Opaque Melodies: Chronological List of All Works, Pt.3

Fixed Music on Disc by David Mooney

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Chronological List of All Works, Pt. 3

<1971 - 1998><1998 - 2000><2001 - 2002><2002 - 2003><2004 - >
<format note><usage note>

2004 -

Why Do You Want to Come to Santa Barbara Graduate School? 2004 7:59: RealAudio: 0:56; Recording: elektramusic: Electroacoustic Music Volume 02; Performance: International Computer Music Conference, University of Miami,
2004; SEAMUS Conference, Ball State University, 2005; Broadcast: elektramusic RadioShow for Experimental Music, Bourges,
France, January, 2007, and July - August, 2007; A Collaborative work with Maxine Heller, who wrote and read the text. Seems like Maxine's ex's mom wanted him to straighten up and go to graduate school, specifically Santa Barbara Graduate School in his home town. He didn't want to go but to get Mom off his back, he applied. To assure his failure he asked Maxine to write a bogus essay in answer to the titular question. Alas, the admissions officer loved it and he had to go back to school.
WMD: Naming Names 2004 6:55: Performance: On Agreement and Conflict. Zèppelin 04 Festival, Barcelona, 2004;
repeated at Zaragoza, September 2004; Where are the Weapons of Mass destruction? The text in this work consists mainly of the names of nuclear devices detonated since 1945 by the United States and other countries. Iraq is not among them.

Jocks 2004 -: The following compositions are from Jocks: a fixed music opera in the fourth person for disintegrating tape and digital audio workstation. See the Jocks page for details.
Kalvos & Damian RadioArt Project 2005 59:39: An invitational compilation of works with commentary and some messing around created for Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar.
Catacoustics 2005 1:00: Broadcast: Martian Gardens, WMUA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
June 12, 2005; Catacousitcs: The branch of acoustics that studies echoes. Sounds provided by Wizard the Cat. Used with permission. Composed for Vox Novus's 60x60.
Chasers 2005 10:08: This work celebrates (if that is the correct term) our employment as library pages. Maxine Heller worked at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP). I worked at the Richmond, Virginia, Public Library (RPL). The text Maxine read for the piece is from CLP Instructions for Pages from the 1950s. I read from an addendum to the official RPL Page Manual that contains--well, mishuggas: speed records and various chronicles of ridiculous library events. Additional sounds were derived from a 1971 recording made in the RPL page workroom and a 2005 recording made at CLP.
The Worm's Turn 2005 1:43: Recording: Music from SEAMUS 20 year Anniversary 1984 -
2004: The SEAMUS 20th Anniversary Electroclips Contest; Performance: EuCue Series XXV (Electroacoustique Universite Concordia
University Electroacoustics), Concordia University, Montreal, November 10, 2006; Composed for the The Seamus 20th Anniversary Electroclips Project.
Hairpin 2006 1:00: Performance: 2008 Yeosu (South Korea) International Art Festival, "Garden
of Delights"; Composed from field recordings made at the 2005 Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix at the double hairpin turn on the Schenley Park race course. Really, really loud!
Pivot Seal and Gasket 2006 6:47: Depending on how you punctuate it, the title refers to some sort of machine component, a variety act (Gasket’s the dog), or instructions for a hot new dance step. Field recordings of crowd sounds are supplemented with recordings of The Incredible Space Phone (http://www.damert.com/gizmos/gizmos.html), and a wind chime constructed from nine pound window sash weights.
Wheel 2007 1:00: mp3: Stream, Download: 1:00; Wheel, as in reinventing the--. Csound was used to generate some of the "classic" sounds of early electronic music. To paraphrase Schönberg: There is still a lot of good music waiting to be written with amplitude modulation.
A Little Noise Goes a Long Way 2007 5:48: Mp3. Archived at Sonus.ca; Performance: Electronic Music Midwest, Kanasas City Kansas Community College,
Kansas City, KS, 2007; Launched into uncharted sonic space a 0.2 second burst of noise encounters dangerous space-time anomalies. Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Sulu!
What's Absent Is Present 2007 8:33: An audiologist has confirmed that my hearing drops off precipitously above 6 kHz. Over 8 kHz it is gone. For this work, frequencies below 8 kHz were stripped from samples culled from various field recordings, mostly of a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. The remaining sonic content was brought down within my hearing range for a meandering stroll through what I usually can’t hear.
Olbum's Furniture 2008 7:33: Mp3. Archived at Sonus.ca; Recently a friend compiled 16mm prints of TV commercials and fragments thereof created during the 1950s and ‘60s by Al Goldman of Goldman and Shoop Advertising. These commercials ran on local TV stations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What a delight to find among them a fragment for Olbum’s Furniture, a store owned and operated by Maxine Heller's grandfather and assorted great uncles in the 1940s and ‘50s. Hurry on down, sale ends soon! Source sounds used with permission of Sherry Goldman.
Facts about Air 2008 1:00: Like all gasses, air is compressible and elastic. It transmits sound, and as compressed air it is used to transmit mechanical power. It can also be liquefied and even be reduced to a solid state provided the temperature be made sufficiently low.
Grant Us Peace 2008 7:32: The two sung phrases in this piece, "L’homme armé doibt on doubter," (You’d better fear the armed man!) and "dona nobis pacem" (grant us peace) are the first and last phrases performed by Collegium Cantorum in its concert Missa L’homme armé. This piece explores the tension between these phrases by drifting slowly between sections of sonic stridency and density and others of calm and peace. The concert consisted of the secular song "L’homme armé" and two masses, by Antoine Brumel and Josquin des Prez, which made use of the L’homme armé melody. Performed from scores prepared by Michael Donaldson, the concert was recorded April 1, 2007 at St. Mary Mother of God Catholic Church in Washington DC. The recording was used with the gracious permission of Collegium Cantorum’s music director, Timothy Kendall. The composer expresses many thanks to Mr. Kendall and the singers.

Usage note

The sound clips on this page are protected by copyright. If you want to use them as they are, or wish to hear the complete works from which they come, please contact me. However, if you want to sample from these sound clips and mutate, permute and mutilate bits and scraps for your own creative purposes, I encourage you to do so. In the end, it's all one big project.

<List of Works, Pt.2----------

"Opaque melodies that would bug most people."
Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet