Hypercello / Yo-Yo Ma
In 1991, the hyperinstrument team
designed a special hypercello for Yo-Yo Ma, and Tod Machover wrote a special
piece, Begin Again Again..., for Yo-Yo and this new instrument. The
hypercello allows the cellist to control an extensive array of sounds through
performance nuance. Special techniques (wrist measurements, bow pressure and
position sensors, left hand fingering position indicators, direct sound
analysis and processing, etc.) enable the computer to measure, evaluate, and
respond to as many aspects of the performance as possible. This response is
used in different ways at different moments of the piece: at times the
cellist's playing controls electronic transformations of his own sound; at
other times the interrelationship is more indirect and mysterious. The entire
sound world is conceived as an extension of the soloist--not as a dichotomy,
but as a new kind of instrument. Tod Machover and Yo-Yo Ma are currently
working on a CD and CD-Rom of Begin Again Again... for the Sony
Classical label.
[Jpeg of a Hypercello performance]
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