For Multi-Percussion Duet. Duration: 6'00"

laminar flow (noun) : an uninterrupted flow in a fluid near a solid boundary in which the direction of flow at every point remains constant - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Seeing actual examples of laminar flow are always striking to the eye. The fluid either looks frozen in place or looks like an optical illusion; it may seem like the fluid is not in a state of motion, when, in reality, it is flowing so smoothly that the fluid appears completely undisturbed. This piece is loosely based off of this state of motion, the idea of motion in general, and the broad concept of looking/sounding like one thing while being another thing. Laminar Flow moves between tempos through an uninterrupted flow of metric modulations while also moving between rhythms and keeping the stickings/rudiments the same or moving between stickings/rudiments and keeping the rhythms the same. This piece also plays on the double entendre of "flow" - in this case referring to the word's usage to describe motion and its usage to describe groove.

Recorded on 8/31/2023.

PDF Download. For Percussion Quartet. Duration: 8'30"

The title "Stutter Step" comes from the move basketball players use to throw their defender off-balance so they can get an easy pass or shot in. The basic idea is to use some quick steps to fake out your defender so you can make a move to get around them and take your shot. This pairing of quick steps and a second move is what makes the stutter step effective. That idea of pairing short and long is at the core of this piece. The melodic material utilizes the octatonic scale, which is comprised of pairings of half steps (short) and whole steps (long). To no one's surprise, the rhythmic material utilizes pairings of short and long notes. The odd time signatures and unexpected pauses and skips disguises the beat, tries to throw the listener off-balance, and challenges them to keep up.

PDF download. For Snare Drum and Percussion Quartet. Duration: 5'30"

The inspiration for the piece came from my love for rudimental drumming, marked by the snare drum and bass drum duets throughout. The keyboard material reflects the dramatic and powerful nature of rudimental drumming, employing numerous open 5ths and octaves, often played with the double vertical 4-mallet stroke type. The “Concerto” portion of the title is a loose term and refers to the form of this piece. Concerto for Snare Drum is roughly based on the 1st Movement Sonata Form common with most concertos, starting with a solo statement, moving into the A section, then B section, then back to the A section with a cadenza. In the recordings I’ve done, I outfitted a concert snare drum with a marching snare head. This provided a more “traditional” rudimental sound while still preserving the lightness of the concert snare drum. This reflects the concept piece as a whole by bridging the gap between the marching and concert percussion idioms.

Premiered in person at my Senior Recital on 11/7/21.

PDF Download. For Flute, Bb Clarinet, and Prepared Vibraphone.

Is music created by artificial intelligence a valid form of art? Can it even be considered music? Can artificial intelligence grasp the creative depth of music or is there something uniquely human about it that ensures musicians will still have jobs for at least the foreseeable future? These are all questions that have interested me since the release of OpenAI's advanced language model ChatGPT in late 2022.

I wanted to test ChatGPT at a very basic level. I wanted to see what it would give me if I asked for 7 random notes. It gave me, in order, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, clearly not random at all. It did give me more interesting notes after asking it to be more random, but that first response was still strange to me. It felt like it had malfunctioned because it had made the mistake so confidently and unknowingly. I confronted ChatGPT about this and it actually apologized for the mistake. I also asked it to write a poem about the validity of AI music, and ChatGPT produced an endorsement of it. The full text of my questions and its responses can be found on the following pages.

Its responses were the inspiration for this piece. I stuck strictly to the notes it provided me, but threw in a few "malfunctions" of my own. These malfunctions are the hiccups, moments of sudden drastic change, quartertone notes, moments of repetition, etc. that were designed to make the piece feel like it's skipping all over the place like a malfunctioning computer.

PDF Download. For Voice (Tenor), Violin, Double Bass, and Drum Set. Duration: 5'00"

"The Imposter" by Ryan Townsend is a poem that portrays the struggle between your true inner-self and your fake outer-self. The poem describes an entity - the imposter - trying to claw and scratch his way out of the prison you have attempted to place him in. Sometimes you are successful in being your true, authentic self, but other times he breaks free and takes over interacting with others. This composition contains multitudes of extended techniques and sounds that replicate scratching, clawing, crying, moaning, creaking, popping, etc. that follow the internal struggle with the imposter in the poem. The themes for both the true self and fake self are at constant odds with each other and manifest themselves both separately and together through the weave of their rhythmic and melodic material.