))A song played on the piano. The drums follow the pulse of the song, but the same drums are stuttered and add a second layer disturbing the pulse. Piano is processed and comes out as dystonic grains.
)) One pitch in the piano. Another pitch a prepared piano sample with the exact same timing. A third layer with a distorted and stuttered effect. The combination liberates the piano from its tempered tuning. No, that´s an illusion. The pitch of the piano is still there, but the other deviant pitches are covering it up. The sum of these microtonal relations decides how far ‘off’ we perceive the tonal result.
Detuned, dissolved, likely to fall apart
The different tunings and timbres create conflict in the material, pointing towards a dissolution or implosion.
Fix it
Untie it
Grasp it
Lose it
Decontextualize it
The keeping of pitch and dystonic qualities in the same instrument at the same time lets the instrument grow tentacles. They can reach out in many directions. Towards and away from references, emotions, tonality, notions, chords 34, homophony, heterophony, polyphony, melody.
2) Using several microphones, each microphone is picking up different representations of the acoustic sound. The output is a reassembly of many different sources. I need to balance and equalize (EQ) all sound sources to make a new representation of the sound.
3) The sound will go through loudspeakers, and the sound from those go into the instrument again. This will amplify certain frequencies more than others, and there is a need for EQ-ing and leveling towards a balanced sound result. I have EQ-devices before and after the processing chains in my setup.
Involving electronic tools, many considerations on sound poetics are introduced. Since I am re-presenting a sound I can choose to add features to that sound, such as distortion, reverb, drastic use of EQ and more. This demands a reflection around what features I want from the sound in the actual setting. The sound that I need might be closely related to the acoustic source or a far relative. (See ”far from source – close to source” on page 53).
other trails
beauty danger
emotions cynicism
grass bryophytes
running walking
daybreak twilight
containment openness
cautious reckless 48
extrovert introvert
dullness temper
heavy light
perennials weeds
hollow solid
ignorant empathic
There are moments where I am in charge and moments where the instrument and I are more aligned, meaning that the instrument´s unpredictability gives it an autonomous voice in the internal play. This positioning is challenging the musical hierarchy by giving the technology responsibility for musical execution.
Examples of imaginary interplay partners in the instrument are: The hadron particle synthesizer, the 4 track looper (Max), the midi looper (Max), the Squarewave Parade Teaspoon window sampler in combination with the Hexe Revolver pedal, the feedback generated by the pedal section, the feedback generated by the digital system in combination with the exciter loudspeakers, the contact microphones in combination with the Max4Live Stutter patch.
weight – function
My music is presented through recordings and by playing concerts. Playing concerts is an international operation, involving airplanes. The maximum limit for one piece of luggage is 32 kilos, but usually I will have to pay for everything heavier than 23 kg. Carrying more than one piece of luggage, even below the limit of 23 kg is a hassle. Carrying over 3 pieces is impossible because of overweight costs. The budget for the concerts I play doesn´t cover these expenses. And the artistic expression needs concerts to evolve…
All cables, power supplies and casings must be as light as possible. Regarding processing devices I always have to consider weight versus function. Does this analogue device add something essential to the sound palette? Can I do something similar using my computer? How do I distribute the devices in my instrument setup to make it as practical as possible when rigging the instrument? An essential part of the research in this project has been to find good sounding, lightweight and durable tools that take up little space and connect them in a setup according to my musical needs. Despite this, I ended up with a pedal board suitcase weighing 26 kg. I am supposed to use the other half of that suitcase for clothing. The fashion department suffers…
)) There are several materials here. One gravitates towards a steady pulse. One is threatening to dissolve it. One is tonal and one is disturbing the tonality. The music is moving, accelerating and decelerating, but still moving. Materials rubbing create vacillating shifts between unstable and stable.
The flow-friction trail is a primary one in my project, and relate to many levels. This dichotomy is a premise for many of the trails and concepts discussed later in this text.
1) The sound object level: How do the sounds play out, are they obstructed by occurrences in the sound itself or in the surrounding sounds? The processing of a pure sound can be viewed as imposing friction onto the pure sound.
2) The compositional level: How do the structures and improvisations play out? Is it music with elements in opposition or harmony?
3) The performance level: What situations make me as a performer experience flow? How do I relate to the input from the room, the instrument or other performers?
3) The rhythmic level: How does the altering, dissolving, nudging and stuttering of rhythm affect the flow-friction correlation in the music?
4) The instrument setup level: How does the instrument cater to the musical needs? Do the musical ideas flow through the instrument or are they met with resistance and interference from the instrument´s own complexity, its own voice or autonomy?
The room in between tonal sound and noise holds a potential of friction. This room opens for other expressions and readings by engaging our inner library of tonal references. Lasse Thoresen coins this dystonal sound 25. The dystonic landscape is questioning and challenging my references.
The flow/friction in the playing situation is related to the different tools of the instrument and how they project and process/abstract/obstruct the musical material. They can add friction in the surface of a sound, obstruct regular rhythm or create contrasts between materials. The tools impose friction on many levels. Some hinder flow and some contribute to it. I think that friction is transforming the musical output to be more dangerous, insecure, ambiguous and darker. There is a flow-friction correlation in the music that the processing- tools can alter, nudge or destabilize. The ability to create friction is a main reason for me to use electronics the way I do. All the processing, feedback, transformations, playback and abstractions happening in the instrument are creating sonic depth, gravity and layers chafing, generating resistance and traction for the musical material.
I imagine, and hear, flowing elements and frictional elements at play in my music. Working with this balance is one of the main tasks when processing and abstracting the piano sound and the peripheral sounds of my instrument 26. The complexity of the instrument creates friction towards me. The flow that Sten Sandell is describing are somewhat hindered by the large creature surrounding me 27. My ideas are met with the instruments autonomous voices, hindering their flow through the instrument. I experience resistance in my performance, and I want this resistance to happen.
memory #3
Autumn 1996
Hearing Song for F with the band Close Erase at Gyldenløve Hotel in Kongsberg established friction and resistance as a central figure in my thinking about music. The band, comprising Christian Wallumrød, Per Oddvar Johansen and Ingebrikt H. Flaten, showed a way of playing where they held back on the music´s propulsion, adding an original gravity and elasticity in their timing. The music didn´t feel light-footed like many of the other jazz-bands I listened to. This music had more resistance, like running in a bog. I like that.
flow is balance
friction swampy
flow is letting go
friction is analysis
flow is forgetting
friction self-aware
flow is movement
friction stutters
flow needs resistance
stopping needs friction
flow is generative
friction distorts
flow is feedback
friction will feedback
friction is unstable
flow is absence of thought
flow occurs unexpectedly, often when worn out
flow needs gravity
friction is gravity
flow is not self aware
flow is pulsating
friction is vacillating
flow ist geworfenheit
The theory of Spectromorphology leans on Pierre Schaeffer’s ideas on l’écoute réduite / reduced listening, aiming to zoom in and describe the single sound object. A pure piano note is a tonic sound object, with a defined pitch. A dystonic sound object consists of both pitched and un-pitched material. This trail points further from the dystonic sound through complex un-pitched sounds and towards the other extreme, white noise.
