VISS 0 (2023)
Ben Eidson
Don-Paul Kahl, saxophone
Ben Eidson, electronics
Recorded Live in Williams Hall at New England Conservatory
Boston, MA, USA
27 March 2023
David Shane, Recording Engineer
www.donpaulkah...
Program Note (written by Ben Eidson):
Working with Don-Paul on VISS 0 provided me with an amazing opportunity to explore the vast possibilities of responsiveness in digital scoring systems. Additionally, it allowed me to address the challenge of notating ideas from my improvised musical practice that often do not transition well to traditional notation.
Just before working on this piece, I attended a lecture organized by Craig Vear and the DigiScore research team, which focused on the wide range of interactivity between computer and performer possible in digital scoring. In VISS 0, three distinct systems are at play, each represented by a different video effect and exhibiting a varying degree of responsiveness. This responsiveness ranges from zero, complete control over the performer's actions, to total, being fully responsive to their input.
Regarding improvisation, the piece emphasizes the compositional framing of material rather than the specific material itself. Added to this, each effect in the piece introduces a different degree of interpretational ambiguity for the performer. Specifically, there are moments when the screen displays either vague or an overwhelming amount of information, requiring the performer to make assumptions or concessions in interpreting the material, respectively. At other points, the score includes notations that depict saxophone techniques that are not physically possible, demanding intuitive decisions to be made by the performer as to how to deal with this.
As a final note, the processes that occur in the piece are largely algorithmically controlled and feature different amounts of stochasticity. The goal of all these interactions is to create a highly dense space that a performer must constantly adjust in and find their place within or against.
15 окт 2024
