Inspiration: Ben Neill, Theo Metz, and David Rothenberg. Live Performance. June 6, 2013. Kingston, NY. | Musical Genre: Experimental Ambient
This was created as a result of my being an audience member experiencing musical performances by these three composer/musicians. Ben and Theo teach in the Ramapo College of New Jersey music department and David teaches philosophy and music at NJIT.
Inspiration: Ben Neill. “Dream Phase.” 1996. Triptycal. Verve Records. | Length: 6:14 minutes; Musical Genre: Experimental Ambient
Although this piece is named after a specific Ben Neill composition, it is a general gestalt of my several experiences with his live performances. His self-designed “Mutantrumpet with its electro acoustic computer system generates bright red and golden horizontal wiggly layers that echo, punctuated by surprising vertical interstitial skittery boxes and circles of rhythm.
I feel like I’m riding the bullet train from month to month, and literally every time I look outside, the moon is full.
I drew this when my shoulders were mostly paralyzed and I could not move more than a few inches. As a result, the original was only a few inches high, rigid and filled with the tension and stress of my infirmity. The final, fabric version was transformed into a totem of my improving health after I recovered. Through this journey, I felt like I was reaching out to the spirit world to help me survive and release me from my paralysis.
After an evening spent with people who are very different from me and who have contrasting expectations of themselves – and of me – I created this piece in my exasperation and my desire for acceptance.
Inspired by: Max Maffia. “L.C.” VIVA. Daybox Records. | Length: 5:36 minutes; Musical Genre: Ambient Electronic
This musical composition makes me see under water current flows and the banging of old wooden bits and boats.
Inspiration: Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno. “Message from Outer Space.” 2008. Pink Lady Lemonade – You’re from Outer Space. Riot Season. | Length: 17:59 minutes; Musical Genre: Psychedelic Noise
Powerful repetitive sets of rolling tape loops amidst chaotic, atonal wandering vocal meanderings. I am drawn to the crisp spaces between the sounds.
Inspiration: Xylvanya. A series of 56 songs. 1990-2009. Xylvanya. | Musical Genre: Prog Keyboard
Xylvanya’s rolling twining sequences that curl around syncopated, stretched chords always lead me to a richly textured conclusion. This is my 40,000 foot gestalt on the basic structure of all his work, though each piece uses different timbres, pitches and rhythms.
Inspiration: Max Waves and Pixieguts. “Reflections.” 2010. Music for Microworlds. Elektronische Musik Union. | Length: 5:49; Musical Genre: Chillout Electronica
If I were to score music, it would look like this. Start at the bottom right and move up left and clockwise. (Who needs 5 lines and 4 spaces?) Pixieguts, who sings this poetry, has a wonderfully pink voice over against the electronica frame by Max Waves.
Inspiration: Aaron Copeland and Martha Graham. “Appalachian Spring.” 1944. | Musical Genre: Mid-century Modern Ballet
This was initially drawn based on a memory of movements from the Graham ballet I had learned to dance in college. I was trying to explain to my husband the difference between the way I was taught to move my body in my ten years of classic ballet as compared with what I learned from my professor who had studied and danced with Martha Graham.
Living Out Loud: The Art of Geri Hahn 