1 / 22
0:00/0:00
Duo
2019
Computer-Controlled Instrument
- Program Notes
- When composing this work I was fascinated by the mechanical limitations of the disklavier. The piano, while associated with human expression, is a rather strange and unnatural instrument - resulting from amazing feats of engineering with its complex levers, industrial parts, and chemically processed wood. The disklavier highlights this in a way that is at times jarring and uncanny. The human player has physical limitations – hand-size, speed of movement, and number of simultaneous notes. Limitations of speed and notes are shared by the disklavier as well (although the disklavier is still super human in these traits). But the disklavier has some limitations the human does not; pedals and keys are all operated by voltage through solenoid motors. These motors struggle at producing softer dynamics, they often squeak with unwanted noise, they have timing errors from their inability to play soft notes as quickly as loud notes, and the release of the keys and pedals are often jarring. I included the toy piano to augment these, at times, clumsy and mechanical sounds. The title, of motor, bar & wire draws its name from the materials used in this work.
- Recording Notes
- Recorded at the University of Texas at Austin
- Performer Credits
- na
- External Links