In my instrument and the music I am producing, sound objects are organized in layers and the relationship between layers become important.
When my musical output moves from tonic material towards dissolution, I find that there is ambiguity arising within the music. Moving towards more complex sound layers creates an unstable situation where the music may go in many directions. These situations nod towards the very core of where my music is feeding, a paddock of ambivalences and emotional complexity.
The following examples show that it is difficult to isolate a single sound object in my instrument (and in my music). I am hitting the keys once, yet the output consists of many layers that are initiated by this one hit makes these sounds.
A tonic foreground layered with other tonic sounds, one with a vacillating surface:
1) A tonic foreground layered with other tonic sounds, one with a vacillating surface
2) A tonic foreground layered with a dystonic layere and a tonic vacillating layer
3) A tonic backgroundwith complex layers in the foreground
The tonic to dystonic music
Energy
Edge, energy, danger… What does it mean? There are elements in this music capable of tearing it apart, taking over as the driving force. This music can go many places. It is somewhat testing its own contingency, there is an uncertainty to where it wants to go. From my point of view this pulling in different directions adds energy and transforms a naïve and stubborn chord sequence into a dark and potentially explosive force by introducing doubt, staggering and instability.
From dystonic towards noise:
What attracts me to noise is that it engages my imagination, my inner ear. A constantly shifting mass of sound points in many directions, and I (probably because I want to extract some meaning from this mass) start to hear structures, notes, melodies, timbres that are not really there. When the point of departure is a clear melody or a harmonic structure transforming into noise, I imagine the noise absorbing the structures. They are at the verge of destruction, but they can still be heard in my inner ear. The destruction of beauty makes the beauty come across stronger.
)) The detuned piano is threatening to dissolve the tonic quality of the chord sequence.
There are several sources of noise material, a processed harmonium in the high spectrum, an artificial voice, a piano that moves far below its normal habitat, one pulsating noise panned to one side and a bit-reduced piano sound panned to the other side.
Working with the path between tonal and complex create friction in the tonic material of this chord sequence. I like to cover clear structures by the use of processing, and I also think that this strategy gives an edge and energy to the music, making the written structures more dangerous 28.
)) A sudden stop, the distorted overtone is still at play. Then, a machinery inhibits the piano, making it sound like a myriad of different unpitched sounds. A feedback sound and a Theremin sound engage in a dialogue above the carpet of machinery. Lost control. Drastic dynamics. The machinery´s potential energy. The feedback and Theremin sound break out and use it.
The myriad stops. A simple ostinato starts. Clean. Low volumes.
I play with Knut Reiersrud on guitar and he plays an amazing blues-solo before me. With an acoustic piano I might as well just lie down and cry. But now!!! The piano is a guitar. I can bend and stretch the notes. Create feedback in the amp like my heroes. Use distortion to deliver a frequency spectrum pointing towards the stars. Wind in my hair (or wind machine). Drums beating away, loud. The revenge over the guitar players that could turn up their amplifier and drown the piano sound completely…
Expanding the sonic palette of the piano gave me an urge to expand the dynamical palette of the instrument, making the instrument sound much louder and much softer than an acoustic piano. Now I am able to be the guitar that can play louder or the silent whisper that is barely heard.
The electronics hold a new range of dynamic tools. I can make dynamic shapes that are not possible with an acoustic piano. The electronic instrument´s valuable (and dangerous) feature of turning the volume up or down is introduced. Amplifying the acoustic instrument above its limit of feedback is also possible. I like using feedback as a source of sound, because I like the unpredictability and the inherent dynamic signature of this process (that can rise from a soft sound to a very loud one in no time). Feedback introduces attributes of danger and lost control.
Here are some examples of using my augmented piano creating different dynamic shapes:
)) Piano chords. One layer with clean piano and one with a pitched and time manipulated piano recording. Scraping sounds from trying to hear my daughter´s heartbeats with an ultrasound machine when Rønnaug was pregnant. Another layer. You can hear the heartbeats. A robot voice says fright, flew, you, close, true, live, long, strong. Another layer. The intensity rises. The robot sounds are abstracted. Love. Lust. A heavily processed harmonium comes in. Another layer. Piano sent through a stutter pedal. Another layer. Fright, you, flew. The piano is gradually destroyed, as everything else. The layers transform. Me, live, long. Singing. The intensity falls. Hilma´s heartbeats. Chords. Singing, closer now. Wooden sounds. A sudden dynamic rise. A piano figure pops out. It is the piano that I learned to play on when I was a kid.
The layers sounding simultaneously relate to each other in their contribution to the sound output. The relation between the layers, the scraping and chafing creates frictions, pulls in diverse directions. Their dream of a total union will never be fulfilled 31.
Keep dreaming about perfection. You hold a mirror for the imperfect.
The vast space between layers holds potentials of motions, implosions, tractions, negotiations, intensities, frictions, and explosions.
I pull the strings of this in-between. For every bit of imperfection or contrast I add, the tensions differ. And so does the meaning of the sound. Total union is beyond reach, the love of another cannot abolish that 32. Chaos is human. From the utopian perfect fusing of layers to the total opposition between them. On this trail I can move and express myself.
Sounds
The layers of sound can accumulate towards the point of a full sound spectrum, the noise. The layers move in pitch, dynamics and frequency profile. They change in length and gait. Their accumulation brings chaos, but the movement in-between layers will produce new constellations in the music.
Layers constantly shifting: imagine several opaque images moving inside the same frame. Or clouds drifting 33. Each image will be variably visible, and the total will shift constantly. An ever changing image, yet with the same main compositional elements. The electronic memories of my instrument and the processes that transform material gradually are at play here. When many layers play out more or less autonomously and simultaneously, the result is a system that is unpredictable and seemingly has a life of its own. An accumulation of sound that erases the single layer´s identity, creating an output not possible to dissect.
