ROYVANEGAS | Composer

Centered largely around inversions of E, A, and B minor chords, Ten Years Late marries elements of post-rock (heavily reverberated, ambient guitars), electronica (deep, groove-based drum backing tracks), and jazz (fast, rhythmic phrasing). It’s a through-composed piece (which is a signature of my approach to composition) that culminates in a call and response outro supported by an electronic percussion section awash in deep, rhythmic, and sometimes syncopated rhythms.

Inspired by the Tucson, Arizona, summer of 2005, Heat is my first foray into the downtempo genre. The primary instrument — the didjeridu — was generated by a hardware-based synthesizer via a midi guitar playing a variation of an E minor chord. The remaining melody is based on intervals spaced a sixth apart, as in the minor sixth between E – C and the major sixths between D – B and C – A.

The audio effects are also the result of my nascent experiences with computer-based pitch shifting, delays, and editing — all of which I had only done in analog environments in the past. At 11:20 am on 27 January 2009, San Francisco’s Somafm played Heat on their Beat Blender channel, and I was flattered.

x0x0x0 is glitch electronic minimalist, with its harmonic form built on granular-level samples, while its pacing and rhythm are an amalgam of simple, unorthodox, repetitive structures. It’s a piece that blends old and new: The melody sung on the “ah” syllable is an idea extracted from medieval Gregorian chant, while the harmonic structure is created using modern effects and processing.

Structurally, instead of employing chords to shape a half cadence, I use glitch-based triplets and syncopation to simulate a pending resolution, only to return to an ostinato that alludes to the introductory material. Moreover, the 7/8 time signature is emphasized by the deliberate clicks and pops endemic to digital audio editing. These “imperfections” are heightened in the equalization stage of the final mix to accent the contrapuntal device at play in the melody.

Every sound that is not a guitar on x0x0x0 is an effects-processed version of nine 1-second vocal samples provided by the NY-based performer JC Cassis.

This is a 3-minute remix/edit of Sub (Room 101 Mix), my only foray into house music, a genre of music I’ve loved since the mid 1980s. It was reconstructed and edited down from seven minutes in order to serve as the background music for the video promo of the 2004 – 2005 International House (colloquially known as I House) video yearbook, which was — and perhaps still is — a yearly, documentary-style video archive of life at I House throughout the academic year.

The promo premiered at the annual Sunday Supper, which is a combination send-off for students and interns moving out of I House for good, and a temporary goodbye for those leaving only for the summer.