Blog

Concerts, concerts, and more concerts.

Posted on 2012-04-10 10:01:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

The OU Composition Department has decided that all of this semester's recitals should take place in the next week, and I, while busy, will be presenting a couple of new pieces. Thursday, April 12, 8pm, Morris R. Pitman Recital Hall, CMC - The Music Technology Area presents "inner sOUndscapes I" with guest composer Benjamin Broening. Fixed media, live electronics, and all sorts of fun stuff. Saturday, April 14, 6pm, Pitman Recital Hall, CMC - OU Student Composer's Recital I, featuring (as you may have guessed) student composers. Sunday, April 15, 6pm, Pitman Recital Hall, CMC - OU Student Composer's Recital II, which opens with the premiere of my Nocturne for Prepared Piano (and unprepared pianist). Monday, April 16, 8pm, Pitman Recital Hall, CMC - Music Technology Area's "inner sOUndscapes II" which will feature music for computers, sensors, synthesizer improvisation, and fixed media. My Creatures from the Black Bassoon will receive its OU premiere, and Ioannis Andriotis, Zach Phillips, and I will present our Real-Time MIDI final project The Shadow, which will include live MIDI processing, a disklavier, webcam color-tracking, and a swordfight. And finally, on Wednesday, April 18, 8pm, Choir Room, CMC - the New IMPROV! Century Ensemble (N!CE) will present "It's N!CE in the Kitchen", where we will be performing an evening of meditative music for objects from the kitchen, including wineglasses, egg timer, pots+pans, straws, favorite recipes, audience participation, and much more. You should go to some of these.

Foi dans l'aleatoire wins 2012 Beethoven Club Composition Contest

Posted on 2012-04-04 18:36:00 by Kyle and tagged with Announcements

I'm pleased (ecstatic, really) to announce that Foi dans l'aleatoire has won first place in the 2012 Beethoven Club Student Composition Contest sponsored by Luna Nova Music. I'll be in Memphis June 20-23 for the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival, where Luna Nova flutist John McMurtery and pianist Andrew Drannon will be performing the work, and presumably many others that I didn't write. Wheee!

Spring Break and the Book of Ideas

Posted on 2012-03-28 05:34:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

So after finishing up Nocturne and Skepticism, I turned my attention to a new piece for marimba and electronics (formerly cello and electronics), and didn't get very far before Spring Break happened. So I loaded up the car and drove to Poplar Bluff to spend a few days, where I looked at deer and ate steak and didn't orchestrate nearly as much of "Palilalia" as I'd intended. It's coming along though. But after five days of wheezy bliss (the pollen count in peebz was something atrocious), I headed back to my adopted hometown of Springfield to visit some friends from undergrad. Late nights talking, dinner with Maggie and Dugan and Ashley and lunch the next day with Carlyle and Stephen, it was a great time except for the fact that it rained the entire time I was there. And then came the marathon trip that was Friday. As Dugan, my host in Springfield, had to be at work by 8, that meant I had to be out of the house by 8. This put me on the road earlier than intended, which means I arrived in Kansas City for lunch at 11. Those of you who have ever seen a map have undoubtedly noticed that Kansas City, Missouri is not anywhere between Springfield Missouri and Norman Oklahoma. Well, I decided since I was already in Missouri, I'd try to catch up with Kristy, who works for the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City. We had a great time catching up over lunch at Union Station. Also, KC seems like it would be a nice place to end up after all of this academia is over. From Kansas City I drove down to Wichita to see Amanda, since we'd not seen each other since early January. We played dominoes with her mom and brother, had dinner, talked for quite a bit, and before I knew it, 9pm had arrived and I drove back to Norman. While I was in Springfield I sopped by Barnes and Noble and among the other things I ended up with, I bought a Moleskine notebook. Though I keep most of my records and notes digitally now, I've had the desire to write more, and I figured buying a notebook was a good first step. And after a couple of hours of thinking, I decided that it would best serve me as an idea book. I have lots of ideas on a lot of different things. Most of them aren't very good. But some of them are great. And the trick is remembering all of those ideas so they can be evaluated and brought to fruition. Ideas about what? Ideas about whatever. Already I've listed ideas for organizing paperwork, addons to Hammer, plans after graduation, all sorts of things. Will this help my creative process? We'll see.

Two new pieces!

Posted on 2012-02-27 09:11:00 by Kyle and tagged with Pieces

The past week or so has been busy, but as far as music goes, I have two new pieces! Which further proves that I’m somehow managing to get things done. So let’s talk about these new pieces.

Nocturne for Prepared Piano (and unprepared pianist) is a nine-minute work for prepared piano (duh) and theatrical pianist, and it takes Chopin’s E-minor nocturne as its source material. The work explores two primary themes including the obvious textural/timbrel changes to the piano and the emotional impact of things simply not going your way.

Skepticism for solo clarinet was written for Arianna Tieghi for the 2012 International Arts Educators Forum in Perugia, Italy. Because Ms. Tieghi is looking for a piece from all 50 states, I figured I would write a piece highlighting the stereotypical Missourian response: Skepticism. The work begins in skeptical 12-tone and moves to a convincing, whimsical, tonal melody.

Nocturne is scheduled to be premiered in mid-April, 2012, while Skepticism should be premiered in July. I’ll be forgoing the usual posting of musical examples until after the premieres. Meanwhile, I’m off to work on a piece for cello and electronics!

Chair, and back again

Posted on 2012-02-21 04:30:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

When I'm not composing (or rather, when I'm taking breaks from composing), I like to work on furniture (in case you couldn't tell from the desk-building post). I've specifically been a fan of mission-style furniture, which is fortunate since OU apparently is as well. Not that I choose colleges based on their furniture choices or anything... But because OU has a multitude of mission-style furnishings, sometimes these things break, or get worn out, or the university just decides to get rid of them, and they sell them at the University Surplus store, which is only open to the public one day a week (and has a glorious selection of everything). And because I have jobs that require me to sit on the internet all day, (heh. "requires") I was excited when I found that they had at least one mission-style dining chair for sale. Of course, the university has these things everywhere, and when I bought my first two, they had maybe 20-30 for sale. Luckily they hadn't sold the one they had by the time Steven and I showed up, and shortly thereafter I left, 5 dollars poorer, and 1 chair richer.

So the chair arrives back at my apartment, and I'm finally able to sum it up. It's a little shaky, it's scratched, the wood color is off, and the choice in fabric is...special. So of course, I started the refinishing process by taking it apart.

All those spots? That's the dust that was in my living room from disassembling this thing.

Of course, after taking the entire thing apart, sanding off the old finish, I had to put it back together. I've omitted some steps, but here it is, reassembled.

While waiting for the glue to dry, I found the fabric that matches my existing chairs (it lives in one of the drawers in the spare bathroom for some unknown reason).

And so, after several days of matching stains and getting the runs out of the varnish, I ended up with this:

Overall, after $5 for the chair, another $5 for stain and a dropcloth, $20 for adjustable clamps (which I'll use frequently), and $0 for the leftover fabric, varnish, and brushes, I ended up with a high-quality chair that has a story. Now if I could only find another one...

Talking. About music.

Posted on 2012-02-06 08:28:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

I hate public speaking.

This is nothing new to anyone who has known me for more than three minutes, and I’ve certainly gotten better at it since I’ve been in Oklahoma, but I still avoid it every chance I get. I’m usually fairly quiet when I’m around new people, and I don’t usually say much in class (I maintain that I got through my thesis defense because the committee was surprised that I actually spoke).

But one of the things that composers have to do is talk. Especially about their music. Especially to other people. Not that we’re good at it. But it still falls into the category of things we have to do.

And so, with 2012 being a year where I’m focusing on personal growth, I decided to take an open slot at this month’s Oklahoma Composer’s Association Norman Salon concert (OCANS?). The OCA salon concerts are a casual performance and Q&A session with the composer, and a good time is usually had by all. So I took Creatures from the Black Bassoon and played it for a group of composers and musicians and music lovers, fielded questions and comments about the piece, and then went out for milkshakes.

And it was awesome.

It’s interesting how an audience can pick out things that you haven’t noticed, or hadn’t intended. Of course, I’m new to all manner of electronic music, so hearing the audience reaction (and mine) was enlightening. It was fun. I want to do it again.

There’s something empowering about talking about one’s own music. Like, I can’t be contradicted. No one can tell me “You weren’t thinking about the complex relation between polyharmonic tetrachords, you were thinking about Batman.” I ran into the same thing when I conducted Peter and the Wolf at Drury. “I have an orchestra. AND I’M UNSTOPPABLE.”

So yeah. I’d like to do it again.

And besides, I could really go for another milkshake.

Prepared piano/Unprepared pianist

Posted on 2012-01-24 10:42:00 by Kyle and tagged with Pieces

As I was driving through the southern parts of Missouri and Kansas over break, thinking about everything I wanted to write this semester, I kept coming up with ideas for prepared piano (which was kind of unfortunate, since I was really needing to think of ideas for solo clarinet, but more on that later). Amongst all the ridiculous ideas (of which I have many), I came back to a phrase I've wanted to use as a title for a while, which involves the juxtaposed ideas of prepared piano and unprepared pianist. The immediate problem with that idea is that no one wants to hear an unprepared pianist on unprepared piano so it would stand to reason that no one would want to hear the same unpreparation on a prepared instrument. During the drive, I figured out how to make the piece work.

Pianists are saved from many of the pitfalls of wind instruments. Reed issues, wrong partials, everything having to do with intonation, stuff like that are not really problems (Of course, pianists have their own issues, like having to keep track of ~10 notes instead of 1, moving their instruments, all the mechanical voodoo that makes hammers strike keys, etc). But usually, assuming your piano is in tune, and is operating normally, if you hit an E-flat, something resembling all other piano E-flats come out.

Usually.

And that's where our "Unprepared Pianist" part comes in. No one sits down at a piano to play a well-known piece, and expect anything other than piano noises to come out. And so, this piece I'm working on for prepared piano, is part prepared piano, part unprepared (or unexpectant) pianist, part Chopin's Nocturne in E minor, part theatre, and part ridiculous.

Maybe next week I'll go into the process of writing it, but here's how it is right now, without the theatrics added. In fact, this is merely Jennifer Tripi playing the aforementioned nocturne on a prepared piano.

And for kicks and giggles, here's Tripi playing Paradisi's Toccata in A on the same piano.

Workspace Upgrades

Posted on 2012-01-17 04:00:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

In the last installment of my adventures in workspaces, we were introduced to the new desk. Of course, all those pictures were taken in Poplar Bluff (where the post was written), and since then I've actually moved the desk to Norman (with a detour to Kansas to visit Amanda). But when we last saw the desk, it was...intact. Complete. When it arrived in Norman, it looked like this:

Or, perhaps to better see how it's folded,

So after getting the desk out of the car, getting it up the stairs to the apartment, and getting the office rearranged how I think I'll like it (mostly with the help of Steven Eiler), I have a new workspace. So here it is.

The new desk gives me a larger working area (which will be great when I have to move everything off of it so I can use oversized staff paper), and moving the black bookcase closer to the desk makes paperwork far easier. There's not much new to say about the speakers and monitor, other than they work. Of course, with the new desk where the old desk used to sit, I had to move the old desk across the room. As it's L-shaped, there aren't a lot of great places to put such a desk. I played around with the idea of putting it next to the new desk and having an oversized work area, but I instead opted to put it across the room, allowing me to have two separate work areas.

Of course, this necessitated the moving of the keyboards to where the bookcase was, which meant the bookcase had to go where the black bookcase was, which meant the black bookcase had to go next to the L-desk. The Lesk, if you will. The Lesk also gives me room to put the laptop and tablet so they're out of my way while working on the desktop. And that's the new setup. What do you think?

A rock I am.

Posted on 2012-01-15 06:40:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

Friend and fellow ridiculous composer Steven Eiler has embarked on a project to learn and record a different song each week, so when he asked me to join him this week, how could I refuse? I grabbed the closest piece of sheet music to my desk (which so happened to be Simon and Garfunkel's I am a Rock, for reasons I won't explain), a bass, and a banjo, and headed over to Château Eiler for some extended recording. This is what emerged: http://steveneiler.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-am-rock.html

Deskbuilding!

Posted on 2012-01-02 18:30:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

I’ve written/posted pictures about my workspace before (most recently, here), but through this semester I’ve been thinking about increasing my desk space. This all started when I was working on the Thesis, and had to move my dining room table into the office to handle the oversized staff paper. My current L-shaped desk is fine, but I’ve been thinking that I’d really like to have a dedicated computer desk. Like a writing desk. A mission-style writing desk. Since I’ll be moving around for a while until I’m settled, something portable. How about something that folds? A folding, mission-style writing desk. That’s cheap.

No one makes that desk. So in the great Vanderburgian tradition, I decided to design it myself. Luckily, while I was back home for Christmas, dad and I were able to build it. Here’s how that adventure went. It all started with a basic plan.

Basically, the desk is built in panels. The back panel, about four feet in length, is attached to the two side panels, which are about two feet in length. These side panels are hinged to the back, and fold in to save space while traveling. The skinny part of the top is attached to that back panel, and the dark line across the desktop is a piano hinge that allows the top to be folded down.

The basic measurements I decided on for the desk are 30” tall, 4.5’ wide, and 2.5’ deep. So how does the building process begin? With a sheet of mahogany plywood.

We decided to build the panels out of 1x6 hard maple, which dad had stored in the old car shop (that’s right, the Vanderburg family compound includes a woodworking shop, an upholstery shop, an automotive shop, and a classic car shop, where mine and dad’s mustangs spend their time). For some reason, our collection of maple was in the classic car shop. Here’s one of the side panels, disassembled, with the slats cut.

And here’s a picture of the slats glued to the top and bottom boards. We used dowels for these. Guess who got to drill all the holes for the dowels?

And here’s what it looks like with the sides glued on. We used a biscuit joiner for the joints here. Fun tip: If you don’t hold onto a board properly when using a biscuit joiner, it is within the realm of possibility that the board will fly across the shop. Not that this…actually…happened…more than once.

Multiply this by two, and you have your sides. The back, on the other hand, requires a bit more wood, but overall is the same. We decided on 10 slats in this one instead of 5. Here’s some wood:

And here’s what it looks like all clamped together and waiting to dry.

We tried several different colors of stain (on scrap wood), because someone wanted them to match his dining room chairs, without knowing what stain we used on those chairs. We ended up mixing a color that’s close enough. Here’s a picture of the three panels, stained (the third panel is hiding behind the rightmost slat on the back. They’re standing on end because the laws of physics don’t apply in Poplar Bluff. Or, they’re wired together in a delicate balance. Your pick).

Add a coat or two of varnish to all of that, and of course, to the desktop (with trim added to the edges), and it’s ready to assemble. Here’s the desktop.

I don’t have any pictures of the assembly because it was essentially screwing piano hinges to everything, and usually required all four hands. But here’s how it turned out:

I unfortunately don’t have a picture of it folded (yet), but I’ll include that when I load it into my car.

So overall, I have a desk for almost-free. The only things we had to buy were 2 4-foot piano hinges (one of those was cut in half and used for the two leg-back joints), and 50 screws for the top hinge (because somehow the half-inch screws that were included went all the way through the half-inch wood). Overall, it took around 56 man-hours to complete. I’ve left out a lot of the measurement errors, equipment problems, and a lot of time waiting for the glue to dry. And of course, it helps to have a fully-stocked woodworking shop.

Once I return to Norman, I’ll be reworking my office, and I’ll hopefully have something moderately interesting to write about that process.