James Bohn has served as a guest artist at
the 7-11 festival
in Urbana, Illinois, and at "Most Significant Bytes 2002" in Akron,
Ohio. He has had his video works presented at "Most Significant
Bytes 2000", at the "MAXIS festival of Sound and Experimental
Music", at "MEDiA CIRCU[it]S", at the "Florida
Electro-Acoustic Music" Festival, and on the Los Angeles area television
program "The New Composers 27 Minute Companion". His music
appears on several recording labels: Capstone, The Experimental Music
Studios, Frog Peak, me'd1.ate, and The Media Cafe. James has
received commissions from the Bonk Festival, the University of Illinois School
of Music, The College of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth and the Boston and Chicago Chapter of the American Composer's Forum.
As a scholar, James is a
regular reviewer for the Computer Music Journal. He has also given papers at conferences for the American Musical
Instrument Society, the Association for Technology in Music Instruction,
Technological Directions in Music Learning, the MAXIS festival, and the
American Chemical Society. His book on Lejaren Hiller is available
on Edwin Mellen Press. Bohn teaches Music Theory and Technology at Rhode
Island College.
Wormwood: "nothing left but dust and
fundamentalists"- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett in "Good
Omens"
***
The
CALLITHUMPIAN CONSORT is dedicated to
the proposition that music is an experience. Founded by pianist and conductor
Stephen Drury sometime in the1990's, we are an ensemble producing concerts of
contemporary music at the highest standard.
The Callithumpian Consort was created in the
belief that new music should be an exciting adventure shared by performers and
listeners alike, and that brand new masterpieces of our day are beautiful,
sensuous, challenging, delightful, provocative, and a unique joy. Our audiences
bring fresh ears to sounds never heard before; they bring their experiences
from rock stadiums, jazz clubs, and internet electronica to the concert hall.
They hunger for the new.
The
Consort is flexible in size and makeup, in some cases performing as a full
chamber orchestra. Its members pursue parallel solo and orchestral careers as
well. Each musician is a soloist, enabling the group to tackle unusual
repertoire in non-standard ensembles, or to take part in experimental projects.
Our repertoire encompasses a huge stylistic
spectrum, from the classics of the last 100 years to works of the avant-garde
and experimental jazz and rock. Active commissioning and recording of new works
is crucial to our mission. We have worked with composers John Cage, Lee Hyla,
John Zorn, Michael Finnissy, Franco Donatoni, Lukas Foss, Christian Wolff and
many others. Recordings are available on Tzadik and Mode records.
***
Phyllis Chen (Oberlin Conservatory B.M, Northwestern University M.M) has been the recipient of numerous national honors, including the International Bartok/Kabalevsky Piano competition, the International Stravinsky Awards, National Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the Hoverson Piano Award, Carol Knott Piano Pedagogy Prize Marjorie Barnett Foundation Piano Competition, the Northwestern and Indiana University Concerto Competitions. Phyllis made her Chicago debut at Symphony Center's Buntrock Hall as part of the 2001 Arts and Humanities "Words and Pictures" Festival. Later that year, Phyllis was invited as a guest pianist on the Dame Myra Hess Piano Series at the Chicago Cultural Center, aired live on WFMT Chicago Public Radio. As an avid new music lover, Phyllis is also one of the founding members of ICE, International Contemporary Ensemble, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and performing innovative new works. She has collaborated extensively with ICE tenor, Peter Tantsits, where the duo traveled to Russia and England in 2002 to perform song cycles of Benjamin Britten. As a member of ICE, Phyllis recorded George Crumb's "Vox Balaenae" for three masked players on Bridge Records for George Crumb's 70th Birthday Jubilee collection of his complete works. This past June, the ensemble was invited to perform at the International Michoacan Contemporary Music Festival and received the honor of "Ensemble-of-choice" for the year. This coming December, ICE has been invited by WFMT Chicago Public Radio for a two-hour live broadcast where Phyllis will play works by Donatoni, Xenakis, and a commissioned piece by Japanese-English composer, Dai Fujikura, entitled "Breathless" for toy piano and violin. As part of ICE's annual festival downtown Chicago in 2004, Phyllis commissioned 12 composers from around the world to compose works for toy piano and orchestral instruments. Phyllis is currently a Chancellor Fellow and assistant instructor at Indiana University, where she is working towards a doctorate degree in piano performance under the tutelage of Andre Watts.
Suite for Toy Piano In 2003, I unexpectedly came upon
a toy and clock store while I was taking a walk downtown Toronto. The store was
full of odd old-fashioned toys, quirky gadgets and a large collection of music
boxes. I was intrigued by the different sounds of the boxes, particularly the
music from the "Humpty Dumpty" box I chose because of the simple
counterpoint and moving cut-out figurine. I found the sounds to be similar to
the toy piano and wanted to explore the possible ways the sounds could blend
and collide with one another. Suite for Toy Piano began its inspiration from
the childhood nursery of "Humpty Dumpty," the egg that sat on a Great
Wall and fell to the ground. The piece is in three sections; the first section
is the 'Genesis" or birth of the egg, second section is the "Cadenza
Apocalyptica" and the third section is the "Coda."
