Un 2025	Mirrorable(s) by Dan Senn click photo above to enlarge Improvisational Set for an Ableton Live Set in Stereo Duration of 1-90 minutes.
UnMirrorable(s) is a "fluxible" work in the form of an Ableton Live (AL) Set constructed from sound samples taken from my Prague Gamelyde (photo ->) that consists of 13 found cast aluminum bells, lydes, with pine handles attached 6 to 12 inches in diameter played using simple mallets described here. In this work, and for each lyde, 13 percussive techniques were used to record 169 (13 by 13) short samples. These were arranged over the keys of a soundfont to produce 13 virtual instruments. Using a velocity sensitive midi instrument within AL, the soundfonts were improvised on to create a large database of performances in midi format, this enabling moveable files playable in the retrograde, inverted, inverted-retrograde, original form and in different ranges. All 13 soundfonts were performed. Using stochastic algorithms within AL, these were placed in a stereo field, pitch and volume adjustments applied, etc. all towards creating a pool of launch accessible buttons for live stereo performance options. AL allows, in the midi format, these stochastic elements to be calculated event by event but at the cost of substantial computing overhead. To reduce these calculations, the files can be flattened or rendered to .wav format. UnMirrorable(s) was developed using a four stage Improvisation Chain interrupted by levels of systematic processing all within AL. The first were the  monophonic sample recordings, micro-improvs affecting the macro-structure of the work. The second were studio improvisations on each of the 13 soundfonts in midi formats enabling moveable files awaiting further processing. The third was the arbitray manipulation of these midi files in various ranges and note sequences in search of interesting material. Not all the improvs were used, only portions of some, but once selected, they were assigned to 169 launch buttons refered to above. These were the steps were taken to produced an earlier AL set called the ClusterGam that looked like this, one that was completely in the midi note format but also shows the origin of the soundfont being improvised on and the sondfont/area where it applied. A fourth improvisational stage is described further on. While performing the ClusterGam in its all-midi format (similar to piano roll notation), a problem with computer overhead appeared that was solved by "freezing" or “flattening” the files (a standard AL feature) where real-time parameter selection is performed once and halted. With this overhead bottleneck fixed, I soon realized a distinction between Standalone (SA) and Texture (TX) improvisations. While the stage two midi improvs were explorative and spontaneous, a continuum between SA and TX files became clear. SA improvs needed nothing extra to retain interest throughout their presention as they are soloistic by nature. Texture files tend to operate supportively in the background of media dominating interest. But here is where a niggling problem arose as the SA files, while exciting at first, could to lose this dominance over time, this puzzling me. In contrast TX improvs (more often collections of repetitive smaller events) retained their character and apparent function as supplied by the ClusterGam version. To fix this anomaly I added a fourth level to the Improv Chain taking the top four rows of SA improvs and editing them event-by-event, gesture-by-gesture, a manual processing I thought of as a detailed sound sculpting. This a gave the files a presence and dimensionality that was lost using the otherwise useful midi sampling. The TX files, not so impacted by the midi sampling, were left untouched. After a lengthy re-sculpting process was complete, tests showed that these SA files were now sustainable in performance. They worked alone, with other sculpted SA files, by playing just the beginning gesture fragments to create new and live improvs, and then with one or more texture files. The TX files could aso be presented as solo works but were better suited in accompaniment with other TX and SA files. TX files also work well accompanying live instruments, dance, poetry, theatre or film. Standalone Solo Sound Examples (below): 1G 0’43”, 1L 1’04l, 2C 2’14”, 2e 1’20”, 3H 1’24”, 3K 1’15”, 4c 3’03”, 4i 2’03” (Use headphones) Textural Sound Examples (below):  A5, B6, B9, B11, C7, D10, D12, E5, F9, G8, H8, J12, K6, K13, L10, L13, M7, M11 Standalone Combine Examples (below): 1c+1i 0’46”, 1D+1K 0’57”, 2B+2I 2’29”, 2G+2H+3H 1’35”, 3a+3D 2’51”, 3c+44k 2’03”, 4e+3e 1’59”, 4I+1m 1’05” UnMirrorable(s) is part of a larger collection of works for these found instruments including the I Ching In Sound, Space Band Projects (Ephemeral Public Art), and Experimental Videos, all this and more at Dan-Senn.com. Addendum The complexity of the output from UnMirrorable(s) belies the simplicity object sampling to create a soundfont then played using a midi device. Why not just play/record, for example, a found object live or, perhaps, multi-track performances in the studio? Indeed, this had been done many times especially with with these lydes in live performance and is effective! Commercial software aimed pop music, as is Ableton Live, has focused on monophonic sampling and has provided a vast number of smart routines that can be used in experimental music. Educated in modular analog synthesis on the cusp of digital synthesis, the "hybrid" years, i am comfortable within the Ableton environment. During this time of Cage, Martirano and Fluxus, free improvisation was taking hold and this too was foundational in my work. Since my working class childhood, I have been interested in found objects as instruments. By nature these resist transparency because of their topography (they've been repurposed) and therefore operate as a “score” as much as an instrument. Even so, found