The following files provide the curious listener with an opportunity
to get an idea of what my music sounds like. The interested performer
may be better served by my score extracts.
The sound samples available here are not complete works. They are basically
meant to help answer the question "What is your music like?" and
to encourage you to barrage your local radio station, new music concert
organization, or chamber music ensemlbe with requests to perform my music.
At present there are no commercially available recordings with complete
works. When recordings become available, this WWW Site will be the first to know.
Many of these files are big. This is, sadly, not for those with slow internet connections.
"Why so big?" I hear someone ask.
The bandwidth required for full-resolution CD quality really should not be surprising if
you consider what nominal CD quality is: two-channel 16 bit samples at 44.1 kHz.
In other words: to represent one second of audio, you need 44,100 x 16 x 2 bits.
In other words: one second of audio is 1,411,200 bits.
That's just over 172 kilobyte per second. Or 10.094 MB per minute.
Given the enthusiasm with which kids these days will download 100 MB and more for
entertainment software of dubious legality and even more doubtful moral value,
I don't really see 30MB for a few minutes audio as prohibitive. Granted, this
will be a bit tedious with your 33.6 kbit modem connection.
"Why not use MPEG? Why not use MIDI?" I hear.
MPEG audio does, indeed, get away with considerably less bandwidth than AIFF or
other, non-compressed audio encoding methods. It does this by trading off
audio quality, using psycho-acoustic phenomenom based on how we hear typical
audio signals to trick us into believing the quality is better than it really is.
My electro-acoustic music is not "typical audio signals".
I certainly hear the difference between AIFF and MPEG encodings of these
pieces, even when using the highest quality MPEG parameters.
My instrumental music does not suffer to the same degree as the electro-acoustic
stuff, so I've conceded to bandwidth considerations on these entries. Most recordings
of my instrumental music were made in live performance, often with distinctly
lo-fi gear. So MPEG is not a big loss. Also, you presumably know what a piano, a flute, a 'cello
sounds like and your ear will compensate to some extent for the small disparities between
MPEG and the real thing.
MIDI is another question. Practically all of my instrumental music makes use of
playing techniques not available in the General MIDI repertoire: be it "snap"
pizzicato, string harmonics, or extended wind techniques. And I have yet to find a MIDI
"Acoustic Grand Piano" that can emulate effects of resonance found on a real Steinway
(never mind the 70 note chord in 90 M.M.--a classic example of "MIDI smearing").
So, no MIDI (although I may in future post a MIDI rendering of one or another arrangement).
"Why no .WAVs?"
The amount of storage available on this HTTP host is limited, and my quotas
are not high enough to provide both AIFF and .WAV format.
Practically all audio playback software supports both formats. AIFF was
there first, available long before Microsoft thought that it might be nice
to have a format for digital audio. So that's what I use. It is arguably
marginally more convenient for those doing professional audio. Essentially,
I feel any audio developer not supporting AIFF deserves a public flogging
with FireWire cables. And just be grateful I'm not using SD II format (which
would be even more elitest and Mac-oriented).
So, without further ado...
Last modified: 27-Mar-2001