“Portable Music” by Daniel Brandt

Title:

Portable Music

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Performers:



• Daniel Brandt

Symposium:

• FISEA: First International Symposium on Electronic Art

Venue(s):

• Academy Theatre Utrecht , Utrecht , Netherlands

Artist Statement:

Composed and Performed by Daniel Brandt

Portable Music is a series of improvisational and rhythmic pieces for solo performer, an electronic percussion instrument (a Roland Octapad) and Midilodica (a unique MIDI) keyboard instrument built at STEIM in 1987). The musician plays the instruments which send data directly to a computer that is programmed to ‘listen’ and respond by processing the information and sending its output to synthesizers. The result is an interactive system, allowing real-time, gestural control over many layers of musical processes. Each composition exploits this performance system in a different manner.

Repetez, s.v.p (1987). The computer, operating as an interactive MIDI recorder, repeats rhythms that are performed on the Octapad. These phrases are layered one by one until a complex pattern is created. The performer then plays the Octapad, modifying and adding to the pre-recorded patterns.

Four Echoic Episodes (1987), is performed on the Midilodica. This portable keyboard, originally a Hohner melodica, has been modified to transmit a wide range of MIDI commands. These are sent directly to the computer which interprets them in a variety of ways. Each section of this composition has its own micro-tonal scale, and uses variations of a program that transforms a solo performance into that of an ensemble with the simple device of an echo.

Category:

• Performances
• Concert - Audio