the bitKlavier Commissions: Noah Fishman

Various Virtuosities...

Dec 18, 2023

Virtuosity with bitKlavier comes in both familiar and unfamiliar forms. There is the virtuosity of the hands on the keyboard, familiar from the work of Bach or Chopin, or McCoy Tyner for that matter; this is all possible with bitKlavier, given the conventional keyboard interface. There are unfamiliar twists, however, like when bitKlavier is programmed to require the pianist to emphasize the release of the keys rather than the attacks (organists might point out that this is not unique to bitKlavier, of course!). There is also a new kind of virtuosity, where the musician is engaged in a rich push and pull with the machines within bitKlavier (this, and this, for example). Virtuosity can be reflected in the expressive attentions of the player as well, where the shaping of a phrase or texture is delectable and surely a product of a less showy sort of virtuosity; this is true for bitKlavier and any instrument, naturally. And then there is a kind of programming virtuosity that bitKlavier affords, where the composer’s facility and ability to program the instrument reveals a whole new sort of virtuosity.

Noah Fishman’s pieces for bitKlavier demonstrate all of these sorts of virtuosity, in spades, and it is a pleasure to introduce them here. I won’t belabor how these virtuosities emerge in Noah’s pieces, and rather invite you to reflect on them yourself, but I will mention that the last kind—programming virtuosity—makes particular sense here since Noah wrote the manual for bitKlavier, literally!

Noah is one of those maddeningly wonderful musicians who can make music at a high level with anything you hand him (yet another kind of virtuosity), though he’s most well-known for his fabulous bass and mandolin playing. Well, having said that, here’s a video of him playing guitar on a tune he wrote (oh, and then mandolin as well, oh, and if you check out the credits as well, it turns out he plays bass and drums on it as well, and sings too. Oh, and it looks like he made the film too. Like I said, annoyingly wonderful):

I invited Noah to write about his pieces for bitKlavier. It turns out he is a lovely writer too; read on!

Swoop, Dive, and Float, for bitKlavier
by Noah Fishman

The early days of the pandemic had its peculiarities. Noisy neighbors meant I would compose around 5am in order to have some quiet time. During daylight hours I walked, seeking quiet places and skirting sneezing people. On many of these walks, I would end up in the same wooded park.
Eberwhite Woods has a stretch of tall trees bordering a meadow, an open field, and a small marsh. This was a great place to watch birds. I’ve always loved birds, and during this time, I began seeing them as more than bird-shaped objects. They do things, they make choices.
One afternoon, in Eberwhite, I came across a group looking through binoculars. They pointed out, high in a crooked pine, a Great Horned Owl nest. During the next months, through my binoculars, I returned often and watched each of four fluffy owlets grow to the size of a small chicken.
I came to the tree one day and saw, to my delight, that each owlet was standing on a different branch, flapping its wings and exploring its surroundings. I watched the owlets fledge, leave their tree, and fly through the surrounding woods, peeping and chirping with confidence.
All the while, a world of birds surrounded me. Red-winged blackbirds landed from a long migration in the nearby reeds. Crows swooped by the hundreds like a plume of black smoke. Swifts circled a chimney. Cranes floated thousands of feet overhead.
These daily bird sightings were the creative backdrop for my 5am writing sessions. Using bitKlavier to build three different musical environments, I wrote these short pieces evoking a few of the things that birds do.
Swoop
From the performance notes:
“Motion. Lines high above, crossing the horizon, connecting sky and earth, in and out of clouds, weathering storms. Never static, always searching, seeking resolution in thin atmosphere, crossing viscosities. A cloudscape, a landscape, a hymn, a mood swing, splashes of color and shape... But really, it’s a waltz.”
This movement is particularly evocative of migration, the humbling annual pilgrimage made by many birds. I like thinking of the bitKlavier preparations as different environmental elements that a creature might encounter during a long flight. I loved using bitKlavier to expand the range of the instrument under the performer’s fingers. Unisons become fourths, fifths, and octaves: Imagine if your arms grew feathers and you could take flight.
Dive
From the performance notes:
“Cramped inside, breaking out, pushing against the walls. Tapping, bouncing, rebounding. This moto perpetuo groove is full of stutters and starts, fluid yet demarcated, with a quiet pause to observe the murmurations underfoot.”
I was concerned whether this would even be possible to perform, but the incredible Adam Sliwinski proves it. I wrote it on a 49-key MIDI keyboard, constantly hitting the octave button up or down in order to write in a more pianistic range.
Several times I’ve had the thrill of watching a hawk dive after a critter in a field or alongside the road. Something of the same tight choreography and focus is required to pull this movement off. Getting the groove dialed in right feels like a true duet between bitKlavier and the performer. Synchronic pulses provide structure and accountability, and nostalgic swells pull the player along.
Float
From the performance notes:
“Learn, then forget, the music: Allow each read-through to be a discovery. There are multiple moments for improvisation, embellishment, and expansion.”
After the melodic waltz in “Swoop” and the rigid melee of “Dive,” this last movement is meant to be playful and open. Several times I have gasped when seeing birds high, high, high up in the sky. Once, when I saw migrating cranes, huge like fighter jets. Again, when I looked at the full moon with binoculars and saw bird silhouettes flying across the surface. The hope with “Float” is to create an open playground at the keyboard for the performer to sing, dance, and fly high.
I can’t thank Dan enough for the opportunity to write these pieces, and Adam for learning and performing them with care and conviction. I’m beyond pleased to be part of this special project, as we all begin to scratch the surface of this amazing instrumental tool that is bitKlavier.