Category Archives: Performances

Option Escape (2026)

Compositions, Computer Music Practice, Performances

Option Escape for laptop ensemble uses the computer’s text-to-speech functions. In 2026, the speech read by a computer still sounds artificial and quirky. The ensemble of those artificial voices can become a musical entity. To perform Option Escape, each performer should prepare a text file consisting of sentences, words, numbers, and codes. The performer should also choose a favorite voice and ready the hotkey (option+esc in Mac OSX) to start and stop the speech.

Download Score for OptionEscapeDownload

Hardware Setup

  • Minimum 5 computers with text-to-speech feature (Mac OSX preferred)
  • A multichannel audio interface OR an interface and a mic
  • Stereo PA system 
  • Audio cables to connect the laptops’ built-in outputs to the interface
  • Diagrams for two possible setups are shown below

Software Setup

  • Performers, except for the Cue part, should change the computer settings to read the text with a computer-generated voice. In the current OSX, go to System Settings -> Accessibility. Enable Speak Selection. Change System Voice at will. See the above figure. 
  • Download SuperCollider files and score
  • The performer playing the Cue part runs optionesc.scd on SuperCollider.  

Score Interpretation

  • Speak 1/2/3/4 selects and text-to-speech the text in the prepared file according to the score. If the selected text ends before the next cue, repeat text-to-speech. 
    • Paragraph: Use two or more paragraphs.
    • Sentence: Use one sentence. 
    • 3 Words: Use three words.
    • Word: Use a word.
    • Vowel/ Number/ Symbol: Use a vowel, a number, or a symbol (test the symbols beforehand) 
    • Code: Use a computer code or a web address.
  • Speak 1/2/3/4 parts should prepare an original text file for a performance. Copy-paste the texts multiple times for a better performance. An example is included in the download (or click here).
  • The notehead indicates the text-to-speech reading speed. If the measure does not have a notehead, retain the previous reading speed.
    • Natural (no sharps or flats): read at normal speed
    • Flat (b): read at a slow speed
    • Double flat (bb): read at the slower speed
    • Sharp (#): read at a fast speed
    • Double sharp (x): read at the faster speed
  • In Cue 17, performers manually fade out the computer voice while speaking the paragraphs in their own voice. End at cue
  • One performer should operate the SuperCollider file as a cue player.
    • Open OptionEsc.scd
    • Select Menu -> Evaluate File
    • When the GUI appears, press the button according to the score
    • Cue the performers for the next section, if preferred
  • Performance Tips (for Mac OS 10.15 )
    • Place the left hand on the option and escape keys at all times. To quickly change the text, highlight the text, hold the Command key, and press the Escape key twice.
    • To read text faster or slower, double-click the rabbit or turtle quickly after the computer starts speaking.

Annecdote

The audio file below is a simulation I made while composing Option Escape. The listeners at the concert felt the low and high frequencies of the beats, but the mics in the concert hall could not capture the details of the SuperCollider part. If you are an ensemble director, please listen to the recording below for consideration of your next repertoire.

Learning Aphasia

Influences, Performances, Research, Teaching

Mark Applebaum’s Aphasia (2009) for solo performer is a difficult but rewarding piece. I have been intermittently practicing it since 2021, but I have yet to reach a satisfactory level. Knowing that my run of the piece today is better than in any other day, it gives me joy and energy to keep practicing. I wanted to share that delight in the last month’s Wayne State Faculty Recital Series. Despite many mistakes, the performance was received well by students and guests. Aphasia attracts and affects audiences and performers like no other electronic pieces I know. I can think of two, perhaps very personal, reasons.

Soulslike 

Aphasia is an Elden Ring-equivalent of electroacoustic music. The unforgiving difficulty is part of the fun. In practicing Aphasia, I had innumerable  “YOU DIED” moments. Learning small sections required focus and discipline, and still, the chance of succeeding was slim. But like a soulslike game, the process of achieving goals was fun. I understood more about the piece’s structural relationships, sound design techniques, and choreographic thoughts through repeated readings, listening, and failing. 

When I memorized the piece, I felt joy, similar to the moment I beat the final boss in Elden Ring after hundreds of hours of playtime. I learned to work consistently to achieve seemingly impossible goals. Musicians, of course, acquire this trait, but I needed a reminder and reinforcement.  Practicing Aphasia during the COVID quarantine semesters did that job. 

The audience watching Aphasia immediately gets its pleasant-but-difficult aspect. It’s fun but serious. It’s confusing, but there’s the order. And it’s inviting – instead of “I can’t do what I see on stage,” the audience may feel “I want to try it one day.” Aphasia seems to be an excellent introduction to studying the performance aspect of electronic music. Once a person has experience of doing Aphasia, watching the performance has a new meaning. It’s like watching a PVP match when knowing the mechanics and insights of a video game.   