- One musical structure in the piano can be dubbed in other sounds using midi signals from the PianoBar.
- The instrument can play back material recorded earlier in the musical pass or in another setting.
- The different processing systems can refract the same input, creating different outputs.
- The same sound can be sent to different loudspeakers and amplifiers, giving the sounds different spatiality.
Layers and coating are connected. The piano sound´s surface can be processed in different ways, and with its individual coating each version becomes a layer in the total.
Pitches
The starting point: a piano, 88 fixed pitches with equal temperament.
(I could have brought and used a tuning wrench of course, but no one would hire me and I would be the most unpopular piano-player in the universe, especially with the piano tuners. And, to be honest, it´s the relation between tuned and detuned material that I find most interesting.)
I often envied the other players that had the possibility to work with tuning as a part of their musical expression. I wanted that as a part of my instrument too. Deadly inspired by listening to Harry Partch, the instruments and scale system, I started to search for possible ways to dissolve tuning. My instrument can layer the tuned sound of the piano with other detuned sounds. The tuned sound of the piano can be muted by holding the string or playing so soft that there is no sound. The layers of detuned sounds can drown the tuned piano by its volume. The tempered pitches could be more or less present.
The piano sound has a fixed tuning, so the impression of detuning is made by layering sound with different tunings or layering the original piano sound with tuning-processed material. The ring modulator, PT-10 delay, Teaspoon, Rainbow, Arpanoid, Particle, Oto and Blue sky alters tuning. In the digital module, all the devices except the Compressor and Twin Tremolo effect can alter tuning.
memory #4
12.09.2013
Harry Partch, Delusion of the Fury, Nationaltheatret – Oslo, Ultimafestivalen.
The German ensemble MusikFabrik and director Heiner Goebbels had reconstructed Partch´s entire fleet of instruments, and performed this work as a theatrical piece.
I was there. I suddenly understood where the poetics of Tom Waits, expressed in songs that
I have listened to for many years came from. The deliberation of pitch and the sound qualities of these instruments felt like a landmark.
The bright or dark characteristics of a sound are depending on how the sound spreads in the frequency range. This establishes the trail between dark and bright.
My instrument palette ranges from dark to light, depending on register, what microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers I use, processing strategies and what peripheral sound sources are involved. The filtering tools and different sound-distribution outputs of my instrument allow me to work with transitions and sudden changes on this parameter. Now that I can perform drastic changes in the domain of brightness and darkness, they take a more important role in my music making. When playing, I am constantly listening to analyze the expanse of sounds I produce, and to decide what area of the spectrum my sounds inhibit. I can filter a sound to be bright or dark, depending on what function I want for this particular material. A filtered, small sound with limited brightness and darkness may for me be a soundification of fragility and vulnerability. A sound containing more of the spectrum is often more obstinate and stronger in the musical hierarchy. I can enhance the high-end to be able to cut through in interplay. I can also boost low end to make the piano work in a sub-bass area, an area where the acoustic piano is not initially native.
In my pedal setup there are several options for filtering sound. The impedance input can be adjusted in the Radial DI, affecting brightness. There is also a lo-cut option on this device, used if the low end is difficult to control. The first link of the effect chain is a TC electronic BodyRez, enhancing the mid frequency area and making me able to play at higher volumes without feedback issues. Next there is a bass/mid/treble (ToneBone) EQ to adjust pickup sound before processing. There is lo-cut on the direct signal and hi-cut on the delay signal on the Bugbrand Delay. Finally, there is a parametric digital EQ that can work narrower spectres, taking away or adding frequencies before the amplifier. The amplifiers response also plays a role, the attributes and size of the loudspeakers decide the sensibility to feedback and the uniformity of the sound between different registers. I will rather use smaller than bigger amplifiers and loudspeaker-surfaces, because they are more precise and uniform.
The Delta III, the Teaspoon, the Decapitator plug-in and the Pollen pedal adds distortion to the sound, ranging from subtle to extreme. The Rainbow machine, Arpanoid and ring modulator can add brightness to the sound, generating sound material in an adjustable frequency specter. The Hadron and Crystallizer takes sound info and pitches it up or down, adding to certain frequency areas. The sample and synthesis devices like the OP-1, the prepared piano and Bassline dub the piano sound with sound that can be tweaked to a specific frequency profile
)) I hit a chord. I play it back through my guitar amplifier. It sounds a bit coarser than it was. I process the sound. I play it through a detune process. The tuning is altered with a sine wave moving above and below the original center of pitch. I engage the red panda particle pedal. It takes this detuned chord and breaks it up into little grains. The sound was a big flake that just broke into a thousand pieces and now it is a sky of falling dust. I disengage that pedal. The material´s surface is again whole.
Electronic processes can be used to alter the granularity of the original sound, making the sound surface coarser or slicker. Processing will not only alter the sound, it alters the musical meaning and function of the sound in the compound. A slick sound will have a different function than a rough sound.
When the piano sound meets the microphone the grain structure of the sound changes, the sound resolution is lower and its spectrum is narrower. The choice of microphone and preamp decides the coarseness. Using contact or dynamic microphones are making the sound less detailed, while using a condenser will give a higher resolution (and far more feedback problems). All the distortion processes in the system are making the sound rougher and grainier. The Lo-Fi loop sampler is making a very grainy representation of recorded materials, as do the time-stretch and random functions in the MaxMSP 4 track recorder (See ”digital section II, Max” on page 123)
The effect chain with the Hexe Revolver and the Teaspoon is degrading and adding roughness to the sound surface, as does the bit-crusher functions of the Oto machine.
In the digital section Hadron, Decapitator, Buffer Shuffler and the Spectral Harmonizer work in this domain.
A sound with a vacillating surface tends to loose its foothold. It is ambivalent and restless.
A sound can give the impression of rest or motion. The motion can alter the pitch, dynamics or frequency profile of the sound. My focus is often on how I can manipulate the surface of the more or less fixed acoustic piano sound.
I have a crush on vacillating movements in a sound. A cyclic or regular motion in the sound surface makes me lose interest in the sound. A sound with a vacillating surface can hold my interest much longer. It is ever changing. I can perceive the main essence of a sound quite quickly, but it is the irregularity of the surface that engages my brain, keeping me on the lookout for new patterns. The changes in the surface make me want to experience the sound again and again. The erratic movements point sound in unpredictable directions.
