by Unlikely Places
Presented at ICMC 2012 in Ljubljana, 14 September 2012.
No chords attached is a network piece, in which the performance framework is based on a mobile and remote performer, broadcasting from the city and receiving audio from the concert hall (through custom developed software).
This enables the work to take on different compositional strategies – linking instrument, performers and unlikely places. It uses the piano as a bridge between the incoming broadcast of the city soundscape and the concert hall (by using transducers placed on the strings and soundboard); it changes the performance context by taking the pianist outside the hall (the remote performer is carrying a small speaker, transforming the work into a form of public sonic intervention); It uses the network latency to explore resonant frequencies, by transforming the original sound into a spatial imprint of other places.
No chords attached is a work that questions the nature of listening in a musical performance. This is done through the creation of a network topology that creates a dialogue between everyday sounds and concert hall. By co-existing together in different contexts, it reveals the archetypal nature of the such places.