People Pleaser -
Blame them, not me (2024)
community-composed piece for baritone saxophone, live electronics, and launch controller - 7'56
People Pleaser is the result of a virtual dialogue between my online following and myself. By asking targeted questions, and discussing next steps and directions, I built this piece with whomever wanted to join this experiment. The main question being: What would you rather want to hear?
The collaborative phase took place between March 20th, 2024, and April 20th, 2024. 15 questions were asked as stories on the Instagram-account @peoplepleaserproject. As an alternative, an e-mail newsletter was set up as well, where people could also participate by voting and/or commenting. In total around 100 people participated.
The piece premiered on April 29th at the Ligeti zentrum Hamburg during Fluidity - Symposium on female and non-binary people in multimedia. A second performance happened on May 2nd, 2024, during Clash.
The next performance will be on September 22nd, 2024 at the Honigfabrik in Wilhelmsburg (Hamburg). Tickets are available here.
Also, a documentary + interactive installation version will be displayed at Kunstraum B in Kiel (DE) from 30.08.2024 until 11.10.2024!
Scroll down to hear the piece and see some entries from the process!
Check out the project
on instagram!
@peoplepleaserproject
Fastfood version: three quick bites from the piece
Live version of the whole piece
This video is a sketch to give an idea about the piece. It is filmed with a smartphone and there is some chair scraping. This video is mainly meant to give an impression of our collective work.
I am using an audio mix of two performances:
- 29.04.2024 at the Fluidity Symposium
@Ligeti Zentrum in Hamburg
- 02.05.2024 at CLASH
@Alte Drückerei Ottensen Hamburg
Enhanced with the "pure" electronics sound from my DAW.
A big shout out to everyone who participated!
20.03.2024
"Today is the start of “People Pleaser”. I am super excited and curious what the outcome of this project will be!
Join, participate, enjoy! Let’s make this piece together..."
20.03.2024
What is people pleaser?
21.03.2024
Who am I?
25.03.2024
The results of the first voting round are in!
Combining both the Instagram votes and the ones through my website, these are the results (for now…)
How long? ⏱️
7,85 minutes => ca. 7 minutes and 52 seconds
Which saxophone? 🎷
Tenor
With text / lyrics 📜
With a video 🎦
26.03.2024
We arrived in part 2 of the process.
The basics are known: a tenor sax piece with text and video. This can still change, though, depending on incoming questionnaires. (Still possible to join and share your opinion!)
Now we are navigating more specifically towards themes and styles. Curious what will happen in the next few days!
What do you think will happen?
30.03.2024
So, votes are still coming in and some things shifted!
It is not clear now whether the piece should be for tenor or baritone sax - they both have 30% of the votes. Or will the soprano catch up and become the favorite?
The piece also got extended with 4 seconds, now being 7 mins 56 secs long
Also a first update of the results of yesterday’s vote.
Voting is still open through the polls on the website (link in bio)
I will close the votes for topic and style tomorrow evening, 01.04., but the voting for sax, length, visuals will stay open
Thank you so much for participating so far!
Pictures by Kelsey Cotton and Ina Niemerg
03.04.2024
You have decided... What a colorful mix of musical styles!
To please you, I will base the music on this pie chart and try to incorporate all your wishes…
Now I will start the research phase about the birds. What resources do you know and recommend regarding our topic: the bird migration in spring?
The subconscious hamsters of my creative brain section have been working hard, and I would like to sketch the first composition idea for the form of the piece!
Check it out and let me know what you think! Also open for suggestions and questions!!
Those awesome books I mentioned (in German):
- Bergmann, H.-H. & Westphal, U. - Welcher Vogel singt denn da? (2019) (Awesome edition with QR codes and sonagrams)
- Bairlein, Franz - Das große Buch vom Vogelzug (2022)
- Zetterström, D., Svensson, L., Mullarney, K. - Der Kosmos Vogelführer (2023)
09.04.2024
13.04.2024
I have been reading a lot about bird migration. And of course, integrating this knowledge into a piece rises a lot of creative dilemmas that can have a big impact on how pleased the people will be.
These decisions will have a big impact on the result of the piece! I will close this round of voting on Monday evening, 15.04.
13.04.2024
This weekend I asked/am asking 9 questions. The second half of them is still in the story. If you kissed it or missed it, or you would like to fill it in on the website, you can find the new questionnaire in the link.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! And soon there will be sound…have been reading a lot about bird migration. And of course, integrating this knowledge into a piece rises a lot of creative dilemmas that can have a big impact on how pleased the people will be.
These decisions will have a big impact on the result of the piece! I will close this round of voting on Monday evening, 15.04.
15.04.2024
Five phases of birds
PHASE 1: I checked via EBBA2 which birds breed in Hamburg and/or Oslo (close call which city will be chosen!)
PHASE 2: Then I took the Kosmos Vogelführer, looked at each of the species whether they are migrating or not and where to. No specific times there though
PHASE 3: on eurobirdportal.org you get a map with sightings throughout 2023. I checked 74 the species that seemed to be migrating birds and from 50 of them I have approximate data when they arrived in Europe, until they are in the North. This is quite rough, but I will orient on these.
PHASE 4: Overview: who comes from where and who is migrating in Europe from approximately when. I based the electronics on this.
PHASE/PIC 5: just completing the series 😉
Wow.
Disclaimer: I am not a data scientist and I use these things to base the piece on, but of course it is not exact nor very scientific.
17.04.2024
I thought you might be interested what all those papers and lists actually mean
Here is the first (and longest) part on how I built the system!
22.04.2024
Got almost half of the score done and now it goes quite fast. I always need a lot of time to prepare before I write any note on paper. And then when I start there, it goess quite smoothly.
This is turning out to be quite the eclectic piece. I guess it fits the birds in the park and their concerto.
28.04.2024
The finished electronics part, made with hundreds of bird samples from xeno-canto.org (What a generous community!)
29.04.2024
Performance 1 at the Ligeti zentrum in Hamburg. (See recording at the top of the page)
Still from a video made by Timon Kaiser.
02.05.2024
Performance 2 at the Alte Drückerei in Ottensen during CLASH-1.
Still from a video from Anton Rieger.
