Output details

Adaptations - for electric violin and interactive computer

Adaptations, premiered on 6 January 2012 by Mieko Kanno and Sam Hayden at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, University of Oxford, was the second output in the AHRC Practice-Led research award ‘Live Performance, the Interactive Computer and the Violectra’, building on ideas initiated in schismatics (2007) and the 2010 revision of its MaxMSP patches, renamed schismatics II, discussed in Hayden’s ICMC 2011 article. In order to fully illustrate the research process, this portfolio comprises scores, recordings and MaxMSP patches for both Adaptations and Schismatics II, two articles and a software external.

The main aim was to create a Violectra-specific piece with live computer processing, where the computer makes no assumptions in advance about the nature of a performance, but adapts to each performance independently of human decision-making. Unlike schismatics II, Adaptations can be radically different from a macro-structural formal point of view, as well as the micro-structural level of detail, being an ‘open-form’ work comprising 11 notated ‘modules’, freely ordered for each performance. Each ‘module’ comprises a duo of two lines, which can either be played live, triggered as pre-recorded samples, or both. Hayden undertook the MaxMSP programming, building the patch around Nick Collins’ Listening and Learning System (ll~), a MaxMSP external created specifically for this project (Collins added functionality to prototypes following Hayden’s feedback). The current ll~ ‘state’ (timbre categorizations derived from the k-means clustering of feature analysis data) routes the e-violin signal to multiple DSP configurations and synthesis parameters (e.g. granulation), transformations hence relate directly to the interpretation. Learning afresh with each performance, the computer adapts to the changing nature of the sonic materials: a coherent yet unique development results, achieving a high level of musical interactivity whilst avoiding the reactive action/response paradigm.

Collaborators: Sam Hayden (composition, artistic-direction, coding), Mieko Kanno (e-violin), Nick Collins (additional coding).