert. Our Graduate Assistant Evan Merz organized the event, which featured special guests Mark Popowitch and Michael Taylor. Other featured composers and/or performers included Natee Prasanpanich, Robert Anderson, Conor Mackey, Tim Moyers, Peter Veugeler, Kenneth Joseph, Aaron Vermedal, and Nathan and Matthew Edwards. Here are some pictures from rehearsal:
Evan Merz and Kenneth Joseph performing on piano and steelpan from Evan’s visual score.
Mark Popowitch and Alex Beach getting ready to rock
Evan busy at the board.
Congratulations to all involved!
November 10th, 2009 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
The Fall Annex Group Computer Music concert is approaching, and it looks to be a packed show.
It is on Thursday, November 5 at 8pm in the Northern Illinois University Recital Hall. Don’t miss it!
October 22nd, 2009 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
A group of students from the NIUCMS program visited Sweetwater for the SEAMUS 2009 event last summer. Both myself (Nathan Edwards) and Evan Merz were mentioned in the recent SEAMUS newsletter for our blogs about the event. Here are the direct links to my posts:
Intro
Tesla Coil Music (Including YouTube vids)
Displaced Resonance
WOUWHI Dance Interface
Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble
And be sure to check out Evan’s Computer Music Blog for his videos and posts on the event.
September 25th, 2009 | Category: View the Blog | Leave a comment
