Date of Submission

Spring 2016

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Music

Project Advisor 1

Matthew Sargent

Abstract/Artist's Statement

“Twenty Pt. Two” consists of 20 songs (16 recorded and 4 live) and 20 videos. The concept was quite simple: to achieve my goal of producing, recording, performing, filming, editing, and composing 20 pieces by my project date, April 6th. Since the videos and songs spanned from September 2015-April 2016, the project became a digital documentation of what happened to me in my senior year.

To create the music, I used multiple keyboards, guitar, electronics, voice, drum machine, and live drums. I used the Bard studio and also did a lot of home recording on my laptop and tape player. This gave the music a very dynamic range because I combined my usual home recording situation with more polished studio recordings. In addition to the recorded portion of the music, I wrote 4 ensemble pieces for cello, flute, piano, horn, and voice. This was my first time writing for unfamiliar instruments. Since I do not come from a conservatory background and have very little experience with notation, this part was a struggle, but turned out to be extremely successful. I feel that the project would have been lacking something without a live element.

The videos were created in response to each song I produced. I used multiple cameras in the process. I filmed and edited everything on my own. This part of the project was really exciting for me. I only truly discovered my love for video art in my junior year so being able to integrate it so heavily in my senior project was very satisfying for me.

Being a very personal project, the process was often very emotional for me. However, the most emotional part of the entire process was on April 6th, when I watched an audience watch my life. It was almost as if there was an audience looking into a recent diary of mine. I have performed comfortably for a few years now, but this exhibition of myself took more confidence than I knew I had in me.

…A wonderful way to close out my time at Bard.

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