KOJI TAKAHASHI
17 Etudes — Piano × Video
for piano, keyboard and live video (2017)
WORK DATA
Composed in 2017
17 studies / approximately 40 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION
Piano / Keyboard / Live video
One keyboard performer
One video operator / Max/Jitter
PREMIERE
5 February 2018
Koen-Dori Classics, Tokyo
Piano / keyboard: Takumi Nashimoto
Live video: Koji Takahashi
LATER PERFORMANCE
Excerpts performed in 2019
Piano: Naruhiko Kawaguchi
KOJI TAKAHASHI WORKS ABOUT CONTACT
DIGITAL & INTERACTIVE
17 Etudes — Piano × Video
for piano, keyboard and live video (2017)
ABOUT THE WORK
Seventeen studies for piano, keyboard and live video. Each study connects a musical action with a visual process: freezing, reversing, imitating, counting, focusing or repeating. Sound and image are constructed together rather than treated as separate layers.
Written in 2017, the original version combines a keyboard performer with a live-video operator using Max/Jitter. A later stage version reinterprets the studies through choreography and live piano.
Two versions of one cycle
The original video version treats the keyboard as an interface for the moving image. The dance version, premiered in 2021, reinterprets the same musical studies through choreography. The order of the studies differs between the two performances.
Explore 17 Etudes — Piano × Dance ↗
WORK / PREMIERE
Duration: approximately 40 minutes. World premiere: 5 February 2018, Koen-Dori Classics, Tokyo. Piano and keyboard: Takumi Nashimoto. Live video: Koji Takahashi.
Music, video, editing, filming and recorded performance: Koji Takahashi.
The work is performed by one pianist/keyboard player and one live-video operator using Max/Jitter. It was premiered on 5 February 2018 by Takumi Nashimoto, with live video operated by the composer. Naruhiko Kawaguchi performed excerpts in 2019.
STUDIES / PROGRAMME NOTES
I. Move Quickly (like a mouse)
for keyboard.
The video responds to MIDI messages from the keyboard, advancing according to the number of messages received.
II. Stop Time
Musical fermatas are paired with frozen images. Repeated arpeggios suggest the passage of time until an unexpected chord abruptly brings it to a halt.
III. Reverse
The piano’s 88 keys become a timeline: low notes represent the past, while high notes represent the future.
IV. Pesante
An overtly weighty musical gesture is interrupted by passages resembling a video in fast-forward, making the surrounding heaviness more pronounced.
V. Imitate
Passages are repeated twice, as in the preludes from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 and the first prelude of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. On screen, a man imitates a woman’s movements in time with the music.
VI. Count
For keyboard. Counting continues in four languages: English, Japanese, Spanish and Danish. In the first section, E triggers English, B-flat Japanese, C-sharp Danish and G Spanish. In the middle section, an A harmonic-minor scale counts in Japanese, then Danish, then Spanish; the foreign B-flat introduces English.
VII. Light
The dynamics of repeated piano chords control the highlights and white levels of the image.
VIII. Zoom In / Out
Piano glissandi are synchronized with a telephoto zoom. As the pianist’s hands move outward from the centre of the keyboard, the man in the image grows larger; as they return inward, he becomes smaller.
IX. Focus
Each strongly played major triad brings a different point in the image into focus.
X. Stairs Forever
A C-major scale and a G-flat-major pentatonic scale are played simultaneously. An image of someone climbing stairs continues to loop.
XI. Subtle
For two keyboards played by one performer. One uses A = 440 Hz; the other is tuned lower. Alternating signals from the two keyboards control the relative opacity of the man and woman in the image.
XII. Delay
For two keyboards played by one performer. A repeating melody produces a kind of canon, with up to four displaced voices. Correspondingly, the composer’s image multiplies into as many as four figures.
XIII. Mirror
For two keyboards played by one performer. Inversion and retrograde techniques continually create musical mirror images.
XIV. Censor Bleep
For keyboard. Sequences in C minor are interrupted irregularly by the foreign notes E-natural and B-natural. These notes trigger pixelation of the man in the image.
XV. Contrast
Major and minor tonalities are paired with morning and night: major brings morning, while minor brings night.
XVI. Color
A canon of long melodic lines produces gradually changing harmony. The colours suggested by the harmony are synchronized with paint falling through water.
XVII. Repeat
A single-shot film of approximately five minutes is divided into 72 short fragments. These are arranged according to an editing plan established while composing the music.
WORK DATA
Composed in 2017
17 studies / approximately 40 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION
Piano / Keyboard / Live video
One keyboard performer
One video operator / Max/Jitter
PREMIERE
5 February 2018
Koen-Dori Classics, Tokyo
Piano / keyboard: Takumi Nashimoto
Live video: Koji Takahashi
LATER PERFORMANCE
Excerpts performed in 2019
Piano: Naruhiko Kawaguchi
© 2026 KOJI TAKAHASHI
KOJI TAKAHASHI WORKS ABOUT CONTACT
DIGITAL & INTERACTIVE
17 Etudes — Piano × Video
for piano, keyboard and live video (2017)
ABOUT THE WORK
Seventeen studies for piano, keyboard and live video. Each study connects a musical action with a visual process: freezing, reversing, imitating, counting, focusing or repeating. Sound and image are constructed together rather than treated as separate layers.
Written in 2017, the original version combines a keyboard performer with a live-video operator using Max/Jitter. A later stage version reinterprets the studies through choreography and live piano.
Two versions of one cycle
The original video version treats the keyboard as an interface for the moving image. The dance version, premiered in 2021, reinterprets the same musical studies through choreography. The order of the studies differs between the two performances.
Explore 17 Etudes — Piano × Dance ↗
WORK / PREMIERE
Duration: approximately 40 minutes. World premiere: 5 February 2018, Koen-Dori Classics, Tokyo. Piano and keyboard: Takumi Nashimoto. Live video: Koji Takahashi.
Music, video, editing, filming and recorded performance: Koji Takahashi.
The work is performed by one pianist/keyboard player and one live-video operator using Max/Jitter. It was premiered on 5 February 2018 by Takumi Nashimoto, with live video operated by the composer. Naruhiko Kawaguchi performed excerpts in 2019.
STUDIES / PROGRAMME NOTES
I. Move Quickly (like a mouse)
for keyboard.
The video responds to MIDI messages from the keyboard, advancing according to the number of messages received.
II. Stop Time
Musical fermatas are paired with frozen images. Repeated arpeggios suggest the passage of time until an unexpected chord abruptly brings it to a halt.
III. Reverse
The piano’s 88 keys become a timeline: low notes represent the past, while high notes represent the future.
IV. Pesante
An overtly weighty musical gesture is interrupted by passages resembling a video in fast-forward, making the surrounding heaviness more pronounced.
V. Imitate
Passages are repeated twice, as in the preludes from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 and the first prelude of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. On screen, a man imitates a woman’s movements in time with the music.
VI. Count
For keyboard. Counting continues in four languages: English, Japanese, Spanish and Danish. In the first section, E triggers English, B-flat Japanese, C-sharp Danish and G Spanish. In the middle section, an A harmonic-minor scale counts in Japanese, then Danish, then Spanish; the foreign B-flat introduces English.
VII. Light
The dynamics of repeated piano chords control the highlights and white levels of the image.
VIII. Zoom In / Out
Piano glissandi are synchronized with a telephoto zoom. As the pianist’s hands move outward from the centre of the keyboard, the man in the image grows larger; as they return inward, he becomes smaller.
IX. Focus
Each strongly played major triad brings a different point in the image into focus.
X. Stairs Forever
A C-major scale and a G-flat-major pentatonic scale are played simultaneously. An image of someone climbing stairs continues to loop.
XI. Subtle
For two keyboards played by one performer. One uses A = 440 Hz; the other is tuned lower. Alternating signals from the two keyboards control the relative opacity of the man and woman in the image.
XII. Delay
For two keyboards played by one performer. A repeating melody produces a kind of canon, with up to four displaced voices. Correspondingly, the composer’s image multiplies into as many as four figures.
XIII. Mirror
For two keyboards played by one performer. Inversion and retrograde techniques continually create musical mirror images.
XIV. Censor Bleep
For keyboard. Sequences in C minor are interrupted irregularly by the foreign notes E-natural and B-natural. These notes trigger pixelation of the man in the image.
XV. Contrast
Major and minor tonalities are paired with morning and night: major brings morning, while minor brings night.
XVI. Color
A canon of long melodic lines produces gradually changing harmony. The colours suggested by the harmony are synchronized with paint falling through water.
XVII. Repeat
A single-shot film of approximately five minutes is divided into 72 short fragments. These are arranged according to an editing plan established while composing the music.
WORK DATA
Composed in 2017
17 studies / approximately 40 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION
Piano / Keyboard / Live video
One keyboard performer
One video operator / Max/Jitter
PREMIERE
5 February 2018
Koen-Dori Classics, Tokyo
Piano / keyboard: Takumi Nashimoto
Live video: Koji Takahashi
LATER PERFORMANCE
Excerpts performed in 2019
Piano: Naruhiko Kawaguchi
© 2026 KOJI TAKAHASHI