Chaconne (2020) for Violin

Seth Thorn

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

The theme of NIME 2022 is “Decolonizing Musical Interfaces.” This performance recovers a nomadic trait in the violin, a common baroque practice before the triumph of classical “works.” Signal processing reorganizes the musical activity; the coherence of the musical event emerges through the less scripted, less top-down creative activity. The violin, the quintessential western stringed instrument, is reinvented—in fact, this extremely versatile instrument and has always been prone to it, as Dan Trueman has said. The performance is a rendition of Bach’s paradigmatic solo violin work, Chaconne. Machine listening drives a dense variety of synthesis and resampling techniques, including polyphonic live looping, spectral processing, pulsar synthesis, resonant filter banks, granular capture buffers, and subtractive synthesis. The violinist is invited to linger on the thematic materials in order to hear them undergo a captivating electronic transmutation. Ableton Live is used for this performance, employing a variety of custom Max for Live devices. More extended and detailed descriptions of the system as it has evolved through the last several years are available in several publications.

Citation

Seth Thorn. 2022. Chaconne (2020) for Violin. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.040ffc1e [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2022_music_2,
 abstract = {The theme of NIME 2022 is “Decolonizing Musical Interfaces.” This performance recovers a nomadic trait in the violin, a common baroque practice before the triumph of classical “works.” Signal processing reorganizes the musical activity; the coherence of the musical event emerges through the less scripted, less top-down creative activity. The violin, the quintessential western stringed instrument, is reinvented—in fact, this extremely versatile instrument and has always been prone to it, as Dan Trueman has said. The performance is a rendition of Bach’s paradigmatic solo violin work, Chaconne. Machine listening drives a dense variety of synthesis and resampling techniques, including polyphonic live looping, spectral processing, pulsar synthesis, resonant filter banks, granular capture buffers, and subtractive synthesis. The violinist is invited to linger on the thematic materials in order to hear them undergo a captivating electronic transmutation. Ableton Live is used for this performance, employing a variety of custom Max for Live devices. More extended and detailed descriptions of the system as it has evolved through the last several years are available in several publications.},
 address = {Auckland, New Zealand},
 articleno = {2},
 author = {Seth Thorn},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.040ffc1e},
 editor = {Raul Masu},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {jun},
 title = {Chaconne (2020) for Violin},
 track = {Music},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.21428/92fbeb44.040ffc1e},
 year = {2022}
}