00º33'45”N 00º45'33”W (2012) for solo piano and vinyl records. This piece is based on the sonic extension of the piano by the use of vinyl records. These function as generators of identities between the actual instrument and its recordings, defining a theatrical space by means of sonic analogies and slight or gradually increasing discrepancies. Additionally, they operate as artefacts which transfer us to a somewhat nostalgic, yet unfamiliar context. As a composer, I am particularly interested in the reproduction of music by mechanical means in which the processes are practically observable, tangible, subject of an inner and quasi palpable logic. The vinyl records turn at different speeds, influencing the tuning and generating residual sounds which somewhat escape from the composer's control. In this piece, the recordings, the sounds of the piano are multiplied and altered by the mechanical action of the devices. Microscopic, infinitesimal differences between seemingly identical sources are explored: temporal gaps, microtonal deviations, timbre inequalities... These differences grow progressively along the time line of the piece, challenging the recognition of the original materials reproduced by the phonographs, as if they were images reflected in a distorting mirror. All these deviations are generated by the relationships and ratios obtained from universal rotational speeds: 33, 45 and 78 RPM. An “artificial space” is built musically between the piano and the record players by the use of analogies, repetitions of the same materials or by the continuation of a musical line or a fragment. This artificial space is also suggested between the two record players. The analogies are however challenged by the individual nuances and the fragile dissimilarities generated by each individual device. In order to stress their insularity, each phonograph plays a differently tuned record, a few cents away from each other, as if distance in space would imply a direct correlation in tuning. Furthermore, the unique nature of each record player (I use different ones, belonging to dissimilar brands and times) underlines the singular and practically unrepeatable projection of the recorded materials. This individualized filter, a certain emotional association with the technological vintage and our own personal archaeology conforms the poetic universe of the piece. The vinyls operate as small “time machines” that take us back to a near past, to an almost tangential state of memory which is challenged by the immediateness of the music, by its own articulation and bond to the present time. Walter Benjamin wrote: “The true image of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image that flashes up at the moment of its recognizability, and is never seen again”. I like to think that my piece suggests and frames itself within this principle. The objects, the vinyl records are transformed into necessary objects of an aesthetic continuum whose historical flash is transformed and alienated by the immediateness of the musical discourse: Stradivarius of plastic in the digital era. español    home