How can I realize diverse and complex accumulation only with piano sounds, and how can I quickly switch between various sound materials? These questions inpired this work. All materials came from the piano except for a sine tone. I collected as many playing techniques as possible about the piano. I fragmented and restructured the recorded sound materials through electronic workflow and merged short mixed materials with real piano sounds. I imagined this piece as disturbing, rough, sudden, fast, rolling, spot, and also irregular rough splashing surface. The differentiated microscopic layers flow together or sometimes mix up in various playing positions with various actions that disturb or accentuate and with the units of accents. They also sometimes move between very strong / weak, or long distance / close distance. For me, this is a process of finding and processing various heterogeneous sound materials created by a single instrument. Another idea is how to deal with the cracking sounds and the unstable sound quality. This piece has inconsistent vibrato and linear movements like glissando, e.g., slow/fast, thin/thick, up/down. This sometimes amplifies or subtly distorts the resonance that occurs in response to a pulse. Also, by using the physically modeled piano for microtones via the MIDI keyboard with a pitch bender, and live electronics via microphone, the pitches are gradually distorted. These complex environments ultimately reach a line (pure ton) and a soundscape. The title “Fingerings” has several meanings. It refers to the various actions expressed with hands or several fingers. It is also related to the ring-shaped bottleneck used in many parts of this piece.

performances
07.11.2023 Masterkonzert, Bremen, Germany
performer: Jonas Otte
07.12.2022 Movement to Sound, Sound to Movement, Bremen, Germany
performer: Rei Nakamura