Adventures in Electroacoustic Performance
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FIG. 5: When performing with her Laser Koto, Miya Masaoka cleverly mixes the direct sound of the koto with her samples of the instrument (triggered by the lasers) into a rich, musical pastiche (Click for image). |
Miya Masaoka is a composer and improviser with training in both Japanese court music and contemporary music. She has collaborated with an impressive roster of musicians, including Pharaoh Sanders, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Dr. L. Subramaniam, George Lewis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Fred Frith, Steve Coleman, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The main motivating factors behind Masaoka’s work are sound exploration and its relationship to the audience. However, her desire to expand the traditional playing techniques of the koto, a zitherlike Japanese instrument, fueled the development of her electroacoustic invention, the Laser Koto (see Fig. 5).
“The Laser Koto combines the traditional Japanese koto, in this case a 21-stringed instrument, with a computer interface and controllers,” Masaoka says. “I use several different controllers—pedals, sensors, and lasers—and have a library of more than 450 samples of koto-related sounds. The challenge is to have immediate access to this tremendous number of samples in a musical way during a performance.”
Extended Body Language
As an artist-in-residence at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in the early ’90s, Masaoka worked with Tom DeMeyer to develop a computer interface for her instrument. Their collaboration began with a system that included ultrasound rings, an ultrasound receiver, pickups, pedals, and switches. “The rings are worn on one finger on each hand, and each ring has three sensors for capturing gestures in two-dimensional space,” Masaoka says. “This information is fed to samplers and sound modules through STEIM’s SensorLab voltage-to-MIDI converter.” (For more information about the SensorLab, see “The Outer Limits” in the August 2000 issue of EM.)
Masaoka began using this performance setup to trigger sounds and control feedback. Through trial and error, she and DeMeyer found that some ideas that worked well in STEIM’s studio did not work as well on stage and vice versa. “Sometimes too many samples or processes would get triggered when I moved my hands,” she says, “so we were always fine-tuning the system. For example, in a 6-foot range of the instrument, you could trigger dozens of samples or six samples, as well as have different degrees of effects.”
Returning to STEIM with a laser harp designed by Donald Swearingen and built by Oliver DiCicco, Masaoka continued to develop performance techniques while she explored ways to map performance gestures in an electronic environment. Swearingen’s laser design uses a grid of sensors mounted on a pair of camera tripods that flank Masaoka’s koto. In performance, she uses a can of Fantasy FX smoke spray to highlight the laser beams and to reveal the virtual instrument to the audience.
Along with her SensorLab voltage-to-MIDI converter, Masaoka uses a combination of STEIM’s Spider and Cycling ’74’s Max software. An audio feed of the music created live is routed into Max, where her samples archive is organized by timbre and pitch. While she plays, Masaoka mixes and matches her phrasing on the acoustic instrument with the phrasing in the samples. Because of Masaoka’s fine use of extended techniques and her subtle control of the balance between the electronic and acoustic sounds, it is often difficult for the listener to discern the real koto from the virtual one. That is the exact effect Masaoka strives for.
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Reprinted with permission from
Magazine, April, 2001© 2000, Intertec Publishing, A Primedia Company All Rights Reserved
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