Grant Burgess
Selected Works
“Meet Midschool”
In 2019, I co-founded a non-profit music production school called Midschool Laboratories in Gresham, Oregon, an underserved suburb of Portland. For over two years, we have donated our time and money to offer affordable music production education to Gresham and East Portland residents. In addition to classes, we have hosted music producer meet-ups, held live events, and recorded vocals and instruments for our community members. For my Master’s degree terminal project, I made a documentary/fundraising video for Midschool and ran a successful crowdfunding campaign. For more information about the school, visit midschoolgresham.com.
“2/19/18 Live From the Test Site”
Over the course of two months, I produced instrumental hip hop pieces live on Instagram using suggestions and feedback from viewers to create pieces and make changes. Viewers recommended bringing in samples from different genres and with different characteristics, using live instruments, and changing song structures and composition. I have provided a link to the finished compositions uploaded to Soundcloud.
“At the Corner”
Produced in 2017, “At the Corner” is a short one-person documentary that follows a homeless mother and father and their three-year-old, Gabriel. In the film, the Moser family struggles to find enough money for a motel room, and they explain the difficulties of raising a toddler on the streets while battling addiction, hunger, and a failing social welfare program. In editing, I decided to only show Gabriel speaking to camera; this drew attention away from the potentially deceptive accounts that the parents gave and focused primarily on the human experience of a homeless child. I directed, shot, and edited this piece for my Master’s program.
“Food for the Buddha”
I directed, edited, and did sound design for this 2017 short documentary. The piece follows Buddhists in Portland as they prepare a sacred, weekly meal. They cook this vegetarian food to feed the temple’s worshippers, preparing much more than is necessary. The rest is given to Portland residents that are in need. In order to preserve the authenticity of the space and rituals, the film’s DP conducted the interviews in Mandarin. I used diegetic sound from the temple ceremony and the kitchen to compose the music and ambient sound heard throughout the piece. This documentary was featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s 2017 “Oregon Lens” series.
“Access Events”
In this audio piece, I explore the ways that changes to music production equipment have spurred artistic innovation and included voices and ideas from previously marginalized artists and communities. Using the equipment and techniques I discuss myself, I show that, as turntables, samplers, and digital audio workstations became more affordable, genres like hip hop and house flourished.
“An Open Tomb…an Empty Casket”
Produced in 2019, “An Open Tomb…an Empty Casket” is a collaborative instrumental hip hop album with Big Ghost LTD and my own production duo, Widowmaker. We collaborated with the anonymous Big Ghost LTD for a year to create this album. It is based on and often samples music from Italian horror/thriller movies, often dubbed “Giallo” films. I co-produced the B Side of the record and played guitar, percussion, and keys. I mixed the B Side and provided the final digital master for the entire record. It was released on 180g vinyl in 2020, cassette in 2021, and will see a minidisc release in 2022.