ECHORDA 3

Sound Art Installation for an upright piano, a baby grand piano, tubes and kids glockenspiels By Florent Naulin, POL and Goodbye Ivan

The movement, the importance given to percussive dynamics, the heterogeneous hybridizations, the recycling (the upright piano of Echorda III is an antique from the 1930s, the baby grand was saved from being dismantled). There is undeniably something which, in the work of Goodbye Ivan, Florent Naulin and POL, recalls Jean Tinguely’s work, and the din of his infernal backfiring machines. According to its three designers, if Echorda is not to be considered as a tribute in the strict sense, nor as the result of a conscious and assumed influence, there is indeed what in biology is called a phenomenon of convergent evolution. But this work fits into different premises, which are those of a search for the unexpected in musicality. Echorda is a diversion machine, a complex and virtuoso exoskeleton whose function is to make artefacts resonate outside and beyond their primary functions.

The Baby Grand used to be a « Piano-Ferraille » full of springs, screws and contact microphones. It was the instrument that Géraldine Schenkel played in Testa di Cavallo an experimental rock-band which toured europe in the early 2000’s with Marcello Busato on drum, Vincent Bertholet on double-bass, et Sok, ex-singer from The Ex. The upgright piano was acquired by the mother of a friend in the 60’s who wanted to learn how to play but never did. The piano stayed unused for 3 decades in the living room and then for 2 decades more in the son’s living room. Untouched. He was surprisingly well tuned but a semi-tone up on the whole keyboard.

The samples have been recorded with two overhead mic in x-position into a ZOOM H5 recorder. The room, the Halle Nord gallery, is a very resonant environment with a small church like reverb.

Three different instruments with no velocity but 4 round robins for each key. 20 notes on the Baby Grand, 24 on the Upright, 11 on the kids glockenspiels and 4 on the tubes. Faithful to the original sound installation where every note is played at the same velocity with the metal on metal sound of the hammer hitting the string and the very long decay of all the other strings vibrating as none of them are damped.

A robot engineered by Florent Naulin is actioning sixty-four solenoid hammers playing compositions written by POL and Goodbye Ivan.

Presented at Galerie Halle Nord, Geneva Switzerland – January 20 – February 12, 2022

Presets :
– ECHORDA 3 : The original installation with the 59 notes / 3 instruments dispatched side by side like on the midi controller we used to compose the pieces.
– ECHORDA 3 Baby Grand : Full keyboard of the Baby Grand with original samples in brown and time-stretched in orange.
– ECHORDA 3 Upright : Full keyboard of the Upright with original samples in brown and time-stretched in orange.

check out the movie : https://youtu.be/r31Ed7A8Mec

ECHORDA 2

The second instance involved a Barrat & Robinson (London) upright piano hanging mid-air and twenty solenoid hitting at a force of 25 Newton controlled by MIDI through a computer hidden in the back.

The robot is developed and realized by Florent Naulin and the music is composed by POL and Goodbye Ivan

The samples have been recorded with two overhead mic in x-position into a ZOOM H5 recorder. The room is a very dry sound treated environment. The strong reverb like effect you ear is produced strictly by the instrument itself acting as a monstrous 100+ springs reverb.

A very simple instrument with almost no parameter to fool with, no round robins, no velocity layers and only 20 notes available. ECHORDA 2 is faithful to the original sound installation where every note is played at the same velocity with the metal on metal sound of the hammer hitting the string and the very long decay of all the other strings vibrating as none of them are damped.

A very rich material that can sound like a saloon mechanical piano, a chinese guzheng, a typewriter or a horror movie evil piano.

Presented at Festival Cataclysme Piano, Théâtre du Galpon, Geneva Switzerland – September 3-5, 2021.

Presets :
– ECHORDA 2 : The original installation with only 20 notes dispatched side by side like on the midi controller we used to compose the pieces.
– ECHORDA 2 Full : Full keyboard with original samples in brown and time-stretched in orange.

check out the movie : https://youtu.be/EjKvI-mQJxA

Thanks to : Géraldine, Carole, Jeanju, Xavier

https://www.goodbyeivan.com/echorda