I think it came off as restrained and austere precisely because I was anxious, because things sounded drastically different from the practice sessions I had leading up to the show, and because I decided mid-performance to cut some of the more interactive moments (namely, the tapping of Ears to generate an envelope that momentarily altered a few oscillator parameters and a gate output that was tied to the Mod inputs on René and Tempi) since they weren’t working quite as anticipated.
I used all of René’s 64 states during this performance, with the last four intentionally programmed with more glides, some octave changes, and fewer available notes to quantize to, to give myself some less predictable elements to work around as I developed the fuller-textured, disintegrating loop / drowning-inspired ending that you enjoyed.
I think the next step for me is to reconfigure some parameters of the piece and work on programming 64 Tempi states to change concurrently with René’s state changes, for a mostly-automated, slowly-changing, and slowly disintegrating composition that accomplishes my original vision of the piece.
This first live take and the eventual final recording will be a very loose cover / reinterpretation of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” as part of the “Waterbody” series of works I’m working on this year. More about the significance of that particular song once I finally complete the composition and the recording.
