The Satellite Gamelan app is designed for a large group of musicians to perform concert music called Transposed Dekany. The app embodies both a musical score and a set of instruments to play it.
The app can be configured for as many as 80 players or as few as 10, each playing in a different pitch register. Performance is intended for reverberant concert venues that were designed to project the unamplified sound of multiple hand-held instruments.
The app features instruments that are easy to play and quick to learn and enable musicians to explore uncharted harmonic spaces rarely visited using standard musical instruments. Every phone becomes a mobile sound source in a large harmonic constellation and a hand-held stage light to enhance concert presentation.
The app uses a microtonal 10-note just intonation scale called a dekany created by contemporary tuning theorist and instrument-builder, Erv Wilson. The scale is generated from harmonics creating a tonal warmth not readily available on standard instruments.
The app is designed as a consort of phones created to perform a microtonal concert work lasting 12'24“. Using the app multiple phones act as independent sound sources and project sound directly into the concert auditorium. On-screen score Players manually start their app in synch with a conductor's starting cue. The app automatically enables or disables selected instruments at various times during the performance. An on-screen score shows players where they are in relation to the consort.
Each player configures their phone to play pitches of a 10-note scale (1) in one of five harmonic transpositions and (2) and in one of sixteen pitch registers ranging from low (1) to high (16).
Concert sound is projected upwards from hand-held phone speakers towards the ceiling of the auditorium. This create a lively complex binaural acoustic image that shifts freely and surprisingly throughout performance with every incidental player movement.
Each phone can be tuned and ready to play in under 5 seconds. No mains-powered concert amplification or speaker fold-back is required. A large consort of seasoned players can have the performance concert-ready in a single 1-hour rehearsal.
Each phone is individually configured by selecting 1-of-5 colours and 1-of-16 phone IDs. Players respond to two on-screen cues whenever these appear by tapping keys on a keypad to play chorus sounds or by shaking the phone gently to trigger bell sounds.