Foundation: Live Electronic Music Exploring the Harmonic Series

Authors

Andrew Jensen, Brigham Young University
Dr. Steven Ricks, Brigham Young University

Keywords

live music, electric music, harmonic series

College

Fine Arts and Communications

Department

Music

Abstract

The harmonic series is one of the most fundamental or foundational elements of musical harmony. The relationships between elements in this series explain why certain chords appeal to the human ear while others do not. My ORCA project involved creating a software synthesizer that uses the tones in the harmonic series to create improvised electronic music on a laptop computer. I performed in concert with the instrument at the Utah CrossTalk concert at the University of Utah on December 3, 2013. I copied the source code onto the computer in BYU’s Electronic Music Studio for composition faculty and students to use. I also released the source code publicly on the internet.

Recommended Citation

Jensen, Andrew and Ricks, Dr. Steven (2014) "Foundation: Live Electronic Music Exploring the Harmonic Series," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2014: Iss. 1, Article 503.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2014/iss1/503