SOUNDTRACK: DAN TEPFER-Tiny Desk Concert #885 (August 29, 2019).
Most of the time, a Tiny Desk Concert is an opportunity to see an artist in a quiet almost unplugged setting. Sometimes, it’s an opportunity to see a band really show off in a close space. And sometimes a Tiny Desk Concert will blow your freaking mind.
Like this one.
I have never seen anything like this.
Dan Tepfer has created a program that plays the piano along with him. It’s for a project he calls Natural Machines.
Watch the keys and you’ll see this Disklavier — a player piano — plucking notes on its own. But it’s not a prerecorded script.
Here’s how it works: Tepfer plays a note, and a computer program he authored reads those notes and tells the piano what to play in response. Tepfer can load different algorithms into the program that determine the pattern of playback, like one that returns the same note, only an octave higher. Another will play the inverted note based on the center of the piano keys. These rules create interesting restrictions that Tepfer says make room for thoughtful improvisation. In his words, he’s not writing these songs, so much as writing the way they work.
Tepfer plays free improvisation–he “makes things up and tries to be present in the moment” but the computer responds to him in real time based on rules.
He says for “Canon At The Octave” theres’ an axis of symmetry on the piano and “everything I play on one side if reflected on the other side. Super simple, but it leads to musical problems that lead to real music.”
Since he is improvising, he is also reacting to what the computer makes.
He explains that “Tremolo” is when a note is repeated very quickly. He gives the example of a violin player playing a note quickly. It’s much harder on piano than a violin and it’s impossible to do more than ten notes at once.
He plays single notes that generate a series of chords playing quickly all at once–it’s really cool to watch the piano take off as if with a mind of its own.
But watching the piano isn’t the only cool thing
To better communicate what’s happening between him and the piano, Tepfer converted these audio-impulse data into visualizations on the screen behind him, displaying in real time the notes he plays followed by the piano’s feedback. [We dive even deeper into this project in a recent Jazz Night in America video piece].
He explains that these improvs are super short versions to show off how the programs work.
“TriadSculpture” is all about harmonic ratios. Pythagoras discovered that sounds work with whole numbers. The math behind music. So Tepfer has mapped numbers as a 3-D object and he has been printing them–even more mind blowing. The computer program generates these shapes– everything he plays on his left hand creates those shaped in real time on the screen.
Perhaps the trickiest part here, unlike a human-to-human duo, is that the computer plays along with 100 percent accuracy based solely on Tepfer’s moves. He compares it to dancing with a robot that never misses a beat. Tepfer has to play in kind to keep the train on the tracks, but if he falls out of step, so does the computer.
Fortunately he never falls out of time (or at least it’s hard to tell since it’s all improvised.
The final piece is “Constant Motion” in which he plays a note and the computer responds to it by playing a note either up or down. This creates a fun fast piece that explores the full range of the piano. The visuals for it are very cool too.
I’m not sure if this would be fun to see live (at least any more fun than an improvising pianist is) because listening to it you don’t always really know what’s happening or that the piano is doing the work. But seeing it up close like this is awesome.
[READ: August 21, 2019] Holy Cow
Like most people, ever since watching The X-Files, I’ve liked David Duchovny (why don’t you love me?).
I watched some of the Red Shoes Diaries just for him. I watched some of Californication just for him (Didn’t have whatever network it was on, so never watched more than a bit of it). But I’m always willing to give him a shot because I think he’s smart but goofy.
Enter Holy Cow.
This is Duchovny’s first novel and just what a pitch it must have been.
Hi, this is David Duchovny. Yup, that one. I’d like to write an adult book about a cow that wants to go to India once she finds out cows are worshiped there. Yes, David Duchovny.
I had no idea he had written this book. I just happened to see it on my library shelf when I was looking for something else. The book was short and had (terrible) drawings in it and seemed like it would be absurdly funny.
So, with the caveat that if you think that a talking cow buying a plane ticket and going to Jerusalem with a pig and to Turkey with a turkey sounds stupid and juvenile. Well, you’d be right. But you’d be missing out on an enjoyable, silly romp if that kept you from reading it. (more…)
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I learned about Idles through NPR (of course). I can recall Bob Boilen talking about their live show (I think at SXSW) and how amazing it was. He said that they were very high on his must-see list. And since then I have wanted to see them. When they announced the show at Union Transfer I bought a ticket immediately.
I Just Read About That... 