Joseph Newmann is a musician, composer, performer and programmer, originally from Philadelphia, PA. Joseph began to find his compositional voice sometime in high school, where he performed in the jazz ensemble (alto saxophone), and choir (baritone). In his time at Northeastern University, Joseph has composed multiple pieces for fixed media, as well as a String Quartet. Most recently, Joseph has taken an interest in interactive real-time performance, looking to integrate technology into performance in more naturally responsive methods. Joseph has also performed with the Northeastern Choral Society, and the Blues and Fusion ensembles. He is also a part of the Boston-based neo-soul/jazz/funk group False Pocket.
Tempo and Beat Tracking for Interactive Real-Time Performance
“Warm up” is a piece that sets the performer in different “scenes”, which they navigate with improvisation. The piece looks to provide a new context for performers to improvise in, and each scene is created with a collection of sounds from the saxophone, from pitched tones to key clicks. The real interactive element of the piece involves the MAX patch moving through the scenes based on different rhythmic cues, although there is no predetermined order in which the scenes unfold.
Written during composition lessons with Professor Daniel Strong Godfrey, “Finding Form” is the first String Quartet that Joseph composed. During the time of composition, Joseph was taking courses revolving around many different types of form and harmony, on one hand becoming versed in modal harmony in a Jazz Improvisation Workshop, and on the other performing Shenkerian analysis in a Music Analysis Seminar. Beginning with a mix of Lydian tonality and fugue form, this piece evolves with various iterations on the original theme, within and between the parts.
Fixed Media Works
Presidential Voices
Fall 2019
Joseph composed “Presidential Voices” in Composition for Electronic Instruments, where students were tasked with creating a piece using the voice as the source material. All of the samples that were used were recordings of various recent presidential speeches, from the last ten years or so. While beginning with relatively unprocessed material, as the piece goes on, the natural rhythmic and melodic patterns in the speeches are played upon, and brought to an extreme through pitch shifting, granular synthesis, delays and reverb.