i'm largely an acoustic performer (prepared piano) but i work in various hybrid contexts (electro-acoustic, with dance, etc.).<br><br>i use various means to organize pieces, but the consistent ones are rules/constraints and durations.<br>
i also treat recordings as compositions--the fact that a track has a fixed duration means that whatever unfolds within it has a structure. this comes straight from john cage: structure=duration.<br><br>the constraints give a conceptual direction to a piece. (my favorite is make a hole and walk through it, but you can't do that one all the time.)<br>
the duration stipulations--the sequence of events---is the way a particular piece works with he overarching constraint. they are also themselves constraints, but locally oriented.<br><br>the organization of events within a duration varies. prepared piano is largely about materials--what you use in the wires, what you use on the wires. so alot of events are about the exploring of possibilities opened up by the interaction of, say, a glass vase, the piano soundboard and the treatments that are between the wires in a particular area of the soundboard. most of the activity happens in a space of decay.<br>
<br>in a mixed electronic/acoustic piece, i like having two sets of event sequences going simultaneously which pull the piece toward and away from scattering.<br>i think the thresholds between the two are interesting to find and work with.<br>
<br>with oulipo-style constraint systems, there's the principle o clinamen (swerve..it's from lucretius) which enables you to break them. if you find a cool threshold space, it's good to stay there a while. usually, if its a good night and the machinery is working, it's worth the chaos it generates in the frame. and the recording integrates these spaces of clinamen back into what they aren't.<br>
<br>that's what i gots.<br>stephen<br>