Rewriting...

Last post, I mentioned that was starting a new piece. I neglected to mention that I was also rewriting an older piece.

Okay, it's not that old- it is from 2009. I'm revising Mirrors from my "Interactive Piano" series. That piece was originally written for the Yamaha Disklavier, and now I'm reworking it for acoustic piano and Max/MSP, for Keith Kirchoff. At first, I thought it would be a simple revision.

Well, I've got a good pitch-to-MIDI converter, so that is not a big problem. Mirrors is based on the idea that e pianist plays a note, and Max processes it, usually returning a few notes. Sometimes Max plays a few notes, sometimes runs. A lot of it is based on analysis of incoming data.

Well, it has gotten complicated. Some of the patches that worked well with pure MIDI data don't work well here, so I'm rewriting those. I've got to rework the random generators as well.

Recently, it occurred to me that since I'm not trying to have Max play notes on a keyboard, I can make use of microtones. And that has opened up a whole new world.

To do: devise new sounds. Right now, I'm using a generic Karplus-Strong module to make struck string sounds, like a piano. That will come later, I think.

And to think - I haven't even tinkered with any of the notes yet!