Oto Sui — Sound Study 03 (Evolution)
Discovering Restraint and Resonance
After the previous Oto Sui study I found myself doing what I always seem to do when I get excited about a new idea, looking at more equipment and wondering where it might take me. There are so many interesting devices out there and it is very easy to convince yourself that the next piece of gear will unlock something new. Over the last few weeks I had been exploring different possibilities, looking at delays, loopers and various ways of expanding the system, but the more I thought about it, the more I found myself returning to a simple question. Was I actually moving the project forward, or was I just making it more complicated?
The funny thing is that none of the additional equipment was bad. In fact, some of it sounded wonderful. The issue wasn't the quality of the sound. It was that I was beginning to move away from the thing that had excited me about the Resonant Garden in the first place. There is something very immediate and personal about sitting in front of the piano, hearing the Garden respond, and using the Kommanders to shape that interaction in real time. The more I added around it, the more I found myself thinking about equipment rather than simply listening.
So for this third study I decided to stop worrying about expansion and strip everything back to the piano, the Resonant Garden and two Koma Kommanders. I wanted to spend some proper time with the instrument as it was and see what happened if I stopped trying to improve it.
What surprised me was how quickly everything felt comfortable again.
Within a few minutes I was no longer thinking about signal chains, pedals or what I might buy next. I was simply listening and exploring. Certain combinations would suddenly reveal these beautiful vocal-like harmonics hidden within the Garden. Other areas would create deep resonances that seemed to hover underneath the piano notes long after they had been played. It reminded me that some of the most rewarding moments with the Resonant Garden happen completely by accident. You move your hand slightly, alter the relationship between two elements, and suddenly an entirely new emotional space opens up.
As the session progressed I found myself becoming increasingly absorbed in those relationships. Not the individual instruments themselves, but the way they interact with one another. The piano on its own sounds like a piano. The Resonant Garden on its own sounds like a Resonant Garden. The interesting part is what happens in the space between them, where one starts influencing the other and something new begins to emerge.
What I hadn't expected was that this stripped-back session would completely change my thinking about the future direction of the system.
Before recording this study I had actually started questioning whether a second Resonant Garden would ever be necessary. If simplicity was proving so effective, perhaps the answer was to go deeper with a single Garden rather than expand at all. Oddly, I came away thinking almost the opposite.
The more time I spent with this reduced setup, the more I started to appreciate what a second Garden could bring to the project. Not because I want more equipment, and certainly not because I want a more complicated system, but because it feels like a natural extension of the same conversation. One Garden could sustain an atmosphere whilst the other gradually moves somewhere new. One could be creating delicate harmonic textures whilst the other explores a completely different emotional territory. Rather than adding another voice from outside the system, it feels more like adding another member of the same family.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. There is something elegant about building Oto Sui around two Resonant Gardens rather than collecting lots of unrelated devices. The visual language remains coherent. The sound remains coherent. The performance remains centred around the same ideas of resonance, interaction and discovery. Increasingly I find myself thinking that Oto Sui doesn't necessarily need to become bigger. It simply needs to become deeper.
This session also reinforced another thought that has been quietly growing in the background. As much as I love working with the upright piano, I'm becoming increasingly interested in finding a more portable solution that still retains the feel and expressiveness of a real instrument.
One of the things I love most about the piano is the physical connection to it. The weight of the keys, the dynamics, the ability to shape a phrase through touch alone. At the same time, the reality is that an upright piano is a large and rather uncompromising thing to build a performance system that I may be able to produce exhibitions around. As Oto Sui develops, I find myself wondering whether there might be a way to retain that sense of expression whilst creating a more controllable and portable environment around it. I'm not looking to replace the emotional character of the piano. If anything, I'm looking for a way to carry more of that character into different spaces with something like a digital stage piano with the feeling of an acoustic piano.
Looking back at this study now, I don't think it was really about discovering a new sound. It was about being reminded of why I started the project in the first place. Sometimes when you are exploring a new creative direction it is easy to become distracted by possibilities. Every new idea seems exciting. Every new piece of equipment suggests another route to explore.
Occasionally though, it is worth stopping, stripping everything back and spending time with the core idea again.
This session reminded me that some of the most interesting discoveries happen when you remove things rather than add them. It reminded me that Oto Sui is at its strongest when it feels like an instrument rather than a collection of equipment. Most importantly, it reminded me that there is still a huge amount left to discover within the simple conversation between a piano, a Resonant Garden and the space between them.
Equipment used for this study was an upright piano, a Folktek Resonant Garden and two Koma Elektronik Kommanders.
