Richard Lainhart, Wavelength (2005)
Richard Lainhart, Wavelength (2005)
“I found this track on a drive while looking for something else. It’s from 2005, and that’s all I know about it – I can’t remember when or how I did it. But I like it, so I thought I’d share it here.”
(from Richard via Soundcloud)
Richard Lainhart (February 14, 1953 – December 30, 2011)
Dear friends of Richard,
It is with a heavy heart that I that I must tell you Richard Lainhart, composer, musician, technologist, filmmaker, and digital artisan died Friday, December 30, 2011. On December 17, Richard complained of pains in his side and was admitted to the hospital for tests which showed an intestinal cancer. He was operated on on December 21. After the surgery (which showed the cancer had not spread), there were infectious complications which took his life on December 30.
He struggled valiantly to overcome his infection, but it was not to be. We are all in shock and cannot grasp the idea of his not making music, talking music, teaching, posting and playing.
Caroline Meyers
Richard Lainhart’s wife
I never met Richard personally but did exchange some emails with him and I was impressed with his lack of dogma when it came to electronic music. On one hand he a big part in the early days of electronic music but he was also embracing making music with whatever software or hardware that best helped him express himself. You can hear more of his music on his soundcloud page and also ImprovFriday members hosted a tribute posted dedications for him last weekend (Jan 5-7 2012).
Richard Lainhart Improv Friday Dedication, Jan 5-7 2011
Richard Lainhart SoundCloud Page
Richard Lainhart, archive.org
Vimeo
Youtube
Synthtopia obituary
Create Digital Music obituary
Quotes
“Lainhart crafts sounds in a tonal, musical fashion – sustained tones, drones, melodic fragments – and electronically manipulates them into beautiful tapestries of sound.” (Waterfront Week)
[His] “music reflects the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music, bringing with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. The spell- binding music seemed to evoke feelings that can’t quite be named, and suggest music I might rather imagine for myself in silence than trust most composers to compose.” (The Village Voice).
“He’s evolved a singular vision as a composer, performer and engineer of darkly seductive minimalism.” (Peter Marsh, BBC)
ve been weary of the day a member of ImprovFriday would pass away. In terms of his involvement with ImprovFriday: I could ask Richard to play live for IF and he would literally get back to me within hours and set it up. As most of you know, he also was generous enough to lend a tune for ImprovFriday Vol. 2 and participated in numerous events. We are really going to miss Richard. Next week’s theme will be “Richard Lainhart Dedications”
Richard was by far one of the true contemporary electronic music genius’s and his knowledge of its roots put him way ahead of most of us. Richard’s contribution to contemporary electronic music was immense and his knowledge of its historical applications was legendary. – Steve Moshier
Richard changed the way I listen to music – and there is no greater compliment that one musician can pay to another. He will be missed very, very much. – Paul Muller
Biography (via O-Townmedia)
Richard Lainhart is an award-winning composer, author, and filmmaker – a digital artisan who works with sonic and visual data. Since childhood, he’s been interested in natural processes such as waves, flames and clouds, in harmonics and harmony, and in creative interactions with machines, using them as compositional methods to present sounds and images that are as beautiful as he can make them.
Lainhart studied composition and electronic music with Joel Chadabe at the State University of New York at Albany. He has composed music for film, television, CD-ROMs, interactive applications, and the Web. His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, Airglow Music, Tobira Records, and ExOvo labels. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Electronic Music Foundation to contribute a work to New York Soundscape.
Lainhart’s animations and short films have been shown at festivals in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film “A Haiku Setting” won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2009, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for “No Other Time”, full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.
C. J. Boyd: Dynamos/Scrumpin’ (2006)
C. J. Boyd: Dynamos/Scrumpin’ (2006) (right click to download)
“This is a song from my “minor label debut”, The Greatest Weight, released by Sounds Are Active in 2006. Having been performing live with a loop pedal for a few years, I started writing more songs with that in mind. But I didn’t like the idea of using the loop pedal to record. So I actually played everything all the way through, even the really repetitive parts. This song became a kind of zen practice. It’s so much harder to play the same 6 notes over and over for 10-15 minutes than it is to rip a gnarly solo for the same amount of time. The recording process took ages, but it was so methodical and centering. “
Joanne Gabriel: Looking for Something… (2008)
Joanne Gabriel: Looking for Something… (2008) (right click to download)
“This track was part of a session I played for the 50/90 challenge (= write 50 songs in 90 days) in 2008, before I came to t61.
