Visions of the Void I

for piano and electronic (Fixed Media, Stereo)

    SCORE (excerpt)

Visions of the Void I is a walk at the edge of the abyss. You can not see what is in. You can only take a vision of what it could be…

The work is conceived as a double sided reality: a real one and a virtual one.

The real part is the piano, which it’s alive and walks a given path, following the vision in an introspective way. The virtual part is the electronic, which creates an imaginary space within real space where the live component is moving.

Both realities will communicate: the piano receives the influence of the electronic and reacts to it whereas the electronic will sound different during the performance of the piano.

In order to achieve a real unity between the two aspects of the work I focused the composition of both on the same technic: the spectral analyze of given sounds and its re-synthesis through the components of the work: the real and the virtual one.

With the aid of the AudioSculpt Software (IRCAM), I analyzed the samples through the graphical representation of the partial components of the sound or “Sonograms”. So I can find the exact frequencies of these overtones and translate them to musical pitches that will serve me as structural material for both parts of the composition: They will define the pitches which I will use on the electronic and the notes of the piano as well as the musical “colors” or “textures” of both.

The electronic, will be a reflection of the “real” piano: the raw materials were piano samples. In this way I will reach an exchange of information between the real and the virtual world: Something taken from reality will come into reality again. The structural materials (the frequencies of the sound’s partials) steer the choice of the recorded sounds of the instrument. The piano interact with the electronic in a structural level: as it will be the raw materials for the electronic, it will define textures and colors.

This work is dedicated to Maki Ono.