Christopher Ritter
The first website Chris Ritter ever made was a Club Penguin screenshot blog in 2009. By that time, he had been playing piano for 5 years. In the years since then, the interests in technology and music have converged into an undergraduate career at Northeastern University studying Computer Science and Music Technology as a combined degree. Today, he works as a software engineer for the music game studio Harmonix and is wrapping up the final year of his degree. While Chris writes and composes music, he is currently further exploring the use of technology in the process of composition and performance. Take a listen to "Decade"; The first gongs you hear represent posts on that very first Club Penguin blog.
Marrying Data and Sound for Analytical and Creative Composition
Read the PaperFixed Media Works
Swipe
Spring 2020
Swipe is an interactive "choose your own adventure" piece designed to be streamed online in real-time. Audiences take part in the piece by modulating effects and textures of the sound-collage using their smartphones during the performance. Additionally, a prompt will instruct them to swipe left or right based on personal criteria at crossroads in the piece, and the next scene heard in the music is selected by the directional majority. Depending on the route the listeners take, the piece becomes either an industrial and overpowering drone or a shimmering wall of harmony. This piece was developed utilizing a Max for Live plugin I wrote called CrowdMap, that allows for real-time aggregated smartphone data control of an Ableton Live set. Barring any technical difficulties, the piece will attempt to be streamed each night this week (4/21-4/24) at 7pm at the YouTube link above.
Always On
Spring 2020
How often do you send your friends a text? How big is your sphere of frequent contacts? Are you a positive or negative person? With this data sonification, I attempt to answer a few of these questions for myself. "Always On" is more akin to a data visualization than a composition, as every event, sound, and effect is driven by data of my messages from 2018 to 2020. There's a lot to keep track of, but if you listen closely you can discern some interesting information: Gongs sound every year, a cymbal ride sounds every half year, and a high hat every month. The instrument sounds correspond to particular platforms (Facebook, Instagram, SMS/MMS, GroupMe), and each note is a message sent on that platform. The pitch corresponds to a person in my life: I am middle C, and the closer the note is to middle C the more messages I have sent to and received from that person over the two years. The more quiet a note, the longer the time since I last messaged that person. The sentiment of each message was analyzed, and a running average of the positivity or negativity of each message was kept over time per platform so that periods of heightened positivity are marked by a long reverb and periods of negativity are heavily distorted. See if you can hear friendships start and end, old friends reaching out, periods of positivity or negativity, or even if I tended to send more positive or negative messages on specific platforms. Facebook in early 2018 sounds particularly dreadful, for example, while the majority of my MMS conversations are with my family which are particularly reverberant.
Decade
Fall 2019
April 26, 2009 was the date where I made my first email address. The creation of this account enabled my first real digital engagement. Today, these online accounts tend to be a part of identity -- how we display ourselves to the world, converse, and deeply explore the things that move us. Developed in Fall 2019, "Decade" precedes "Always On." It is a sonification of 10 years of my online data, from 4/26/2009 to 4/26/2019. While "Always On" focused on messages, this sonifies nearly every action I took online during that timeframe. Also, the sonification definition here is looser than "Always On," as some of the data-to-sound choices were more self-driven than data-driven. It is difficult to parse out much meaningful information about me from this piece. Particular synths and sounds rise to prominence and fall to silence as I use the platforms they represent more or less. Summers in which I attended sleepaway camp for months without technology are marked by about 3 seconds of respite each during the first half. Starting at 3:26 you can hear questions I asked Google with voice commands throughout the latter years. And yes, they store all of those MP3s... The gigabytes of data were sourced from all of my most active accounts from 2009 to 2019 (though some information had been lost to time), and parsed into MIDI events using JavaScript and Max for Live. The program video above features a brief look at the workflow used to make the piece.
Real|Digital Love
Fall 2019
Interpersonal connectedness has changed. People will have conducted entire romantic relationships without ever meeting the subject of their infatuation in person. Even with the people we see in person, there is an implicit expectation that the ones close to use will be in touch online. Are emotional bonds formed over video chats, phone calls, and messages less valid? Composed entirely using samples from "Real Love" by John Lennon and "Digital Love" by Daft Punk, it builds texture and magnitude until it envelopes the listener in a Rossini Crescendo of sorts. The piece was composed as an exercise in Plunderphonics for Composition for Electronic Instruments, Fall 2019.
Wndrlnd
Fall 2019
"Wndrlnd" was composed using public domain audiobook recordings of various editions of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. The piece explores the use of voice as a textural, rhythmic, and compositional tool by accentuating vocal dynamic ranges, plosives, vowel sounds, and patterns found in regular speech. As all sounds in the piece are sourced from these audiobooks, artifacts from the readers' accents, recording fidelity, and dramatic reenactment all can be heard as the readers approach the same passages with different attitudes. Down the rabbit hole...