Instrumentation:  piano and live electronics

 

Duration:  7 minutes

 

Program Notes:

Timing and Collisions was a collaborative project between Tom Lopez and me while we were both students at Oberlin Conservatory.  As a pianist and composer, I was interested in incorporating live electronic elements with the acoustic piano timbre.  The piece makes use of what is now old and classic equipment, the Effectron and Midiverb, which can now be replaced quite easily with today’s equipment.  

 

In general, the work moves from quiet diatonicism to more forceful chromaticism and back again.  The delay/echo effect is used in various timings and at points, the electronics pick up and repeat the ostinato patterns played by the pianist, over which the pianist provides another level of texture.  The electronics provide the means to also play “between” the notes and there is one section in which patterns drift between quarter tones higher and lower than the original.  The work contains some elements of improvisation, mostly apparent in the final section of the work, as the opening material fades into silence.

 

-- Pierre Jalbert