Post-prepared Piano by John Keston and Piotr Szyhalski

Posted on January 13, 2013 by John CS Keston

Piotr Szyhalski and I have just finished installing a piece titled, Post-prepared Piano, in the Burnet Gallery at Le Méridien Chambers, Minneapolis. Our installation is part of a show called Interactions and features the work of select MCAD MFA students in collaboration with their mentors. Our piece consists of several components. The first part is a 14′ wide and 17″ tall inkjet print of spectral analysis from a short piano composition that I performed and recorded using my custom built, binaural head microphone (otherwise known as Vincent).

Below the print is an installation that Szyhalski constructed from tarpaper, nails, and one continuous piece of twine. This handmade mapping of the spectral analysis was then photographed and converted back into sound using Michel Rouzic’s excellent application, Photosounder. Thirdly, we installed an iPad with headphones that allows the visitors to hear the original recording, the nails and string version, and a combination of the two layered on top of one another (visit the tablet optimized webapp). The show opens today and runs through February 24, 2013 with an artist’s reception on January 31 from 6pm to 9pm. Read on for more details, photos and sounds. Continue reading →

Casio Micro Microtrack

Posted on February 2, 2011 by John CS Keston

I created this microtrack from a tiny sample of a chord played on my Casio CZ-1000. I looped the chord and then ran it through a effect chain with five plugins, including Ableton Resonators, MDA DubDelay, Auto Pan, Chorus, and Reverb. I automated several parameters such as the delay feedback and tone.

Casio Micro Microtrack

Words to Dead Lips Closing Night Excerpt

Posted on November 8, 2010 by John CS Keston

As I’ve mentioned in some previous articles, I have been working on a multi-media dance collaboration, Words to Dead Lips, with Annichia Arts since last December that has finally come to a close. We staged three performances at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis this weekend to a mostly full house. My part in the collaborative effort was to produce the music, and I was given an open mandate to do so. As is my preference, I opted to perform the work to the dance and projected imagery, rather than submit pre-recorded material. Although I adhered to an agreed framework for the soundscape, the improvisational nature of this approach made every performance unique.

The main tool that I used to generate the sound was my Max for Live patch, Grain Machine that explores granular synthesis via a multi-touch controller. I loaded it with five samples including Snow Melting into Lake Superior, One Hundred Sounds in Eight Seconds, High and Low Frequency Drone, and a couple of others for the piece.

Another component to the sonic environment was the noise shield. This device, that I built into saucer sleds, was used by the dancers to synthesize sounds using body contacts and a light dependent resistor. Here’s a five minute excerpt of audio from the closing night’s performance.

WTDL Closing Night Excerpt

The Droning Buddha

Posted on August 17, 2010 by BlindProphet

I’ve been meaning to start an entry for ACB for a while, but only just got around to it after completing this sound. A few months ago, I stopped by Weirdo Records in Cambridge, MA while visiting some friends in Boston and I picked up a few different battery powered noise boxes. My favorite turned out to be this small chanting monk device that has a built in speaker, a headphone jack, a button to change chants, and a volume knob. I immediately found a bend on the board that doubled the speed of the chanting and made it a high pitched chipmonk chant.

Once I got back to Minnesota, I plugged it into the input on a Korg Electribe and saved the results of some crazy effect work. From there I ran the file (then a 2 minute file) through the open source paulstretch software. I slowed it down by about ten times and the end result was a 28 minute ambient drone that fluctuated and sounded something like a desolate ice cave. I used Ableton to EQ out the ear-bleeding high end and to add a bit of reverb. The end result is a haunting drone sound-bed that I’m pretty fond of. Feel free to use it for any sampling or remixing or whatever you kids are doing these days.

Droning Buddha

Ostracon at In Out Festival, September 2010

Posted on July 26, 2010 by John CS Keston

Ostracon Video from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

My project Ostracon (John Keston and Graham O’Brien) has been selected to perform at the In/Out Digital Performance Festival in New York this September, 2010. The schedule hasn’t been finalized yet, but we’ll be playing either on the 17th or 18th of the month at the Tank Theater, 354 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036. Last year’s lineup included Monome creator, tehn (Brian Crabtree), and Peter Kirn of Creative Digital Music. From the In/Out Festival website.

In/Out is an annual festival that features leading performers, developers, artists, and tinkerers of the digital design community in hopes bridging the gap between the forum based world and the stage. The festival seeks to bring digitally driven performances into the limelight with two full days of workshops and performances.

This video is a live studio piece shot by Ai student Josh Clos, and recorded at Ai Minnesota by John Keston and Graham O’Brien. It’s representative of the music that we are generating during our live performances. For more checkout the Ostracon tag here on ACB, or visit our bio on Unearthed Music.