Expanding the sonic palette of the piano means working a lot with altering the piano´s sound surface. A strong surface motion or altered granularity of the piano sound transforms the expression, even if the original sound representation is still there. Ring modulation is a good example, used here on the piano layer.
The Tremorama is working with the dynamic gait of the sound, and the Buffer Shuffler in the digital system is working on the same thing. The Rainbow machine Arpanoid, Ring Modulator and RP Particle can add a wide variety of gaits. The Blue Sky reverb, Valhalla reverb and the PT-10 delay adds adjustable modulations to the processed sounds.
All the recording devices of the system can add pitch gait to the recorded materials.
The reverb processes in the instrument have the potential to impose different types of ambience onto the sounds. Different artificial rooms, spring reverbs, plate reverbs; the ambience will decide the feeling of distance to the sound, how the sounds are perceived and how I play them.
The task of reverberating different sound sources in amplified settings is often given to a sound engineer. I wanted to get away from this work method, because I see reverberation as a musical tool, alongside all the other sound processing that I do. An important aim in this project was to take back the control over how my sounds were processed in the mix, both in the studio and in the live situation.
Reverb move sound from near to distant, from tactile to intangible. The same sound can, with different types and amounts of reverb, obtain different spatial placements. This decides the sound´s role in the totality. Moving on this trail creates a dimension of depth in the sound image.
The main reverberation tools of the instrument are the Blue Sky, the Valhalla reverb and the Fender Deluxe reverb unit. The colour, length, naturalness, motion, bi-products like shimmer or noise and response of the reverbs differ and create a signature which is unique for each of the reverbs. Tweaking these parameters in real time will move the sound on the close-distant axis.
The piano and its acoustic sound is the starting point for the electronic processing. When catching this sound and using it to generate new sonic material, the result varies in its fidelity to the original sound source. High fidelity means reproducing the source accurately. The trail is going from processing the piano in a manner true to the original sound towards a point where the processed sound no longer relates to the original source.
All parts of the signal chain contribute with changing the processed sound´s fidelity. The resolution, quality and placement of the microphone, the quality and sonic attributes of preamps and other hardware, the bit and sample-rate of the digital equipment (bit reduced piano is one of my favorites) 36, the attributes of the digital processes at play and the quality, placement and resolution of the loudspeakers distributing the sound. The piano is this passage is processed with the OTO machine, adding bit reduction to the sound.
A potential for expression lies in-between the presentation of the acoustic sound and the re-presentation of it in a processed sound material. The electronic processes can act as a solvent to the piano. Dim or dull it. A colour or sound being contrasted is perceived as stronger.
The electronic sounds create sceneries for the piano to merge with or be alienated in. The other sounds introduce a constantly shifting light on the piano sound. Different fidelities alter the function of the piano-sound and generate contrasts. The distance of expression between the piano and the processing that relates to it is a musical catalyst.
There is a crooked path from sound-idea to sound-realization. Where does an idea come from? Sometimes from my inner ear, other times as a response to the instrument´s sounds and behaviours. When an idea occurs, the realization of the idea in the instrument as sound starts changing the idea. The relation between idea and sound should be one of interaction.
The idea of a sound is impossible to realize as sound. The sound will always be different from the idea. Then, if the idea serves as yardstick for the quality of the sound as is, the sound will be judged as a failure. The sound needs to be changed, not the idea. If, on the contrary, the sound as is serves as a guideline for evolving the idea and vice versa, there is a dialogue going on that may change the music.
We see it all the time: concepts override auditive results. The ideas are good, yet the sonic output doesn´t match in clarity and complexity. The brilliant idea might not work as sound or music. I feel the urge to evaluate and re-evaluate this aspect again and again, making sure that I am not tricked into being blindly faithful towards the ideas, not listening and evaluating the premier aspect in music: the sound output.
Mantra:
It is easy to be tricked into thinking that a good sound-idea always will work sonically. That is a mistake. Stick with what you hear, not what you think.
Trails on composition
improvised – pre-conceived
I write songs and lyrics. I carry them with me, they change from day to day when I am playing them. I want them to appear as fresh, even though they are old. I improvise, meaning I change them on the spot, add new parts, different instrumentations, other sounds. Maybe I use a slightly different setup. I try to stay sensitive to how that song wants to play out on that particular day. In the live-situation the songs often transform into or merge with improvised parts. These transformations play an important part in my performances.
Ideas, textures, sounds and structures have emerged in the studio or at the rehearsal space and become part of my performing experience and poetics. I carry these with me, importing them into the present moment when I play. In the playing situation I let the preconceived material and my improvisational practice meet. They oscillate. This is one way I compose the present moment.
Improvisation to me is an attitudinal tool of trying to be flexible towards my preconceived materials; I interconnect them, reshape them, reshuffle them. An attitude of being open to whatever may occur of mistakes, new sounds and unheard directions in the music. My improvisations are heavily biased by materials from the past. My materials are me. The listener will hear that this is me, even though there are differences in every performance and on every recording. I go inside materials, improvise with them, twist and turn and see what comes out. Occasionally, something new and unheard occurs. If I like it, I take it with me in my archive.
A majority of the improvisations on The Karman Line album come across as written parts, even though they are not. This is because many of my improvisations generate chord sequences, a melody or some regular rhythms, elements that may be perceived as written. This haphazardness attracts me.
My improvisations use materials from the past, and sometimes they develop into detached movements of playing, it becomes something new (to me), something of the present. Improvisation to me is a lens of refraction, it treats and changes the matter from the past, showing new possibilities and unseen aspects pointing towards new music 37.
Transformations and merges
Listening to my live performances, especially the Personal Piano material, it is easy to interpret the music as a movement between written parts and improvised parts. This is not precisely the case.
The different materials merge and transform.
I create friction between the composed materials using the processing tools at hand to dissolve it and transform it into improvisation. This improvisation can again be challenged by inputs from the written material. My music is shaped through the interference between sound-surface and structure, and by the possibilities of sound- and structure-abstraction in the instrument. The memory modules of the instrument (loopers, recorders and so on) make it possible to layer and merge different pieces of musical material, for example improvised and composed material. Other tools that dissolve pitch, tonality or alter frequency profile can abstract a written material. The rhythm altering tools, the stutter effect or the modulated/randomized playback and tempo features of my setup can abstract rhythms, forms and tonality, allowing for an exchange between composed and improvised material.
