[APL025] Kenneth Kirschner - May 3, 1997
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- Publication date
- 2004-10-03 00:00:00
Kenneth Kirschner was born in 1970 in Princeton, New Jersey, and began studying piano at the age of 5. Starting to study Composition at College briefly he found the academic atmosphere of the time (1988) to be too conservative and stifling, with little support for electronic music or for experimental approaches. He therefore gave up studying Music academically and moved to New York City to develop his work on his own. Kenneth spent the 1990s composing and developing his style, while doing occasional commissions for ballet and modern dance. Being aware that soon the technology would exist to allow the online distribution of music, it was Kenneths ambition to make his work freely available online. He therefore turned to his old friend Taylor Deupree of 12k, and began a series of CD releases - all under open licenses - that have included post_piano, September 19, 1998 et al., and a number of forthcoming CDs, all of which have been a great help in raising awareness of his work.
Being asked on how he consequently labels all of his works with dates, Kenneth comments that when he was very young, he used to make up titles for his pieces which were terrible from Kenneths point of view: Just pretentious and awful, I thought. At times they even seemed to "damage" the music itself. I wanted my work to remain purely abstract, and for listeners to be able to bring whatever meaning or interpretation they wanted to it. In 1989, Kenneth ultimately decided to start using the dates on which the pieces were begun, and it's a system he has pretty much stuck with ever since. It causes a lot of chaos, of course, as even I sometimes can't tell which pieces are which! But it's something that I'm very happy with philosophically.
On to May 3, 1997. The piano has always been an important part of Kirschner's work - not least because it was the first instrument he ever learned, and the one he knows best. May 3, 1997 uses the "post.piano" patch described in his liner notes to the post_piano CD - it was in fact the first track on which he used this sound.
Kenneth: Basically, the sound is a single, 22-khz piano sample that has been stretched across the entire keyboard. In theory, this should sound terrible, as it's the exact way you're NOT supposed to make a piano patch! But I've always found it to be the most interesting and expressive piano sound I've ever created. Here, as previously noted, the patch uses a microtonal scale, which is another factor that differentiates it from a "natural" piano sound. But thats not the only element this piece consists of, as Kenneth continues: The percussion sounds, as I mentioned before, were all created by sampling various found objects - there are a few actual percussion instruments in there, I think, but most of the sounds are bits of junk I found, pieces of metal, silverware, random objects, etc., that were then further manipulated in the sampler. As for the white noise, well, I added that in because when I first started writing the piece, I was concerned that the inherent noise in the low-tech piano sample was very obvious and distracting, and I wanted something to cover it up with.
The result of May 3, 1997 is a magnificent composition, where each of the individual components (i.e., each piano motif, each percussion sound, each fragment of noise, etc.) was composed in isolation from the others, through a spontaneous, highly improvisational process. Then, using chance procedures, all of these short fragments were randomly arranged in a linear sequence. Over a long period, this rough version is edited down so that all the chance arrangements that "don't work" are slowly removed, leaving only the interesting accidents. The large-scale structure of the piece is therefore random, but edited - the successful moments are retained and emphasized, and the unsuccessful ones removed, producing a final narrative that seems to have a certain logic and order to it, but which has really just "emerged" from a combination of chance and selection.
For more free music by Kenneth Kirschner, please visit his Website http://www.kennethkirschner.com
Being asked on how he consequently labels all of his works with dates, Kenneth comments that when he was very young, he used to make up titles for his pieces which were terrible from Kenneths point of view: Just pretentious and awful, I thought. At times they even seemed to "damage" the music itself. I wanted my work to remain purely abstract, and for listeners to be able to bring whatever meaning or interpretation they wanted to it. In 1989, Kenneth ultimately decided to start using the dates on which the pieces were begun, and it's a system he has pretty much stuck with ever since. It causes a lot of chaos, of course, as even I sometimes can't tell which pieces are which! But it's something that I'm very happy with philosophically.
On to May 3, 1997. The piano has always been an important part of Kirschner's work - not least because it was the first instrument he ever learned, and the one he knows best. May 3, 1997 uses the "post.piano" patch described in his liner notes to the post_piano CD - it was in fact the first track on which he used this sound.
Kenneth: Basically, the sound is a single, 22-khz piano sample that has been stretched across the entire keyboard. In theory, this should sound terrible, as it's the exact way you're NOT supposed to make a piano patch! But I've always found it to be the most interesting and expressive piano sound I've ever created. Here, as previously noted, the patch uses a microtonal scale, which is another factor that differentiates it from a "natural" piano sound. But thats not the only element this piece consists of, as Kenneth continues: The percussion sounds, as I mentioned before, were all created by sampling various found objects - there are a few actual percussion instruments in there, I think, but most of the sounds are bits of junk I found, pieces of metal, silverware, random objects, etc., that were then further manipulated in the sampler. As for the white noise, well, I added that in because when I first started writing the piece, I was concerned that the inherent noise in the low-tech piano sample was very obvious and distracting, and I wanted something to cover it up with.
