Engram en·gram (ngrm)
 n : a hypothetical means by which memory traces are stored as physical or biochemical change in the brain. The Source audio of Engram is from the installation project Tracer by Jefferson Goolsby and Reza Safavi. The piece opens with the reworked sound of a car being destroyed by sledgehammers, which—like the car—gradually disintegrates piece by piece. Eventually the horn of a passing car—captured during the original destruction—becomes the dominant figure. Engram represents a journey of memory, using as its source the sound of transportation being destroyed. The opening sounds occur as might a vivid experience in one’s life, whether terrifying, sorrowful, or joyous. We process the experience and it moves into memory. But as with any powerful experience, it may return to the front of our consciousness of its own volition, transformed. La’ah La’ah is composed for solo dance. The original idea comes from “playing with the voice”. We were mimicking the sound of a boy trying to say “La” but cut the sound suddenly in the middle of his breath. The original idea of the sound comes from an experience the dancer, Carrie Goodnight, she had several years ago in an airport. In the airport, she saw boy was playing with himself while waiting for the flight with his family. This boy, about five years old, started to make some funny sound out of his throat. This little fun seed is developed as the boy playing along with himself. I was playing with the sound as well. The excitement come from the “secret joy”. Have you even be so happy and excited for something by yourself in your own world? Imaging that little boy, totally having fun with his own world, even there were people walking pass by, noises around him, he did not care at all, all he wants is making funny sound out of his mouse and be happy with it. Combustion The original sound source for Combustion was the various mechanisms found on a large wood burning stove—the clanky metal sounds of vents, flues, and air intake dials as well as the burning fire and consumption of fuel. Niloiv The violin carries with it a great and long tradition of public performance, and from this tradition has come a worldwide familiarity with the sound of the instrument being played. But there is a separate, lesser known aspect of violin performance, what might be called “everything but the sound that is played,” or perhaps, “the sound of the violin not being played.” Upon recently beginning violin lessons I discovered that along with playing notes the act of playing the instrument brought with it a wealth of sounds that are generally outside the purview of the performance audience. These unheard noises were the “private” sounds that might be seen as artifacts outside the instrument’s primary intent: knocking on the body, plucking the strings, and handling the instrument. I found these sounds to be fascinating, important, and wonderful facets of playing the instrument. Equally significant, these sonic artifacts were unexpectedly personal and surprisingly intimate. I wanted to reconstruct this experience—the performer with the violin—in a way that would make the private qualities public, and move the hidden, intimate aspects of the violin to center stage. The Other There are two distinctive modes intertwined throughout the piece. Each of the modes represents “the other” in relation to the opposing mode. A slow sustain drone motif begins the piece, and is then followed by a distinctive high pitch that fractures this drone motion. Consequently, a second theme ("the other") emerges, bringing about "the other" sound world. These two themes play against each other, at times in conflict (dissonance) and at times in conciliation (consonance). Toward the middle of the piece a two-second silence presents the first climax, leading to a massive sound collage. A synthesized organ-like sound gradually softens the tension and returns the piece to the initial motif. There is a question I ask in this piece: "Who, exactly, is 'the other'?" As an individual one usually refers to anyone who is not one's self as “the other”. The other could be a neighbor, a brother, a foreigner, or a creature from another planet. However, it might also be yourself. Again, I ask, who, exactly, is "the other"? The other is, the other person, whose face takes me out of myself. —Emmanuel Levinas