instruments can be trivialized, as covered in my 1993 article “The Embarrassment of Unintended Style”. The ClusterGam set set from 2018, performed live at venues in Europe and the US, was eventually put aside as it had exhibited a curious problem I could not wrap my head around. When performing, after a period of not doing so, like months, especially in my studio environment, the set sounded great for awhile but then faded due to a lack “dimensionality”. Certain improvisation would go from being titillating and surprising to a flattening out. I noticed this in audience reactions too. What was happening? My ego, however, was so tied up in the set I was prevented from clear thinking. Then, in an instant, in late April 2025, for it was not an apparent gradual decision, I knew why, or thought I did. The original "piano roll" (midi) recording of the improvisations, while a compositional asset in many ways, carried too much sameness into the final product for certain files I'd come to think of as "standalone" (SA) files. SA events and gestures were carrying too much of the on-off profile of the piano-roll notation causing interest to flag over time. To overcome this problem, one that does not occur in live improvisations on found instruments especially, where every event produced is distinct and unique, the machine-like limitations of small sampled midi events was limited. The improvisations I considered having SA potential, required further development (“sculpting”" at the “event-to-event” level and the only way i could do this is was manually. Hmmm. Whiled I trusted my manual editing skills, as I told a friend, "This will take until Christmas!" Further algorithmic processing wasn't an option. This experience took me back to the beginning of my interdisciplinary creative life. As an artist in other fields, film, sculpture, ceramics, one must have in place an almost inexplicable ability to make creative judgments on the fly—where the artsy language of “this works with that” or “these two do not work well together” are auto responses arriving from inborn knowledge one trusts in time. These vastly accelerate the creative process as they seem not to come from conscious memory unless one is forced to explain, a useful exercise too. Without this skill, one is left to mirror existing work, an anathema. [I know well a magnificently skilled and popular new music sound artist who improvises in any pre-existing style on a transparent instrument but is unable to play a unfamiliar found instrument without trivializing it. Without an example to mirror he is paralyzed because of the rules such objects impose. It’s “score” identity gets in the way—my guess anyways—with elements of narcissism thus exposed.] For this unexpected fourth step in the Improvisational Chain, I chose to refine the top 104 (plus 104 doubles = 208) files of the original ClusterGam to create the UnMirrorable(s) set, a process that took me three months to complete. Here the rule was to erase nothing leaving the start points plus their stereo location in place and to sculpt new better envelopes “that worked”. This intricate, intuitive process thus lifted the standalone improvs (files) onto a “3-dimensional” footing that’d been missing (lost?)—an interesting lesson to learn. An effect of this laborious sculpting process was another important discovery—that I was actually dealing with two kinds of sound files having used the same improvisatory mindset and midi recording process in all improvs. The top 104 (208) files were indeed standalone works, meaning they required no assistance from other improvs to hold interest. Even so, these soloistic files merged with another class of improvs that lacked a “3-D” character of the SA files AND  this was an asset. And yet these “texture” (TX) files could also standalone in some contexts but generally “worked better” as background to each other or to the 104 (208) solo SA or combine SAs. In other words, my observation of why of the ClusterGam was too often “flat” was only partly true. The UnMirrorable(s) set is thus divided in two main areas, standalone (Solo and Combines files) and texture files. Clicking in the banner photo above, or here, the upper leftmost files outlined in bright blue green consists of the basic 104 newly sculpted solo SA files each with a variation (red button) that effectively doubles the SA solo files. To the right of these, the rightmost grouping outlined in red are the TX files also with an adjacent doubling feature in red. Beneath these two main launch key areas are “Combines” where solo SA files have been merged into one track using three simple criteria: 1) The two or three combined files must be about the same duration, and 2) they must  “worked well together”, and 3) their combined entry gestures werer useable as trigger gestrues for another class of live improvisation. Again, in the SA areas just mentioned, each solo file is followed by red trigger button that varies the file to the left, main file, using a different start point, loops the file and may offset its pitch to enhance variety. This also enables leftmost file to accompany itself in variation, if not just canonically, while doubling the entry characteristics need for immediate live improvisation thus escaping the file and piece restraints the work is built on. UnMirrorable(s) is a discrete work with attributes like the mobiles of Morton Feldman or Earl Brown. In this sense the Sal-Mar Construction, by composer inventor Salvatore Martirano, was also mobile-like and especially with its 24 channel output to bubble speakers hanging throughout the performance space.. The UnMirrorable(s) set is based on a limited set of samples taken from 13 found and partially developed found instruments developed through improvisation, then re-parsed and improvised on again. This describes the sets work as a mobile with turning objects of pre-composed material. DS 080225, Studio FMErá.