PROJECT |Last Eddie (2012) 
improvising composer at the piano with Max/MSP, player piano, and electronics

In 2010-2012, I was reprogramming the original NatSel max patches and composing the solo piano part for what would become the final version of the Flow Debris Falls piano concerto. The concerto features a piano soloist tied to a Buchla Piano Bar with a Max/MSP patch that triggers a nearby player piano with output based on the realtime performance. For many months, in the early mornings, I had been performing, testing, and programming the "ghost" improvising system at the main room in CNMAT. I became quite good, perhaps as good as I was when I originally premiered the NatSel piece in the IRCAM Espace Projection in 1996 on a concert shared with Michel Waisvisz and The Hands. It was a day before the recording session for the Flow Debris Falls concerto that I arranged with Jay Cloidt, recording engineer for the Department of Music, to meet up for an impromptu recording session. I had arranged to have an nicely tuned grand piano in Hertz Hall and the loaner player piano from Yamaha for the premiere of Flow Debris Falls. Jay was kind enough to come into the hall in the night and run the recording. It was an incredibly fast session. I sat down at the piano, Jay said go, and I improvised from start to finish for twenty-four minutes with no cuts. This is the recording of that live unedited performance called Last Eddie. The grand I played on and the player-piano, were placed side by side. Using a Buchla Piano BarThe Max patch nicely tracked all midi pitches, velocities, pedaling, and two extra footpedals for preset changes. I handled all the control from the grand piano and used one of the exra footpedals to gate between the player piano and the onboard sample libraries. As the Flow Debris Falls concerto was very much in my head, this improvisation became a massive cadenza based on the concerto. The upgraded NatSel patches performed flawlessly, involving many simultaneious algorithmic generators, all 100% max, no signal processing.

The term "Eddies" dates back to one of my earliest professional works, A Treasured Collection of Eddies. Back then, I was exploring invented personas, "The Eddies," using my nickname "Eddie" as a playful reference to a fictional, cyborgian culture — a kind of 21st-century Commedia dell'arte. By 2010, I had grown tired of this "Eddies" concept, and thus The Last Eddie marked the end of that era.

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Last Eddie (23:50)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics, complete recording

Last Eddie (excerpt 1)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics

Last Eddie (excerpt 2)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics

Last Eddie (excerpt 3)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics

Last Eddie (excerpt 4)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics

Last Eddie (excerpt 5)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics

Last Eddie (excerpt 5)
Edmund Campion, Piano with player-piano and electronics