In the studio
The Personal Piano album consists of seven compositions. They are recorded in my studio. Small sketches. Skeletons that needed sounds. Sounds made by playing and listening, searching, recording whenever I found something that I liked. This is a method that I use for learning and exploring the possibilities of my instrument: Searching, listening, recording. When I have mapped out a series of sounds that I like, I start to improvise with the sounds towards a song structure, on this album often a 5–10 minutes pass with chord sequences, melodies and lyrics. Still, I am not working in the traditional verse/chorus/verse/bridge/chorus-frame. The genre-markers of a song become starting points. I try to redefine and reshuffle known attributes of a song to generate a personal take on the format.
More Recording. I repeat this process with several attempts of improvisation and with a series of sounds. This material is kneaded towards an arrangement with a specific instrumentation. On this album, I also re-recorded some of the sounds by sending them through the exciter loudspeakers sitting on the piano’s resonant bottom, recording them again, a new and different way of reamping 38. I wanted to integrate the piano´s inherit ambience in some of the electronic sounds that I use.
The arrangement process could go on for weeks. A lot of the sounds and improvisations were discarded, but the doing in this process is a very effective rehearsal. It develops materials and action on my instrument.
In concert
The record is out and I am going on tour. Then what? Materials I have used days and weeks to knead, tweak and tighten in the studio, how do they translate to the concert situation?
I try to reproduce the sounds and arrangement from the album. Often they are too complex. I have two hands and one brain. I have to rearrange once again, finding out how I can present a musical essence in real-time. I improvise, finding out which elements to keep and which to discard.
This process generates new sounds and solutions from my instrument once again.
The composed parts and the improvised parts share many musical parameters. Still they stand on different ground and have different motor and mentality. In the improvisation I try to stay more open towards the sound occurrences and musical turns of my instrument; but I know that
I am going towards a composed material. This is a contradiction that creates a musical tension between the idea of being free and the boundaries of the known destination. In the composed part I am also open to ideas coming, but the motor that is moving the music forward is more or less predetermined 39.
By improvising to create material, and after that, using that material again and again, the borderline between improvisation and composition in my music is fading. The two standpoints are closing in on each other.
hiding – revealing
The piano sound can be hidden or revealed. When I play the piano and simultaneously start a process to alter the sound, the acoustic piano will be present. Moving towards the extremity of noise, the piano is covered by other layers of sound, camouflaged, hidden inside the sound mass. The layers integrate or hide the piano. This accumulation creates ambivalent sound combinations that are pointing towards a dissolution. I like the jumping in and out of traditional harmony, and the poetics of that ambivalence.
There are often key elements in my compositions. Clear harmonic structures, rhythmical structures, text, vocal melodies, piano, known musical forms, elements which are present in the pop songs heard on the radio.
The instrument is there to transmit. To reveal. The instrument is at the same time there to hide and destroy. Mask, blur, filter and randomize.
Can hiding a content reveal another content? The piano sound itself has a clear texture, a tactility, a surface. Due to the mechanical design of the instrument these parameters can only be varied to some extent. With processing the surface of this sound is altered. The grains are bigger or smaller, the response harder or softer, duller or stronger. The surface alterations acts like filters on the original sound, and different angles onto that sound and its content are revealed.
The act of hiding content may give away responsibility for the content creation to the listener. How the spin-off from this confusion works at the listeners end may depend on her references towards the piano sound. Glenn Gould, Elton John, Cecil Taylor, men with baroque wigs? To hide the piano sound using processing, means hiding the most stable element in the music. The contrast between a sound we know so well and the processed representation of it may release potentials for other hearings/readings of the music. Every listener will probably have a personal comprehension on the balance in the music, affecting the way the music is perceived.
pattern – random 40
To me pattern-random are not antagonists, but a relation in which the two states feed each other.
The clear and logical musical material. On the other side, chaos and randomness. I like it when I can move a material from predictable to unpredictable. From cliché to novelty. From accessible to inaccessible. This is reflected in my tools, where I use random algorithms and complex combinations of different sound processing strategies to create an unstable situation. Breaking or disturbing musical logic generates new materials and patterns. I import these patterns into my vocabulary, where they become a part of my musical logic. This iterated change of vocabulary, the importing of material turning it from novel to well-used, will affect the way I construct my technical systems. The programming of randomized sound-processes arrives from a reflexive process on how the randomized sounds can relate to or feed my existing vocabulary.
The idea about randomness is an illusion. I am deciding how the random tools are working and their sound. I still think that tools utilizing chance operations are destabilizing the certainty of my music, making the music more chaotic, unpredictable and illogical. I am searching for the ambiguous qualities of these randomizing tools, the situation where I don´t know what I am getting in return. Balancing control and lost control.
…, randomness has increasingly been seen to play a fruitful role in the evolution of complex systems. For Chris Langton and Stuart Kauffman, chaos accelerates the evolution of biological and artificial life, for Francisco Varela, randomness is the froth of noise from which coherent microstates evolve and to which living systems owe their capacity for fast, flexible response; for Henri Atlan, noise is the body’s murmuring from which emerges complex communication between different levels in a biological system. Although these models differ in their specifics, they agree in seeing randomness not simply as the lack of pattern but as the creative ground from which pattern can emerge 41.
comfortable – uneasy
I find that there is an uneasiness present in my music. When the structures are too simple, too beautiful, too idiomatic, too easy, it kicks in. To achieve this uneasiness I work on the sonic representation of the musical ideas. My music often contains a simple structure with a complex surface. This transformation can be achieved by amplifying certain frequencies, distorting, ring-modulating, using very short delays or very modulated delays, adding grit, low end, noise, recording the sound and layering it in a different timbre or making the materials oscillate. These strategies can create demanding, dystonic and dubious realizations of musical ideas.
I want my music to establish friction between complexity and the simple and unsullied. I like simple stuff, but I cannot bathe in beautiful chords and melodies for hours. I get restless. After a few seconds I start to feel uncomfortable being there. To balance the music, I put up elements that for some people may generate uneasiness listening to it. My search for balance in the material makes the material more demanding.
In September 2015 I did a remix at the Punkt Festival 42 of Saskia Lankhoorn playing the piece Dances & Canons by Kate Moore 43. In my remix I used the same processing tools as in the HyPer(sonal) Piano, working with introducing dystonic material, abstractions of the original compositions and adding (from my point of view) uneasiness and friction to the material. My remix caused reactions of displeasure from audience that also attended the original concert. Some of them left.
To introduce new structures I need to play the piano, often with two hands. To change the music from one state to another, I need to use hands and feet to adjust the control surfaces in my instrument. It´s often called tweaking.
