Foldings
Summary
Foldings is a work for piano and electronics, developed 2011-2012, reconstructing the piano as a hybrid electronic/acoustic instrument, augmenting its timbre through complex processing and advanced mapping techniques, developed within Palle Dahlstedt’s research project Creative Performance. These new modes of expression, while using only the traditional klavier, also invite and encourage new ways of playing, and this forms the basis for the musical content of the work. Two or three sound engines are used, each with very different character and suitable interaction patterns, performed as two or three different movements.
Supported by
Swedish Research Council
Description of project
In 2006 I developed a novel mapping technique, allowing musical exploration of large parameter spaces from different performance interfaces, later expanded into a family of novel improvisation instruments. In 2011 and 2012, I adapted it to my main instrument, the piano, creating an augmented hybrid instrument from a normal grand.
Foldings consists of acoustic and virtual resonating bodies, all sounds originating from the piano, allowing for unorthodox playing (knocking, plucking, …). Processed sounds are projected from speakers behind the piano, and acoustic and processed sounds interact and blend into one new instrument.
Processing is controlled from keyboard alone. Each key has a certain effect on processing parameters, and effects of different keys are accumulated; essentially a vectorization of control parameters, allowing intuitive control of complex processing by ear.
The instrument is not random, but somewhat unpredictable. This feeds into the improvisation, just like how ideas from a fellow improviser provides unpredictability and food for reaction, leading into a new direction, spurring further reactions. Like chasing a moving target. Hence, the instrument itself is an essential part of the musical outcome.
The technology is simple but effective: A MIDI-enabled grand (Disklavier, or Moog Piano Bar), four microphones, signal processor with custom software and two speakers adjacent to the piano.
Foldings have been used with different sound engines, e.g., a microtonal adaptive resonator and an adaptive buffer shuffler. Performances include concerts in Sweden and Japan, alone and with others. Also used by John Tilbury in an improvisation concert in 2011.
Description of work included
Foldings-info
Folding-slides
Solo 1, Ljudfil
Solo 2, Ljudfil
Type of work
Artistic works, Composition
Published in
Concert, Artisten, April 13, 2011 Lecture/recital, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan, September 25, 2011 Concert, Hagakyrkan, Göteborg, May 5, 2012 Concert, Sydney University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, June 21, 2012 Lecture/recital, Interactive Keyboard Symposium, Goldsmiths College, London, 10 nov 2012
Link to web site
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GSU9i_rQQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3EnUgneiIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4jcAocO4dM
Other description
The work was peer-reviewed and selected for presentation at the Interactive Keyboard Symposium, Goldsmiths College, London, 9-11 Nov, 2012.
This work was developed within the research project Creative Performance, directed by Palle Dahlstedt, Dept. of Applied IT and the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg.
Date
2012Creator
Dahlstedt, Palle
Keywords
Improvisation
Piano
Hybrid instruments
Disklavier
Elektronic music
Mapping
Publication type
artistic work