There's an artist called Øystein Wyller Odden that works with mains hum. I find it pretty fascinating:
Kraftbalanse is a musical translation of the hum from the mains; i. e. the frequency of the alternating current. The piece is based on the fact that this frequency is not stable, it fluctuates subtly around 50 Hz as a direct result of supply and demand in the power market.
The composition consists of a self-resonating piano that is tuned to resonate on 50 hz and overtones of 50 hz (100 Hz, 150 Hz, 200 Hz etc.) The piano is fitted with vibration-elements – transducers – plugged directly into the electrical grid, causing the resonance and timbre of the piano to change with the fluctuations on the power market.
The piano is accompanied by a string octet. The musicians are equipped with voltmeters that measure the frequency of the current in real time, as well as a score of instructions on how to respond to changes in this frequency.
I was expecting one of those music YouTubes where they take some sample and process it so much that it doesn’t really matter what the sample even was. But I’m pleasantly shocked (ha!)
They really evoke the feeling of electricity. It reminded me of the soundtrack to the Chernobyl miniseries. It’s… powerful and eerie and calmly, effortlessly, sluggishly intimidating.
This is awesome. I've been kicking around the idea of a notation/composition system that uses external forces (temperature, moon phase, time, etc) as live input but prior research is a bit hard to come by.
Feeding signal into e.g. a guitar pedal is easy enough, but mutating an entire orchestra in real time is a different beast. If anyone knows of similar works I'd be grateful for links.
The ease of feeding it into something like an orchestra varies depending on the granularity of your input. Moon phase for example can be divided into four weekly states which can be rehearsed prior to the event, whereas ambient humidity for example might change much more.
The only thing that comes to my mind as prior art would be the Tierkreis by Karlheinz Stockhausen, which has a variable order of composite parts depending on the time of year. I'm sure that's the world of music you could look towards to find further inspiration.
Please share any results you come up with here, it sounds very interesting indeed!
I wonder if it's based on geolocation. I'm being forced to log in, in the UK. I've noticed sites increasingly doing this to UK audiences, despite the fact that, iiuc, the draconian age-gate legislation hasn't actually landed yet.
Kraftbalanse is a musical translation of the hum from the mains; i. e. the frequency of the alternating current. The piece is based on the fact that this frequency is not stable, it fluctuates subtly around 50 Hz as a direct result of supply and demand in the power market.
The composition consists of a self-resonating piano that is tuned to resonate on 50 hz and overtones of 50 hz (100 Hz, 150 Hz, 200 Hz etc.) The piano is fitted with vibration-elements – transducers – plugged directly into the electrical grid, causing the resonance and timbre of the piano to change with the fluctuations on the power market.
The piano is accompanied by a string octet. The musicians are equipped with voltmeters that measure the frequency of the current in real time, as well as a score of instructions on how to respond to changes in this frequency.
https://vimeo.com/370554138