Pulse and Play: Smart Metronome Devices in Task-Based, Interactive Composition
A joint paper and performance by Zubin Kanga and Mark Dyer, presented at Ludo22, the Eleventh European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound
This joint paper presents two approaches to employing the Soundbrenner digital metronomes in the composition and performance of concert works with game-like interactions. We consider how such devices might shape notions of group-object interaction, failure and performativity.
hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (2022), composed by Luke Nickel for pianist Zubin Kanga, uses five Soundbrenner Core devices on the pianist’s arms and inside the piano. Their tempi are matched to the speeds of a network of rollercoasters shown on-screen. The constantly changing tempi between the hands creates a game of prediction and accuracy – the vertiginous accelerandi are almost impossible for a human performer to render completely accurately. Nickel’s work explores this gap between the computer-driven ideal, and the technologically-extended performer in a situation that makes similar demands on the performer as video games requiring a high degree of skill and accuracy.
Mensura (2022) is a piece for open ensemble written by Mark Dyer for CoMA Manchester. Each performer measures their own heart rate and sends this tempo to a Soundbrenner Pulse device worn by another performer, creating a type of networked game. As well as employing various group breathing and music-making exercises to steer, synchronize and disrupt player heart rates and the resulting metric polyphony, the piece draws upon aspects of medieval music to create a theatrical sonic world. We will draw upon ethnographic documentation of the creative process of these works and contextualize this within the new interdisciplinary virtuosity of performers, the ontology of electronic instruments and models of gaming interactivity.