***
Thanos Chrysakis is a London-based composer
of Greek origin. After
studying Timpani & Percussion and classical music for four years and at the
same time working as a musician -for a short period- in theatres in Athens, he
continued his studies in Sonic Arts and electronic music, and now is an
MPhil/PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College University of London. His musical
output consists of microacousmatic compositions, instrumental music, and
generative installations/environments. His music and sound work has appeared
on
various independent labels, and events such as CYNETart - Dresden,
HyperKult - LŸneburg, ComplexitŽs -Chateau de Linardie, Senouillac, Wapping
Hydraulic Power Station- 60th
anniversary of spnm (society of promoting new music), London. His work ÇInscape
5È was amongst the selected works at the International Competition de Musique
et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges 2005 in the category :: Oeuvre
d'art sonore Žlectroacoustique.
INSCAPE 18 (2005) In this Inscape a contrast between stasis and dynamic micromovement
of the same sonic timbral material, occurs in different transformations. Slow
evolving spectra are contrasted to microrhythms creating a textural
elusive sound-world. This is a sunken sound-world. Bells sunken at the bottom
of the sea that are played by very strong streams.
***
David Claman holds degrees from Wesleyan University where he studied the music of South India, and from the University of Colorado. He completed his Ph.D. in composition at Princeton in 2002 where his principal teachers were Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, and Claudio Spies. During the 1980s he played electric bass in rock bands in Boston. He is now an Assistant Professor at The College of The Holy Cross in Worcester Massachusetts. He received a fellowship from The American Institute of Indian Studies and has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Rockefeller FoundationÕs Bellagio Center. He has received commissions from The American Composers Forum, the Cygnus Ensemble, Tara Helen O'Connor, and Princeton University. Recordings can be found on the Innova, Capstone, Bridge, and Princeton labels. Along with Matt Malsky, David is co-director of The Extensible Toy Piano Festival.
***
Karlheinz Essl (b Vienna,15 Aug 1960). Austrian
composer, improviser and performer. He attended the Vienna Musikhochschule
(1979--87), where he studied with Friedrich Cerha and Dieter
Kaufmann, among others. He also studied musicology and art history at the
University of Vienna (doctorate 1989; thesis published as Das Synthese-Denken bei Anton Webern,
Tutzing 1991). In 1995 he accepted a position in computer-aided composition at
the Studio for Advanced Music & Media Technology (SAMT) at the Anton Bruckner Private
University, Linz.
Essl's compositions result from
confrontations between ordered, abstract models and original tonal, expressive
structures. In 1997, Karlheinz Essl was featured at the Salzburg Festival with
portrait concerts and sound installations. In 2003, he was artist-in-residence
of the festival musik aktuell,
and in 2004 he was presented with a series of portrait concerts at the
Brucknerhaus Linz. In 2004, Karlheinz Essl received the cultural
prize for music of the state Lower Austria.
Besides writing instrumental
music, Karlheinz Essl also works in the field of electronic music,
interactive realtime compositions and sound installations. He
develops software environments for
algorithmic composition and acts as a performer and improviser. Most of his
compositions are published by TONOS
(Darmstadt).
Kalimba is a piece for toy piano and CD
playback which was composed in April 2005 for the pianist and toy piano
performer Isabel Ettenauer. The
primary aim of this piece is an attempt to break up the restricted sound world
of the toy piano - not by superficial means of additional sound processing, but
by the sound of the instrument itself. This is achieved by a CD which is played
back by a small loudspeakers which is hidden inside the toy piano; this creates
a perfect blend between the sounds of the instrument and the sounds from the
loudspeaker. Furthermore, as the listeners won't notice any electronic devices,
they might assume that all the music comes from the toy piano itself.
The piece is entirely based on
an eight-tone scale which alternates whole and halftone steps. It was recorded
from the Schoenhut Concert Grand Piano that Isabel uses to play in her
performances. This material was
processed by a computer program which was written be Karlheinz Essl in Max/MSP
using compositional algorithms from his Realtime Composition Library.
It creates five layers of the same basic soundfile which are affected by very
slow glissandos. The result of these operations is stunning: starting from the
original scale (which is also played synchronously on the toy piano), the sound
gradually transformes itself from a rich variety if sonic transformations into
a "chaotic" distribution of the 8 tones which finally fall together into chord repetitions.
In the adjacent part of the piece, the glissandos are expanded to a much wider range and - by forming an ambitus of 4 octaves in the end - a proportional canon of the form: 1/4 : 1/2 : 1 : 2 : 4 is created. Continuously, all layers except the (s)lowest are fading out, so that in the end only a transposition of the original recording 2 octaves lower (and 2 times slower) can be heard.
