Line – A piece made using key shapes

Line

A piece made using key shapes

-Daniel Portelli

This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
An image of a key
I developed a newfound obsession with keys. The intricate shape, styles, colours, and histories. The plethora of cuts, depths, and spacings, and how they resemble the patterns of waveforms, mountainous landscape horizons, or days filled with a multitude of tasks, deadlines, and rapidly changing situations. I came across Susanne Langer’s ‘Philosophy in a New Key’, where ‘the new key’ or ‘new way’ is equivalent to ‘the new epistemology’, or ongoing key change in thinking, where she outlines our fundamental need for symbolic transformation, forming new concepts with objects, denotative and connotative. I also dabbled in cryptography, encryption/decryption and nonsense ciphertext. This consumed my life over the past couple of months, and led to this new approach. Anyone open to a key change? It puts a new spin on playing in the home key. 🔑🔑🔑 🙂
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.

Establish what the line means for you and your instrument. A line is any entity that can be put into a sequence. The line can be positioned on the instrument, left to right, up and down, diagonal, circular etc. It could be glissando or a line across a selection of microtone intervals, not in ascending or descending order but using other arrangements. A line could also be the direction a note cluster travels or a series of indefinite sounds. See below how the line appears in the score. These lines are taken from real key shapes.

This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines, numbers and instructions
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are images of keys

(IN) = play in time 
(OUT)= play out of time
Players either play tightly together, or intentionally out of time (out of sync with each other), and catch up with each other in the next play in time (IN) cue.

(Slow) = slow tempo: quarter note = 50
(fast) = fast tempo: quarter note = 90
Measures/bars (dotted lines) are counted in quarter notes. The numbers above the line are the number of beats in the bar. For example, the piece begins with 3/4, 1/4, 5/4, 2/4 etc. Alternatively, fast and slow can be determined by the player, based on a felt sense judgement, rather than fixed numbers. 

(2 Strikes) = Each player strikes 2 separate instruments (timbres) at the same time at the beginning of the line where indicated. For example, waterphone and chimes are struck at the same time, then the water phone continues to play through the line shape. The chimes remain silent after that first strike. The second player also strikes 2 separate instruments at the same time at the beginning of the line where indicated, and each additional player does the same. A single player can also use multiple sound objects. Each height degree on the key indicates to strike a single sound on an array of smaller instruments. This can also be applied to single highly contrasting sounds on a single instrument. The numbers within the circle indicate the changing height degrees of the key. The blocky squared line indicates this also (see below).

For any instrument, some suggestions include:waterphone, angklung, zither, spring drum, guzheng, pedal steel, psaltery, violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, thunder sheet, bells, gongs, tubular bells, glockenspiel etc. Also a sequence of electronic based sounds: hum, buzz, crackle, thud, beep, noise etc.

Before the piece starts invite the audience to take out their keys and look closely at the shape. Do this with 1 minute of silence then commence the piece. At the end of the piece the audience are to rattle their keys together in large cacophony of sound (approx. 30 seconds).

 

Square line

See fragments of the score below:

This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
This is a piece made using key shapes score, that are lines and numbers.
A collage of about 30 or so images of key arrange to form a larger image of a key.

Nonsense ciphertext:

!@#$%^&*()-_=+[]{}|;:'”,.<>/ 1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZZXCVBNMASDFGHJKLQWERTYUIOPzxcvbnmasdfghjklqwertyuiopqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[],./;'[],./’;`~<>?:{}|1234567890-=!@#$%^& ()_+QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm:`~{}|<>?1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[];’,./{}|<>ZXCVBNMASDFGHJKLQWERTYUIOPzxcvbnmasdfghjklqwertyuiopQWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm,./;'[]\,./’;~<>?:{}|1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+:`~{}|<>?1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[];’,./{}|<>1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZZXCVBNMASDFGHJKLQWERTYUIOPzxcvbnmasdfghjklqwertyuiopqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[],./;'[],./’;`~<>?:{}|1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm:`~{}|<>?1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[];’,./{}|<> ZXCVBNMASDFGHJKLQWERTYUIOPzxcvbnmasdfghjklqwertyuiopQWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm,./;'[]\,./’;~<>?:{}|1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+:`~{}|<>?1234567890-=!@#$%^&*()_+[];’,./{}|<>?@#$%*&()_+=-{}[]|/:;”‘<>,.`~1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZPm7dP4?J{+6!xYfSoXqzA]5vwZKV-ynQ9tp,*cED8)1WIu]#T[L/OrB<RhFY(.G`HNi0M2Ue}’jslX@k3aCgV\bJmX[0HF}S6LPnNBG9vzD>Q’xr_aTX(8ps2YR~wIy}*hJg;A@K[EcVe%ZtWUkY7uMbDq+fCnZ3iXH1mVl-OFZ^?.|j,|/8g:jO1H-Pv}#bRQ0~eIu>E(U’Xm{6nF”2Tlz9sVJx5qA3dSf[+|YKP[Z7&4}rtwC.,Ghpi*@M\acwLoBxfDV]y_YqL#d,gxS[M)xVPw’;u.aZKhr4&L@Qn0B61m}>9k2f5NpI]/JFv+3i|O!zc{RsE$7^Gj_UW<b?THCXly8Ae=5dJy/HVnCxp@}Oh4ew+8rA&Pg*KT[6cB3|zfM.R0Ys1NqD<E)Qib;SG!v]%u]’Lf^`Xj7W2~kZt9oaUPm{I,^yQxkqA[zYN6,J;*t+BOXgI4f)wTDK[ph72<dFZ’9Zv].\sV(P37&pE0|;@}cb]H8aLAM2!}1rU/eG<Sml5#j%}\NfPp;bQ3U6$R@G*EWzTIaS9J{.Xy1sl>v[L8xhrc4`n,.ZO+eVK]0′?jHk(&wu7YADBgMQ2i/5|3mCtdfFv_o]a,Ld6`I%y<|G@r(p{2J^wq+O&kHT]\QsfM4uF5]vNMxbA+0PR^nC)9#LhVYmz{EKZ*cS@./W3i;’D1lg8X7