Notation

Aphasia is a fully-notated piece composed in 2009. Hundreds of performers, mainly percussionists, played it in the 2010s. In contrast to many graphic notations,  the score is not to be freely interpreted. There is a clear notion of a mistake when the performer misses the timing or makes a wrong hand gesture. This aesthetics contrasts with my solo performance practice in the 2010’s, in which I freely improvised on stage with found objects, MIDI controllers, and found objects. The improvisatory nature of my performance made the audience expect the unexpected at the expense of irreplicability – I was the only person who could perform my solo electroacoustic works. In the composer of Aphasia’s words, I was the best and the worst performer of my piece.  

While only the improviser could perform their pieces, hundreds of percussionists performed Aphasia as the composer intended. Aphasia’s technology barrier is low, and the piece is a hit in every concert. When done correctly, the piece is indistinguishable from many high-tech compositions using motion sensors or controllers. Performers can make such an experience by studying notation, like many other pieces that they have studied previously. 

Aphasia taught me the effectiveness of low technology and low dependence on improvisational skill. With well-written notation, such a composition travels far, invites more performers, and lasts long. Many mixed pieces (i.e., those with an instrument and prerecorded electronics) have the same strength, but Aphasia stands out by featuring the most accessible instrument. My recent electronic ensemble pieces reflect this approach. They are built to be transferable, non-virtuostic,  and have low technological/financial barriers. 

Summary

Aphasia reinforces the music fundamentals I often forget – practicing and overcoming challenges is an essential part of musicianship, and great notation makes performers change and improve. I forgot these, perhaps as a byproduct of pursuing the new and the cutting-edge as a profession. 

Learning Aphasia also rekindled my role as a student. To create and teach, I need to study and practice. Consistently and continuously. The result of doing so does not have to be perfect, but sharing and explaining what I experienced is what teacher-artists do. Knowing me, I will probably forget the lessons. When that happens, I will relearn Aphasia (and/or play Elden Ring) to remember it again.

Breathing Land (2025)

Collaborators, Compositions, Performances

I wrote music for Breathing Land, a dance film published in 2025. It is now available to watch online.

I worked with talented choreographers and dancers of Artlab J. I also worked with filmmaker Dae Won Kim. Detailed credit is found in Artlab J’s Instagram post.

The choreography and the movie are amazing. I am happy to work with such talented artists. Musically speaking, there are some experimental moments I liked quite a bit. There are some parts where I featured no-input mixer sounds for certain emotions and messages. I am also satisfied with the climactic buildup at the end.

Solo Electronic Improvisation

Computer Music Practice, Performances, Research, ,

Since 2009, I have been presenting a solo set of live electronic music. Among the many electronic performance techniques, I specialize in creating electronic sounds on stage without pre-recorded samples. I use a combination of digital effect processors coded with SuperCollider to improvise a uniquely electronic soundscape in concerts and recordings. For more than a decade, I have marketed myself as an expert in that specific style. It is represented as a yellow rectangle in the diagram below. 

The categorization is not meaningful to anyone else, but it was a useful research goal for me in the 2010s. I share three representative pieces of my solo electronic improvisation for listening and analysis purposes.

Three Examples 

100 Strange Sounds (2012-2014) is a set of one hundred short video recordings featuring my live electronic music techniques. Each piece pairs a sound-making object with my SuperCollider code that processes its sound. I invite viewers to notice and enjoy the unexpected relationship between what they see and what they hear. For example, the sound of a cabbage becomes something else with a bunch of effect processors in 100 Strange Sounds #77. 

Large Intestine (2013) is a piece I made after 100 Strange Sounds #42. As described in the blog on style analysis, the no-input mixer improvisation enhanced with SuperCollider has been my favorite electronic instrument for more than a decade. Large Intestine, as the title suggests, epitomizes my interest in noise, digital signal processing, and improvisation. I plan to play this work in as many concerts as possible in the future.

Touch (2014) is my kitchen-sink piece that pairs multiple sound objects with multiple effects. It’s a summary of 100 Strange Sounds, in which I bring random objects on stage and improvise the combination and sequence of sounds. The piece opened many doors to career opportunities in the 2010s as an electronic music improviser. The techniques and technologies I learned in performing and refining Touch became a source for future non-improvisational compositions for electronic ensembles. 

Technology

All three pieces mentioned above use a variation of a single SuperCollider patch, available for download at this link. And this linked PDF explains the hardware and software setup to perform the pieces (warning: it is a little outdated). 