***
Kyle Gann, born 1955 in Dallas, Texas, is associate professor of music at Bard College and has been new-music critic for the Village Voice since 1986. His books include The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995), American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books,1997), and Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (University of California Press, 2005). He has published more than 2000 articles on contemporary music, including scholarly articles on La Monte Young, John Cage, Henry Cowell, Mikel Rouse, and others, in more than 40 publications, including Perspectives of New Music, The New York Times, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Chamber Music magazine, Contemporary Music Review, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reader, and Fanfare magazine.
Gann studied composition with Ben Johnston, Morton Feldman, and Peter Gena. Much of his music is microtonal, using up to 31 pitches per octave, and uses a complex rhythmic language developed from study of Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo Indian musics as well as from Nancarrow and Ives. His major works include Transcendental Sonnets for chorus and orchestra; Custer and Sitting Bull, a one-man opera for voice and electronics; The Planets, a ten-movement octet; and a microtonal chamber opera trilogy with librettist Jeffrey Sichel. In 2003 the American Music Center gave him its Letter of Distinction, along with Wayne Shorter, George Crumb, and Steve Reich.
I wrote most of Paris
Intermezzo on a
flight from Paris to New York in 1989;the scope of my tiny airline seat seemed
a fitting analogue for the toy piano's limited range. The piece was requested
by composer and toy pianist Wendy Chambers. A resemblance has been noted to
Beethoven's "Moonlight"Sonata; it wasn't intentional, but was the
result of trying to combine my usual harmonies and tempo changes within a
limited range.
***
Howard Kenty graduated Northeastern University with a BS in
Music Technology and Multimedia. He has worked in different capacities
with such diverse artists as Dj Spooky That Subliminal Kid (most notably on Rebirth
of a Nation), composer Anthony De Ritis, pipa virtuoso Min Xiao-Fen,
conductor Jung-Ho Pak, and The Dresden Dolls. He currently resides in New York
City, pursuing composition and sound design with Badbox Music, which he
co-founded, and playing under the name of Hwarg with the prog/post-rock band,
The Benzene Ring.
Confustion (Denigrate) was composed using only toy piano
samples as source material. The piece makes extensive use of the MAX/MSP
programming environment for generating complex sonic textures from recorded
material. Confustion (Denigrate) is presented here for live electronics
and tape.
***
Konrad Kaczmarek is a composer, sound designer, and musician living
in New York City. He holds a B.A. in music from Yale University and a
Masters in electronic music composition from University of London, Goldsmiths.
He works primarily in interactive sound and video performance, which he
also teaches at Yale University, The New School University, and Harvestworks
Studio in New York. His own installation work has been shown at the
Stanley Glasser Electronic Music Studio in London, the Chelsea Art Museum in
New York, Interface Culture, a conference on interactivity and globalization at
Yale University, and The Stanford Museum in Stanford, CT. He also
composed the music and sound design for 130, a short film produced by Stranger
Productions. Konrad is also a jazz pianist, and has received an outstanding
soloist award from Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Stanton Wheeler prize for
jazz performance at Yale University.
Although I work primarily in
the electronic medium, all of my work is firmly grounded in improvisation and
interactivity, which arises from my experience as a performing musician.
The goal of the program is to bring the novel sounds and textures created
on the computer into a real-time interactive performance environment that
responds intuitively to various musical gestures. I always strive to
create a meaningful connection between what the performer is doing both
musically and physically and the resulting sonic texture. New modes of
interaction and interplay arise once the player becomes aware of their role in
shaping the surrounding soundscape and a two-way form of communication is
forged. Regardless of whether this interaction is a simple one-to-one
cause and effect or a more sublime gesture-based relationship, once the
connection is realized the performer is driven to explore the new sound worlds
that are created. They thus interact with the computer processing in a
natural and intuitive way that is analogous to how an improvising musician
plays by ear.
***
Jeff Morris is an Assistant Lecturer in computer music and
coordinator of technology facilities for the Department of Performance Studies
at Texas A & M University. He has studied at the Florida State
University and the University of North Texas, where he served on the staff of
the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia.
Jeff composes for traditional
instruments, fixed electronic media, and interactive electronics. His
works have been performed internationally and include multimedia works and
collaborations with dance artists. Notable events include the Bonk Festival
of New Music, Electronic Music Midwest, and the Ybor Festival of the Moving
Image. He has also given presentations at conferences including the
International Computer Music Conference.
Portrait was composed for the eXtensible
Toy Piano Project 2005. Inspired by composer Conlon Nancarrow, this work uses
the classic technique of imitation, in which a single musical voice is copied
and recombined with itself. The imitation, created through digital
sampling and delay lines, presents a portrait of the instrument.