I completed the challenge by recording 10 chapters (consisting in 6 songs each and with a specific theme). “Looking for something” belonged to the “Dreams” chapter, following “Flying” and built on the same chord progression, as it was supposed to describe what happened after the flight. In my head it was an errand just like when you have this dream where you’re on a quest but don’t really know what you’re looking for. It was originally named “Looking for something, looking for someone, looking for somewhere…” but the title was unnecessarily long so I cut it. For the “Dreams” chapter I experimented with sounds in order to get something thick and light at the same time, solid and ethereal (for instance I applied pitch and distorsion on the keyboards). In “Looking for something” the voices were supposed to mingle with the guitars, the guitars with the synth, etc. The textures aimed at rendering the impression I often have in my dreams, when I can’t distinguish lights from sounds, and when emotions look like they take shape. The whole chapter has a dirty touch that make it all the more valuable for me, because it’s closer to the blurry print of my dreams.”
Paul Bailey: Retrace Our Steps (2004)
Paul Bailey: Retrace Our Steps (2004)
“Retrace Our Steps is a secular oratorio in 4 acts (2004) based on texts by Gertrude Stein, Guy Debord and Jenny Bitner. the work explores the relationships between idealism, alienation, and consumerism.”
act 4
Retrace Our Steps, Graphic Libretto
curated by david toub
Neil Rolnick: Plays Well With Others (2004)
from the album Digits
“Some kids only seem to get along with other kids when they get their own way. You’ve got to play by their rules. You’ve got to let them win. Otherwise, they’ll see that you get taken out of the game. Georgie told us he was the kind of kid who played well with others, but it turns out that he and Dickie had other plans.
Plays Well With Others was written for the Paul Dresher Ensemble’s Electro-Acoustic Band.”
Copralalia, la la la- Mary Jane Leach (2002)
Copralalia, la la la- Mary Jane Leach (2002)
“is for two sopranos and taped voices. “Copralalia” is the term for the vocal outbursts of Tourette’s Syndrome sufferers. It derives from the Greek word “copros,” meaning “shit.” I wrote this piece when I was working on a project about witches, trying to find explanations for why some people were/are called witches. I thought that the vocal outbursts of Turette’s Syndrome would be frightening and perhaps sufferers from it could be called witches. The lyrics are by the medieval French poet Castelloza”
Download Copralalia, la la la- Mary Jane Leach (2002)
Libretto
Paul Bailey: Obsessive Love (2002)
Obsessive Love (Music for Summerland EP, 2002) explores the juxtaposition of pop song forms and harmonies through post-minimalism. Summerland refers to a mythical-emotional place where we escape daily routine by making music; composing, rehearsing and performing. This music lies somewhere between art music (music meant to be contemplated) and pop music (music meant for mass consumption).’
curated via Jim Perkins from his twigetticast (itunes podcast)
Jon Brenner: Sonata (2006)
“sonata was written for violinist emily packard at mills college. like most of my pieces, the instrumentation is flexible and the violin may be substituted by vibraphone, clarinet, or flute. the marimba tape may be substituted by piano, two marimbas.”
duration: 9:45
curated by Paul Muller
Paul Greenhaw: Use the Bridge Between the Trees to Avoid Blindness (2005)
“Use the Bridge Between the Trees to Avoid Blindness (2005) is a four movement work for two organs and drums. Because the music is written specifically to accompany a video, the performers perform the piece using a click-track, thus giving rise to stringently synchronized visuals and music. The work is designed within a just intonation schema which uses, exclusively, the prime integers 3 and 11. The recording you hear here has Sean Ferguson on organ and Paul Greenhaw on organ and drums — it was recorded by Wharton Tiers at his New York, NY studio. The piece should be heard at a relatively high volume.”
Steve Peters: Mountains Hidden in Mountains (2004)
Steve Peters: Mountains Hidden in Mountains (2004)
“Made in 2004 as a sound installation inside a faux bell tower at the Santa Fe Art Institute. When rung by a visitor, the beater triggers a recording of the bell that fades in imperceptibly as the real sound decays, creating the illusion of an endless tone. The sound changes subtly over 30 minutes (this is a greatly condensed version), slowly mixing in layers of pitch-shifted bell tones that get increasingly lower until they finally evaporate into silence.”
curated by Bruce Hamilton
James Ross: Winds and Strings (2007)
James Ross: Winds and Strings (2009)
“Winds and Strings” is concerned with the possibilities of composition with a very limited number of pitch classes; each instrumental part has its own pitch material (though there are some common tones), and the entire gamut of pitches was derived by combining the pool of tones. The piece is completely multicyclic–every instrumental part travels in a 3-, 5- or 7-bar orbit of 3/4 time.”
