Permutation
Permutation is a sound instrument developed for rotating, layering and modifying sound samples. Its structure is originally developed for a small midi controller that has a few knobs and buttons. It is then mounted on a broken piano, along several contact microphones. The basic idea of using a dead piano as an untempered, raw sound source is reflecting to the central state of this instrument in the context of western music during the past few hundred years and so. Contact mikes, prepared pianos as we know are representing a constant dialogue between classical music theory and other more recent free forms of artistic and philosophical representations. The aim of Permutation however is a bit different from this phenomenon. It is a temporal extension of gestures made on the whole resonating body of a uniquely designed sound architecture (the grand piano). In fact it is so well designed that it used to be as a simulation tool for composers to mimic a whole group of musicians. A broken, old wood structure has many identical sound deformations that it becomes an intimate space for creating strange and sudden sounds that can be rotated back and folded back onto itself.
The system is built for live performances and had been used for making music for the Artus independent theatre company. The pure data patch can be downloaded from here. Please note it had been rapidly developed to be used with a midi controller so the patch may confuse someone. The patch contains some code from the excellent rjdj library at Github.
pure data workshop @ kitchen budapest
algorithm: logic + control