Bending Memories: A Meditation

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College. Recordings can be found at http://cxkuhns.biz/mrudin/ My project is a collection of compositions and photographs that were presented live and recorded in Bard’s recording studio. My live performance, entitled “Panther”, took place May 3rd in Blum Hall and the recordings tracked and mixed September-December. The compositional basis of these pieces is centered around the experimentation of databending by means of the editing and conversion of photographs I had taken that were processed through Audacity. The product of this was harsh, noisy yet unique audio and colorfully glitched photography. Although results differed, the mix of noise and harmony between these different databent tracks acted well as the base for the music to be built upon. The instrumentation included prepared chord organ, prepared and open tuned guitar, and drums. All instruments were performed and recorded by myself except for half of the drums on “Stoop” which were performed by Daniel Risdon. The bigger idea of these pieces is in the title. It’s a meditation. The compositions ebb and flow in slow, long brooding patterns meant to to be interpreted slowly and carefully. The subjects are deeply personal, with the photographs being taken in Union City and Jersey City, New Jersey. So in essence the music itself is a guided meditation for myself to focus on the comforts of home and the personal relationships I’ve been disconnected from for the past four and a half years in college. The augmented data creating static noise, it was then my duty to create harmony to complement such grating and weighted sounds by using the noise as a drone, creating a constant. The use of these drones adds to the meditative aspect of these compositions, with the ultimate goal being for the listener to feel a more connected sense of self . These pieces were meant to act as experiments to combine dissonance and melody in a balanced and harmonic fashion, though the process of making this project resulted in ...