***
John McDonald, Composer and Pianist. A "fresh, inventive,
urbane, and keen-witted young composer" (Boston Globe) and "a
splendid pianist" "with a born pianist's command of colors, textures,
dynamics" (Boston Globe), John McDonald has earned international acclaim
as a musician. His compositions have been performed on four continents, and his
work is frequently featured in the U.S.A. by such ensembles as Alea III, Arden
Quartet, Boston Composers String Quartet, DaVinci Quartet, Hartt Contemporary
Players, Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, Brave New Works, and bypianists Veronica
Jochum and Andrew Rangell.
Currently Associate Professor
of Music at Tufts University, McDonald was Music Department Chair from 2000 to
2003. His recent accomplishments have included Composer Residencies with the
METYSO Youth Orchestra, the Southern Illinois University Music Department, Duke
University, and Bowdoin College, commissions from American Composers Forum, the
Harvard Musical Association, Brave New Works, and the Fleet Boston Celebrity
Series. McDonald's recordings appear on the Albany, Archetype, Boston, Bridge,
Neuma, New Ariel, and New World labels.
Two Formican Lullabies, Op 360, for voice and pianist
(piano/toy piano) (2001)
1.
O Crocodile Night
2.
O Dinosaur Light
Composed in 2001 as songs for
Barbara GrossmanÕs Tufts University/Arena Theater production of Contance
CongdonÕs play 'Tales of the Lost Formicans,Ó these verses were sung initially by actors to taped
accompaniment. Later, I decided they were appropriate for concert
presentation. Congdon writes
the song lyrics into the ends of each of the playÕs two acts. Since each
character in the play has a self and an alien self (a 'FormicanÓ?), the
character Judy sings the first-act lullaby while Judy/Alien sings the last-act
version. I used the toy piano (doubling piano) to give the music an alienated
dreaminess. CongdonÕs lyrics are:
1.
O crocodile night,
You've always been there,
In the thin air,
Or on the dune.
O crocodile night,
You're always waiting,
Tonight you're mating
With the moon. (Pause)
The song of the hamper,
The song of the screen,
The song of the dishes,
The song of the green,
The song of the streetlights,
The song of the park,
The song of the lawnchair,
The song of the dark.
2.
O dinosaur light,
And oozes from you,
Red as Mars.
O dinosaur light,
The sky is turning,
Each night you're burning,
With the stars.
The dream of the screen door,
The dream of the stoop,
The dream of the clothesline,
The dream of the hoop,
The dream of the dirt road,
The dream of the bird,
The dream of the big tree,
The dream of the word.
O crocodile night,
You've always been there,
In the thin air,
Or on the dune.
O crocodile night,
You're always waiting,
Tonight you're mating
With the moon.
Goodnight,
Goodnight,
Goodnight,
Silence—
Goodnight.
Several Lunes And A
Whitney (pianist
plays piano and toy piano) (2005)
Commissioned by David Claman
and Matthew Malsky for the XTP Festival, this miniature 'suiteÓ takes two
minute poetic forms and explores their possibilities as musical forms. The
'several lunesÓ of the title are four versions of Robert KellyÕs 'American
haikuÓ form invented in the poetÕs early career (the 5-7-5 syllable count of
the haiku becomes 5-3-5 in the lune, of which Kelly [born
1935] writes 'I tried trimming,
and finally got to a five-three-five pattern,
concave rather than convex,
thirteen syllables, number of the lunar months.Ó).
The lune also suggests the moon
(French 'luneÓ) and madness (lunacy). For these reasons, it became an
attractive, power-packed little form to use for the four piano/toy piano
mini-duets found here: two 'Massachusetts LunesÓ and two 'Maine Lunes.Ó The
'Massachusetts LunesÓ appear first and fourth and use several sonorities from
other pieces in this album, while the 'Maine Lunes,Ó two
acknowledgments of composer
Elliott SchwartzÕs seventieth birthday appearing
second and third in the
sequence, borrow (recomposed) chords from SchwartzÕs
piano work 'Four Maine Haiku.Ó
The final section of the work, a 'Whitney,Ó
comprises a musical version of
a syllabic form created by Betty Ann Whitney of
Wesley Chapel, Florida. The
syllable pattern becomes a chord pattern:
3,4,3,4,3,4,7 syllables (or
chords) in each line. The whitney serves as a more
substantial coda to the earlier
chain of lunes.
The
innocent, fanciful qualities possible with the toy piano also suggested a
bit of lunacy. The joy I have
taken in finding brief moments of sonic magic
between the smaller and larger
keyboards has made the whole endeavor a pleasure for me. I hope this pleasure
comes out in the music. (28.09.05)
***
John Mallia (b.
