The Satellite Gamelan is a mobile phone app created specifically to perform a 12-minute composition called "Transposed Dekany" composed by Greg Schiemer. The performance requires 80 phones playing in a venue sympathetic to low sound levels. The ideal concert venue is a large resonant space with high ceilings such as an abbey, a temple or a mosque. As with any conventional concert performance amplification is not required.
The Satellite Gamelan app is both a collection of software instruments and an animated graphic score to help players synchronise. It is designed to be easy to play, quick to learn and introduce musicians to harmonic possibilities that lie beyond the tradition of Western concert music.
The Satellite Gamelan offers musicians an experience of performing microtonal music without mastering new instrumental playing techniques. Its simple gestures make it possible for new players or seasoned musicians alike to perform a new microtonal work easily and quickly. Professional musicians working as regular members of a large ensemble can reasonably expect to have a performance concert-ready after a single one-hour rehearsal. The app includes a manual of rehearsal instructions. For study purposes a full score of "Transposed Dekany" can be ordered from
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/schiemer-greg.
The Satellite Gamelan exemplifies the idiosyncratic approach to sound diffusion and ensemble engagement that characterizes the early electronic musical instruments and compositions of Greg Schiemer. The app was first used in concert on Nov 30 2012 during the International Space Time Concerto Competition where it won a prize for a multi-venue performance of Transposed Dekany involving a live network of iPhones played on different continents. The video submission for the competition best describes the concept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfaZly6dhQA
The app has since been used at EuroMicrofest Freiburg in May 2013 and at Bandung International Digital Arts Festival in December 2014.
In its current form the Satellite Gamelan app now supports an ensemble subdivided into five subgroups. These have been renamed after cities on the most populated islands of Indonesia, a region that is arguably one of the worlds great living repositories of microtonal music.