Demonstration Music
The Demonstration Music project developed out of my interest in reinventing sounds and music that already exist (variously known as plunderphonics, sampling, mashups, and flagrant disregard for copyright). Electronic musical instruments often come with one or more preprogrammed tracks intended to demonstrate the full range and capability of the instrument. Although always immaculately produced, these pieces of music are often laughably cheesy and to me they do almost the exact opposite of their intended purpose - no serious music producer would want to create anything that sounds remotely like these demonstrations.
It gradually occurred to me that rather than ignore them, these musical aberrations could and should be assimilated into my own work. My first 'demonstration music' project Strictly Bollocks used Yamaha's handheld QY70 synth. For the final work I mixed elements of four demo tracks from the QY70 with newly created and sampled sounds. Tracks from the final work were played on national radio and I recorded a live session for Radio 1 at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London.
I'm currently working on two further installments of 'Demonstration Music'. One Hundred Albums To Hear Before You Die is based on demonstration tracks from the QY70's bigger brother, the Yamaha RS7000. For this second installment I decided to try and work exclusively with the original demo sounds. Working with the RS has also allowed the use of an improvisational element, resulting in each 'take' being different.
The third instalment is based on the Casiotone MT-240. I've owned this keyboard since childhood and have had to put up with the astonishing
demo song for years, so it's good to finally get my own back. The track you can currently hear on the MT-240's page is my 'reinterpretation'
of the demo track.