The third piece in my week of lunchtime posts is Joanna Ward's brilliantly entitled That Is What A Lip Sync For Your Life Is Baby That Is High Drag At Its Finest. When Bishopsgate first got in touch to invite me to play, they said the concerts were quite open and exploratory and that as long as overall things were piano-based I could bring in other elements like electronics if I liked. So when Joanna sent me That Is What A Lip Sync, explaining that though it wasn't written specifically for piano, I could give it a go, I sensed an adventure on the horizon... :)
Using conductive 'electric paint' for the first time (which was a bit like drawing with liquorice...) and a bit of Max programming, I made the 'piano-circuit', a trigger instrument on which samples of metallic objects could be installed and performed. I wanted to make something that played on the resemblance of the inside of a grand piano to a complex circuit and something which spoke to the piece's dedication 'for David + his cute music box'.