Morten Qvenild – The HyPer(sonal) Piano Project
(2024)
author(s): Morten Qvenild
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
Towards a (per)sonal topography of
grand piano and electronics
How can I develop a grand piano with live electronics through iterated development loops in the cognitive technological environment of instrument, music, performance and my poetics?
The instrument I am developing, a grand piano with electronic augmentations, is adapted to cater my poetics. This adaptation of the instrument will change the way I compose. The change of composition will change the music. The change of music will change my performances. The change in performative needs will change the instrument, because it needs to do different things. This change in the instrument will show me other poetics and change my ideas. The change of ideas demands another music and another instrument, because the instrument should cater to my poetics. And so it goes… These are the development loops I am talking about.
I have made an augmented grand piano using various music technologies. I call the instrument the HyPer(sonal) Piano, a name derived from the suspected interagency between the extended instrument (HyPer), the personal (my poetics) and the sonal result (music and sound). I use old analogue guitar pedals and my own computer programming side by side, processing the original piano sound. I also take out control signals from the piano keys to drive different sound processes. The sound output of the instrument is deciding colors, patterns and density on a 1x3 meter LED light carpet attached to the grand piano. I sing, yet the sound of my voice is heavily processed, a processing decided by what I am playing on the keys. All sound sources and control signal sources are interconnected, allowing for complex and sometimes incomprehensible situations in the instrument´s mechanisms.
Credits:
First supervisor: Henrik Hellstenius
Second Supervisors: Øyvind Brandtsegg and Eivind Buene
Cover photo by Jørn Stenersen, www.anamorphiclofi.com
All other photo, audio and video recording/editing by Morten Qvenild, unless stated.
LIDAR scanning and cross-disciplinary practice methodologies
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Ravi Deepres, Paul Norman, Michael Joseph Fletcher, Corey Mwamba
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The central theme of this research is to pioneer the adaptation of LIDAR scanning technology as part of a cross-disciplinary visual arts methodology. The research is expressed via a contemporary dance work and a moving-image gallery installation.
New Artistic Possibilities with The Max Maestro - An Animated Music Notation System for Non-Professional Performers
(last edited: 2016)
author(s): Anders Lind
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The Max Maestro – an animated music notation system was developed by the author to enable the exploration of new artistic possibilities for composition and performance practices within the field of contemporary art music. More specifically, to enable groups/crowds of non-professional performers regardless of musical background to perform fixed music compositions written in multiple individual parts. Furthermore, The Max Maestro was developed to facilitate concert hall performances where non-professional performers could be synchronised and perform along with an electronic music part and/or a professional chamber/symphony orchestra. This exposition presents the background, the content and the artistic ideas and possibilities with The Max Maestro System and looks at three live concert hall performances where The Max Maestro was implemented. An artistic research approach with a qualitative methodology was adopted for the study. Empirical data from the three performances were analysed through the lens of the author as a composer. This exposition contributes with new knowledge to the field of animated music notation and how to facilitate performances including non-professional performers in a contemporary art music context.