Proposing Live Electronics as an Alternative to Larger Performance Set-Ups
(2014)
author(s): Mario Garcia Cortizo
published in: KC Research Portal
Name: Mario García Cortizo
Main Subject: Classical and Contemporary Percussion Research Coaches: Anna Scott and Richard Barrett
Title of Research: Proposing Live Electronics as an Alternative to Larger Performance Set-Ups
Research Question:
How can the inclusion of live electronics reduce required equipment while increasing performer efficiency?
Research Process:
After deciding on the topic of my research, I began reading and collecting all kinds of information related to the historical relationship between the arts and artists during major social and financial crises of the 20th Century. This included books, websites, journal and magazine articles, and museum exhibitions.
In a practical sense, during the first year of the research process I was mainly focused on trying out different things by experimenting with live electronics both in improvised and concert music. For my second year, I have commissioned a new piece involving percussion and live electronics to be performed by composition student Siamak Anvari. I will also be the second person ever to play Hugo Morales’ piece 150pF, “for body capacitance and amplification system.” This piece involves a new instrument that I built myself, consisting of four jack connectors that are split into a four-channel system. As a complement for the program, I am doing a reduction of Frederic Rzewski’s
Coming Together for one single player and an actress.
Summary of Results:
Throughout this text we have seen different proposals that have come out of limitations faced by artists during crisis periods: where creativity is forced to develop in very significant ways in order to keep creating pieces, performances - art that riches everybody, regardless of culture, politics, age, or other aspects. These limitations have provided artists with a lot of new instruments, technologies and techniques: tools that have helped composers and performers to develop new languages and frameworks within which to organize many different materials.
Is very important to point out that the use of non-conventional instruments and live electronics can be considered when there are limitations, but we do not have to use these resources just because of the presence of a limitation, but rather as a part of an on-going research process that leads us to these resources as part of a particular creative solution. After going through all the practical examples experimented with and contained in this research, we can conclude that live electronics and non-conventional instruments are indeed an alternative to larger performance set-ups, not only when the economic situation is unfavorable, but even as a matter of taste.