Tweaking is now an integral part of my music making, and the tweaking changes my music because this way of playing is laborious and complex. An area that attracts my awareness using electronics is the change of timing and response in the musical execution, and how this affects the musical output. Dealing with a larger interface and more complex sound processes imposes changes on the music, from how it evolves to how fast I can respond in interplay and how precisely I can distribute sound occurrences in time. The instrument work becomes slower and more tedious. Tweaking takes time and is not as direct as playing hands-on.
The playing phases with both hands on the keyboard and tweaking enter into an interplay of active phases in a performance. The playing phase and tweaking phase answer to each other. My listening is monitoring and informing my decisions in this exchange. The changes I have done in the tweaking phases will inform the hands-on phases and vice versa. The hands-on phases introduce musical material and structures more directly, while the tweaking phases are changing sounds, altering and adding to this material. The timing between these states is important to how the music plays out.
My father once came home from a concert saying: ‘they used one hour of pushing buttons to get to the point, and when they got there it was over’. Hopefully, the musicians didn´t feel like this. Often, when watching musicians using electronics, there is a mismatch between what I see and what I hear… They probably worked with the tweaking as a part of the point. I want the tweaking to be a part of my point. Yet, I understand my father´s frustration. Tweaking can often be perceived as a tedious and transitory state.
An ambivalence using technology is the difference between the demands of the musical situations and the technical means available. The physical act needed to change the music may move focus away from the music and disturb the flow. This occurs because of limitations in the interfaces, hands and feet and other physical and technical factors. My perceptional abilities in any situation also set a limit. These factors lead to a constant negotiation on when to change and when to keep, when to play and when to tweak?
analytic – mindful
The consideration of changing, tweaking or keeping is a rehearsal of balancing musical needs with the performer´s urge for change. The choice may be distorted by the performer being to close to the music, too turned on, unable to have the overview needed to consider whether the music needs a change or not. Der abstand its das Geheimnis 44. The frigid distance as an opposition to being emotionally absorbed.
The complexity of my instrument moves me away from the being present in the moment towards another position which is in-between. In-between the present moment, the technical and musical considerations and reflections done upfront and in real-time. A path appears between analytical thinking and submersion.
I focus on the ability to move swiftly on this trail depending on the nature of the musical and technical circumstances. Technical issues in one moment of a concert should not destroy the musical presence in the rest of the performance. Abandoning a position on this trail moving elsewhere is challenging, yet an essential aspect when performing.
The concert situation demands quick considerations on both musical choices and technical issues. How to make transitions, how to balance volumes between different processes, where to send the sound output? How to filter a single output to make the timbre adjust to the total, how many layers to produce without loosing the clarity, how to steward the musical material in general. Many thoughts are needed in parallel.
The analytical/improvement potential/details/hairsplitting optics comes natural to me. It is a view on the world that I obtain (far too) often, and I wish that I could throw away those glasses and get another pair, milder, with a softer focus. More of the myopic type. In the concert situation the analytical glasses can hinder the view to what is actually going on. I need to move between intellect and intuition, analysis and abandonment. I need presence, overview and attentiveness. I need to be mindful and analytic at the same time. I need to grasp complex technical situations both aurally and intellectually. This is a balancing act.
memory #5
I am in the middle of a concert and I remember playing a chord deep down in the register.
I scan the responses from the instrument right now. Do I like it or not? How is the frequency profile of the sound? The complexity? To what extent can I modify the sound now that it is already out there? Is there any sound in any layer which I don´t need? Any unwanted leakages from other instruments on stage? Are there technical aspects relating to this that I can improve? I seek to understand what is going on in the instrument, why the sound output is like it is. I want to give up control, but at the same time I want to evaluate the sound, see if the sound correlates with my taste. I struggle with this balance. The instrument will sometimes provoke me, challenge me. Make me take a stand. Induce reflections on my poetics based on these challenges. They will sometimes clarify my taste more, sometimes dilute it, sometimes
I am becoming sterner.
My urge for a complex and layered output has resulted in a complex and layered instrument that is difficult to control. I try to make setup solutions that are intuitive and distilled, without losing the potentials for a diverse sound. I always end up with big setups, having to rehearse a lot to gain control. Still, I like that the complexity makes me feel alert.
Insecurity in the technical setup gives me inspiration. If the playing-situation is too stable, I often modify the setup by adding to or regrouping the instrument’s modules. This destabilizes the instrument and opens up for unexpected things. There is a balance between loosing control to generate energy and losing control period.
Complicated instrumental setups or music that is technically difficult to execute may obstruct flow.
I have focus on rehearsing the instrument and setting up the different interfaces allowing my movements in and actions on the instrument to be natural and without stuttering. I am trying to move like one of those trained sushi chefs. Not a single hesitation, getting the work done in a wave of actions.
interplay – internal play
I am playing. The instrument responds in unpredictable ways.
I started working on an acoustic solo project a couple of years before I initiated the HyPer(sonal) Piano project. Immediately I started to feel lonely as the only content creator in the music. I always liked the interplay in bands.
The solitude of playing the acoustic piano alone bothered me. I realized how much I depended on musical response from other performers. This situation initiated the construction of imaginary interplay within the instrument, an internal play.
These elements have been important:
1) To get unpredictable responses from the instrument.
2) To get direct responses, yet more or less abstracted, establishing the sound-output as a merge between my output and the device´s response.
3) Making the output difficult to control, using devices or processes that are going bananas. Feedback processes are working in this manner, the unpredictability of the feedback system generates new material to the interplay.
function – flexibility
My neighbour 45 quoted from a lecture on interfaces, that ‘the perfect example of an interface is a door-handle’. As soon as you see it you understand how it is used. Software and electronic hardware isn´t generally intuitive and understandable right away. These tools demand a preconception. Software is aiming for something the door is not, a more or less unlimited set of options on how to use it, and the possibility of user customization. The idea, that the tools can be molded, attracts my attention.
It is an ambivalent feeling, the feeling of attraction to what computers can do, and the nausea creeping in when the computer is crashing, there is too much latency and the interfaces are clumsy.
I like guitar pedals because one pedal does one thing 46.
When I search for hardware or do programming, I often have to consider the pros and cons of a simple and functional tool like the guitar pedal against a more flexible and editable computer-based process. The guitar pedal often wins regarding interface and stability; one switch represents one sound function. This makes the pedal a direct and responsive tool. When it comes to interconnectivity, flexible and abstractive potentials, software is superior. The tool has to be chosen based on musical and functional needs and in relation to the rest of the setup.
