Kaps Freed 2017
For piano and electronics
Commissioned by Gabriella Smart
[electronics by Stuart James]
Commissioned by Gabriella Smart
[electronics by Stuart James]
This work aims to bring the sound of the piano as close as possible to the sound of Percy Grainger’s Free Music ideals, using pitch tracking and spectral filtering. It aims to transform the sound of the piano as closely to the Free Music ideal as possible, by sampling its pitches and transporting them into theremin like tones where the tempered scale becomes irrelevant.
The 'Kaps piano' is the childhood piano of Percy Grainger, and lives in the Grainger Museum in Melbourne. It was made in Dresden, Germany in 1887. Percy practiced on this piano for two hours daily as a child, presided over by his teacher and mother, Rose Grainger. I have always been fascinated with Grainger's Free Music, and this work explores the link between his childhood practice routine and lessons with his later investigations into Free Music. This was a music characterized by the emancipation of rhythmic processes and pitch, both explored in this, and most of my, work. The piano part is my response to the same lake, Albert Lake in Melbourne, that is said to have been the inspiration for Grainger's theory of Free Music
whose family were also students of Rose’s, bought the piano from the Graingers, and kept it for forty years before donating it to the Grainger Museum in 1935. It is now on permanent display at the Museum.
Each colour represents a finger on each hand. The blue shades being the right hand, the red shades being the left. Use the sustain pedal to keep the notes ringing as long as possible.
A grey dashed line shows middle C for reference purposes. A thinner grey dashed lines assist to show when notes remain the same pitch.
The electronics part is indicated in opaque parts. This samples the piano at different moments, turning the piano tone into a sine tone (like a Theremin tone) and the colour represents the ‘hand tonality’ to be sampled at the moments marked on the score.
The score should be read in the Decibel ScorePlayer application on an iPad, or as a video score.