When I run the patch, it creates a GUI with multiple buttons that trigger customized effects. I control the number and timing of the effects’ on/off states with a mouse click – No MIDI controllers or control surfaces. A few clicks, probably unnoticed by the audience, are enough because I wanted the listeners to focus on the interaction I have with the non-electronic objects on the stage. 

As for the hardware,  I use a couple of microphones for Touch, one audio interface, and a laptop. This article explains the gear I used over the past 11 years.

Technique

Like other improvisations, the key technique in performing solo live electronic music is listening. I listen for variations that the computer part adds to the acoustic instruments, then respond with another instrument or effects. Because I cannot play a scale or harmony with the instrument (like cabbage), the listen-and-react decisions are often non-musical and raw. “The current sound is long, so I’ll play short sounds next.” “I will go from a simple to a complex texture.”  “The sound is very high in pitch. I’ll complement it with a very low rumble.” I also ask questions and try to come up with the best answer on stage. “What happens if I granularize the chattering teeth sound?” “The plastic block sounds harsh. Can I make it harsher?” “What is common between a slinky and a coin sound?”  

Free improvisation focusing on reactions and questions is fun, but it can quickly lose control of the length and form. So I plan a specific gesture or sound combination for transitions. The Extension and Connection blog linked earlier has such an example in Touch.  

Annecdote

More than fifteen years of experience in improvising with live electronics forms the foundation of my musicianship. I identified myself as a composer after earning a PhD in composition in 2008, but it did not lead to a gig or collaborations when I moved to Philadelphia for my first job as a music technology professor. The dire situation led me to develop a solo set I can prepare and present quickly in any situation. The strategic change, fortunately, worked, giving me ample opportunity to refine my performance and improvisation techniques. 

These days, I am comfortable identifying myself as a composer-performer of electronic music. My sound may not be fresh or cutting-edge at this point, but I think I have a bit more to contribute to the current solo setup. Perhaps the contribution is a documentation and theorization. Perhaps it is just one more new piece!

More electronic music composition/performance/practice articles are found at the Computer Music Practice project.

Sans Trou Ni Fin (2025)

Collaborators, Compositions, Performances,

Sans Trou Ni Fin (without hole or end) is a collaborative work with Biba Bell. It was premiered on June 26th, 2025, as a site-specific movement piece. I made the music and designed the playback system. The show was about 45 minutes and had a total of four performances on June 26th and 27th, 2025.   

Form 

The show has six dancers, one reader, and a Detroit house with a remarkable design. Biba’s program notes below describe the experiences of audience members during the show. 

Sound Design and Composition

I visited the site a few months before the premiere, took notes and photos, and composed music. I made three different but correlated 10-minute pieces that will be played simultaneously on three sides of the center garden. I have also added a fourth sound that will be played back from a portable speaker. During the performance, a dancer walked with the portable speaker and visited the three sites. 

Below is a diagram showing a customized playback system for the show. It consists of three portable speakers, one subwoofer, a multi-channel audio interface, and a PC running Ableton Live. 

The tracks in the soundtrack album match the labels in the diagram.

The three places, the Library, Living Room, and Kitchen, each have their own music (tracks 3, 4, and 5), and Traveler intermittently visits them with a fourth sound (track 6, an abbreviated version of the original 30-minute file). The first track, named Sans Trou Ni Fin – Part I, is a simulation of all of the sounds playing together. Sans Trou Ni Fin – Part II is played at the last 10 minutes of the piece, where all dancers gather in the center garden. The windows to the garden are open for the last movement, allowing sound to travel with fewer obstructions. Part II also uses a subwoofer to add a low-frequency thump. During the shows, I was cueing the sound from a storage room, doors closed and hidden from the audience. 

The composition process consists of combining new and old techniques. SuperCollider codes used in End Credits, Save Point By The Lake, Tree Breezes, and Hold Drum became the starting points for the pieces. I edited the codes so that the resulting sounds are in the same key, tempo, and duration. For the ending, I added a slow version of Mellotron 7. During the rehearsal, the team wanted a 60-second-long transition sound to be played while the audience moved to another room. I quickly assembled the transition sound with a drone from Living Room. I did not upload the transition music.  

Remarks

Sans Trou Ni Fin was a second collaboration with Biba (info about the first collaboration is here). Biba brings out the beauty of the immobile space with the mobile human bodies. Her work has the best “here-and-now” experience a live performance can create.  And the performers, Hunter, Ta’Rajee, Matthew, Elizabeth, Aaron, and Chris, delivered it with 200%. I am grateful to work with the crew. 

Update 11/25/2025

One of the artists, Matthew Piper, wrote a beautiful article about the performance. Read about it here!

https://www.matthewjpiper.com/post/haunting-the-house-notes-on-dance-and-space

As for the documentation, the two performances are now available on Vimeo