Unlike a physical grand piano, a physical synthesis instrument, such as one of Pianoteq’s series of grand pianos, is not necessarily constrained at any moment to a single tuning system. This article discusses why a system using discrete piano pitches (not sliding pitches) chosen freely among the audible pitch continuum presents interesting musical and expressive possibilities. Audio and video of compositions and an improvisation exploiting the system demonstrate its potential and a performing interface for it.

©2022 ISAST
2022
ISAST

Supplementary data

Pan Pitches by Roger Dean (2020) (c. 5’). Copyright credit: Roger Dean.

- mp4 file

Pitch Multitudes by Roger Dean (2020). After the piece (c. 5’40”), there is a brief video of the Max mira.touch window in action, and then another of the author performing on the iPad interface. Copyright credit: Roger Dean.

- mp4 file

The opening of a piece of tonal 12-TET music generated by collaborator Christian Walder’s ML system is followed by a linear frequency “translation” of the piece. The MIDI note range of 41--92 found in the original is represented linearly within the frequency range 30--790 hertz. Finally, there is Micro Post-minimal 1 by Roger Dean.

- wav file
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