Takemitsu: My Way of Life

Photographs from Takemitsu: My Way of Life. Images were taken from the printed program for the Tokyo performances.

Performance Setup for Takemitsu: My Way of Life. From left to right, Lemur JazzMutant, the stage (blue screen), the computer (white screen), the sound interface (sitting beneath the computer and sporting small green lights), the Wacom tablet (under desk lamp light).

Block diagram of the hardware setup for my instrument. The 5 main components are 1) a computer, 2) gestural controllers (from right to left, JazzMutant Lemur, Wacom drawing tablet and a contact microphone connected to the wacom), 3) software running on the computer, 4) a multichannel audio I/O interface, 5) sound system including console, routing to a surround speaker array and input from microphones on acoustic instruments and actors.

Block diagram of hardware/software organization. White blocks represent software components whereas images represent inputs and outputs. Top left: Microphone input is analyzed in order to inform sound synthesis; top right: gestural controllers are mapped in order to control sound synthesis in real-time; top center: a contact microphone is used to make my instrument playable like a percussion instrument. Bottom: synthesized sound is spatialized with a multi-channel sound system

Takemitsu: My Way of Life

2005
Instrument, Software, Sound
Description
2005, Theatre du Chatelet, Paris, Farnce
2005, Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan

The piece was first performed in Berlin. Subsequent performances in which I participated were in Paris (panoramic) and Tokyo (panoramic of opening night, another<;/a> of the Bunka Kaikan concert hall).

The project, the instrument and the experience are described in great detail in my dissertation. The software components made extensive use of my Max/MSP library of abstractions, aLib.

I developed a real-time instrument which I performed along with the orchestra and the cast of the opera. My axe was a gesturally controlled (a Lemur and a Wacom tablet) software-based (Max/MSP) instrument which analyzed the sound of the orchestra and allowed me to synthesize and control various complementary musical material in real-time (little videos of my setup 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). My job was to not only contribute musically to parts of the opera that Nagano found lacking in richness, but to also work with the theatrical progression and development of the scenes, the transitions among them. I was specifically directed to accompany the sense of tension and release being played out on stage. I contributed during all of the electronic pieces which often served as transition music, by adding harmonic clouds of sound whose color and timbre were derived from already existing musical components of the works. I also controlled the spatialization of these harmonic textures in real-time, creating theatrical movements, accumulations and plays of sound location in the hall. Also, the solo percussion piece Munari by Munari (1967) became an intimate duo between the percussionist and my real-time electronics. During this piece, I was continually analyzing the sounds from the percussionist's large palette of acoustic instruments and deriving the harmonic content of what he was playing. I used this harmonic knowledge to create harmonic textures as well as percussive sounds that connected with and complemented what he was playing...
Acknowledgements
Collaboration with the Staatsopper Unter den Linden directed by Peter Musbach and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester direted by Kent Nagano

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