This project addressed the digital expansion of fortepiano features using techniques of sound design and programming, studying how these interact with the performing and improvising processes and questioning a sonic image of the fortepiano's affordances that is limited by the perception of the standard devices available on modern pianos: the sustaining and the *una corda* pedals.
We took our point of departure from two research questions: 1) Since sound-altering devices are not normally available in modern copies of fortepianos, how can we conceive and apply experimental alternatives? 2) How do the ensuing alterations modify instrumental perception and can they contribute to the creation of alternative performing solutions, namely in association with improvisatory practices and sound synthesis?
The research has exposed the aesthetic limitations of merely considering historical re-construction. In doing so, it has highlighted a set of performing techniques, creative procedures and digital applications that can contribute to a deconstruction of the standard perception of the sound of historical keyboard instruments and to the creation of experimental paths for performing and improvising on the fortepiano through the mediation of electronic interfaces and digital sound objects.
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