Inventor Composer Coaction (ICC)

When Lauren asked me if I would be interested in the ICC project I said yes right away! As it went on it became more and more exciting, first with the amazing instruments coming in from around the world, then being able to experiment with ideas and be involved with such an wonderful concert with 'The Red Note Ensemble'! .. wow.

After picking the Neurogranular sampler (NGS),  the idea of controlling it with an EEG headset seemed like a very natural progression.  After all what better reason to change the parameters of an artificial neural network than because they are changing in an organic one (it is the reverse situation that may be more tricky/undesirable!)

After asking many people 'can I use your EEG?'  from hospitals to university departments to research centres I found a postgraduate researcher willing and able to help - more or less next door (thanks Panos Mavros).  He did an amazing job of connecting the two systems, and together we experimented on how the sound of the NGS changes due to the parameters changing.   Interestingly we found that the different modes of concentration needed in music performance made a tangible change. For example, improvising, sight-reading or playing something by heart all made the NGS change.  We also built in a way that facial movements could trigger playback of samples.  In the performance it was at this point that the whole system crashed - but in a way it showed the audience directly what was in fact happening.  A happy accident.

The crux of Clasp Together (beta) was the ending,  when Pete Furniss had to relax his thoughts.  Sitting behind the desk, willing him on was one of the most surreal musical experiences I have had - for a long time... It felt like a game, can we make it do this? Even though the NGS/EEG is literally a hands-off instrument, I felt like it was being 'played' in a very literal sense. 

WITH its array of massed laptops, miles of cabling, hi-tech headsets and glowing touch-sensitive globes, this was never going to be an ordinary evening – not even for the crack players of Scottish contemporary music ensemble Red Note.

The group joined forces with the Edinburgh-based Inventor Composer Coaction for seven new pieces combining instrumental sounds and live electronic manipulations of those sounds in some startlingly original ways.