I have tried to move processes that take a heavy load on the computer CPU and hard drive capabilities out of the digital domain or moving them into a second computer to ensure stability.
I have replaced the sampling of longer materials in the computer with a dedicated 4 track recorder hardware, the ElectroHarmonix 2882. I have also moved several options of pitching in real-time, random like alterations to delayed material and granular processing to my stomp-box setup.
An issue working with computers is latency. Some musical processes are very sensitive to latency and some are not. I have patched my setup with the stomp-box setup having no latency, meaning that I can place latency sensitive operations there. Moving CPU-demanding processes out of the box means that I can generally run AbletonLive on 128 samples (8 ms) latency. This is acceptable for my use.
I have also experimented with a two computer setup. Both run Ableton Live, but have different latency and sound cards. This setup can run latency sensible operations on a computer with low latency, and other functions on another computer with higher latency. This works quite well, and is a good compromise if the setup becomes too complex to be handled by one computer. This setup is also a safety measure, I will still have some sound if one machine crashes…
Anyway: there is never enough RAM, and never a processor fast enough. Switching to SSD-disks has helped me a lot.
software – hardware
Software, hardware, analogue, digital. What sounds best? What is most versatile?
Not possible to answer, I would say. All electronic circuitry, analogue or digital, has a sonic signature. Different software has different sound. Hardware and software sounds different. To me there are poetic distinctions and not quality distinctions in these differences. Different sonic signatures give different functionalities. The choice on what to use is a choice on sonic signature and functionality. The aspect of functionality includes perspectives on weight and versatility as well as performative ones. If I really like the sound of a device, this usually trumps all other considerations.
Interesting though is the combination of the digital and the analogue, the software and hardware in a setup. These different systems can communicate by certain means. Midi from a modulation tool in the computer can be converted and used analogue as control voltage(CV). CV from the analogue boxes can be converted to midi- or USB-signals and used in the digital domain. Sounds from the digital system can be routed through the analogue sections and the opposite. Interesting and complex correlations (and problems) between the analogue and the digital, the software and the hardware appear when working on interconnecting sound and control signals from devices of different technological origin. Unexpected sounds arise from the complexity of connections.
Computer flexibility
The possibilities when knowing how to programme your own software patches are limitless. To be able to programme good tools, I need to have a clear idea on what the patch will contribute in the music, its poetic function(s) and a disposition upfront for the main modules of the patch. If I am starting to make a patch without a plan, the options will kill the process. The openness and possibilities of the tool are overwhelming. On the other hand, if I start with an idea, there´s a good chance of a fruitful merger between that idea and the possibilities offered by the programming tool. The adaption of my ideas towards the ‘personality’ of the electronics, and the adaption of the electronics’ ‘personality’ towards my ideas, shows interagency.
acoustic – amplified
I do not regard amplified sound as a correct yet louder representation of the acoustic sound. To me, amplifying means re-presenting a sound using electronic tools. For many years, I worked with the Norwegian live-sound guru Asle Karstad, and I owe this perspective to him. The amplified sound I produce might be very different from the acoustic source, but to me there is no quality loss in this difference. The amplified sound has its own signature. When taking the acoustic sound into the amplified sound domain, several things happen:
1) When the sound gets louder, it will engage the room and its resonating frequencies. To avoid the sound being too boomy (too much lo-mid), telephonic (too much high-mid) or sharp (too much treble), I remove some of the frequencies that engage the room, and maybe enhance some other areas of the spectrum. In Nasjonal Jazzscene, Oslo, I always have to remove energy around 80 Hz,
160 Hz and 500 Hz.
The movement on trails makes up my music. In between opposites like tones and noise, regularity and irregularity, instrument and music, soft and loud, public and personal, kitschy and refined, open and closed, improvised and written, tuned and detuned, smooth and coarse, pleasant and uneasy, shimmering and dark, safe and insecure, distanced or locked in an embrace.
The HyPer(sonal) Piano can move my music and me away from the tonic sound object, the melody, the pulse, the equally divided rhythms, the clarity. I imagine that there are trails from these safe spots, going towards other terrain. The instrument is extending my reach down these trails.
Why trails? An axis establishes opposing poles and a line in between these. I am wandering, but seldom in a straight line. Trails can go in circles and they twist and turn. When moving on these trails, I am using and changing the topography of my project. There are trails from A to B, and there are round trips. There are trails taking me far away and trails close to home. Trails that you barely see. Trails that carry 20 tons of logging machinery. I like trail-running, preferably for a long time in a slow pace.
The relation between oppositional places make up the trails of my project, decide where they go, their pass ability, elevation curves and surfaces. The instrument´s attributes, the music, the listening and the performing situation constantly change the trails AND the terrain.
Trails have emerged through the instrument-building, the improvisation, the composition, the reflection and the performances. This process has pointed me away from a pitch-based material, going towards noise, accumulations, irregularity and complexity. To describe this process, I have stolen some concepts from the theories on spectromorphology by Lasse Thoresen and others. 24
Yet, I use these concepts adapted to my music and reflections. The theory has acted as a source of inspiration, especially through its descriptions of axis and transitional objects.
The following text is structured in these categories:
Trails on sounds and sound–layers: Flow–friction, tonic–dystonic–complex, soft–loud, one layer–many layers, bright–dark, tuned–detuned, fine–coarse, rest–motion, close–distant, far from source–close to source, hiding–revealing, comfortable–uneasy, idea–representation.
Trails on composition: Flow–friction, improvised–pre conceived, idea–representation, hiding–revealing, close–distant, safe–insecure, predictable–random, comfortable–uneasy.
Trails on performance: Flow–friction, creating–tweaking, hiding–revealing, analytic–mindful, safe–insecure, interplay–internal play.
Trails on instrument construction: Flow–friction, safe–insecure, interplay–internal play, weight–function, function–flexibility, software–hardware, acoustic–amplified.
I imagine the act of constructing an instrument and playing music with it as maneuvering on many trails simultaneously. If I play a pass with a very clear and simplistic melody, I might try to dissolve the rhythm to destabilize and destroy the beauty. If there are no harmonic structures, I might try to establish a rhythmical pattern to structure the situation otherwise. If I use a delay-device, I must move the filter-device elsewhere in the effect chain to have the desired control over the frequency spectrum. If one part of the setup grows, other modules are affected. Where I am situated on one trail determines where I am going on another
NOTES:
24 Thoresen/Hedman, op.cit [back]
25 Thoresen & Hedman, op.cit. [back]
26 By peripheral I mean other sound sources that are incorporated in the instrument´s electronic setup. [back]
(See ”emulsification” on page 100).
