FP 10 Piano first fruits… sort of: Crone

Svetlovska · June 2023

One who sees far, between the worlds of what has been, what is, and what will be. Final face of the Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother… Crone.

At Trendle Ring, a Bronze Age hill fort 4km West North West of the Somerset town of Williton, it is said that on misty days she can still be seen in this form, gathering sticks, or herding the local red deer. In other, more - difficult - encounters, she may instead take on the appearance of a monstrous mist-giant. Probably best not to say hello on those days.

My rule is that if I buy an app or instrument I must immediately use it, in at least one piece. So, although purchased solely for the purpose of trying to learn the physical skill and intellectual challenge of piano, and music theory, as a separate discipline from my music making, and thus set up in a separate room and not hooked up to the rest of my kit, I nevertheless sought distraction from fumbling my way through the melody of Ode to Joy by using the newly acquired Roland to capture some MIDI noodling into Atom inside AUM. As easy as plugging a USB A to C cable from piano to ipad. Liberating to need no dongles or interfaces.

Having built in speakers, 88 full sized velocity sensing weighted keys, 96 note polyphony and a pretty decent piano voice immediately available at the press of a switch, no DAWs to mess with, does encourage distraction er, experimentation. I found myself making noises and hitting keys I wouldn’t otherwise. On purpose, for once. I can see how a piano might make a useful tool for composition.

Ironically, without using an interface, I have no immediate way of capturing the actual, pretty good piano sound of the FP10 in the current set up, so I worked up the accompaniment here using Lo Fi Piano, House Mk1, and FM Piano instead. Vox courtesy of Pipa and Sopranotron, everything played live into Atom, then mixed on the fly into AudioShare.

Be kind to the old lady? Well, both of us, really… 😉

Now, that’s Ode To Joy pecked out. Next lesson: Onward Christian Soldiers. Wonder what the pagan goddess would make of that?