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My Musical Preferences
I like almost all music, as long as it contains a discernable melody and isn't written strictly to be popular. My tastes are quite varied, and thus i find it hard to list a set of "preferred" artists, and bands, although I do make such an effort. For 20th-century music, I tend to gravitate towards progressive rock, such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes; metal, such as Black Sabbath and Metallica; punk and grunge, such as Green Day and Nirvana, and general rock such as the Beatles and the Apples in Stereo. Over the past few years, I've started to listen to some classical. It started when I took "Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music" my sophomore year at WPI . The instructor mentioned that the album "Switched on Bach," by Wendy Carlos, was the first synthesizer album produced. That week, I purchased the album and its successor, "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer," on vinyl. In addition, I acquired the soundtrack to "A Clockwork Orange," which contains a synthesizer version of the fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th, realized by Wendy Carlos. Her work prompted me to later purchase the 9th conducted by Daniel Barenboim and a Bach performance on organ by Ton Koopman on DVD-Audio.
Many people state that history will say that the 20th century was one of the dark ages in music; that most of it was horrible. I tend to disagree. Our beloved composers had mediocre and horrible contemporaries that time has forgotten; history will remember the Beatles and Metallica. What I am curious to find out is how recording technology will effect music. No one really knows how classical music actually sounded when it was first performed; yet future music historians will be able to pull from our diverse set of recordings and know just how the artists intended for their works to be heard.

My Musical Preferences

I like almost all music, as long as it contains a discernable melody and isn't written strictly to be popular. My tastes are quite varied, and thus i find it hard to list a set of "preferred" artists, and bands, although I do make such an effort. For 20th-century music, I tend to gravitate towards progressive rock, such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes; metal, such as Black Sabbath and Metallica; punk and grunge, such as Green Day and Nirvana, and general rock such as the Beatles and the Apples in Stereo.

Over the past few years, I've started to listen to some classical. It started when I took "Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music" my sophomore year at WPI . The instructor mentioned that the album "Switched on Bach," by Wendy Carlos, was the first synthesizer album produced. That week, I purchased the album and its successor, "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer," on vinyl. In addition, I acquired the soundtrack to "A Clockwork Orange," which contains a synthesizer version of the fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th, realized by Wendy Carlos. Her work prompted me to later purchase the 9th conducted by Daniel Barenboim and a Bach performance on organ by Ton Koopman on DVD-Audio.

Many people state that history will say that the 20th century was one of the dark ages in music; that most of it was horrible. I tend to disagree. Our beloved composers had mediocre and horrible contemporaries that time has forgotten; history will remember the Beatles and Metallica. What I am curious to find out is how recording technology will effect music. No one really knows how classical music actually sounded when it was first performed; yet future music historians will be able to pull from our diverse set of recordings and know just how the artists intended for their works to be heard.

