We recently posted a teaser video for our project “Instrumented Bodies: Digital Prostheses for Music and Dance Performance” — enjoy!
Performance
Improvisation – Transir for bass flute and soprano t-stick
An improvised duo for bass flute and soprano t-stick at the Centro Mexicano para la Música y Artes Sonoras in Morelia, Mexico (29 June, 2012): Salvador Torre, amplified bass flute, and D. Andrew Stewart, soprano t-stick.
Video: Experimental Music from Brazil and Beyond
Video has now been posted from the concert “Experimental Music from Brazil and Beyond” at the University of Lethbridge. The concert featured two performances with T-Stick: a solo written by Patrick Hart and D. Andrew Stewart, and a trio improvisation by Fernando Rocha (percussion, including another project of mine: the Hyper-Kalimba), Elise Pittenger (cello) and D. Andrew Stewart (soprano T-Stick).
Live@CIRMMT – Steven Schick
Last Wednesday I was involved with another concert: Pieces for solo percussion and live electronics performed by UCSD’s Steven Schick. This amazing performance was part of the Live@CIRMMT performance series, and also has another connection to the IDMIL and me. One of the pieces performed was Chatter/Clatter, part of composer Roger Reynolds‘ Sanctuary Project, which was initially workshopped in the IDMIL as part of a project exploring gesture control of sound spatialization. We developed a sensing system using piezo-electric contact microphones on the percussionist’s fingertips, a technique which is now used in the piece.
I also drove the computer for this performance, which was running software in Pure Data (pd) which handled processing of the live sound and 12-channel sound spatialization.
The Hyper-Kalimba
One of my main goals for the summer is to catch up on some documentation of past projects, updating webpages, editing and posting photos and videos, etc. This time the documentation is a video of Fernando Rocha performing on the Hyper-Kalimba, an augmented instrument we have been working on for around a year now.
Fernando and I have worked together before (on the T-Stick and Digital Orchestra projects), and he approached me for some instruction in Max/MSP programming, which he required for another project he was working on. He came up with the idea of using a kalimba he owned as a tool for exploring audio signal processing. Since the kalimba already had a contact microphone installed, it was simple to connect to a computer, and was obviously more portable than many of the other percussion instruments he plays.
After working with the kalimba for a while, we decided to begin augmenting it with some sensors for controlling the parameters of Fernando’s Max/MSP programming. We were careful throughout the process to avoid interfering with tradition kalimba technique, and added new sensors slowly, allowing time for evaluating the impact of each change before moving forward. Currently, the “Hyper-Kalimba” contains FSR pressure sensors, a 3-axis accelerometer for tilt and acceleration, and 2 buttons, in addition to the contact microphone.
