Video clip by Mari Kimura, 2014.

Spin Cycles is a composition for violin, live signal processing via Max/MSP, and choreographed movement.  Conceptually it was seeded by articles I’d read about how plants transmit information about stress, as well as the ancient myth of Apollo and Daphne, who turns into a tree to escape him.  I also considered many situations of sounds emanating from or surrounding trees, from rustling of leaves to the nesting of birds, the creaking of branches bending in the wind, and so on.  Then I improvised on the violin, aided by Max, trying to find satisfying musical analogies to these sounds of nature and of human interaction with both nature and technology.  The finished piece developed from these materials.

Technical note:

In performance, I wear a wireless microphone and a wireless motion sensor to control the Max patch via my body’s movement.  The sensor has an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer.  This sensor is an ideal tool for me, given my interest in combining musical performance with physical motion.