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CV

Matthew Creer 

Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • Mills College, 2010, 2012 MA Composition

  • San Francisco State University, 2007, 2010, BA Music Emphasis in Electronic Music 

  • Fresno City College, Transfer, 2006

Principle Teachers

  • Mills College: Chris Brown, John Bischoff, Zena Parkins, Les Stuck, Fred Frith

  • Also studied with Roscoe Mitchell, David Bernstein and James Fei

  • San Francisco State: Josh Levine, Hafez Modirzadeh, Michael Zpachinsky, Dean Suzuki

  • Fresno City College: Mike Dana, Richard Nielson, Andre Bush

 

Computer Music and Multi Media

With Golden Dream Vulture

  • City of the Future Preview
    Uploaded to Instagram February 10th, ’23

  • Five Pieces for #FashionEWI
    Uploaded to Instagram June 27th - June 30th ‘22

  • The Krell
    Small, west coast modular synthesizer and diorama
    Uploaded to Instagram June ’22

As Perpendiculous!!

  • Snowblind
    QR code release, December ’22

  • Mushrooms
    QR code Release, November ’22

  • Mysteries of the Mojave
    QR code Release, November ’22

  • Treasures of the Gobi
    QR code Release, November ’22

  • Pumkin Pie
    QR code Release, November ’22

  • Autumn’s Bounty
    QR code Release, October ’22

  • New York, New York
    QR code Release, October ’22

  • A Feast For the Ears
    QR code Release, October ’22

 

As Laptop Performer

 

  • September 28th, 2019

With Adam Fong 

Faults and Extractions, by Adam Fong

Faults and Extractions

Center for New Music, San Francisco CA

 

  • September 28th, 2019

As Pari Banu with Adam Fong as Reader

Vanity Plate

Faults and Extractions

Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA

 

  • September 28th, 2019

As Pari Banu with Adam Fong as Reader

Tiger Man

Faults and Extractions

Center for New Music, San Francisco CA

 

  • September 23rd, 2019

With Adam Fong 

Faults and Extractions, by Adam Fong

Faults and Extractions

Temescal Arts Center, Oakland CA


 

  • September 23rd, 2019

As Pari Banu with Adam Fong as Reader

Vanity Plate

Faults and Extractions

Temescal Arts Center, Oakland CA

 

  • September 23rd, 2019

As Pari Banu with Adam Fong as Reader

Vanity Plate

Faults and Extractions

Temescal Arts Center, Oakland CA


 

  • October 5, 2018

Solo Laptop as Perpendiculous! 

San Jose South First Fridays 

San Jose, CA

 

  • June 1,  2018

w/ Animals and Giraffes (Philip Greenleaf and Claudia La Rocco)

Soundvoice

Center For New Music

San Francisco, CA 

 

  • April 25, 2017
    Solo Laptop as Pari Banu
    Ghosts and Bones
    Faculty Recital, City College of San Francisco
    San Francisco, CA
     

  • October 16, 2016
    w/ Nick Wang
    Eagle Masters
    Center For New Music
    San Francisco, CA
     

  • October 16, 2016
    Solo Laptop as Perpendiculous!
    Center For New Music
    San Francisco, CA
     

  • September 16, 2016
    Solo Laptop as Perpendiculous!
    Two Blocks of Art
    San Francisco, CA
     

  • September 14, 2016

Solo Laptop as Perpendiculous!

Young Leaders Circle

San Francisco, CA

 

  • August 26, 2016
    Stingy Planet, solo for video and outdated technology
    New Music Open Mic, Center For New Music
    San Francisco, CA
     

  • April 16, 2014
    w/ Shanna Sordhal
    Berkley Arts
    Berkley, CA
     

  • November 16, 2013

w/ Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, John Shiurba, Tom Duff, Tom Dill, David Michalak, Tom Nunn, Jon Raskin, Bryan Day, Scott Looney, Dave Hatt, Scott Walton, Lisa Mezzacappa

Berkley Arts

Berkley, CA

 

  • June 8 & 9, 2013
    As Software Designer/Technician
    w/ Ikue Mori, Gino Robair, Rova Saxophone Quartet
    Grand Electric Skull
    Jewish Community Center
    San Francisco, CA

 

