DEVIANCE by Emily Howard, Zubin Kanga, Bofan Ma and Erik Natanael Gustafsson

This work for piano, video and electronics began with an experiment about how the brain perceives unexpected changes in music. Using EEG brain-scanning equipment from Cyborg Soloists industry partner ANT Neuro, Dr Christiane Neuhaus (University of Hamburg) conducted an experiment on how listeners respond to Howard’s music, including her orchestral work, Torus, and piano material derived from it. Neuhaus’ experiment found that the volunteers heard the music in two parallel ways: one part of the brain perceived the work as a whole, while another perceived the moments of ‘deviance’: any change to a pattern that had been established by the preceding music. Particularly striking were brain responses to gradual shifts in tempi: accelerandos shifting into rallentandos. Howard’s decided to explore these experimental results across different media, drawing together a number of collaborators. She writes: The 90-section structure of DEVIANCE involves a large-scale accelerando followed by ritardando superimposed upon its inverse: a large-scale ritardando followed by an accelerando. The work can also be viewed as 90 standard durations of 10 seconds. The piano material is entirely created from the original Torus expanding and contracting, between faster and slower deviations: always searching, ever circling. The live piano is fused with two intermittent deviant trajectories: sound design by Bofan Ma and video design by Erik Nataneal Gustafsson, each offering an alternative response to the original experimental brain data. Ma’s electronics use AI-generated audio (created using PRiSM SampleRNN software in consultation with researcher, Christopher Melen) trained on the same piano and orchestral recordings used in the experiment, as well as the sonification of the brainwaves that were recorded by Neuhaus, creating a rich and complex texture through which the piano weaves

Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees, co-created by Benjamin Tassie and Zubin Kanga

Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees uses the latest studio and keyboard technologies (including the 4D expressive ROLI Seaboard Rise 2 keyboard) to augment the sound and capabilities of some of the world’s most significant historical organs. To make 'Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees', Tassie visited and recorded historical organs from across the UK and Europe, including the Van Straten Organ, a reconstruction of a late-Medieval Dutch organ (dating from 1479) in Amsterdam, period instruments at St Cecelia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh, and the Wingfield Organ, a reconstructed English Tudor organ. 'Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees' is a monolithic, 70-minute tour de force, in which the audience is invited to immerse themselves in this sonically enveloping drone-composition. Performed by Kanga in the round using three different keyboards to trigger these organ sounds virtually, this piece of shifting and transforming tones creates a rich and enveloping sensory experience.<br/

Vicentino, love you – studies for keyboard, co-created by Oliver Leith and Zubin Kanga

This work composed by Oliver Leith in collaboration with Zubin Kanga uses the TouchKeys technology to play microtonally on a keyboard. This is connected to an analogue synthesizer, combining new touch-sensor technology with retro analogue technologies (thus working across two major Cyborg Soloists themes).<br/

Counterfeits (Siminica) co-created by Laurence Osborn and Zubin Kanga

This work composed by Laurence Osborn in collaboration with Zubin Kanga, combines the TouchKeys technology on a keyboard, with vocal samples created by the composer to imitate the Romanian folk singer, Siminica. The TouchKeys keyboard facilitates the bending of pitch by sliding the finger across the key, which in this case is used to allow the keyboard to imitate the vocal sounds of a folk singer

REFLECTIONS ON CYBORG COLLABORATIONS:CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE IN TECHNOLOGICALLY-FOCUSED CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Creating new works combining live musicians with new technologies provides both opportunities and challenges. The Cyborg Soloists research project has commissioned and managed the creation of 46 new works of this type, assembling teams of composers, performers, researchers and technology partners from industry. The majority of these collaborations have been smooth-running and fruitful, but a few have demonstrated complications. This article critically evaluates collaborative methods and methodologies used in the project so far, presenting five case studies involving different types of collaborative work, and exploring the range of professional relationships, the need for different types of expertise within the team and the way technology can act as both a creative catalyst and a source of creative resistance. The conclusions are intended as a toolkit – pragmatic guidelines to inform future practice – and are aimed at artists, technological collaborators, and commissioners and organisations who facilitate these types of creative collaborations

Mutations (megamix): exploring notions of the ‘DJ set’, ‘mashup’ and ‘remix’ through live piano-based performance

Mutations (megamix) is an interactive work for piano and electronics, which explores notions of the “DJ set”, “mashup” [1. The term “mashup” is used within popular music to denote a specific compositional technique in which two or more existing records are superimposed to create a new track. This often involves the use of vocal a capella material, which is layered against other recordings

Technology and Contemporary Classical Music: Methodologies in Practice-Based Research

This position paper provides a distillation of the NCRM Innovation Forum, ‘Technology and Contemporary Classical Music: Methodologies in Creative Practice Research’, hosted by Cyborg Soloists in June 2023. It features contributions from a variety of creative practitioner-researchers to debate the current state and future of technologically focused, practice-based research in contemporary classical music. The position paper is purposefully polyphonic and pluralistic. By collating a range of perspectives, experiences and expertise, the paper seeks to provoke and delineate a space for further questioning, inquiry, and response. The paper will be of interest to those working within creative practice research, particularly in relation to music, music technologists and those interested in research methodologies more broadly

Technology and Contemporary Classical Music: Methodologies in Practice-Based Research

This position paper provides a distillation of the NCRM Innovation Forum, ‘Technology and Contemporary Classical Music: Methodologies in Creative Practice Research’, hosted by Cyborg Soloists in June 2023. It features contributions from a variety of creative practitioner-researchers to debate the current state and future of technologically focused, practice-based research in contemporary classical music. The position paper is purposefully polyphonic and pluralistic. By collating a range of perspectives, experiences and expertise, the paper seeks to provoke and delineate a space for further questioning, inquiry, and response. The paper will be of interest to those working within creative practice research, particularly in relation to music, music technologists and those interested in research methodologies more broadly