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I Am Piano employs the ASR10+ keyboard sampler to sample, edit and perform the samples for the suite of pieces. Each piece is based entirely around a single 3 to 7 second sample (uninterrupted, unprocessed, true-pitched, etc.). Each sample for each piece is stored within the system parameters so that the duration of the wavesample is spread across the 5 octave range of the keyboard. Depending on which key is struck, a 'time-splice' or sonic sliver of the original sample will be heard as a millisecond looping texture. The composition and performance of each piece is based around the unique characteristics of sound that arises from each key or each combinations of keys (chords), as well as ways in which the keyboard can be performed to generate an active shaping of the resulting sound. The editing and layering of these samples ae then configured for quadraphonic spatialization.

Five pieces have been completed:

• "I Am Dave Brubeck" - working with a 5 second excerpt from Dave Brubeck's version of "Somewhere (from West Side Story)" (1964)
• "I Am Bill Evans" - working with a 7 second excerpt from Bill Evans' version of "Someday My Prince Will Come" (1968)
• "I Am Red Garland" - working with a 7 second excerpt from the Miles Davis Qunitets' version of "Ah-Leu-Cha" (1955)
• "I Am Thelonius Monk" - working with a 5 second excerpt from Thelonius Monk's "Monk's Point" (1965)
• "I Am Andrew Hill" - working with a 3 second excerpt fromAndrew Hill's "New Monastery" (1964)

The general 'modern' rubric of 50s/60s small trio/quartet combos fostered a kind of contemplative heroicism through instrumentalists trapping in swapped solos, individualised interpretations and idiosyncratic techniques. As with most instruments in these combos, the piano in this realm became a performative tool for the identity of the pianist. Notably, chromaticism (liberated key modulation and progression) and chordal expansion (shimmering clusters of notes) coloured the approach taken to the piano. The vertical density of this harmonic activity is particularly being reference in I Am Piano through the horizontal transposition and 'stretching' of the original recording's characteristics.

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Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy