James Newton, flute
Nicole Mitchell, flute, piccolo
Serin Hong, daegeum
Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass flute
©2020 Christopher Dobrian
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Interproviplaytions — Christopher Dobrian
These works for flute and computer present a series of compositions/experiments exploring human-computer interaction, undertaken with four virtuosic colleagues and friends who inspired me with their extraordinary musicianship, skill, and insight. The pieces integrate composition, improvisation, and computer programming of interactive algorithmic audio processing. Each recording is of a single take, in studio, with the computer performing fully automatically.
1. Insta-pene-playtion 7:59
James Newton, flute
This musical material originated as sixteen composed 4-second phrases, performed by James Newton and algorithmically edited and spatialized by an automated computer system. The sound processing method captures windowed grains (small fragments) of recorded sound, each of which is distorted in pitch and duration, then overlapped to create a variety of novel polyphonic textures that combine into a continuous formal structure.
2. Mannam (Encounter) 13:26
Serin Hong, daegeum
While living in Korea, I pondered how a computer program could harmoniously interact with Korean traditional music (gugak).This composition, while fully notated, permits considerable interpretive liberty to the performer to shape the phrases idiomatically. The computer program tracks the shape of the player's nuances of pitch and dynamics, and responds with many different modes of improvisatory behavior, in order to support the live performance with adequate sophistication and expressivity.
3. In Tongues 12:41
James Newton, flute
In the course of our many conversations, James Newton described the diverse and intercontinental influences that formed his unique sound world on the flute. As a way of inspiring his improvisation, I programmed the computer to respond to his playing with sounds that deliberately evoke those influences, and devised accompanying audio effects that complement and respond to his energetic virtuosic style.
4. Indignant Minority Scheme 7:54
Nicole Mitchell, flute
Christopher Dobrian, iPad
This piece examines the correspondence between the gestural, kinetic nature of music and the physical gestures of drawing. The curves drawn on the computer tablet are translated into synthesized musical phrases, providing an active conversation with the improvised phrases of the flutist.
5. This Will Change 5:19
Nicole Mitchell, piccolo
Christopher Dobrian, iPad
Using the same interactive software as in the preceding piece, here the drawing gestures performed on the tablet are translated as parametric controls for audio effects applied to the sound of the piccolo. Nicole Mitchell employs simultaneous singing and playing to create multiphonic tones, which are further harmonized by the computer.
6. Play for Me 15:08
Beate-Gabriela Schmitt, contrabass flute
In this freely improvised performance, the rich and turbulent sound of the contrabass flute passes through a series of sound processing algorithms that have their own independently composed formal structure. All the sounds in the piece are derived from the live captured sound of the instrument.
Mastering and production: Christopher Dobrian
Recording engineers: Christopher Dobrian, Ben Israel, Blake Harrison-Lane
Drum samples for Indignant Minority Scheme: Oliver Dobrian
Cover: Magnolia #10, monotype by Amy Dobrian
Flyleaf: Magnolia #2 (detail), monotype by Amy Dobrian
Graphic design: Kourosh Beigpour
This page was last modified October 3, 2020.
Christopher Dobrian
dobrian@uci.edu