Tom G
- Research Program Mentor
MA candidate at University of Geneva
Expertise
Music composition, music theory, music history, film scoring, music technology
Bio
I am a graduate of Yale University, the École Normale de Musique de Paris, the Fontainebleau Conservatory, and the Royal Carillon School of Belgium. I currently make music in Paris, where I am a Mortimer Hays Traveling Fellow from Brandeis University, while a Master's candidate in multimedia composition in Geneva (Switzerland). I was the 2021-2022 recipient of a Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Award at the United States Foundation in France, and received the 2022 Rosalind Swenson Fulbright Enrichment Award. Although I studied classical composition in school, I write music in many genres including classical, rock, jazz, pop, and film scores (I love film music and frequently work with directors to compose and produce original soundtracks). I played the guitar and the drums in several rock and folk bands in high school. My favorite band is the Beatles. Outside of music, I enjoy making watercolor paintings of trees.Project ideas
Compose an original piece of music or song
Compose your own music! You get to decide on the instruments, the length of the piece, and your musical style. Composition is about taking individual sounds and turning them into a real piece of music. We can talk about where to look for inspiration, how to structure your composition, and techniques for writing it all down (by hand or with a computer) so that others can play your music, too. My goal is to help you develop and share your unique musical ideas.
Electronic music composition
Not all music has to be notes on a page. With this project, you will create an original electronic music composition using digital software or analog tools to build sounds from the ground up and/or to transform sounds that you record. I will teach you how the software and hardware work, and how to use them to compose music for concerts, records, and/or films.
Analyze music using music theory
Do you wonder how music really works? Or, how a composer from the past decided which notes to write? Do you have a favorite song or piece of music, and want to fully understand what makes it so good? Together, we will analyze songs or pieces using music theory techniques. We will start with lessons on music theory to build an analytical toolset, and then apply those tools to music that you choose. The final product can be an essay or a presentation.
Making Music with Neural Networks
Explore the intersection of music and machine learning! In this project, we'll learn how to build perceptrons and neural architectures. Once we've made our tools, we'll learn how to use them during the music composition process. If you're interested in the intersection between the arts and cutting-edge technology, this will be a fun and fascinating project.