CAPSTONE 2024
Jack Bolton
SP-170
Centred around a singular sampler, the performance is based on the concept of an audible work in progress. It combines industrial textures and grungy high intensity sound design. Flowing through several stages this piece explores varying sonic landscapes in order to convey the idea of an organically developing work.
Liv Gadenne
Wandering
This piece is compromised entirely from audio and visuals that I have recorded myself while out and about in Queensland national parks and bushlands.
This piece is a study in the manipulation of audio and visual footage. I wish to challenge the audience’s perception of the natural environment by making my field recordings look and sound unrecognizable through the careful manipulation of audiovisual technological processes.
I aim to take the listener on a journey through these sounds by combining the raw footage with the heavily doctored versions in an audiovisual immersive experience.
By exclusively using my field recordings, I want to stretch the boundaries of what people define as “music” and also take this as an opportunity to pay homage to the beautiful country in which we live.
Ellee Chapman; Josh Crawford; Caitlin Mills
When We Fall In Love
Our performance will be a collaborative exploration of the emotional spectrum of falling in love, focusing on four key emotions: wonder, anxiety, anger, and happiness. Each of us will have distinct roles in bringing this emotional journey to life. Ellee will perform live vocals while simultaneously manipulating various effects from Ableton Live into her microphone and Josh's drumkit during his performance. Josh will perform live on both guitar and drums, adding depth and intensity to the sound. Caitlin will perform live on the Novation Launchkey, while also controlling the effects for her keyboard, blending technology with her live playing. Together, we aim to take the audience on a powerful emotional journey by combining live music with cutting-edge technology. Using tools like Ableton Live, Novation Launchkey, and the DJ Tech Twister, we will craft intricate soundscapes and manipulate loops in real time to immerse the audience in each emotional state.
In the first part of the performance, the audience will be invited to experience the sense of awe and enchantment that often accompanies the early stages of love. Through a combination of lush, evolving synth loops and live instrument performances, we aim to evoke feelings of curiosity and discovery. Using subtractive synthesis techniques, we will design rich, expansive soundscapes, layered with delicate arpeggios and harmonic textures. These sounds, paired with live vocals and gentle instrumentation, will set the tone for an immersive journey into the emotional depths of wonder. The seamless integration of live and looped elements will create a dynamic and evolving atmosphere that captures the magic of new love.
Transitioning from wonder, the performance will move into the oftenunnerving territory of anxiety. This section will represent the doubts and insecurities that can arise when love feels uncertain. Using dissonant, jittery synth sequences crafted through granular synthesis, we will design a sonic landscape that embodies the tension and restlessness of this emotion. Live drums will add percussive urgency, while the looping of sharp, staccato notes will build a sense of unease. Additionally, Ellee will manipulate Josh’s drum effects in real time using the DJ Tech Twister, heightening the sense of instability and unpredictability. Ableton Live will allow for dynamic sound shaping, with each technological layer contributing to the shifting, disorienting emotional landscape of anxiety.
As the emotional journey intensifies, the performance will dive into the raw and visceral emotion of anger. This section will use harsh, distorted tones and aggressive rhythmic patterns to capture the explosive and often overwhelming power of anger in love. Additive synthesis will be employed to create sharp, biting textures that layer over pounding beats. Live performance on the drums and keyboard will drive the aggressive rhythm, whilst vocals, also being affected and altered in real time, will contribute to the performance’s fiery atmosphere. The blend of live performance and real-time technological manipulation will enhance the cathartic release of anger, making this section a dynamic experience for the audience.
The final stage of the emotional journey will bring the audience to a place of happiness and fulfillment. Here, bright, uplifting synth arpeggios and warm harmonic progressions will evoke feelings of joy and contentment. Caitlin’s keyboard and Josh’s guitar performances will be central to this part, using real-time modulations and effects to elevate the overall mood. The sound will become more rhythmic and melodic, creating a sense of resolution and harmony as Ellee’s vocals and various vocal effects glide over the buoyant soundscapes. By using live instrumentation and technology, together we will enhance this stage’s uplifting energy, providing a final, celebratory note to the performance as we bring it to a close.
