(The Presence of) Pressure

(2026) for Woodwind Sensing for Interactive Environments (WooSIE) flute, Max/MSP, and processing/samples Performed by Paulo Bortolussi In life, pressure can be a dissonance. Like music, dissonance is an imbalance that makes us look forward in time to when that is resolved. In this work the opening dissonances gradually accumulate and thicken before bursting into rapid, energetic gestures. These materials dissipate, transitioning into layered gestures consisting of looped melodic and noise components. As the noise components accumulate, additional melodic material bursts out of the dissonance, rising through the flute’s register to finally arrive at the climax of the pressure. Abstract This work, for flute and Max/MSP, uses a professional flute converted to a hyper-flute through the addition of a WooSIE system (Woodwind Sensors for Interactive Environments). This is an outcome of my Tracking and Smart Textiles Environments (TaSTE) project and was influenced by the work of other music technicians such as Palacio-Quintin. One aim of WooSIE is to inexpensively provide for the generation of digital data without a performer having to give up refined technique and performance skills developed on their preferred instrument, and without making serious modifications to their instrument. With this WooSIE five FSR sensors are mounted on 3D-printed removable plugs in the open-hole flute keys, and a clip-on wireless system sends the keyed pressure data to laptop software. The performer is able to use combinations of keys and key pressure thresholds to trigger samples, increment through sections of a piece, control VSTs and audio processing, and start and stop loop recording/playback.