About the transforms
June 01 2021
Matthias Kriesberg

In our current focus, get used to it man thats the way we live now, our transforms are designed to be responsive to the limitless spectrum of nuance and degrees of intensity that pianists bring to a performance. The modern concert piano is capable of transmitting the most exquisite subtleties and individuality of performances. It is also an immensely complex and carefully calibrated percussion instrument, thus an ideal "partner" with digital technologies, inasmuch as everything that happens on the piano in performance - all of a performer's abilities and proclivities - are ultimately expressed and quantifiable as values "entered" via the keyboard.

Our transforms operate on two levels, "primary" and "dynamic". At the primary level, a selected sound-modulating transform is assigned to a fragment - typically between 5 and 20 seconds - which applies a specific yet still malleable sound transformation matrix to the section. The secondary level is entirely responsive to how that passage is played in performance. This is effected by comparing the performance of the passage in question with (1) the notated score as a set of absolute values, and (2) the score as a set of values derived over time and continually updated by the pool of pianists whose MIDI performances are captured, retained and compared.

The recorded values are derived from interpretive choices, willful or involuntary, that take place throughout the performance, especially during brief "stress" points in the piece, when realizing the instructions of the score may demand a degree of triaging. Such moments - which have long been characteristic of classical music - more overtly reveal the mental and physical individuality of the performer.

The upshot is that all instances of the digital sound world expressed will be unique, just as human performances are - for the essential reason that they derive from human performance in the first place.

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