Zed Butel
Pineal Squeeze
This track is inspired by 90s psychedelia, big beat and dance, typified by artists like Bentley Rhythm Ace, Groove Armada, and Leftfield. The tonal goal was to fashion an unpredictable, uncanny atmosphere with spacey, rave reminiscences. The natural place to start was with a classic breakbeat, which was then chopped, reversed and manipulated. Next, much of the main sonic themes are made of heavily warped samples, firstly a 60s psych rock song, ‘Gilded Lamp of the Cosmos’ by Ultimate Spinach, is time-stretched and fuzzed-up beyond recognition, examples of this are the distorted bits panned out to the side in the track’s beginning. The main theme is made from chops of a zither piece called ‘The Left Hand refers to the Moon,’ also time-stretched, transposed, and reversed in varying ways to support the arrangement.
Reverb and delay are employed ubiquitously, as both a cosmetic feature and a spatialisation technique. For example, certain tracks are grouped and sent to non-linear reverb and slapback delay busses to approximate a room sound. There is some parallel compression on the bass, the only recorded instrument here. Other prominent effects include widening plug-ins, and Ableton’s resonator, frequency shift, erosion (noise) and echo units. These combine to reach for a retrospective feel with modern tools. The title, Pineal Squeeze, refers to the pineal gland, a small endocrine gland in the brain of most vertebrates, its psychedelic associations serve as aesthetic inspiration.
The pineal gland’s functions remain notoriously misunderstood though it certainly produces the sleep hormone melatonin and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) nature’s strongest psychedelic. Philosophers and healers have puzzled over it for millennia. In the latter years of Roman Greece, physicians such as Galen wrote about it protoscientifically, cementing the gland’s significance in ancient Greek stoicism as a valve for vital fluid (pneuma) or soul transfer.
Following the re-injection of classical culture into Europe in the Renaissance, Enlightenment leader Rene Descartes repositioned the pineal gland as a 'seat of the soul’ and a doorway to understanding the ‘mind/body problem’, the apparent insolubility of mind (spirit, more traditionally) and matter, which has dogged the human psyche forever. The founder of theosophy, 19th-century mystic Helena Blavatsky originated the modern countercultural DMT and Ayuaska revival by connecting it to the Hindu Third Eye Chakra in her writings. Later, French idealist Georges Bataille developed the notion of the ‘pineal eye’ as all repressed eros and passion in developed cultures leading to overconsumption and militarism. More recently DMT rocketed into popular consciousness following Dr Rick Strassman’s book ‘The Spirit Molecule’ in which he documents his landmark early 90s study of DMT experiences at the University of New Mexico. Many participants reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences--aliens, angels, and spirits. The popularity of artist and DMT guru Alex Gray, and DMT being a constant talking point on the Joe Rogan podcast captures this renewed cultural interest.
Eden Shepherd
+&
Throughout the development of this project, I have aimed to create a work which takes its audience on an evocative, emotional journey while completely eschewing any traditional implementations of narrative or storyline. Structurally, it features four different sections which all make up a cohesive whole, and is greater than the sum of its parts, as each section is recontextualised by the sections before and after. While these four sections vary drastically in genre and “vibe”, their relationships with one another are abundantly clear, as they are glued together by recurring elements and motifs.
In more of a stylistic sense, I have drawn influence from a variety of sources, primarily taking from 90s electronic music, but also including elements of ambient, shoegaze, and Musique concrète to create something distinctly modern and unique. Overall, I am aiming for a very dreamlike, surreal atmosphere, and this atmosphere is reinforced by the music’s visual accompaniment, an abstract symphony of ever-changing colours and shapes.
One of the primary concepts that informed the creation of “+&” was the idea of juxtaposition. Juxtaposition can be observed all throughout my composition, from analog instrumentation existing alongside digital synthesis, to frenetic breakbeats accompanying gentle synth patches, to melodic audio tracks layered over cold, atonal soundscapes. This allows the individual elements of each part of “+&” to be heard in a new light, and I have found that the relationships between contrasting musical “objects” can bring out new and confusing emotions in the listener, provoking a greater level of interest and intrigue. When composing this track, I had left numerous sections and motifs on the cutting room floor and found that the few sections I was drawn to were the ones with the greatest focus on juxtaposition.