Internet Art

Pari Banu: Ghosts and Bones

March 5, 2018 upload, YouTube

Coupon: Cavity Crawler Dazzling

September 22, 2017 upload, YouTube

Coupon: Afterlife Moth

March 12, 2017

Coupon: Glow Control Drama

August 14, 2016 upload, YouTube

Coupon: Chapterhouse Formulation Plastic

July 31, 2016 upload, YouTube

Coupon: Anytime Bulldozer Banana

July 17, 2016, upload, YouTube

Coupon: Danger Felony Heartbeat

June 18, 2016 upload, YouTube

Coupon: Germ Burden Commercial

June 18, 2016 upload, YouTube

5 Pieces for Instagram

June 4, 2016 upload, Instagram

 

Composition Performances

Stingy Planet (2016) 40 min

3 Performers, outdated electronics with inductors (Ctrl + Z, Daniel Steffey, Nick Wang, Ryan Page)

Premiere: October 16, 2016. Center For New Music, San Francisco, CA

Animated Notation For 2 Percussionists (2016) 10 min

2 Percussionists (Daniel Steffey, Nava Dunkelman)

Premiere: October 16, 2016

When Eyes are Closed (2012) 10 min

Violin and Cello (Crystal Pascucci, Mia Bella D’Augelli)

Premiere: March 8th, 2012

This Was the Portrait (2011) 5 min

String Quartet (Eclipse String Quartet)

Premiere: January 9th, 2011

Pip at the Bottom of the Sea (2011)

Tape

Premiere: April 15th, 2011

Iron Hans (2010) 5 min

Re – Tuned Piano (Ryan Ross Smith)

Premiere: November 26th, 2010

 

Presenting Artist

April '23 San Francisco State University The Horn of Plenty One

November '22 Ramapo College Instrumental Approaches to Creative Coding 

 

Teaching

Adjunct Faculty, San Francisco State University

MUS 433 Introduction to Music Technology Spring ’23

MUS 433 Fall ’22

MUS 433 Spring ’22

MUS 433 Fall ’21

MUS 433 Spring ’21

MUS 433 Fall ’20

MUS 433 Spring ‘20

Adjunct Faculty, Sant Clara University

Spring Quarter ‘19

MUSC 9 Introduction Listening: Electronic Music

 

Adjunct Faculty, City College of San Francisco

Fall ’14 – Fall ‘21

MUS 29, Electronic Music I, Fall ‘21

MUS 128, Survey of Electronic Music, Summer ‘21

MUS 29 Electronic Music I, Spring ’20, 2 sections

MUS 30 Electronic Music II, Spring ‘20

MUS 29, Electronic Music I, Fall ’19 2 sections

MUS 30, Electronic Music II, Fall ‘19

Curriculum Development for MUS 128 and online for MUS 29

MUS 27R, History of Rock and Pop, Summer ’19 ONLINE

MUS 29, Electronic Music Lab, 3 section, Spring ‘19

MUS 30, Electronic Music II (previously Electronic Music Laboratory), Spring ‘19

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Fall ’18 3 sections

MUS 30 Electronic Music Laboratory, Fall ’18

MUS 27R History of Rock and Pop Music, Summer ‘18

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Spring ’18 2 sections

MUS 27R History of Rock and Pop Music, Spring ‘18

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Fall ’17 2 sections

MUS 27R History of Rock and Pop Music, Fall ‘17

MUS 27A Musical Appreciation, Summer ’17 2 sections

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Spring ’17 2 sections

MUS 28 20th Century Music, Spring ‘17

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Fall ’16 3 sections

MUS 27A Musical Appreciation, Summer ’16 2 sections

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Spring ’16 3 sections

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Fall ’15

MUS 21 Traditional African Music, Summer ‘15

MUS 30 Electronic Music Laboratory, Spring ‘15

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Spring ’15  sections

MUS 30 Electronic Music Laboratory, Fall ’14

MUS 29 Electronic Music Lab, Fall ’14 2 sections

 

As Substitute

MUS 3a and 3b Music Theory

MUS 4 Music Fundamentals

MUS 21 Traditional African Music (long term, Summer 2016)

MUS 23 Jazz History

MUS 41 African Drumming (long term, Spring 2017)