Music That I've Written
College WPI requires its students to take five humanities classes and then complete a project. This project, the sufficiency, encompasses the content of the five humanities classes. Posted below are the various works that I composed while at school. The music is clearly electronic; however, there is a classical influence. Christmas Theory This was my final project for music theory at WPI. Because I like synth sounds, I decided that this piece should be played using a square wave as opposed to a natural instrument like a piano. The name of this track comes about because it was composed around Christmas time, and it has a Christmas-y feel to it. Original MIDI, playback will vary on different computers. 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA Intro to Electro-Acoustic Music: First Impression This is my first impression of a “theme” that I wrote for “Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music” at WPI. All of my future assignments for the course were based on this one piece. I have included this piece as one of my works because I like the quality of the sound that the voices that I chose create. Original MIDI, playback will vary on different computers. 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA Intro to Electro-Acoustic Music: Final Impression This is my final project for “Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.” I open the piece with a synth of real instruments, and then I progress to do what I believe is the true intention of a synthesizer, to be an instrument itself instead of mimicking other instruments. This is the culmination of all of my previous assignments in the class. 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA An Electronic Music Composition My sufficiency, a required arts project, while attending WPI. 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA More information about the recording.
High School When I was in high school, I messed around with a type of a program called a tracker. At first, I used Scream Tracker, but then I switched to Impulse Tracker. The three songs listed below could be considered techno. It Doesn't Suck I originally wrote this track using Scream Tracker during the winter of my sophomore year of high school. It is the first piece of music that I wrote. I named it “It Doesn’t Suck,” because I feel the title described the song perfectly… I wasn’t crazy about the music, but I felt that it wasn’t altogether that bad. The version presented here is not the original; I shortened it after I created Aggressive Depression because I felt that the original was too long and repetitive. Final (Best) Version: 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA Extended (Original) Version, as a Rondo: 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA Modem Magic (My favorite of the three!) After writing “It Doesn’t Suck,” I discovered Impulse Tracker, a tracking program that, although based on Scream Tracker, offered many improvements over the original. I was inspired to write this track after I created a simple answering machine message based on sampled modem sounds. Most of the samples in this track are telephone and modem samples that I created; although a few are from other sources. I consider this to be my favorite track of my three techno tracks. 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA Agressive Depression 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
All music provided here is copyright Andrew Rondeau. Permission is granted to the viewer of this web site to only make copies for personal use. No commerical use or resale is permitted without written premission of Andrew Rondeau.

Music That I've Written

College

WPI requires its students to take five humanities classes and then complete a project. This project, the sufficiency, encompasses the content of the five humanities classes. Posted below are the various works that I composed while at school. The music is clearly electronic; however, there is a classical influence.

Christmas Theory
This was my final project for music theory at WPI. Because I like synth sounds, I decided that this piece should be played using a square wave as opposed to a natural instrument like a piano. The name of this track comes about because it was composed around Christmas time, and it has a Christmas-y feel to it.
Original MIDI, playback will vary on different computers.
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
Intro to Electro-Acoustic Music: First Impression
This is my first impression of a “theme” that I wrote for “Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music” at WPI. All of my future assignments for the course were based on this one piece. I have included this piece as one of my works because I like the quality of the sound that the voices that I chose create.
Original MIDI, playback will vary on different computers.
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
Intro to Electro-Acoustic Music: Final Impression
This is my final project for “Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.” I open the piece with a synth of real instruments, and then I progress to do what I believe is the true intention of a synthesizer, to be an instrument itself instead of mimicking other instruments. This is the culmination of all of my previous assignments in the class.
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
An Electronic Music Composition
My sufficiency, a required arts project, while attending WPI.
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
More information about the recording.

High School

When I was in high school, I messed around with a type of a program called a tracker. At first, I used Scream Tracker, but then I switched to Impulse Tracker. The three songs listed below could be considered techno.

It Doesn't Suck
I originally wrote this track using Scream Tracker during the winter of my sophomore year of high school. It is the first piece of music that I wrote. I named it “It Doesn’t Suck,” because I feel the title described the song perfectly… I wasn’t crazy about the music, but I felt that it wasn’t altogether that bad. The version presented here is not the original; I shortened it after I created Aggressive Depression because I felt that the original was too long and repetitive.
Final (Best) Version: 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
Extended (Original) Version, as a Rondo: 96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
Modem Magic (My favorite of the three!)
After writing “It Doesn’t Suck,” I discovered Impulse Tracker, a tracking program that, although based on Scream Tracker, offered many improvements over the original. I was inspired to write this track after I created a simple answering machine message based on sampled modem sounds. Most of the samples in this track are telephone and modem samples that I created; although a few are from other sources. I consider this to be my favorite track of my three techno tracks.
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA
Agressive Depression
96kbps MP3 VBR MP3 Lossless WMA

All music provided here is copyright Andrew Rondeau. Permission is granted to the viewer of this web site to only make copies for personal use. No commerical use or resale is permitted without written premission of Andrew Rondeau.