Joshua Parmenter: Cadence (III. Decrescendo) for computer realized sound (2005)
Joshua Parmenter: Cadence (III. Decrescendo) for computer realized sound (2005)
“Cadence for computer realized sound is the third in a series of pieces exploring four musical changes: crescendo, decrescendo, accelerando and ritardando. Cadence uses the last few seconds of Schubert’s quartettsatz in c minor as source material for a large scale decrescendo. Rather then just turning the volume down on the sound, the piece is shaped spectrally over its duration, gradually stripping away more and more of the sound until it disappears completely.”
curated by: Bruce Hamilton
Jeff Harrington-Agnus Dei Wave (2002)
Jeff Harrington-Agnus Dei Wave (2002)
“AgnusDeiWave is an ecstatic ambient voyage through choral textures in deep space; the culmination of a series of experiments in formant wave synthesis. Vocal analysis from a recording of Josquin’s Agnus Dei motivates a timeless series of crashing heavenly vocal chords. My first piece on my Yamaha FS1R formant synthesizer.”
Peter Thoegersen: Solo Clarinet in Bb (2005)
“The Bb clarinet piece was written in 2002 while I was working on my MM in composition. It was written in one swoop and I wanted it to represent some extended techniques. That version was recorded at U of I in Urbana in 2005, but I can’t remember the performer’s name.”
Killsonic Marching Gang: Liberation Technology (2008)
Killsonic Marching Gang: Liberation Technology (Live at KXLU June 7th 2008)
Killsonic is a collective of musicians operating in the Greater Los Angeles Area specializing in the creation, development and performance of new hybridized music. Comprised of a core quartet of guitar, bass, drums and woodwinds, the group names its primary musical source as the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Similar to these artists, Killsonic also takes inspiration from contemporary art and sound. Listen closely for hints of Roni Size, Radiohead, Sonic Youth and Arab on Radar to Gyorgy Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen. Killsonic often performs with an expanded ten-member group that includes horns and vocalists. Members of the band have also performed alongside Arkestra Clandestina, Money Mark, Bobby Bradford, and Vinny Golia.
Killsonic’s debut album features a guest appearance by cornet and trumpet hero Bobby Bradford, of Ornette Coleman fame. Each track experiments with different instrumentation, from a clarinet/guitar duo, to an expanded group that includes a female choir.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/killsonic
Trent Reznor: Ghosts 1.1 (2008)
“This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as… something.
The team: Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder and myself with some help from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. Rob Sheridan collaborated with Artist in Residence (A+R) to create the accompanying visual and physical aesthetic.
We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days it became clear we were on to something, and a lot of material began appearing. What we thought could be a five song EP became much more. I invited some friends over to join in and we all enjoyed the process of collaborating on this.
The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed – from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.
More volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future.”
- Trent Reznor, March 2, 2008
NIN Ghosts: I-IV
Samuel Vriezen: 20 Worlds (2005)
Samuel Vriezen: 20 Worlds (2005)
Two pianists journey together through a circular universe of twenty possible worlds. The worlds appear and disappear one by one, echoed between the two piano parts, and up to four of them may be present at the same time in a gradually shifting multi-cultural mosaic of musical worlds.In this piece, just as in the 5 extremely short “possible world” pieces I wrote in 2003, a ‘world’ is identified by a typical basic motivic gesture. Each ‘world’ varies on its basic gesture according to its own laws. These twenty worlds (Possible Worlds nr. 6-25?) are then intertwined to appear in eighty numbered sections. The eighty sections are arranged in a circular way: section 1 can follow section 80. The odd sections are only played by pianist I. Pianist II plays the even sections. Taken together, the odd and the even sections make use of the same material.
20 Worlds is dedicated to Dante Oei. If not for the many conversations we’ve had about Cage, Xenakis, Sibelius, etc. and his wonderful insights and intuitions about music, a piece like this would have been unlikely.
Samuel VriezenAmsterdam, October 19, 2005
Steve Layton: “Charlotte, Too Soon” (2006)
(Music source: samples from old answering machine tape treated and arranged in ACID) — Voices of relatives and friends of cellist / performance artist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991), from one of her old answering machine tapes (mid-late 1970s?). All other sounds as well are derived from noises on the same tape.” via niwo.com
David Toub: this piece intentionally left blank (2006)
“This came about as an improvisation, and is virtually unchanged other than a few minor tweaks. It was composed using an Ensoniq KS-32 synthesizer providing input into Reason 3.0.4. The score is a pretty close approximation of what was improvised, but is not 100% accurate. It can be performed by any keyboard, although it could also be performed for any group of instruments. I felt the bass line would be very interesting if played by a bass guitar, for example. This work is dedicated to my friend Kel Smith. It was premiered on May 9th, 2007 by the Diverse Instrument Ensemble under Lloyd Rogers at Cal State Fullerton in an arrangement by Paul Bailey for oboe, alto sax, french horn, trombone, bass guitar and two vibraphones.”
Lloyd Rodgers: The Black Book (04.01.01)
Lloyd Rodgers: The Black Book 04.01.01
“the black book-a private music consists of 374 compositions, exercises, and epigrams written, usually one a day from 12.28.00 to 12.27.01., notated in ink with no edits; a year long musical journal”
