Category Archives: Acousmatic

Dance of the Bells 2.0

Dance of the Bells was originally recorded in Junderground Studios in 2009 with an extended percussion set up comprised of:

Single and Double Gankoguis

Atoke Bells

Triangles

Cymbals

Medium Gong

Finger Cymbals

Wind Chimes

Assorted Hand Bells

The set up included two separate channel mics inputting into a pre-composed AudioMulch environment featuring separate parameters processing real-time granular synthesis. Visually, lighting was designed to especially feature layers of shadows intricately dancing as the performing arms struck the various metallic instruments. The performance followed a graphically-inspired score and was captured simultaneously by two cameras later mixed intentionally for the purpose of further displaying the dancing of shadows.

This updated version is inspired by my current work incorporating studies in well-being as related to the vagus nerve to composition and the notion that music can be specifically created for mindful and healthy participation beyond that of the traditional triumvirate of composer | performer | listener, a new Gebrauchsmusik, if you will, intended for helping people help self.

Clouds {if hedrons were dimensions calibrating}

Music and Video Composed by Jason Matthew Malli Fixed Media and Virtual Instruments Recorded by Jason Matthew Malli

“Clouds” explores vastness – vastness in human potential and vastness without regard to human beings at all. In the simplest sense, this work intends to evoke recollections of staring into vastness – the formations, textures, colors, rhythms, collisions, enveloping, commingling, charging, dissipating, and even absence. Clouds release as the sky breathes. Clouds massively reduce our very self to an appropriate scale of our worth, value, and purpose. We do matter, but no more than any other single self does. And if we allow ourselves to blend simply by stepping aside for another to pass first, we will see that our path is clear for an arrival that requires no certain time. After all, from the cosmos perspective, the moon and the sun share the clouds. “Clouds” was composed during the coronavirus epidemic and quarantine experience that permeates the lives of every Earth inhabitant. Conflict exists within controlling forces while fear and loss meander almost aimlessly inside each of us daily from dawn until dusk. Pause from this cycle, perhaps to repair or at least to take care. Get comfortable, if possible, with headphones, a large screen, and feet on the floor embracing good posture. Find the pulse and flow in this work and breathe within its accompaniment.

Peace.

Streams

{if glimmers were beacons cast meandering}

[BINAURAL LISTENING VERSION: Larger screens and headphones necessary for optimum experience.] Music and Video Composed for Meditative, Miindful, and Prayerful Moments by Jason Matthew Malli. Fixed Media and Virtual Instruments Recorded and Mixed by Jason Matthew Malli Another video for the Immersive Mindfulness Project.

wirelessness 1.5

This work was composed in 2008 using Flash to explore user participation and choice for outcomes in the realization of non-synchronous performance relationships between creator and audience. At this time, wirelessness 1.5 and other works are being re-generated to work in the post-Flash Web 3.0 era and re-imagined for immersive gallery spaces and virtual and augmented reality experiences. This video excerpt represents one possible “performance,” whereby the interaction of the cursor via mouse or trackpad movements with the automated text on the screen initiates a bank of fixed media layering sonic events in a variety of iterations.

Branches of Light

Branches of Light {if seconds were kinsfolk sharing wisdom}

“Branches of Light,” subtitled as the thought set, “{if seconds were kinsfolk sharing wisdom},” continues the Immersive Mindfulness prototype series with a mid-winter, mid-morning sunrise as perceived through the bare maple tree branches accompanied by bird songs and granularly processed detuned piano. The participant is invited to imagine being bundled up sitting outside in need of fresh air after feeling cooped up in the staleness of the indoors and simply watching the sunrise bounce light against the trees. Each second is a precious moment to breathe in as wisdom and then pass and share with another.

This moment is, was, and shall always be dedicated to the memory of my beloved brother-in-law, Alan Cavallo, who left this world for a better one, the day before this video was captured on what would have been his 54th birthday.

First in a Series


“Meadows” is the first of a series of electroacoustic music and video compositions intentionally produced for meditative, mindful, and prayerful moments to be experienced through concert or exhibition audiences, small group therapy, educational or corporate climate improvement, or individual personal practice. The series will feature a variety of captured moments from visually compelling scenes composed with minimal sound sets for the purpose of facilitating focus on breath and inward presence within a simple slice of time.


For me, dissonance demonstrates innate resilience. Most people cannot listen to anything discordant. If one looks up definitions for dissonance and discordant, they will find two meanings for each. Both are defined musically as tension, being harsh, or lacking harmony. Unfortunately, these words carry on the same meanings in the context of humanity’s inability to be together in peace and harmony.

Sometimes, whether it be industrial thrash metal or European serialism, listening to harsh music allows me to release my tension by embracing it like a child scribbling finger paint on a wall-sized canvas or thinking like a poet writing in a stream-of-consciousness modality. But music can also be passively dissonant as experienced when listening to very ancient motets composed in the middle ages. There is nothing like a Gesualdo madrigal resolution from a tense harmony melting the soul in your stomach from your auditory command center!

Allow yourself to embrace what you at first may perceive as clashing discordance. Breath with the flow of the voices. Stare into the movement. Become one with the pulse of the wind. Air knows no dissonance.