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About Terasonic / Nicholas Hender, and the MusicTerasonic Music Creation and Audio Rendering was established late in the year 2000, by me, Nicholas Hender, as a means of publicising my compositional work.
Photograph by Georgina Campbell / Obscurity Pictures, Like many composers, I prefer that my music is not categorised. This is for the sake of avoiding being "pigeon holed" as a composer who works in only one particular style. If my music must be categorised however, I like to be experimental, in that I wish to explore the world of what music could be, rather than the world of what music already is. I attempt to achieve this by focusing on commonly neglected compositional concepts such as rhythmic texture, timbre, and tuning, as opposed to more conventional concepts such as melody and harmony. The methods by which most of my music has been constructed is inspired by a range of 20th Century compositional techniques, mainly including Minimalism (in terms of the processes by which the materials are developed) and Serialism (in terms of the numerical means by which rhythm, pitch, texture, and form are realised). I consider musical composition to be a valid medium of Contemporary Art, although I also believe that a sufficient level of originality, creativity, skill, and complexity, is necessary for a work to be worthy of recognition. In some of my compositions of the last few years, I have attempted to incorporate my "experimentalism" into conventional styles of music, in order to provide works that are accessible to the average listener, yet still interesting to a more broad-minded audience. More recently though, I have reverted to composing pieces that are either experimental or conventional, but always for the sake of further exploring the intricacies of musical construction. As a creator of music, I consider the recorded form of my music to be the final product, and in most cases, the only form in which my music can sound as intended. Most of my more recent music is not intended to be programmatic; it's not meant to tell stories, depict imagery or particular emotional feelings, and has very little literal meaning. Hence, the intention of my music is not to necessarily represent, symbolise, or be associated with, anything beyond the nature of its construction. Most of my works, to me, are just musical statements; they are about Music itself. Any psychological, emotional, or spiritual, response they might evoke is unpredictable, left entirely to audience interpretation, and probably varies greatly between individuals. However, the result of listening to my music is unavoidably an important aspect of its final purpose; it often tends to be an emotional or psychological reaction that's likely to be rather foreign, or alien, to the reactions most listeners had previously associated with music (especially conventional music); it is helpful, therefore, to approach my music with an open mind. Beyond the statements about musical construction made by my compositions, it is each individual listener's response (the way in which they're moved, however it may be) that makes my music expressive, and hence allows it to have meaning beyond itself, regardless of the meaning being initially unintended. Expression, of course, along with creativity and originality, is a fundamental goal of any artistic work; I simply choose to place creativity as a higher priority. My music is intended to be contemplated, as opposed to simply enjoyed (although enjoyment of my music is permissible). For me there’s a distinction (even if there can be an overlap) between appreciating something as entertainment, and appreciating something as Art. Entertainment has the ultimate purpose of making its audience enjoy themselves and feel good, and this is not the intended purpose of my music. I do not design music for the purpose of being sung along and/or danced to. Please visit the MP3 Files page, to download and listen to full length and high fidelity examples of my compositional work. Prior to founding Terasonic, I studied at La Trobe University, Australia, within a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Music, specialising in Computer Music, Synthesis, and Composition. I completed these studies in 1997, achieving First Class Honours with the thesis titled Tuning Systems Derived from Timbre, and Timbres Derived from Tuning Systems, as Realised in Electronic Music (zip, 1.07MB). Since completing my Degree, my music has been performed at arts festivals and exhibitions. I have composed and produced some short film soundtracks, prepared backing tracks for vocalists, recorded demo tapes and CDs, and mixed down, remixed, and mastered tracks for commercial release. Since the launch of Terasonic however, I have chosen to make music purely for my own study and artistic purposes. Some of my work has now been accepted to be represented in the collection of the Australian Music Centre, which houses and publishes the work of many reputable Australian composers. In the last year I have been concentrating on re-developing and extending my skills as an instrumentalist on the tenor trombone (the focus of my musical activities before studying at university), participating in amateur and local community ensembles. In 2002, I completed my Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) at Monash University, Australia. This qualifies me to teach Physics and Music at senior level secondary school. I'm now in my fifth year of teaching at Brentwood Secondary College in Melbourne. © 2008, Nicholas Hender / Terasonic, ABN 55 077 342 706. |