1968) is a composer / sound artist who has written for diverse instrumental,
vocal and electronic forces. Much of his recent work is electro-acoustic and
has been performed internationally by organizations such as L.A. Freewaves
(California), Gaudeamus (The Netherlands), International Computer Music
Association, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, Zeppelin
Festival of Sound Art (Barcelona, Spain), Festival Synthese (Bourges, France),
InterensembleÕs Computer Arts Festival (Padova, Italy), Society for New Music
(New York), CyberArts, and Medi@terra`s Travelling Mikromuseum (Greece,
Bulgaria, Germany, Yugoslavia, Slovenia). He has collaborated with visual
artists and poets and independently produced several multi-media installations
which have been installed at the EyeDrum Art and Music Gallery in Atlanta, the
Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts, Southern California Institute of
Architecture and, most recently, a large-scale mixed media work entitled, DonnieÕs
Room, at the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater. He is currently the
Director of the Electronic Music Studios at New England Conservatory in Boston.
He was recently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for Experimental
Music and Intermedia (CEMI) at University of North Texas and has taught
electro-acoustic music and sound art at Franklin Pierce College, Northeastern
University, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, College of the Holy
Cross, Clark University and Brandeis University.
Donnie's Room Mixed media installation with
animated projection, television monitors, spatialized sound and objects (2005).
Donnie's Room is
a
shrine to the memory of my Great Aunt ModÕs daughter, Donnie, pictured in the
installationÕs large animated projection. The work attempts, through
time-extension of a captured moment, to reflect the scale at which a person
living in a debilitating condition might experience moments of peace despite
their otherwise unconquerable physical and/or mental constraints.
During my childhood, my family
made many trips to Upstate New York to visit my Great Aunt and Uncle. I slept
upstairs in the old house in a room that had belonged to Donnie when she was
alive. I knew nothing about her then, other than the fact that she had died at
a fairly young age. I remember a strange, yet subtle presence in the space, one
that has left a strong resonance in my life. Donnie was afflicted with a brain
disorder and led a tortured life, dying in 1952 at age 31. She experienced
painful fits that caused her limbs to extend and stiffen, sometimes on the
stairs, or near the stove, leading to recurring bruises and burns. Her parents
cherished her and regularly brought home gifts such as cigarettes, chewing gum,
records and a television.
The sounds, images and objects used in the installation represent gifts to Donnie and/or symbolize comfort, entertainment, stability, perseverance and constraint. The sound of the toy piano, for example, was chosen for its inability to sustain ‰ÛÓ a condition remedied electronically by ‰ÛÏstretching‰Û its resonance and thereby prolonging decay. The ethereal environment is a response to the resonances impressed upon a space by those who have passed through it. I like to think that Donnie was able to achieve moments of peace in her life that, because of her condition, were more precious than most people can imagine. Only recently, I was shown a photograph of Donnie on a swing that may document such a moment, one that is rendered timeless in the context of the installation.
***
The
Last Piano: I had an epiphany
recently while traveling from Worcester to Albany: John CageÕs Music of Changes
is, perhaps, the most perfect driving music. Now, donÕt get me wrong. IÕm not
entirely ready to give up sneering along with Elvis Costello while I careen
down the highway. A pounding beat or a good goal-directed harmonic structure
can keep your blood flowing and your mind alert. But, like sitting in a concert
hall these days, long distance car travel really means giving your body over to
cramped stasis for a period of time which is outside your immediate control,
and then hoping that youÕve gotten somewhere by enduring it. It seems to me
that CageÕs music matches these experience better. Both car stereos and concert halls can offer something
unique—a way of depriving ourselves of all the usual comforts and
stimuli, and encouraging a kind of abstract contemplation of sound. As the last
piece of the festival, my compositional goal with The Last Piano is to prepare
you to get up, stretch and rejoin the world. Hope youÕve had a safe and
pleasant journey.
***
Matt
Malsky drives and composes music. In
between, heÕs an Associate Professor of Music, and the Director of the
Communication and Culture program at Clark University. Along with David Claman,
he is co-director of the Extensible Toy Piano project.
***
Nancy
Newman is among the foremost
interpreters of the music of Matt Malsky, having performed his works (Sonate,
Putting the Devil in Hell) on DX7
as well as toy piano (The Crowning: A Blessed Event) in major American cities
such as Chicago and Minneapolis.
Together, the two might be seen as a 21st–century Clara and Robert
Schumann, advocating for new approaches to the keyboard in carefully structured
concert programs. In addition to
her demanding performance schedule, Dr. Newman is an Assistant Professor in the
Music Department of the University at Albany.
***
Naoko Omuro is a Graduate Student of International
Development, Community, and Environment(IDCE) at Clark University. Concentration
of study is Gender
and Development. Worked at several NGOs and International Organizations such
as United Nations University, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. From Kyoto, Japan.
