About Me
Hi! I’m an engineer, developer, arranger, horn player, and composer working toward my Ph.D. in Music Technology at Georgia Institute of Technology. My research focuses on video game music, and I use play-testing studies, computational modeling, and behavioral interviews to understand how music helps players get “in-the-zone” as they play. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between musical tension and gameplay tension, as well as how self-directed goal setting helps achieve feelings of immersion and flow.
portfolio
Slay The Heroine
This game was made over the course of 48 hours in July 2023 as part of the GMTK Game jam. I composed and recorded all of the music in Ableton Live, recorded and some of the sound effects, implemented all of the audio in FMOD Studio, and assisted with the gameplay programming in C#. You can play the game for yourself here. Enjoy!
Going with the Flow - Discussing the RElationships Between Sound Design and Player Immersion
I gave this talk at the 2023 Music and Gaming Festival in National Harbor, MD. It is a general-audience talk describing common techniques used in cognitive and computational musicology research, as well as the state of my Ph.D. research as of January 2023.
Ambient Music Machine
The final project for my Interactive Music class, the Ambient Music Machine allows users to interact with a musical soundscape by stretching and performing various yoga poses. Users manipulate the machine by holding a pair of Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and moving their arms. The machine is programmed to identify four specific yoga poses and to trigger different sound effects when a pose is detected. Joy-Con data is retrieved via the pyjoycon library. Sounds are generated using MaxMSP and Ableton Live. You can view the source code on GitHub here.
LM-1 Drum Machine Project
This video showcases my final project for my Music Technology History and Repertoire class, taken in Fall 2020 as part of Georgia Tech's MS in Music Technology Program. The GitHub repository for this project is available at https://github.gatech.edu/ablue8/MUSI-6003-LM1.
Encounter and Evolution
This piece was the final project for my undergraduate electronic dance music class. When composing this piece, I wanted to try and blend both acoustic and electronic styles into a single, cohesive composition. The piece begins in a minor key, gradually layering more instruments and melodies in the acoustic “A” section. However, after this slow initial build, the tone of the piece shifts drastically to a frenetic, electronic “B” section. After introducing all of these melodies, the piece shifts to a major key, slowly building once again as each of the melodies and timbres from earlier are reintroduced in new ways. The title is meant to reflect how the main theme changes and evolves throughout different musical contexts.
Pokemon gold/silver trainer battle video project
This video was a group project for my undergraduate orchestration class. I, along with two other students, created an orchestral arrangement of the trainer battle theme from Pokemon Gold/Silver, and scored it to a scene from the Pokemon anime. I personally arranged the music beginning at 0:22 through 0:37. I also handled all of the mixing and timed the arrangement so that key musical moments aligned with the video.
“Horn of plenty” Marching Band Arrangement
This piece was part of the Yale Precision Marching Band’s halftime show at the 2014 Yale-Harvard football game. During that year’s football season, I served as the band’s head student arranger, which involved coordinating the music for all of the halftime shows, arranging much of it myself. This particular piece, an arrangement of “Horn of Plenty” by James Newton Howard, is one of my favorite arrangements I made for the Yale band. The entire halftime show is available on the Yale band’s YouTube page. Additionally, I’ve made a copy of the score for this arrangement available here.