JACARANDA
scored | performance
composed, produced, & performed by Leo Gevisser
The title of my composition Jacaranda (for piano and fixed media) is taken after a bright indigo flower-plant that blooms seasonally in certain parts of South Africa—where I lived for 10 years.
As my compositional outlook is broadening outwards to both music production, sound art, & the utilization of alternate tuning systems acoustically and electronically, this piece seems to me a marker of that broadening. Thus, an expansion is not only present in the musical content throughout its 8-minute stretch—but also in its outlook. Intervals are gradually approximated within the fixed media through the utilization of a justly intoned (ji) scale containing ratios to the 7-limit (including the septimal seventh [7:4]). This is utilized both against and in conjunction with the live piano’s 12-edo intervals. The fixed media’s naturally-acoustic aesthetic of the felt piano gradually morphs into a fully-electronic, reductionistic synth patch.
Until, by the end of the piece, what’s left is nothing but the remnants of electronically-processed, justly-intoned intervals—those of which cast a dissipated umbra back towards the live piano’s beginning.
Media:
2-channel spatialized fixed media track, speakers
Instrumentation:
Piano
Tuning systems utilized:
12-EDO, 7-limit JI
