Kaps Freed (2017)
For piano and electronics
DOI: 10.4225/03/59f736cfd58c8
Commissioned by Gabriella Smart
[electronics by Stuart James]
Featured on the upcoming HatHut release, March 2019
Premiere performance, Australasian Computer Music Conference, September, 2017.
MLive,Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University, Melbourne, April 2018.
Of Broken Trees and Elephants Ivories, Callaway Auditorium, Perth, June 29 2018 and Beaumont House Composers Residency, July 15 2018.
Gabriella Smart performing Kaps Freed.
This work aims to bring the sound of the piano as close as possible to the sound of Percy Grainger’s Free Music ideals, by applying pitch tracking and spectral filtering. Delicate, sparse piano pitches are sampled and transported into theremin like tones where the tempered scale becomes irrelevant.
The 'Kaps piano' is the childhood piano of Percy Grainger, and resides in the Grainger Museum in Melbourne. It was made in Dresden, Germany in 1887. Grainger practiced on this piano daily as a child, presided over by his teacher and mother, Rose Grainger. Hope has long been fascinated with Grainger's Free Music, having realised performances of the theremin works. Kaps Freed imagines a link between his childhood piano practice routine and his later investigations into Free Music - a music characterised by the emancipation of rhythmic processes and pitch, both explored in this, and most of Hope's work. The piano notation is inspired by Albert Lake in Melbourne, the same lake that is said to have been the inspiration for Grainger's theory of Free Music.
PERFORMANCE NOTES: 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.
To perform this work, need to download the iPad app, the Decibel ScorePlayer which has many more features such as the ability to network multiple iPads, change the speed and show the computer part seperate from the piano part. You can download the file for the player here. Instructions on how to put the file in the player are here. The file to put in the ScorePlayer can be downloaded here. You can also play the score from the video file, downloadable below. You can use the MaxMSP patch developed by Stuart James for the eletronics, availble from the composer, or make your own. It requires a single microphone into the piano, with playback to stereo or quadraphonic speakers.
The 'Kaps piano' is the childhood piano of Percy Grainger, and resides in the Grainger Museum in Melbourne. It was made in Dresden, Germany in 1887. Grainger practiced on this piano daily as a child, presided over by his teacher and mother, Rose Grainger. Hope has long been fascinated with Grainger's Free Music, having realised performances of the theremin works. Kaps Freed imagines a link between his childhood piano practice routine and his later investigations into Free Music - a music characterised by the emancipation of rhythmic processes and pitch, both explored in this, and most of Hope's work. The piano notation is inspired by Albert Lake in Melbourne, the same lake that is said to have been the inspiration for Grainger's theory of Free Music.
PERFORMANCE NOTES: 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.
To perform this work, need to download the iPad app, the Decibel ScorePlayer which has many more features such as the ability to network multiple iPads, change the speed and show the computer part seperate from the piano part. You can download the file for the player here. Instructions on how to put the file in the player are here. The file to put in the ScorePlayer can be downloaded here. You can also play the score from the video file, downloadable below. You can use the MaxMSP patch developed by Stuart James for the eletronics, availble from the composer, or make your own. It requires a single microphone into the piano, with playback to stereo or quadraphonic speakers.
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KapsFreed_score from cat hope on Vimeo. Above - the score to Kaps Freed.
Top right - a recording of the work. Bottom right - a recording synchronised with the score. |
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