MUS 27a Musical Appreciation

 

Instructor, Soundvoice, five session workshop on electronic music, Center For New Music

May 2nd – June 1st, 2018

Curriculum Development

  • MUS 128, History of Electronic Music, City College of San Francisco

  • Certificate in Music and Computers, City College of San Francisco, Active Fall 2018

  • Certificate in Music Technology, City College of San Francisco, Active Fall 2018

  • Maker 100, City College of San Francisco, Active Fall 2018

  • Maker 400, City College of San Francisco, Active Fall 2018

  • Maker Certificate, City College of San Francisco, Active Fall 2018

 

Service

  • Reviewer, International Conference on Live Coding, 2017

Discography

  • mAttrSS, with Ryan Ross Smith, Remote Telescopes

  • The Wrong Angle, Perpendiculous! Funny Angle Records, 2018

  • Glow Control Drama Excerpt, in Cutty Strangers Vol. One, Cutty Strange Records, April, 2017

Software proficiency

SuperCollider, Processing, Gibber, Tidal Cycles, Max, Pure Data,  Sibelius, Musescore, Audacity, ProTools, Reaper, GarageBand, Amped Studio, Reason, Ableton Live

I call my music “Perpendiculous!!”. I use it as both my solo computer music alias and the pseudo-style for my compositions. The name itself, much like my music, carries a sense of levity, stemming from my deep exploration of musical theory techniques based on just intonation tuning and the harmonic series. It's a play on words in the tradition of American music, reminiscent of how jazz musicians name their pieces or how Pauline Oliveros would employ wordplay in her compositions. I'm drawn to the creative naming conventions often found in American music.

"Perpendiculous!!" acknowledges and playfully embraces the fun, curiosity, and borderline absurdity in my extensive exploration of just intonation tuning and the way that I apply it to musical parameters beyond pitch. I learned this approach, in part, from the work of Henry Cowell. I also apply these tunings to visual art. This application of tuning over the elements of pitch, rhythms, color, size and speed of movements makes a harmonic system that I employ in my work, which I perform on my instrument that I develop that I call the Horn of Plenty. These techniques, in certain perspectives, can be traced back to the work of Pythagoras, which are rooted in geometry. Pythagoras theorized about a harmony that extended beyond sound using his mathematical theories and discoveries. More accurately he proposed music with a harmonic system that reflected to scale various proportions in our solar system and then the universe. 

To be clear, I am not creating a unifying theory of all art and music. I strive to make meaningful connections within the elements of my work, using my tools of choice which are based in computer code. I like to use coding languages because they allow me to scale parameters to one another, which makes it possible to “tune” a set of colors to the same proportions in the way that I have tuned my pitches. The process has become so thorough that I have become fascinated and dedicated to it to the point that, yes, I am aware that it is kind of ridiculous. I think that this is an excellent starting place for my music.

While I'm uncertain if there's a strict geometry to music, I'm certain there's a shape to sounds. The sounds I use can be proportionally scaled to create colors and shapes, which I incorporate into the visual art within my multimedia work. Here is the first region of my tuning system: 

 

1/1 7/6 4/3 3/2 5/3 11/6 2/1

 

This six-note tuning serves as both a scale of pitches and a set of rhythmic durations. The 1/1 is the fundamental, and this scale contains the two perfect intervals commonly known as the perfect fourth and fifth in Western equal temperament tuning (4/3 and 3/2, respectively). The 5/3 represents a well-tuned major sixth at 884 cents. Ratios from the three and five limits will sound familiar to Western ears and evoke a sense of precision often associated with modes in Western equal temperament. The 7/6 falls between a minor third and a major second at 266 cents, while the 11/6 represents a neutral seventh at 1049 cents.

 

​

 

I draw heavily from Henry Cowell’s work on rhythms based on the harmonic system. The realization of this system lead to the commission of an instrument called the Rhythmicon which was made by Leon Theramin. My performance system, the Horn of Plenty can be viewed as a type of rythmicon. 

