Christina Viola Oorebeek, composer

TUNING STUDIES for Yamaha Disklavier en fixed-media with 8 speakers (1997)*

Act I: Equal temperament
Intermezzo I - Lullaby of thirds
Act II: Octave Rains
Intermezzo II - Falling Fourths
Act III: The Tenth Ascending

Duration: 15'45"
* With thanks to Jean Marc Sullon ( electro-acoustishce studiotechnique) and the
Centre de Recherches Musicales et de Formation Musicales de Wallonie for making this version possible.
I have always been fascinated by the sounds of piano tuning and decided to write a piece based on the ritualistic character that it can create before a concert, evocative of a preludium. A good piano tuner is a musicmaker in his own right. He restores anew the raw materials used by the composer and interpreter according to the tuning of the day, laying the foundation for the realisation of their music.

Every tuner has his own working rhythms combining the shifting of the hammer to a new tuning pin, playing the key to be tuned, adjusting the hammer to move the string into "the right spot". A tuner is continually listening to the speed of beats between intervals to determine the accuracy of his work and has his own special checks and controls to engineer a harmonic balance over the keyboard.

I used the Yamaha Disklavier for this composition because I wanted to have the freedom to use the piano without the technical limitations of a pianist and yet employ an acoustic instrument. Because a human interpretation is never entirely possible using a computer, the slightly mechanical sound produced on the Disklavier gave a quality I was looking for - "the piano tuning that turned into realtime music".

The combination of Disklavier and piano samples grew from the idea of wanting an expanded piano sound in the concert hall. The spatialisation of the samples enforces this idea via eight speakers placed in a circle ( or a semi-circle if there are four speakers )