Post-prepared Piano Animated Sequence

I put together this animated sequence of the media from Post-prepared Piano to illustrate the relationships between the spectral analysis, the mapping with nails and twine, and the music from the piece. Thanks to Photosounder developer Michel Rouzic for suggesting that I make a video combining the sound and imagery after seeing the documentation I posted a few days ago.

Post-prepared Piano by John Keston and Piotr Szyhalski

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

In Habit: Living Patterns Complete Collection on SoundCloud

I have made the entire collection of pieces that I composed for “In Habit: Living Patterns,” performed at Northern Spark in June, 2012, available as a set of sixteen tracks on SoundCloud. This set will be downloadable for a unspecified time window, so get it while you can.

Duet from In Habit: Living Patterns

This is the fifteenth of sixteen pieces that I composed and performed during each vignette of the dance production “In Habit: Living Patterns,” performed at Northern Spark in June, 2012. This is also the last of two of the pieces in the series that I used a patch that I programmed to simulate a Japanese reed instrument called a shō.

Revision from In Habit: Living Patterns

This is the fourteenth of sixteen pieces that I composed and performed during each vignette of the dance production “In Habit: Living Patterns,” performed at Northern Spark in June, 2012. This one was based on the Eight Minute Drone that I shared last year.