Virtual environments for creative work in collaborative music-making

The author describes the practical application of crowdsourcing human intelligence as a form of collaborative music-making. Spectral decomposition of an original recording is used to derive components from original audio, and these are then offered as on-line tasks in which contributors are asked to record their own interpretations of each component. Components are then gathered in order to re-synthesize the original corpus, which is used to build an improvisation system. The author uses Bernard Stiegler's ecology of attention paradigm to situate crowdsourcing as an emerging form of public participation in music-making and Glenn Gould's ideas on performance and public access to position this participation as an act of composition. The work is offered as an illustration of the author's individual process as a composer for finding new notational pathways for collaborative practice.

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About the Study of the Means of Transcription of Works for Clavier by Beginning Pianists

ICONI ◽

10.33779/2658-4824.2019.2.116-127 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 116-127

Author(s):

Liudmila N. Shaymukhametova ◽

Keyword(s):

Subject Matter ◽

Role Playing ◽

Register Allocation ◽

Sight Reading ◽

Creative Work ◽

Role Playing Games ◽

Music Making ◽

The Subject ◽

Instrumental Ensembles

The methodological elaborations of the rubric of the journal “My fi rst transcriptions” will present examples from assignments from the attempts of creative work of beginning pianists with the musical text. The offered assignments carry the aim of teaching certain universal techniques of artistic transformation of the composer’s primary text. The fi rst article devoted to this subject matter examines the register allocation and the doubling which were applied in everyday music-making in the 16th and 17th centuries during the varied re-exposition of the clavier text into various ensembles. The technique of their application is simple and accessible to contemporary listeners as well; it presumes the utilization of timbral possibilities of the present-day piano and keyboard synthesizer. At the basis of the elaboration of the assignments there are fragments of J.S. Bach’s instructive compositions from such compilations as “Kleinen Preludien und Fugen,” “Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach,” as well as the “French Suites,” all of which assume a transformation of the clavier text for performing it in various variants and instrumental ensembles. These are the introductory pieces to the cycles: the preludes, fantasies or the pieces in the dance genres.The lessons are organized in the piano classes upon the conditions of “sight-reading” either in a solo manner, or with participation of partners in the form of intonational etudes. The analysis of the semantic structures applies role playing games in the subject matter of “I am playing the organ,” “there is a rehearsal of a historical orchestra going on,” “Trio for two fl utes and cello,” etc.

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Musical Totem: A Collaborative Composition Methodology During the Covid-19 Pandemic

CAML Review / Revue de l ACBM ◽

10.25071/1708-6701.40393 ◽

2021 ◽

Keyword(s):

Learning Community ◽

Research Network ◽

Collaborative Group ◽

Shared Experiences ◽

Music Making ◽

Global Pandemic ◽

Collaborative Working ◽

Collaborative Music ◽

The Rich ◽

Exquisite Corpse

As part of the Action Research Network of the Americas, the Musical Learning Community is a collaborative group, founded during the COVID-19 global pandemic, that has brought together musicians, artists, and educators to generate shared experiences. As members of this community, we explore new ways for collaborative music-making. Through creative, cultural, and conceptual influences, the idea of the Musical Totem emerged as a collaborative music composition methodology to transcend geographical distancing. We sought interpretative freedom by adopting methods of the surrealist technique Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse) while relying on the rich concept of totems to find thematic material and set compositional parameters. The process was carried out using arts-based and autoethnographic research approaches, which provided insights into our creative musical responses and remote collaborative working processes. This endeavor showed us that symbolism can provide compositional and performative challenges and that, as a methodology, the Musical Totem can create freedom and constraints depending on the musician, the conceptual influences, and the instrumentation. We also learned that engaging in a collaborative music-making process led to increased community bonding through shared creative expression.

