Let's make something together!
Hi! I'm George, a software developer in the Hartford, CT area with a background in music. I'm always in search of ways to make things more usable, adaptable, and efficient.
ABOUT ME
I have always been a creative person; tinkering and experimenting. I ended up going to college for Music Composition and Jazz. In school I learned Max MSP and have since been interested in programming. Much of my code so far has been focused on applying the ‘rules’ and structure of music to new user interfaces. I've utilized concepts like gamification to explore and manipulate music in a more accessible and physical way. In the past I have combined this knowledge with exploration into aleatoric systems, FFT effects, and motion capture. When I was furloughed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided it was time to make a change. I took the opportunity to pursue my love of JavaScript more seriously.
I am currently finishing up a program called Thinkful where I am honing my skills as a fullstack developer in web-design and software development. I've had a lot of fun building React apps with Node & PostgeSQL backends, rounding out skills in JavaScript and data structures, and so much more! It has really helped me learn to solve new and unfamiliar problems quickly under pressure. I've loved it and now I’m looking for a professional role where I can put my skills to use, collaborate with inspiring teammates, and work on projects outside of my comfort zone.
CURRENT PROJECTS
POLYPERC
A web app for generating and manipulating rhythmic patterns. I built it as part of an ongoing set of tools for assisted music creation. My ongoing goal for this project is to make it easy and enjoyable for anyone to create highly specific and intricate or totally random and improvised rhythms as quickly as possible. The keys to this are the various pattern generation methods that can be selected and tweaked to instantly create a pattern. Polyperc is a RESTful app made using Javascript, CSS, HTML, React, on the front-end. The backend was made using Express, Knex, postgreSQL. Libraries such as Tone.js and xss were used for audio reproduction and security. Goals for the future: user accounts, collaboration, MIDI Clock/Transport & IN/OUT, custom sample kits, larger hierarchical rhythmic structures, and machine learning aspects. Check it out or view the git below!
MOTIFORGE
Motiforge is a CRUD application created to assists users in the music composition process. The front-end of this app was made in React, CSS, Jest, etc. The API was created using Express, Knex, and postgreSQL. Libraries such as bcrypt, jwt, and xss were used for authentication and security. Tone.js and Moment were also important for this. Users can create music from the basic building blocks of motifs, phrases, and form. My goal for this project is to explore how the order, proportions, and complexity of musical ideas affect the overall musicality of a composition. My long-term goal is to create an environment where users can pick and choose how much involvement and control they want over the creation process. Hopefully, the system will usually produce an interesting and tuneful result. Through this process of collaboration, the user and the system will both learn more about how to structure music. The process will help us refine our skills regarding what works well and what doesn't work to create enjoyable music. An alternative version is also in progress as an Ableton Live 'M4L' device made with JS and MaxMSP.
SPACED REPETITION
Spaced Repetition is a RESTful application created to help users learn languages. Users given a list of words to properly translate. Correctly answered words are displayed less frequently to maximize study time on words that need more review. This is made possible through a javascript/postgreSQL implementation of a singly-linked-list that control the order words. One major goal for this project was to implement working code based on testing requirements in cypress, supertest, and mocha. The front-end of this app was made in React, CSS, Jest, etc. The API was created using Express, Knex, and postgreSQL. Libraries such as bcrypt, jwt, and xss were used for authentication and security.
RACQUETSONG
A virtual-space created in Unity and C# for improvising music through controlled randomness and the physicality of racquetball, made in collaboration with Sean Nealon. Our goal was to explore how ricochets can be applied to music. The game performed rhythmic patterns and phrases from physics loops created by the balls' collisions with the walls. The user could control aspects of the collision pattern, such as the number of collisions, the number of times to repeat the ray-tracing loop, and the direction of the loop. We had hoped to make it into part of a larger musical exploration VR game for music education.