Megan’s review of Yshani Perinpanayagan’s talk and workshop

Yshani’s piece “The Perfect Snake” is a composition for piano in response to a video of a perfect snake game. She has approached it in a similar way to film scoring, using hit points each time the snake eats. In addition, the texture and melody reflects the snake’s movement:

• when it meanders back and forth the melody was continuous and lively
• Hit points usually featured sharp off notes

I really enjoyed how the piece perfectly fits the video. However, most of it is atonal which is a form of tonality that I am not that familiar with. It is a very interesting way to create percussive sounds as a piano.

After the talk, Yshani introduced us to the Echoes, an app that plays sounds at certain locations. In groups of five we moved around the site recording interesting sounds (including bees and light switches) to create a sound map.

Later in the evening, we discussed our thoughts on the composition to try and understand how and why it was written.