***
Childish Mindgames In 1986, I bought a 30-key
fully-chromatic Jaymar toy piano at a neighborhood flea market. Before that, I
didn't have much context for the toy piano; I'm not even sure I had one growing
up. But, after briefly toying around with it (sorry, couldn't resist), ideas
began flowing. I ran it through an old Electro-Harmonix Memory Man effects unit
and it got even more interesting. I envisioned creating a series of short pieces
for this set up all based on rules from old table games played by children in
various parts of the world. I've been obsessed with traditional board games
most of my life. But I gave up after working on just two pieces, and the
project never made it past my ideas notebook. The toy piano eventually
resurfaced, without any peripheral electronic gadgets, in the ensemble for my
1995 Margaret Atwood-inspired song cycle The Other Side of the Window—it was cheaper and more portable than a
celesta—and later in the first act of MACHUNAS (1998-2002). And games went on to affect my music in
other ways: I attribute my eventual obsession with counterpoint to studying
chess combinations and my love for permutation that sounds like repetition but
isn't to my love for the African board game wari. But over the years Childish
Mindgames gnawed at me from time to time as
most unfinished business does. The Extensible Toy Piano Project provoked some
personal archeology: I dug up my 20 year old notebook and started playing around
again, adding several new ideas which are the product of a misspent
adulthood. It would be somewhat disingenuous to pawn this off as an old
work, but the attempt was to get back into the head of where I was then, which
was in part about getting back into the head of where I had been 20 years
before that, long before any musical paradigm got ingrained and codified.
Hop-Ching. Chinese Checkers has nothing to
do with checkers and it isn't Chinese. It's actually a variant of the
Victorian-era game Halma, which is Greek for jump. Hop-Ching was the name
of the first Chinese Checkers set issued commercially in 1928; I bought an
original set at the same flea market where I purchased the toy piano. For this
music, I reduced the players from Chinese Checkers' 6 down to 2 since a soloist
only has two hands. I also reduced the "game pieces" from ten down to
three. While hands can accommodate up to five pitches, I decided to make the
starting position, as well as the ultimate goal, a C major triad to make the
process audibly discernable. Each hand begins with a major triad an octave
apart. Moving toward each other from opposite directions, on the white keys
only, these triads morph into a variety of diatonic trichords one note at a
time with voices allowed to move only to an upper or lower neighbor or to jump
over an adjacent voice up or down a third. The music ends when one hand reaches
the same major triad an octave away, the unstated goal position being a return
to the sound of the opening position, with hands reversed.
Tic-Tac-Toe, probably the world's most common
pencil and paper game, can be utterly compelling to a new player, but quickly
becomes totally predictable. Therefore, it seems a perfect framework for
structuring music that attempts to establish tonality in a haze of
chromaticism, which can either succeed or fail. To convey the two opposing
players, the two hands maintain separate and distinguishable steady pulses
creating relentless cross-rhythms throughout. To emulate attempts at lining up
three plays in a row, each hand tries to form a contiguous major triad while
preventing the other from doing so by reaching those pitches sooner. Once a
pitch is used, it cannot be reused in another octave. The piece ends when
either a contiguous triad is attained or all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale
are in play making a contiguous triad impossible in either hand. Two solutions
are presented. A "winner" with a successful tonal resolution and a
"draw" which is a dense atonal cluster. Of course, since hands have only
five fingers, hitting all 12 pitches is not quite possible. In a rare moment of
practicality, the music ends after one hand manages to voice a six-pitch
cluster thanks to adult thumbs being capable of hitting more than one small toy
piano key at a time.
YotŽ, a capture game traditionally
played by pairs of children in West Africa, consists of dropping either sticks
or stones into a series of holes scooped in the dirt. Once dropped, pieces can
be moved around to adjacent holes in an effort to capture those of your
opponent by jumping over them vertically or horizontally. The game ends when
one player runs out of pieces. Sticks and stones are easily translated into the
fingers of the left and right hand playing pitches in 2 different octaves. But
how can you capture a pitch? Pitch, whether monophonic or polyphonic, is
inherently a horizontal line that moves through time. But a two-dimensional
grid can be implied by treating each possible diatonic scale within the total
chromatic as a distinct line on a different angle. By interpreting diatonic
scales as lines, movement from pitch to pitch is easily regulated as movement
only by scalar steps (e.g. major or minor seconds). Similarly, a capture can be
effected by a pitch in one hand "jumping" over a pitch in the other
hand which is a possible diatonic scalar step away to an interval that is an
additional possible diatonic scalar step away from that "jumped over"
pitch. The result of this interpretation of the rules is fully chromatic music
that aspires to be diatonic.
Moksha-Patamu The ancient Hindu game
moksha-patamu, known in the English speaking world as "snakes and
ladders," is an extremely simple childhood racing boardgame in which
players role dice to determine how far they can advance in turn. The dice-throw
nature of this game might make it sound frivolous and out of place in a cycle
of musical compositions inspired by mind games requiring some strategy. But,
since moksha-patamu symbolizes the moral journey through life to heaven, it
might actually be the ultimate mind game. Therefore it is the basis of the
final movement. Since this is the only one of the pieces in Childish
Mindgames based on a game whose outcome is
determined largely by chance, it's the only one with an indeterminate
result each time it is performed. How others move seems to have little impact
on an individual's movements, so the music presents the moves of a single
player. But, since we can never completely ignore those around us and engage in
a symbiotic relationship of influence no matter what we do, the movement of
other potential players is symbolized in the multiple lines generated by the
delay unit which should be set to the maximum amount of delay, both in terms of
lag time and number of repetitions. Consecutive diatonic sequences of rising
pitches starting from the lowest note (C) progress upwards, unless they end on
certain predetermined pitches forcing the player to begin lower again. Upon
reaching the highest possible note in a C major triad the keyboardist stops
playing. (In the case of the 30-key Jaymar toy piano, for which this music was
originally conceived, that would be e'; but it could be a different note on
another instrument.) The music is over when the repetitions emanating from the
delay unit fade out.
