Liquidus
. : for percussion and 2 computers
: . : . . . : : photos




Liquidus (2004) was conceived out of an aural motivation, the bending of metal like water.

This work is an approach to computer music where reliance on the source signal, the acoustic instrument, by the computer and the interaction between the two, persuades the composition. This piece is produced entirely using the incoming sounds in real time, an approach that answers several problems related to expressiveness in electronic music. The computer generates material that responds to the nuances in articulations created by the performer on stage at every performance.

The sound of the new instrument relies on the spectral makeup of the performers instrument to create the voice(s) of the piece. This signal dependency approach to the computer is intended to fuse the characteristics of the acoustic into the electroacoustic.

Composition of the piece also leaned on the timbres of the live instrument. Intervallic relationships were derived from the spectrum of percussion instruments such as the opening crotales and used as the pitch content for much of the piece creating scalar and harmonic patterns that include quarter tones. These patterns of extended tunings are used to bend the signal by these ratios or to be used at times by the computer as sets from which to derive pitches.

The result is a symbiotic instrument created between the percussion and the computer capable of refracting and isolating itself, a meta instrument controlled by one performer.

Liquidus was composed and developed at the Institute for Sonology in The Hague and is dedicated to Diego Espinosa and Juan Parra.