60x365
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60x365 (2007–2008)
60x365 is a podcast composition that I created during the period from July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008. Every day I composed a new one-minute piece and posted it online, creating over 6 hours of new music by the end of the year. The initial reasons for undertaking this project were simple: I wanted to compose more music more often, and I wanted to explore the possibilities for Web-based music.
At the time I had already built a website that hosted samples of my work—a digital portfolio that surrounded the music with my bio, vitae, photos, and works list. I wanted this project to be different from that. This music was to be composed especially for dissemination on the Web, rather than for concert hall performance or CD release. "Composing for the Internet" is a statement I made often during and after the project. I meant "for the Internet" as for a venue, a space for people to hear my music—like composing for a concert hall or theater or club. A concert venue and the Internet are quite dissimilar. One exists physically, built from materials and occupying space. The other is a network of computers, experienced only through the interfaces of computers connected to that network. People go to the concert hall by moving their bodies through space to a particular location for a performance at a particular time. People "go online" by accessing the network from their computer then downloading files from a remote computer somewhere else on the network.
Since the final post on June 30, 2008, the complete archive of 60x365 has remained online as a record of the project. It has become a library of composition ideas for my work. I have also developed a workshop for high school students that teaches them to make experimental music videos using the music from the archive (see below).
Ten Minutes from 60x365
60x365 – (December 29, 2007) This collage of earlier 60x365 compositions celebrated my arrival at the halfway point if the project. It was written as a radio-style commercial for the project.
Peanut Break – (July 23, 2007) This piece applies some common amen-break techniques to a drum loop from another genre: swing. The drum loop is sampled from Royal Crown Revue's version of Salt Peanuts.
Glassbreak – (July 19, 2007) The sounds used in this composition are recordings I made of bottles and lightbulbs breaking.
Techno~ Redux – (January 23, 2008) An experiment with the techno~ object in MaxMSP (a dynamic UI object that is a very accurate sequencer and allows easy synchronization with other instances of itself), this music loops two synth patterns which continually realign and shift themselves. I used these experiments as the basis for Venial Sin(e), which was part of Confessions of a Digital Proselyte released on the Immigrant Breast Nest label in 2011.
Simple Sin(e) 8 – (June 5, 2008) The eighth in a series of compositions that explored sine wave synthesis in MaxMSP. These were further developed as part of the Box Shy project with Seen Performance.
Judson Church – (May 9, 2008) Every Friday from the beginning of the project through May 9, I collaborated with Boris Willis's Dance-A-Day project, for which he made a video dance every day. To celebrate the conclusion of his project, I made this organ improvisation.
Guitar Dream – (September 24, 2007) This composition oscillates between an untreated acoustic guitar sample and algorithmic collages of the same sample generated with MaxMSP.
Scrub – (October 27, 2007) I exploited a glitch in the iTunes interface to generate the raw audio that I then meticulously assembled to create this minute.
Robot Dream – (June 7, 2008) Loops of synthesis patterns created in MaxMSP are layered for this composition.
Rush – (August 20, 2007) Rush is one of several pieces made using voices of famous people. The samples use in this composition were downloaded from the parody site: The Rush Limbaugh Excellence in Babbling Audio Theatre, which catalogs those moments in which Rush is searching for just the right words.
60x365: Re-imaginings
My workshop is based on a class project that teacher Rod Ziolkowski did with his students at Whitney High School (Ceritos, CA) after hearing my interview with Robert Seigel (All Things Considered, National Public Radio) about the experience of making 60x365. In the workshop, we explore strategies for listening to new and unfamiliar music and examine the relationship of sounds and images in music video, analyzing the use of cinematography, lighting, choreography, and editing to illustrate the music and sound. Each student then plans and produces their own video. Since 2010, I have presented this workshop at Dedham High School (Dedham, MA) every year. In 2017, I presented this workshop at Natick High School (Natick, MA).
Archive of student work from Whitney High School workshop.
Archive of student work from the 2010 Dedham High School workshop.
Writings
Inescapable Creativity: Composing 365 (2008). This email interview with Molly Sheridan for NewMusicBox was published on June 30, 2008, the last day of the 60x365 project. In it I recount the experience of composing a new piece every day in a public and online context.
60x365: Compositions For the Internet (2011). For my DMA Document, I wrote about 60x365 in the context of new media studies. My research focused on the questions: "What does it mean to say I was composing for the Internet?" and "What effect does the Internet have on music composed for it?" My document investigated these questions and highlighted some of the ways that composing for the Internet differs from other kinds of composition.
On Starting (2017). Molly Sheridan invited me to reflect on the lessons of 60x365 ten years later for NewMusicBox's Creative Productivity Challenge series.
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