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The creative work of large ensembles

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199346677.003.0013 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Stephen Cottrell

Keyword(s):

Complex System ◽

Creative Process ◽

Conventional Approach ◽

Creative Work ◽

Creative Agency ◽

Music Making ◽

Choral Rehearsal ◽

Large Ensembles ◽

And Performance ◽

External Forces

Preparing large ensembles for performance involves musical, social, logistical and financial challenges of a kind seldom encountered in other forms of collective music-making. The conventional approach to meeting the challenges that arise during rehearsal is to appoint a single musical overseer, usually a conductor, whose ostensible role in musical preparation is to directly influence the musicians while working towards the creation of a musical product to be delivered in later performances. Rehearsal leadership, viewed from this perspective, moves predominantly in one direction, from conductor to ensemble. But such a perspective oversimplifies the conductor’s relationship with the ensemble, the relationships between the musicians, and the strategies that the latter must employ when working in large ensembles. Conceptualizing the ensemble as a complex system of interrelated components, where leadership and creative agency are distributed and developed through rehearsal to achieve what audiences assume to be a unified whole, yields new understanding of the work of large ensembles. This chapter examines these components of the creative process in orchestral and choral rehearsal and performance, the internal and external forces shaping and constraining that process, and the approaches that individual musicians and conductors could adopt in response to the changing contexts in which such creativity might be manifested.

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Music Making on YouTube

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190244705.013.15 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Cayari

Keyword(s):

Small Groups ◽

Music Videos ◽

The Internet ◽

Time And Space ◽

Music Making ◽

Amateur Musicians ◽

Musical Ensembles ◽

Collaborative Music

People are making music at their leisure and publishing it online. YouTube has provided a space for musicians to publish multitrack music videos, join collective musical ensembles, and collaboratively perform with others. This chapter explores three trends of how musicians are creating music videos and forming virtual ensembles and music making communities: they are showing off their skills through music videos; they are creating videos to join large collective multitrack ensembles of hundreds or even thousands of others; and they are actively collaborating with small groups to create mediated performances. Collective and collaborative music making on the Internet are not only happening among grassroots amateur musicians, but also through educational and commercial institutions. Music making on the Internet allows for global interactions and collaboration, where people come together and enjoy music recreationally, unbound by time and space.

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Auditory Imagination

The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, Volume 1 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190460167.013.4 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 77-104

Author(s):

Daniel A. Schmicking

Keyword(s):

Music Making ◽

Phenomenological Perspective ◽

Collaborative Music

Daniel Schmicking explores auditory imagination from a phenomenological perspective. He starts with an outline of phenomenological tools building mainly on Husserl’s thinking, and then sets out to analyze the structure of auditory imagination and its function in collaborative music-making. In his account of the workings of auditory imagination, Schmicking challenges the traditional Western notion of imagination as something private. A central part of Schmicking’s account of auditory imagination comprises a distinction between pure and weak forms of imagination, and this distinction is further used to explore how imagination contributes to other intentional forms, such as perception and memory.

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Music and Theatre Making In Canadian Prisons

Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings ◽

10.24908/iqurcp.14616 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tessa Maki

Keyword(s):

Transformative Justice ◽

Devised Theatre ◽

Grass Roots ◽

Music Making ◽

Abolitionist Movement ◽

Incarcerated Men ◽

Pros And Cons ◽

Collaborative Music ◽

Theatre Programs ◽

Healthy Community

The benefits of engaging in theatre- and music-making have been well proven for various populations. (see Črnčec et al. 2006; Lehmberg and Fung 2010; Salur et al 2017, etc.) These benefits are particularly significant for individuals who have experienced trauma, especially incarcerated individuals. (see Kyprianides and Easterbrook 2020; Reid 2019, etc). Music and theatre programs vary in Canada, and are present in many Canadian prisons. In this paper, I examine two programs more closely: the grass roots program Pros and Cons at The Joyceville Institution in Kingston, Ontario, which involves a collaboration between volunteer musicians and a group of incarcerated men, and Diane Conrad’s work with a young offender’s facility in Alberta Canada, where she employed devised theatre techniques to create meaningful theatrical pieces within the prison’s walls. Both these programs are working towards a similar goal: preparing the incarcerated individuals to return to society through practicing and rehearsing healthy community and citizenship through collaborative music and theatre. While this is an admirable goal for this work, the conversation surrounding music and theatrical work in prisons has been focused on its rehabilitative aims and properties. In this presentation I will explore the features of both programs, examine the rehabilitation goals and the focus on rehabilitation in the literature on prison-based music and theatre programs, and discuss ways that Transformative Justice and the Abolitionist movement can be supported through these arts-based initiatives.

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