Experimental Music
This page features music I've made not played by traditional musicians, or created in unique ways. It doesn't include the music for elephants with the Thai Elephant Orchestra and Da Hiphop Raskalz, who get their own devoted webpages.
Music with unconventional collaborators: children
Music with unconventional collaborators: non-human animals
Music with unconventional collaborators: the People's Will (with Komar & Melamid)
Fugue from the great outdoors
EEG brainwave music
Music with unconventional collaborators: children
Matarile
I worked with kids from West Harlem on Matarile in 1991 – when you could hear gun shots every night in their neighborhood. Tthese extremely sweet little kids could identify different guns by sound and imitate them. The kids made ALMOST all the sounds, and Rory Young and I just mixed. It was released on the CD Smut (Avant Records).
Matarile
Matarile performers: Wilson Arias - Rap, Jose R. Cespedes - Conga, Tamboura; Rafael de los Santos - Piano;Willie Hernandez - Bass, Guitar; Deyamira de Luna, Marielys Divanne, Fioremi Felix , Yokaira Feliz, Ana Maria Gonzalez, Wilson Hidalgo,Merlyn Jaime, Bianel Ramos, Dolly Rosario, Victor Rosea, Julio Sanchez, Alejandro Taveras, Rocio Taveras -Vocals.
Aliens Took My Mom
2000
Tangerine Awkestra
The avant garde flutist and Fort Green, Brooklyn school teacher Katie Down and I coached her class,ranging from 2-9 years old, in making an Avant Garde group, that they named the Tangerine Awkestra (2000). Here the kids made all the sounds. The piece is mostly a story they made up of Aliens invading New York.
1. Aliens Invade from Jupiter
2. Spaceships on the Empire State Building
3. Volcanoes Explode at the Center of the Earth
4. The aliens blow up Antarctica
5. Minuet for Recorder and Violin (J.S. Bach)
6. Aliens Took My Mom
7. The Navy Bombs Them Up
8. Twelve Bar Blues (Sonny Rollins)
9. All of the humans blow up
10. The Aliens Get Nuclear Bugs in Them and Pop
11. The Aliens Blow Up, Pt. 2
12. Everything Is Soft
Yol Ku: Inside the Sun
To be released fall 2008, I coached high school children from San Mateo Ixtatan, a Mayan community in Guatemala to write music using the traditional giant marimbas. Except for the hip hop piece in Chuj, these use games with different colored tapes on the marimba keys.
Casamiento de los Apaches
Oracion de la Cruz
El Bello Quetzal
Xan Matin Mix
Noble Cazador
Fiesta de los Mayas
Music with unconventional collaborators: the People's will
The People's Choice Music
1997
with Komar & Melamid
From a poll of American musical preferences, lyrics by Nina Mankin, music by Dave Soldier. Komar and Melamid were in the midst of designing paintings determined by national surveys of likes and dislikes, and so I suggested that we try it with music as well, which became The People's Choice: Music (1997). I wrote the survey, and with lyricist Nina Makin, wrote the Most Wanted Song and the Most Unwanted Song. Read the lyrics. These pieces ought to be accompanied by answers to the survey, which you can read on the Mulatta website, or better yet, buy the CD and see them all displayed.
The most wanted song
The most unwanted song
Performers: Ada Dyer, Dina Emerson, Ronnie Gent- Vocals; Christine Bard - Percussion; Vernon Reid - Guitar; Andy Snitzer - Saxophone; David Soldier - Banjo, Violin, Drums, Keyboards, Liner Notes; Rory Young - Drums, Engineer; Lisa Haney - Cello; Norman Yamada - Conductor; David Watson - Bagpipes; Yuri Lemeshev - Accordion; Dave Grego - Tuba; Mary Bopp - Organ; Vitaly Komar & Alex Melamid- Bass drum
download the survey
Music with unconventional collaborators: non-human animals
Music by zebrafinches
Similiar to the Thai Elephant Orchestra, I found that songbirds will also play instruments if they are provided with something ergonomic to trigger and if they like the sound - they like brass instruments and hate distorted rock guitar.
Zebra finches playing brass samples
playing bigband samples
and gamelan samples.
Music by pygmy chipmanzees
Gordon Shaw and I started to coach pygmy chimps, and I am pretty sure that they would enjoy playing instruments given the opportunity and plenty of effort. We didn't have a chance to record what they did play, which was mostly waving handbells. Gordon passed away after a short illness in April, 2005. He was the promulgator of "the Mozart effect", which uses music to help children with abstract thinking. Please see his MIND Institute.
Marsh Fugue
A "fugue" made from crickets, fish, frogs, and nightbirds in the swamp. It's the last track of "Inspect for Damaged Gods", left unmentioned in the cover notes.
Marsh Fugue (2004)
Brainwave music
This is a collaboration with Brad Garton using brainwaves (EEGs or electroencephlograms) to control music in real time: there are no overdubs.
We call them either "unconscious music", where one composes without being aware of the music , or "prosthetic music" in which you attempt to control your brainwaves (e.g., closing your eyes is a classic way to control alpha waves).
Trio for Brainwaves and Percussion
Features Valerie Naranjo (gyil, an African mallet instrument), Barry Olsen (hand drums), Benny Koonyevsky (cajon, a musical box), each triggering brainwaves: this is all in real time with no overdubbing.
Part 1: the players move their hands to play the instruments, but don't actually touch them, but the cortical brainwaves trigger the notes
Part 2: the play their instruments at a range of tempos, and the EEG signals trigger sounds in part depending on their activity
Part 3: the players try to sync up with Benny's beats from his brainwaves
Part 4: the players imagine playing, and try to move their hands while sitting on them
an article in the Scientist about a live performance of Trio for percussion & brainwaves
Alpha wave mix
this is a "prosthetic" solo where I try to control samples from my string quartet by producing alpha waves from the back of my cortex: it's like playing the piano with boxing gloves
Reading Stephen Colbert
this is "unconscious" music that I'm producing by reading a page from Colbert's book and listening to what happens when I laugh
Duo for sensory and motor cortex
"prosthetic" music where I move my hands or pinch myself and read brainwaves from the side of the cortex
a video interview on Scienceline with Dave at the Brooklyn Academy of Music about this project
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