***
Dana Price, a senior at Tufts University, began studies in
piano at four and violin at ten. In 2001 she was the winner of the Tufts
University Concerto Competition, which led to her performance of the First
Movement of the Barber Violin Concerto with the Tufts University Orchestra. Ms.
Price made her professional debut at 17 performing on the violin with the St.
Lucie Chorale. She has also participated in the Eastern Music Festival, Sewanee
Music Festival, and Indiana University String Academy. A former student of Lucy
Stoltzman at the New England Conservatory of Music, she is presently pursuing
studies in jazz violin/improvisation with Matt Glaser. She plans to
attend Berklee for a professional diploma starting in the summer of 2006.
***
Matthew Sansom is a musical practitioner and theorist whose work
addresses improvisational practice across a number of areas. During his
doctoral studies, interrogating received notions of music and musical meaning
as both free improvising saxophonist and musicologist, his interest in and
involvement with electronic music led to an increasingly studio-based practice.
Moving between freely improvised, recorded, installation, and live electronics
his work has been performed internationally including the Centre for
Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Korean Institute of Culture (Seoul), and t-u-b-e galerie fŸr
radiophone kunst installationen und audio-performances (Munich).
Having led development in popular music practice at the University of Newcastle, he now teaches computer-based composition, free improvisation, and contemporary and popular electronic music history and repertoire at the University of Surrey. His theoretical work, informed by phenomenology and qualitative analytic methods, explores themes of identity, creative process, and musical meaning. This, alongside his work as an experimental artist and musician, informs his approach to the challenge of teaching creative musical practice within the formal educational systems of UK Universities. www.matthewsansom.info
Rhodri Davies A versatile harpist, his experience spans solo, concerto, orchestral, chamber, session, pop, background music and West End musicals. As one of the few harpists working in the field of free improvisation Rhodri Davies is widely acclaimed for developing a new and exciting voice for the harp. He frequently performs <http://www.rhodridavies.co.uk/improvisation/gigs/> in festivals across Europe, America and Canada. He is accompanist <http://www.rhodridavies.co.uk/classical/> to the young soprano Charlotte Church, with whom he has performed across the world. Rhodri Davies has recorded numerous CDs to critical acclaim and made several appearances on television, radio and video.
Rhodri DaviesÕ improvisational
work explores the contradictory and complimentary flux between composition and
improvisation and he plays with many groups that reflect this interest. He is
specifically interested in working within the contexts of string chamber music
and is a part of a young generation of musicians who are exploring aspects of
silence, texture and time. He performs regularly with, amongst others, Mark
Wastell, Burkhard Beins, John Butcher, and David Toop. www.rhodridavies.co.uk
Two Toy Pianos and Harp A recording of an improvised composition for laptop and electronically extended acoustic harp, using recorded Schoenhut toy piano and harp samples. This recorded improvised duo performance brings together one laptop performer, using toy piano samples and operating granular and generative MAX patches, and a harpist with electronics, using harp samples. With the harp horizontal, and a 25cm speaker cone attached to the base of the harp, the laptop output can be routed - simultaneously or alternately - to the harpÕs soundboard and to the external PA. Using contact microphones, the harpist is able to extend his own acoustic and sample-based palette with a recycling of the laptopÕs toy piano output, consequently realising the second toy piano. The resultant slowly moving textural soundscape represents an improvised and yet repeatable in character compositional work.
***
Andrian Pertout was
born in Santiago, Chile, 17 October, 1963, and lived in Gorizia, Northern Italy
for several years before finally settling in Melbourne, Australia in
1972. He is currently undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at
the University of Melbourne on Tweddle Trust and Melbourne Research
scholarships. Composition awards include the Betty Amsden Award
– 2005 3MBS FM National Composer Awards, First Prize in the 2004 ISU
Contemporary Music Festival/Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition (USA), Judges' and Audience Prize of the 2003
Oare String Orchestra Third International ÔMusic for StringsÕ Composing Competition (UK), the 2002 Michelle Morrow Memorial
Award for Composition, and the 2002
Zavod Jazz/Classical Fusion Award.
