Un 2025 Addendum	Mirrorable(s) by Dan Senn click photo to enlarge screen area. Improvisational Set for an Ableton Live in Stereo Duration of 1-90 minutes (use headphones).
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. They are 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 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 midi format, these stochastic elements to be calculated event by event but at the cost of substantial computing overhead. To reduce this, 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  monophonic sample recordings—micro-improvs affecting the macro-structure of the work. The second were studio improvisations on each of the 13 soundfonts enabling portable files awaiting further processing. The third was the arbitrary 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 shown above. These were the steps taken to produced an earlier AL set called the ClusterGam that looked like this, a set completely in the midi note format with labeling that indicates the area of the soundfont being performed. A fourth improvisational stage is described further on. When performing the ClusterGam, with its all-midi format (midi 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 stage two midi improvs were explorative and spontaneous, a continuum between SA and TX files gradually appeared. SA improvs needed nothing extra to hold interest as they are soloistic by nature. Texture files tend to operate supportively in the background while other media lines dominate. Here is where a niggling problem occurred as the SA files, exciting at first, could lose dominance/presence over time. This puzzled me for ages. In contrast TX improvs (often collections of repetitive smaller events) retained their character as supplied by the ClusterGam version. To fix this, alas, I added a fourth level to the Improv Chain by taking the top four rows of the SA improvs and editing them event-by-event, gesture-by-gesture, a manual processing I thought of as detailed sound sculpting. This a gave the files a dimensionality and presence lost using the otherwise useful midi sampling approach. The TX files, not impacted by the midi sampling as such, were left untouched. After the lengthy re-sculpting process was complete, tests showed that these SA files were now sustainable. They worked solo, with other sculpted SA files, by playing just the beginning fragments to create new and live improvs, and then with one or more texture files. The TX files could be presented as solo works but were better suited, again, in accompaniment with other TX, SA files or with 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 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. Dan Senn is an interdisciiplinary artist working in music composition and event production, kinetic sound sculpture and installation, experimental and documentary film. He has been a professor of music and art in the United States and Australia and travels internationally as a lecturer, performer and installation artist. He lives in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx Media Art festivals, and Watertown, Wisconsin, in the USA. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and languages depending upon the aesthetic joust at hand. Dan is co-founder of Roulette Intermedium in New York City, Cascadia Composers of Portland Oregon, and the Echofluxx media festivals in Prague. Addendum The complexity of the output from UnMirrorable(s) belies the simplicity of object sampling to form a soundfont then played using a midi device. Why not just play/record, for example, a found object live and, perhaps, multi-track performances in the studio? Indeed, this had been done many times especially with these lydes and is effective! Commercial software aimed at a pop market, as is Ableton Live software, has focused on monophonic sampling with a vast number of smart routines that can be used in experimental music, a modern day prepared piano. 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 with this foundational in my work. Since childhood, I have been interested in found objects as instruments that by nature resist transparency. This opaqueness causes these repurposed objects to also operate as a “score” due to an inherrant awkwardness. Even so, found instruments are often trivialized especially with a mallet in hand as covered in my 1993 article “The Embarrassment of Unintended Style”. The ClusterGam set from 2018, refered to above, performed at venues in Europe and the US, was eventually pushed aside as it was exhibiting problem I could not wrap my head around. When performing, after a period of not doing so, like months, especially in my studio environment, some files sounded great for awhile but then faded due to an apparent lack “dimensionality”—the best I could do at the time. Improvisations would transition from a sense of spontaneity to a flat repetitiveness. What was happening? My ego, however, was so tied up in the development of the set, my ojectivity was impaired. Then, in late April 2025, in an instant, for it was not a gradual realization, I knew why, or thought I did. The original "piano roll" (midi) recordings of the improvisations, while a compositional asset in many ways, transferred too much sameness to the final product in lines I thought 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. To overcome this problem, one that does not usually occur in live improvisations on found instruments, where events produced are unique, the machine-like limitations, the sameness, of small sampled midi events were limited. The improvisations with SA potential required further development (“sculpting” at the “event-to-event” level) and I could only do this manually. Hmmm. Whiled I trusted my editing skills, as I told a friend, "This will take 'til 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 skills quickly accelerate the creative process as they seem not to come from conscious memory (Unless one is forced to explain, a useful exercise.). Without this, one is left to mirror existing work, an anathema to me. 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 this UnMirrorable(s) set, a process taking three months. Here I erased nothing, leaving the start points and stereo locations in place, sculpting new envelopes “that worked”. Applying this intricate, intuitive process lifted the standalone improvs (files) onto a “3-dimensional” footing that’d been missing—an interesting lesson to learn. An effect of this laborious sculpting process was yet another discovery—that I was actually dealing with two distinct kinds of sound files even if I had used the same improv strategies while recording all the files. The top 104 (208) files were indeed standalone works, meaning they required no assistance from other improvs to hold their own. Even so, these "soloistic" lines merged on a continuum with other improvs lacking the “3-D”, this, an asset. And some of these “texture” (TX) files were arguably stand alone in some contexts but generally worked better as background to each other or to the 104 (208) solo SAs or combined 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) and texture files. Looking at the graphic below, the upper leftmost files outlined in bright blue-green consists of the basic 104 newly sculpted solo SA files each with a variant (red button) that effectively doubles the SA solo files. To the right of this SA group, the rightmost group outlined in red, are the TX files also with an adjacent doubling feature in red. Beneath these two SA and TX 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 are about the same duration, 2) they “worked well together”, and 3) their combined entry gestures were useable as trigger gestures for another class of live improvisation. Again, in the SA areas just mentioned, each solo file is followed by a red trigger button that varies the file just to the left by using a different start point, a looping feature, and a possible pitch offset to enhance variety. This also enables the leftmost file to "accompany itself" in variation, if just canonically, while also doubling the entry characteristics for live improvisation. UnMirrorable(s) is a discrete work with attributes not unlike the mobiles of Morton Feldman or Earl Brown. In this sense the Sal-Mar Construction was mobile-like and especially with its 24 channel output to bubble speakers hanging throughout the performance space. The AL set here is based on a limited group of samples taken from 13 partially modified found instruments further developed through improvisation, re-parsed and improvised on again. This describes the set's mobileness with floating objects of pre-composed and re-composed material. DS 080225, Realized at Studio FMErá & Gasworks Studio, Prague. Banner photo above is detail of Gasworks Studio, Prague.