Extra-dimensional accordion playing using a surround sound system: Creating new music

Approaching the accordion bellows technique explicitly three-dimensionally instead of linearly has been a major step in finding my artistic voice as an accordionist. Hypothetically, the spatial movements implied in playing the accordion, prompt an extra musical dimension and affect with an audience. By addressing this aspect of accordion playing in compositional collaborations and by amplifying the movements of accordion playing and using a surround sound system, the technique, and hypothetically its impact on the audience, is made uncommonly explicit. In two phases and from two different perspectives (i.e. the perspective from an external composer and the composer-performer's perspective) new music for accordion and electronics was created, where the electronics are in both cases directly derivated from the accordion part. However, what it means to amplify and use the particular extra-dimensionality of accordion playing, was left open to the respective composer. The resulting music, presented at the research concert on September 22, 2023, in Studio LOOS The Hague, has shown two individual compositional approaches, yet it was clear that the movements of accordion playing functioned as an interesting and central dissonance within the music. In both the roles of performer and composer, this research has shown its significance. In collaboration with composers, it has introduced a way of working where this specific way of playing the accordion can be established in contemporary repertoire, whereas the electronic-artificial connection between music and movement has created interesting compositional tools suited for future projects.