27 Sitting in my childhood home in a big room, and suddenly discovering, in an act of seeing, the entire room at one and the same time. Seeing the whole room, without glancing to one side or the other, with its ceiling, walls, windows, light and furniture. A strange feeling of being in a state of total seeing occurs, a state that begins when flow arises in the music, and I just am in the space with all its sounds and impressions. Is there a sounding language in front of, behind, beneath, over, and between us? Sten Sandell, On the Inside of Silence – English summary (PDF), http://www.stensandell.com/object.php?id=68&l=e [back]
28 Quote from my initial analysis of this video-clip. [back]
29 These dynamic categories are taken from the ‘Spectromorphological Analysis of Sound Objects’ article [back]
30These onset categories are taken from the ‘Spectromorphological Analysis of Sound Objects’ article. [back]
31 ‘Naming of the total union: “the sole and simple pleasure” (Aristotle), “the joy without stain and without mixture, the perfection of dreams, the term of all hopes” (Ibn- Hazm), “the divine magnificence” (Novalis); it is undifferentiated and undivided repose…’ (Roland Barthes, A lover´s discourse: Fragments, Hill & Wang, 2010) [back]
32 ‘Dream of total union: everyone says this dream is impossible, and yet it persists, I do not abandon it….’ (op.cit) [back]
33 Layers and the notion of clouds drifting are also found in Ivar Grydeland’s webpage with reflections on the project, ‘Ensemble & Ensemble of me, what I think about when I think about improvisation’. Our projects have evolved together in the same institution, mostly through the presentations and reflections made as part of the jöK & seasicK series.
http://www.ivargrydeland.com/artisticresearch/node/51
http://www.ivargrydeland.com/artisticresearch/node/50 [back]
34 ‘”I found those chords in an old room, very far away. The door to the room was open then,” she says quietly. “A room that was far, far away.” She closes her eyes and sinks back into memories. “Kafka, close the door when you leave,” she says.’ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the shore, Vintage International, 2006. [back]
36 Bit reduced piano sound has this weird balance between a sound we know as acoustic and an exaggerated digital signature made by limitations in the digital sound-resolution. I find this blend very expresssive. [back]
37 I am split when it comes to improvisation. On one hand I like to be the keyboard player who replicates an album and manages huge technical setups. I can be happy playing the same material with small variations day after day, as I have done with Susanna & the Magical Orchestra or the National Bank. On the other hand I like and relate to the traditions in jazz that merge compositions and open improvisations, like Paul Bley, Peter Brötzmann, Marilyn Crispell, Close Erase or Svein Finnerud trio. This is the approach to improvisation and composition found in the bands In the Country and More & More & More & The Instant Gratification that I have worked with during the project. [back]
38 Reamping is a common technique to alter sound that is already recorded, sending the sound out into an amplifier, recording the sound again and replacing or dubbing the newly recorded sound with the original sound. It is mostly used on guitar and bass. [back]
39 Quote from my video-analysis. [back]
40 A dichotomy taken from Katherine Hayles. How we became posthuman. University of Chicago Press, 1999. [back]
41 Hayles, op.cit [back]
42 I am often stressed by the diversity and effectiveness of festivals, but the Punkt Festival in Kristiansand makes me feel at home. The musicians Jan Bang and Erik Honoré curate the festival. It is based on a remix concept, where almost every concert is remixed or improvised over directly after by a constellation of musicians. It is a scene for singer-songwriters, electronic indie-pop, poets, noise, contemporary music, ambient and free improvisation. Basically all the main references for my music are incorporated there as current coin. This broad scope is framed by the remix-concept, making a musical dialogue between different positions in the field. Being at this festival have inspired me to think that this dialogue of
(p)references may be realized in music. The fact that my (p)references are in a dialogue with each other decides my musical and technical choices and leads to an eclectic musical baseline, rather than a strict relation to a specific genre
or field. [back]
43 Saskia Lankhoorn. Dances & Canons. ECM records, 2014. [back]
44 Peter Handke and Peter Hamm. Es leben die illusionen. Wallstein Verlag 2006 [back]
45 Composer and research fellow at NMH, Christian Blom. [back]
46 RC-log, November 2012. [back]
47 Død = Dead [back]
48 The recklessness of Svein Finnerud and his trio with Espen Rud and Bjørnar Andresen in the 60s has opened up a musical room where everything is allowed, as long as you mean it. I like operating in that room. [back]
Categories 29
1: No profile/static sound (sound that do not change in time):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 16]
Made using a distorted feedback of the piano contact microphone through a Squarewave Parade Pollen pedal.
2: Weak dynamic profile (sound with slow undulation in time):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 17]
Made with the Strymon Big Sky pedal, glimmering and with infinite reverb. Two other layers, one with a synth pad and one with white noise with small irregular dynamic shifts in all layers.
3: Formed dynamic profile (an object in balance with a start, middle and end):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 18]
Made with the IRCAM/UVI prepared piano sample (clothes pin), and a tail of synthesized sound using the OP-1 with midi-info from the grand piano keys.
4: Impulse-like dynamics (percussive sounds. A sudden thrust and then a fast decline in energy):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 19]
Made by hitting the keys in a staccato manner, yet sampling this sound and creating a hold-function with the Squarewave Parade Teaspoon window sampler.
5: Cyclic dynamic profile (repetitive dynamic changes in time):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 20]
6: Vacillating dynamic profile (vacillating dynamic changes in time):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 21]
Both examples are using the Red Panda Particle pedal.
Onsets 30:
The HyPersonal piano has possibilities of a wider range of onsets than the acoustic piano. With the electronic extensions I can create a swollen onset introducing electronic sound towards the acoustic onset. I can also play a gradual onset in the same way and I can create a tone with no onset using no acoustic sound at all by pressing the keys silently down and let this start an electronic process. I can also start the piano tone´s vibration with an electromagnetic playing device called eBow.
Swollen onset (a distinct onset that swells immediately):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 22]
Using the Squarewave Parade Teaspoon.
Gradual onset (onset rising gradually from zero volume):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 23]
Using eBow on the strings.
Silent onset with electronic sound (onset where the piano is silent, yet the midi sensor triggers electronic sound):
[Audio Examples Playlist – Ex. 24]
Midi signals from grand piano keyboard start an electronic process.