With this approach, each note has its own unique duration as well as pitch. The 1/1 serves as the rhythmic fundamental, and in the first region of my tuning there are six beats per measure. The 7/6, positioned between the major second and minor third at 266 cents, plays a polyrhythm of 7 against 6. The 4/3 and 3/2 are from lower limits. They divide into six beat measures, so the results are are 8 and 9 beats to a measure. 5/3 is a higher limit; it has more color than the the two perfect intervals but it stills divides into six beats, so we have 10 against 6. The 11/6 of course is an 11 against 6 polyrhythm. When these polyrhythms, offset from one another by one beginning at six and ending at eleven, are played together in their simplest form, create a gesture that unfurls much like a sound from nature where the overtones are very present. 

​

 

I don’t attempt to create a unifying musical system. In building upon Cowell's work that led to the Rhythmicon, I do, however, see parallels with total serialism, which emerged at Darmstadt in the 1950s. The intertwining of musical parameters such as duration and pitch creates opportunities for meaningful musical connections. It is the use of these connections that move them beyond arbitrary to meaningful expression, not the connection itself. I find the mapping very interesting, however it is valuable because it is so useful for the way that I like to make music.

When I began to incorporate digital art into my work, I began by applying my tuning to colors:

 

Region one color spectrum. Notice that each shape’s width is scaled to its corresponding ratio.

 

​

 

 

 

My approach is multimedia, which I achieve by applying my musical methods to the color spectrum, size and scale of shapes and at times speed of motion. This results in a tuned set of colors and corresponding geometric proportions, establishing a cohesive tuning system that I apply to pitch, rhythm, color, shape, and the speed of movement.

 

When it comes to just intonation tuning, I adopt Henry Cowell's approach to rhythms based on the harmonic series. Cowell commissioned an instrument, the Rhythmicon, created by Leon Theremin, to play these tuned rhythms. The instrument I've developed, known as the "Horn of Plenty," is a modern version of the Rhythmicon, programmed using SuperCollider and Processing.

My musical objectives center around using unequal temperament tuning and corresponding rhythms. I employ just intonation tuning to obtain these notes intentionally avoiding a system that creates an equal scale of quarter tones or third tones. I use ratios, and to establish a coherent rhythmic system, the denominators of the ratios in a particular region of my tuning must divide evenly. Currently, I use ratios up to 13-limit, which yields eight regions within an overall 53-note tuning system. Region 1, for example, has 6 as a common denominator:

Region 1

 

 

 

1/1 7/6 4/3 3/2 5/3 11/6 2/1

I find that using notes in small groups suffices for my music. There's no need for me to employ all 53 notes in a single piece; instead, I use them to create cycles of works with connections to explore.

 

This six-note tuning serves as both a scale of pitches and a set of proportions applied to rhythm and other elements of my work. The 1/1 is the fundamental, and this scale contains the two perfect intervals commonly known as the perfect fourth and fifth in Western equal temperament tuning (4/3 and 3/2, respectively). The 5/3 represents a well-tuned major sixth at 884 cents. Ratios from the three and five limits will sound familiar to Western ears and evoke a sense of precision often associated with modes in Western equal temperament. The 7/6 falls between a minor third and a major second at 266 cents, while the 11/6 represents a neutral seventh at 1049 cents.

In the realm of rhythm, each note has its own unique duration. I didn't set out to create a comprehensive musical system, but in addition to building upon Cowell's work that led to the Rhythmicon, I see parallels with total serialism, which emerged at Darmstadt in the 1950s. The 1/1 serves as the rhythmic fundamental, featuring six beats per measure. The 7/6, positioned between the major second and minor third at 266 cents, plays a polyrhythm of 7 against 6. The 4/3 will play eight notes in its fundamental state, but within a measure, it will produce four half notes rather than quarter notes.

 

One way to perceive this music is as a conscientious objection to Western European classical music. My initial intention wasn't an outright rejection of European music, but rather a need to move beyond its core tonality, which ceased to serve me artistically. By reducing its influence in my work, I experienced a sense of liberation, extending to my use of unevenly subdivided rhythms. However, this extends beyond musical theory. Shedding elements of a musical tradition also constitutes a rejection of that music's culture and values. The Western European classical music I refer to coincides with the colonial era that continues to influence our world. "Perpendiculous!!" isn't created with a piano and isn't necessarily tied to a concert format where the audience quietly observes. It offers potential for something different, and its lack of tradition continues to provide me with artistic freedom.

Region1.jpg
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