For the first experiment we invited a sound artist and piano player, Robin McGinley, to improvise on one of the instruments from Klaverens Hus. McGinley played a grand piano from the collection, an instrument we had previously recorded and integrated into the system. For this occasion, the software was responding not to the hand-interface, but to the sounds produced by the instrument (pitch and intensity recorded through contact microphones). The session that took place at Klaverens Hus 25 August 2019 was an inspiring exercise and opened a whole range of new opportunities for this project.

Watch a video documentation of this event below:

Listen to the audio documentation below:

Making, sharing and enjoying music together: Player piano weekend (click to go to the next page)

Opening a music dialogue: Player piano live

Further development of the interactive environment made it possible to start dialogues with other analogue instruments. The player is now able to improvise based on other musicians’ discourses. For that, the system was upgraded with a series of listening and analysing tools as well as improvisation modes.