The result of May 3, 1997 is a magnificent composition, where each of the individual components (i.e., each piano motif, each percussion sound, each fragment of noise, etc.) was composed in isolation from the others, through a spontaneous, highly improvisational process. Then, using chance procedures, all of these short fragments were randomly arranged in a linear sequence. Over a long period, this rough version is edited down so that all the chance arrangements that "don't work" are slowly removed, leaving only the interesting accidents. The large-scale structure of the piece is therefore random, but edited - the successful moments are retained and emphasized, and the unsuccessful ones removed, producing a final narrative that seems to have a certain logic and order to it, but which has really just "emerged" from a combination of chance and selection.
For more free music by Kenneth Kirschner, please visit his Website http://www.kennethkirschner.com
Related Music question-dark
Versions - Different performances of the song by the same artist
Compilations - Other albums which feature this performance of the song
Covers - Performances of a song with the same name by different artists
Song Title | Versions | Compilations | Covers |
---|---|---|---|
May 3, 1997 |
- Addeddate
- 2004-10-04 05:13:03
- Album
- May 3, 1997
- Artist
- Kenneth Kirschner
- Boxid
- OL100020304
- External-identifier
-
urn:mb_releasegroup_id:17da48fb-30bc-3b21-aadb-d7ea9ee1b136
urn:mb_release_id:1c486fae-dda1-4dd2-b550-83a7d0241a97
urn:discogs:release:331865
- Identifier
- apl025
- Run time
- 37:23
- Source
- http://www.autoplate.org
- Taped by
- Autoplate
- Type
- sound
comment
Reviews
Reviewer:
stephen spera
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
June 11, 2006
Subject: lets talk about this
Subject: lets talk about this
kenneth kirschner's compositions use the aleatory, open patterns often associated with a john cage or a morton feldman.
normally, i consider these among the best sources one could hope to draw upon. after all, one wants to study at the feet of the masters, and this is about as high up the chain as one can go. ordinarily, i would be ready to tear the shorts off of anyone
who dares strike out into morton's territory (cage's being wider,
and quite subject to INTERPRETATIONS>>>) but kirschner has
been on the money as far asi am concerned. as a very young man i met both of these masters, got to speak to and hang with
cage, and ive got to say that in all ways kirschner's pieces do them BOTH proud. check, please, the pieces on kk's own site,
which use a form of randomness that the program FLASH, in the
hands of a great sound/site designer,craig swann, expand what
takes (believe me, folks) a mountain of work, thought, and care.
in fact, i own about every piece of music made, and the only things that have been gracing my mac's speakers for a long time
are these pieces- some i let drift by all day- altho i dont want it to sound as tho they are aural wallpaper- one finds these pieces have their own lives, and come out of seemingly nowhere as your day moves along. ive taken to dropping them into my ipod
and hitiing shuffle for all- something that i found kk was after all along- so this music must hit one on many levels-enjoy it, we
dont get this kind of gift often.
stephen spera
stephenspera@hotmail.com
www.stephenspera.com
normally, i consider these among the best sources one could hope to draw upon. after all, one wants to study at the feet of the masters, and this is about as high up the chain as one can go. ordinarily, i would be ready to tear the shorts off of anyone
who dares strike out into morton's territory (cage's being wider,
and quite subject to INTERPRETATIONS>>>) but kirschner has
been on the money as far asi am concerned. as a very young man i met both of these masters, got to speak to and hang with
cage, and ive got to say that in all ways kirschner's pieces do them BOTH proud. check, please, the pieces on kk's own site,
which use a form of randomness that the program FLASH, in the
hands of a great sound/site designer,craig swann, expand what
takes (believe me, folks) a mountain of work, thought, and care.
in fact, i own about every piece of music made, and the only things that have been gracing my mac's speakers for a long time
are these pieces- some i let drift by all day- altho i dont want it to sound as tho they are aural wallpaper- one finds these pieces have their own lives, and come out of seemingly nowhere as your day moves along. ive taken to dropping them into my ipod
and hitiing shuffle for all- something that i found kk was after all along- so this music must hit one on many levels-enjoy it, we
dont get this kind of gift often.
stephen spera
stephenspera@hotmail.com
www.stephenspera.com
Reviewer:
LAJ
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
October 9, 2004
Subject: Abstract Piano
Subject: Abstract Piano
A haunting and abstract composition consisting of a processed piano sample, unique percusive sounds, reverb, and low-volume white noise. Eeriely enveloping sounds for such a minimal piece. Highly recommended for those who appreciate the minimal genre.