David Resnick music, movement, visuals, vibrations, hardware, code

L to R: The Springwater (Tennessee), Bagott Inn (NYC), and Station Hill Studios (Hudson Valley)

If you need to reproduce my bio, please download this version that uses third person narrative.

*Note: MIs = multiple instruments

Inspired by childhood jam sessions between my mother, Marti Resnick (backup vocalist in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention) and my uncle, Larry Revit (recording engineer for Jack Bruce), I started out my career in music at 14 years old by taking guitar lessons at summer camp.  Since then I’ve scored music for MTV’s Road Rules, performed at Skalapalooza, opened for the Dresden Dolls, produced a jazz record with Ira Coleman, won Garageband.com’s Americana Song of the Month, and performed with live dance at Merce Cunningham Dance.

My original music is characterized by pulsing rhythms, thickly stacked harmonic layers, and playful yet emotive melodies.  I generate my ideas using different methods, from beatboxing and singing lyrics into my iPhone to improvising in my studio part by part creating sonic sculptures.  I pay special attention to frequency interplay (overtones) and the various synaesthetic responses that my music evokes within movement and imagery.  Being a multi-instrumentalist on drums, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboard, voice, and electronics I often record all the parts myself.  Sometimes I enlist the help of my very talented friends, including saxophonist David CasT (P-Funk), violinist Lisa Liu, cellist Yoed Nir, composer/pianist David Homan, pianist/vocalist Molly Zenobia, tabla/electronics player Ehren Hanson, and multi-instrumentalists Erik Jacobs and James Curcio.

Over the years I’ve played in more than 30 bands and ensembles, including The Glow (MIs, with Daniella Gruenspecht), The Beams (MIs, with Brandon Smith), Bard College Orchestra (timpani, conducted by Joan Tower), Bard Percussion Ensemble (conducted by Joan Tower), Bard Gamelan Ensemble (conducted by Ni Ketut Suryatini), Ultrasonix (MIs, with Erik Jacobs), UltraZen (MIs, with Molly Zenobia), UltraSpace (MIs, with Ehren Hanson), The Conductors (MIs, with Daniel Hertzov), Skazeltov! (bass, with David Lobel & Donna Lichaw), and Johnny 5 (with Jaron Argiz).

In high school I bought a karaoke machine so I could record my song ideas and thus began my engineering, production, and mastering career.  I began studying engineering at the McGill University Conservatory of Music and continued at Bard with Bob Bielecki.  I then apprenticed with esteemed engineer Russell Frehling at the Deep Listening Institute.  I built and operated Orangeface Studios with Evolving Media Network in 2001 and got to work with brilliant musicians over the years, including Ira Coleman, George Clinton, David Sancious, Jerry Marotta, and John Esposito.  Along with partners from Evolving Media, I co-founded Soluna Records and engineered many of the releases.  I don’t run the commercial studio anymore, but I do engineer/produce for special occassions and my own recordings.

Recent fun side projects include posting a stream of videos to Youtube of percussion improvisations on random objects and teaching myself how to do two styles of Tuvan throat singing: Khoomei and Kargyraa (clean overtone style and deep resonant bass throat style).  I’m experimenting incorporating throat singing into my beatboxing and also singing it through filtering and delay effects.  Don’t be surprised to hear me practicing on the subway or street corner.

My most influential music teachers were Joan Tower (composing boldly), Kyle Gann (microtonal music and writing across bar lines), Luis Garcia Renart (the art of performance), John Esposito (how to be awesome), and the man who really started it all for me, Roger Ames, who taught me how music can transport people and believed in me when I needed it most.