Break Out
Solo Trumpet and Live Electronics
ca. 6-7 minutes in duration
Completed February 10th, 2019
Commissioned and Premiered by Evan Fowler of the University of Iowa at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee on April 27th, 2019
Accepted to the 2020 New Music on the Bayou Villier Festival (Online Performances Only)
Break Out is intended to serve as a commentary and interpretation of performance anxiety. In order to represent this, I utilize Pure data in order to create and loop samples of the performer playing their notated material through various times during the first several minutes of the piece. I then have the performer playback the recordings with slight electronic processing, which begin to gradually conflicts and obstructs the performer as the material keeps returning and repeating. This effect is intended to represent the performer being overwhelmed by their hesitancy and possible mistakes until the climax of the piece where they ultimately break through their fears and hesitation and complete their performance.
Sometimes we end up being our own biggest obstacle.
To run the electronics, unzip the file below and open the file ‘Break Out_Master.pd’. All instructions are then located in the patch and in the score.
Any questions regarding the electronics can be directed towards Matt here.
Recommended Performance Gear:
MIDI foot pedal: Zoom FS-01 (or something similar)
Microphone: ‘Audio-Technica Pro-35 Clip On’ or ‘AKG C519ML’ (or something similar)
Pure Data (free audio processing software)
This Pure Data Patch