Entelechy
for
electric piano and electronics

by
Robert Morris

Program Notes

Entelechy '77 employs a significant degree of indeterminancy or aleatoric process. Two players are required, one to play the score on an electric piano which is modified by electronic circuitry, and one to control the apparent location of the sounds in space. The electronic transformation of piano sound into sounds of bells, wood slabs, gongs, and those not so easily described is automatically controlled by a tape which has its own series of sounds composed in the same way the piano score is made. As the tape may be played either forward or backward and may be started anywhere to within half its duration each performance of this work is quite different. The player at the electronic controls responds to the piece in an intuitive improvisational manner to help emphasize the work's gestural and kinetic features. "Entelechy" is the state from which realizations are generated.

Entelechy '77 was composed in 1977 at the University of Pittsburg Electronic Music Studio.

In 2012 I composed a new composition based on the same concepts, but with a radically different structure; it is called Entelechy 2012 with the electronics completely implemented by a MAX/MSP patch on a laptop computer. It requires only one performer, the pianist, and is quite easy to perform because it is readily portable, unlike Entelechy '77.