DESCRIPTION:
Performance by the Toy Piano Composers Ensemble
Audio by Paul Hodge
Video by Alison Gray

"'cognitive dissonance' is for violin, piano, and Anthony T. Marasco’s instrument invention of amplified springs, the Oxblood. I met Anthony at the UnCaged Toy Piano Festival in New York City, where he demonstrated an array of invented instruments. Marasco describes the instrument: 'The Oxblood is an electro-acoustic instrument consisting of four springs amplified by contact microphones. Each spring consists of a different thickness and tension and is suspended across the instrument’s solid wooden body, attached to steel L-shaped brackets. A handmade contact microphone is attached to each set of brackets in order to directly amplify the vibrations of the performers’ interactions with each spring. The performer can excite the Oxblood’s springs through various scraping, plucking, bending, and snapping techniques.'

Posited by Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance is a psychological concept whereby someone holds two competing beliefs at the same time. These inconsistent cognitions are said to be dissonant, and cause an individual to feel “psychologically uncomfortable”, with a drive to find a way to make these two beliefs consistent, or consonant. When I first learned this term, I found the concept to be fascinating, because so often decision-making requires so many compromises and concessions, and this concept illustrates that feeling of tension when two deep beliefs cannot be reconciled into a singular entity. I love the possible musical implications that emanate from this rich concept – two musical ideas are independent but cannot merge; one idea must be sacrificed for another; the dissonance that exists between two elements. With the Oxblood as an external representation of the underlying psychological discomfort, both the violin and piano try and make sense of the various ideas in their own ways and with their own concessions.

'cognitive dissonance' was written for Cheryl Duvall and Ilana Waniuk for the “Premieres III” concert of the Thin Edge New Music Collective."
-Monica Pearce