Remember those Precambrian rock noises from North Shore Rocks? Well for this piece I loaded the unprocessed recording of those rocks into a simple sampling plugin, then arpeggiated the sampler randomly within a scale. This created a cloud of stumbling chaotic rhythms that changes every time it is played back in the software.
I listened to this for a long while, fascinated by it, then decided to run it all through the Resonator in Ableton Live. This processor produces a chord of resonant pitches that react to the signal sent to the device; in this case, my falling rock sample. Since the rocks had no discernible pitches, this instantly created a musical bed of sound. I tuned the resonance to a C minor 9 chord and then automated the tuning of a fifth pitch to create a melody. A little bit more fussing about, and this is what I got.
Precambrian Resonance
Literally… Captured bouncing and rolling down the dense, Precambrian volcanic rock on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota last Summer. I recorded this sound with an AKG c4000b large diaphragm condenser microphone. No processing included. Just linear fades in and out.
I’ve always tried to keep my ears open as wide as possible and to record something at the drop of a hat when I witness a spectacular sound or just have a melody trying to pry it’s way out of my head. Sometimes these ideas come at the darnedest times. Making a BLT Sandwich is usually a pretty greasy situation. Last month I was frying up some bacon for the family in hopes of making the ultimate BLT when I was suddenly hearing a rainy day. I had a notion that if I recorded the sound of my sweet bacon sizzling and slowed or pitched it down that it would sound just like rain. I had to do it. My first recording was made with an AKG c4000b. I used a lesser quality mic, a Shure BG 1.1, for the second. I assure you that both mics got as close to the action as possible without becoming caked with grease. The outcome was not as my ears were hearing it. I dropped each wav file into 
However, I do not limit the assignment to classical works. Sometimes, students make clever remixes of popular music, and frequently they choose music from classic video games like this remix of the Lost Woods theme from the