We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Drifting Nuance

by Misty Shore Duo

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Purchases comes with a PDF of the liner notes and a BONUS alternative take of Jacob Sudol's "…spaces to listen to from within (vi)," unlimited streaming via the free bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 7 Misty Shore Duo (Chen-Hui Jen & Jacob Sudol) releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Waking Illusion, Wandering Spirit, "…wash yourself of yourself", Drifting Nuance, Dream Dialogues, Stillness and Waves, and Memories and Memorial. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $41.65 USD or more (15% OFF)

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

about

As we approach four months in quarantine, many of my friends and I have noticed how our perception of time have slowed to such a pace that the time before quarantine feels more like a few years ago than a few months ago. Relatedly, throughout this time as I’ve tried to refocus myself away from the daily onslaught of upsetting news, I’ve become progressively more attuned to the many of the slow changes in nature. For example, I have become fascinated with how progressively slowly the days have warmed as we’ve entered summer; the way that thunderstorms rise to tremendous heights over the Everglades before spilling rain and thunder into Miami; or the long slow way that the light shifts against the sky, river, and clouds as each day wanes towards evening. The music in this program was chosen to reflect and comment on the sort of drifting nuances found in these gradual changes.

Chen-Hui Jen’s two Préludes begin the program with multiple comments on the changes in nature. The first Préludes titled Distant Birds (light-vented bulbuls) references a species of bird that, each summer, nests and gives birth to chicks in a bamboo plant on the front patio of her parent’s condo in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The second movement reflects both on the winds she and I see every day blowing over the Miami River as well as the winds that blow across the Pacific Ocean to Taiwan.

Both John Luther Adams works on the program rely on the sort of highly constrained algorithmically generated cyclical materials that Adams uses in many of his compositions. In this way, each of the two works presents a different way of shifting and evolving perspective on similar yet always changing materials.

In my work, …spaces to listen to from within (vi) for brainwave controlled electronics with piano the focus is instead on the drifting nature of our own minds. An Interaxon Muse wireless EEG attached to the performer constantly measures and reports two types of information roughly correlated to interoceptive brain activities – "concentration" and "calmness" – along with blink data. This information is continually mapped to the electronic sounds to sonify the performer's brain activity. For example, relative "concentration" data mostly controls the loudness of the sounding electronic drones, so that greater the concentration, the louder the sound, and vice-versa. "Calmness" data controls the general movement of the electronic sounds in space so that the less calm the performer is the greater the movement, and vice-versa. Blinks trigger sustained bell chimes that subtly perturb the waters.

Jeff Herriott’s Verdant Transformations was the first compositions we chose for this program and the one around all of the other works were selected. In each of the five movements of this piece the piano explores nearly elemental materials such as five note harmonies articulated in shifting arpeggios or a slow progression of triads and tetrads that usually sound against an electronic part that constantly randomly recombines different sections of a sound so that the performer and the listener are both always aware of the slowly drifting nuance in within the sound.

As a small aside, will mixing and mastering this album, I had trouble deciding which take of my work to select, as Chen-Hui’s brain activity was so different in each. After quite a bit of consideration I decided to select the second take, yet also include the third as a sort of bonus track and – also – as way to demonstrate how different her brain can respond to the same material during a recorded performance.

Jacob David Sudol
July 3, 2020
Miami, FL

credits

released July 3, 2020

Piano: Chen-Hui Jen
Electronics, Recording, Production, and Notes: Jacob David Sudol
Front and Back Cover Design/Photography: Chen-Hui Jen

Recorded: June 29 and 30, 2020
@ The Misty Shore Studio, Miami, FL

©2020 Misty Shore Studio, All Rights Reserved.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Misty Shore Duo (Chen-Hui Jen & Jacob Sudol) Miami, Florida

Composer and performer duo with Dr. Chen-Hui Jen (piano/composition) and Dr. Jacob Sudol (computer/composition).

Dedicated to presenting and promoting contemporary music with any combination of piano and electronics, with a special emphasis on works by Asian, female, and minority composers.
... more

contact / help

Contact Misty Shore Duo (Chen-Hui Jen & Jacob Sudol)

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Misty Shore Duo (Chen-Hui Jen & Jacob Sudol) recommends:

If you like Drifting Nuance, you may also like: