# 'Kajo' for piano and electronics



## pkoi (Jun 10, 2017)

Here's a sibling to my other piece 'kharon' I posted here a while ago. This one has a 4.1 surround tape, which is divided into cues, which the pianist starts when he/she arrives to a certain spot in the score. I wanted to create some kind if quasi-concerto for piano with electronic 'orchestra' with a very limited material. Most parts of the piece are based on a simple trichord, which consists of a minor second and major and minor third (and their inversions) . In fortean pitch class set that would be called (014). In the middle of the piece, I wanted more consonant landscapes and used major seconds and perfect fourths.

The material in the tapes was created with a mixture of subtractive- and fm-synthesis.

Performed by Emil Holmström - Piano & Timo Kurkikangas - electronics


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https://soundcloud.com/pekka-koivisto%2Fpekka-koivisto-kajo


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Bravo! Well done. It held my interest to the end and it didn’t sound like it was an easy piece to perform. After hearing it one time I’m not sure I was reminded of a piano concerto, but maybe when I hear it the next time. It had a little bit of darkness in it but overall was not oppressive or depressing; in fact the opposite. Very well done. I’m wondering if a third piece will be coming forth? Keep composing.


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## pkoi (Jun 10, 2017)

Thank you for your comments Larkenfield!

You're right, it's definitely a difficult piece to perform, especially because the player is almost all the time tied to a click track. In the future, if I write for electronics a and acoustic instruments, I would either make it with live electronics or compose the tape in a way that it allows more freedom for the performer. I like the ending result but the truth is, it's not the most comfortable piece for the pianist. Luckily for this project, i was able to have the amazing player you hear here performing and thus there were really no technical limitations.

About not hearing concerto-elements, I think you're right, it does not follow any standard pattern of a concerto, nor it really alternates between ritornellos or solos. However, I was trying to write this somewhat flashy texture for the player and that's where the concerto-idea comes from. However, one could maybe say that this is a sort of a piano sonata with "orchestral" accompaniment.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Is it serial? Just wondering how you compose in such an atonal fashion?


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## pkoi (Jun 10, 2017)

It's not serial in a way that I would use a tone row or some matrix to control the music's parameters. However I was very strict in sticking with the trichord I mentioned earlier and avoided any tonal conventions or close approximity of a certain note in different registers. I guess you could call it free atonal, which I think is a bit stupid term, since for example many of schoenberg's free atonal pieces are in fact very carefully constructed. Elliot Carter used similar method as I have in building up the music's material from a certain pitch class, so maybe that would come close (although my music is quite different from his)


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