Scott L. Miller

Open Instrumentation Any number of instruments, voices, or electronics

Composer's Note:

Spring 2020 introduced a new reality concerning music making and the audience experi- ence. Consequently, I began experimenting with a variety of performers and ensembles telematically, over the internet, and created graphic scores to guide my experiments, many of which employed interactive electronics programmed in Kyma. The sonic network I normally would create with Kyma and performers would be in the same room, connecting electronic and acoustic sounds with microphones and speakers. In this new paradigm, the sonic network is distributed across communication networks intended for business meet- ings and conferences. Because of this, I was interested in hearing how specific contrasting musical elements behave and sound in this telematic music environment. This led me to create graphic scores focused on particular aspects of sound, indicated by the titles, while leaving other dimensions open, such as instrumentation, timbre, tempo, and pitch. I also found myself working in a modular fashion, combining and recombining a limited palette of graphic elements to produce the scores. This work is dedicated to my friends, distant in geography but close in spirit, who persevered with me through many challenging rehears- als as I learned how to make music with other people in this new environment.