Andri‡n's music has been performed and broadcast in China, Croatia, Hong Kong,
France, USA, Belgium, Chile, Italy, Slovenia, Canada, Republic of Macedonia,
UK, Netherlands, Austria, Korea and Australia by orchestras that include the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian
Symphony Orchestra, The
Louisville Orchestra (USA), The
Foundation Orchestra (USA), La
Chapelle Musicale de Tournai (Belgium), and
the Oare String Orchestra (UK).
Exposiciones for Sampled Microtonal Schoenhut Toy Piano is an
ÔacousmaticÕ work that attempts to explore the equally tempered sound world
within the context of a sampled microtonal Schoenhut model 6625, 25-key toy
piano and a complex polyrhythmic scheme. All equal temperaments between 1
and 24 – essentially functioning as tuning modulations – as well as
all polyrhythms (divisible only by 1 and including their inversions) between
the ranges of 2 and 15 are presented. In other words, polyrhythmic ratios
3:2 (2:3), 5:2 (2:5), 4:3 (3:4), 5:3 (3:5), and so on – 57 polyrhythmic
sets in total, with the last set represented by 15:14 (14:15) – alongside
two complementary scales (Indonesian pelog and slendro forms with primary and
secondary scale tones, as well as primary and secondary auxiliary tones) shaped
via microtonal inflections produced by sequential tuning modulations featuring
the first 24 equally tempered divisions of the octave.
The intervallic structure of the pentatonic scales defined
by the ratios of just intonation, or the 'Scale of Proportions' (The Harmonic
Division of the Octave) as presented by Alain DaniŽlou in 'Music and the Power
of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness' (1995) –
the current edition of his 1943 monumental work 'Introduction to the Study of
Musical Scales'. The 'Scale of Proportions' is based on the harmonic
series. It is a division of the octave into 53 distinct intervals, and
is
a scale of just intonation, where the intervals are called pure (or just),
because there are no beats between the notes or their harmonics. The
quarter tone (three-quarter tone) a result of the further division of the
disjunctions of this scale (major half tone, or just diatonic semitone) giving
a total of 66 unique intervals (the octave included). In Indian musical
theory this system referred to as 'The Sixty-Six Srutis'. The notation
(inspired by Alain DaniŽlou's work and highly illustrative of the effect of
each equal temperament on the two scales and their consequential intervallic
deviation from just intonation), based on approximate syntonic comma (81:80 or
21.506 cents) subdivisions of the just major tone (9:8 or 203.91 cents).
The Schoenhut model 6625, 25-key toy piano samples (recorded
in dead studio space [96kHz/24bit] by engineer John Shirley at Clark
University, Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Worcester, MA, USA
utilizing 2-Neumann TLM 103s [positioned front-L and back-R] and a Nuendo
recorder) include 3 sets of 25 (2-octave chromatic span) forte ( f ), mezzo
forte ( mf ) and piano ( p ) samples, as well as 1 corresponding set of
keyboard release clicks. All these sounds multi-sampled on an Akai
S3000XL Midi Stereo Digital Sampler – tuned firstly to standard A=440 Hz
12-tone equal temperament, modified within 30 velocity cross-faded patches, and
then operated via a midi sequencer. A gong-like detuned middle C (octave
down) sounding the tonal centre, as well as marking the downbeat, while another
severely gated alternative providing the rhythmic pulse (downbeats and
upbeats).
***
Sunita Vatuk was
a founding member, soloist, and arranger for the San Francisco Bay Area ensembles
Kitka and Savina, the lead singer for Orkestra Nestinari, and performed with
George Coates' Performance Works among others. Her musical career fell victim
to graduate school in mathematics. She now works as and artist-mathematician
in
residence in a Bronx High School and occasionally collaborates with composer
David Claman.
***
Composer, Music educator, Atsushi Yoshinaka is a faculty member of Aoyama Gakuin University
(Tokyo, Japan) and a chair person of the Creative Music Education Lab at
Kenshin Early-Education Research.Yoshinaka received degrees from Kunitachi
College of Music (Tokyo, Japan), Longy School of Music (MA. USA) and California
Institute of the Arts (CA. USA). He studied with John McDonald, Mel Powell,
Morton Subotnick and Fred Rzewski. Prof. Powell said, 'Atsushi Pepe Yoshinaka
is a Japanese Milhaud.Ó Also he is a Musical director of the modern dance
company PerformerÕs Shop in Tokyo. His composition (improvisational performances
included) works with many dancers and singers all over Japan. Also Yoshinaka
works for the project DonÕt Panic: 60 Seconds for Piano with Guy Livingston
(piano).
The Footsteps in Our Lives I (Atsushi Yoshinaka) have been working as a composer (musician) in Japan since coming back from study-abroad. It has been over 10 years already. To live in Japan is so different from States and my life is back again and changed a lot. I could anticipate how this new life goes, because this is my country. But there are so many difficulties and trouble to keep profession in music here, Japan. I would like to write a letter with Toy Piano and 10-year soundscape as a part of my life and tell other composers in States about my over 10-year hustle and struggle to live as myself.