Mechanisms and Threads is a series of four related compositions. The first project, titled Labyrinth, is a surround sound computer playback composition. The second project, titled Old Windows, New Worlds, is a notated composition for custom midi keyboard controlled surround synthesis instrument. The third project, titled KnownUnknown, is a quasi improvisatory composition for custom audio/video instrument. The fourth project is a notated three movement work for piano solo titled Singing Sweetly from a Spider's Web.

The project as a whole represents a large portion of my recent compositional output. Each individual piece in the series represents a new approach to the use of technology in my compositional practice. The use of subtractive synthesis, microtonality, parametrically controlled stochastically generated musical behaviors and surround sound trajectories are explored in Labyrinth. Live control over a surround sound synthesis paradigm combining granular/sampling techniques with spectrally tuned subtractive synthesis is the primary focus of Old Windows, New Worlds. KnownUnkown is an improvisational performance piece for custom audio/visual instrument where sound and sight combine in direct and parametrically controlled behaviors of tightly coordinated live generated audio and animation. Finally, Singing Sweetly from a Spider's Web is a piano solo composed using techniques for audio analysis and transcription similar to those used in Old Windows, New Worlds combined with stochastic behaviour controls similar to those employed in Labyrinth, and KnownUnknown.

Described herein is a practical experiment in the spontaneous composition of music through real-time interaction between a human composer-performer and a semi-autonomous network of computer processes. A software system called The Duoquadragintapus was devised for this purpose, and used in performance to create and record musical variants of the same name, bounded by the resources and behaviors of generative processes allocated to the system by its author, who also occupies the role of composer-performer when the system is active. The Duoquadragintapus includes pre-composed music that can be incorporated at the whim of its human collaborator, as well as a number of independent processes designed to transform material derived from live instrumental performance and navigate relationships between live input and pre-rendered output. The human performer has two responsibilities: first, as an improvising instrumentalist, providing raw material for real-time software processes, the functioning of which remain independent of his control during performance; secondly, as a software engineer and composer, determining the boundaries of the system prior to performance and selecting when and how many of the computer system's various process classes are allowed manifest instances during performance. In this version of the The Duoquadragintapus, the performer uses a fretless electric guitar as an input instrument, and music is output through a battery of 32 percussion-playing robots and a 5.1 surround sound speaker array (though the system can easily be adapted to accommodate other types of input and output). High-level system control originates in MIDI information from the guitar and from a footswitch controller. The major components of the system include signal processing of audio from the guitar, factor oracle generation of accompaniment harmonies, factor oracle selection of pre-composed audio snippets generated via sonification of L-systems, phrase detection and rhythmic interpolation of phrases, a "lockstep" mode in which percussion robots mirror the rhythms played by the guitarist, and pre-scored control of performance variables such as changes in probabilities governing factor oracle traversal, choices for accompaniment voicing, and changes in ownership of parameter control from human to computer.