Another key theme of my project is exploring synergy between audio and visuals. Throughout the entire track, the music will be accompanied by abstract computer-generated imagery, specifically designed to enhance the audiences’ listening experience – all self-produced using a free piece of software called TouchDesigner. Think of when you’re watching a film and it’s soundtrack perfectly encapsulates the emotional core of the story – this is something I aim to capture, but in reverse, with the audio being the primary focus. These visuals are completely lacking any depiction or even abstraction of real-world objects, and what is being depicted or referenced is open to interpretation, allowing the
audience to use their imaginations and attach an entirely unique, personal meaning to my composition.
So thank you for coming to this concert, and please listen to my work with an open mind, allowing yourself to get lost in my project for the next six minutes or so : )
Morgan Chippendale; Joseph Cross; Connor Townson
Sedimentary
Sedimentary is the culmination of our explorations into layers and textures, being the intersection between performance and the pedagogy presented in the Creative Music Technology program. Our goal was to bridge the gap between traditional performance and modern tools to push ourselves into new creative areas using unorthodox means. The compositional approach to this piece was much like sedimentary geological formations, where many grains create different layers and textures under time and pressure. Our conglomeration of alternative timbres through the use of prepared vibraphone, sample beds from CDJs, live reactive synthesis and a Jazz trio has resulted in a piece that pairs ambience with contemporary jazz fusion. This unique combination of sounds highlights both our individual approaches to an advanced use of music technology and our collective experience in this program.
Over the semester our group has experimented and pushed the boundaries of taking conventionally acoustic instrumentation and implementing the use of digital manipulation to create new textures and sounds altering the sonic landscape and sounds of our acoustic instruments to change the listeners perspectives on the instrumentation. Joe will be utilising a vibraphone which has been customised for recording and live performance. During this performance all sounds that Joe will play/present will have been created through the vibraphone. This has been achieved through heavy usage of digital manipulation within Ableton Live, allowing for Joe to create unique textures and sounds, strip away the familiarity of a vibraphone and rebuild its sonic landscape. Joe will open with ambient layers played live which will emphasise larger usages of reverbs and delays and granulator to help break down sounds. Transitioning into our jazz fusion section will see Joe start to implement distortion, echos and repetition to
help introduce a more familiar vibraphone sound whilst keeping the sounds and textures unique. Supporting our groups artistic vision
Morgan is the technological hub for this performance. Drawing from his past experiences as a DJ, he created a unique innovative approach to triggering and blending sounds born from the intersection between learning from our degree and professional life outside of the Conservatorium. Traditionally, DJ decks such as CDJ’s were used to seamlessly transition between different songs and incorporate effects that elevate the listener's experience and create a cleaner blend. However, in this performance he is using them to trigger, blend and layer multiple samples and textures together, with the creative manipulative capabilities that loading sounds onto Decks affords. Similarly, he chose to use the Yamaha TF1 mixing console in an unorthodox and innovative way. Adjacent to its blending and balancing responsibilities, the Digital interface capabilities are being used to facilitate greater timbral manipulation. Signal Sent out of the mixer hits Ableton, where Morgan can incorporate additive and spatial effects then returns to the TF1, all in the Digital domain. This advanced use of technology incorporates an old process of Sends/Returns and creatively brings them into the 21st century pioneering its limitless capabilities.
Connor drew from his performance orientated past when approaching this project. His main role was to prepare the musical material for the group to jam over. In this role, he chose to draw from artists like Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper to produce a contemporary East Coast sound out of the ensemble. His technological approach to this performance was born out of curiosity around how drummers like Dan Mayo and Eric Harland got their sounds. To achieve this, Connor reached for Pro Tools to act as an FX rack and summing mixer which allows him to create new layers by manipulating different parts of the drum set. Each core component of the drums are captured and reproduced using a combination of dynamic and condenser microphones, each chosen for the spectral capabilities. Under these creative limitations, he aimed to emancipate the performance and create new spaces using a combination of classic effects - like Roland Space echo, Dimension D and Bricasti M7 - and modern synthesis software (utilising granular synthesis to create otherworldly spaces).
