Sacrificial Floors and Tables

2021 ◽  
pp. 172-190
Author(s):  
John Richards
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Scrap Metal ◽  
Metal Ceramic ◽  
And Performance

A floor or table strewn with beer cans, toys, bits of scrap metal, ceramic bowls, miscellaneous electronics, and wires: a collection of things to make sound. Instrument and sound object have been sacrificed for a music of things. DIY electronic music and maker communities have challenged what sound is made with and to what end. Within these communities, the sacredness of the musical instrument has been debunked. Percussion is examined in relation to a music of things and object-orientated performance, and the performance-table is also viewed in the context of experimental sound and performance works. In this chapter George Brecht’s The Cabinet and readymade actions, and the performance-tables of Keith Rowe and Adam Bohman are illustrated. In addition, the work of Tetsuya Umeda is used to demonstrate performance-installation where making and unmaking are seen as critical parts of performance.

The Media Archaeological Repairman

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Riis
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The Media ◽  
Symbolic Understanding

This paper investigates how a contemporary constructed mechanical musical instrument driven by a steam engine can be used as an instrument that brings new knowledge and understanding to rudimentary conditions regarding electronic music. The investigation takes its starting point in the media archaeological repairman that digs out the malfunctioning music machine and gives the material physicality a pivotal role, in contrast to the otherwise more symbolic understanding of electronic music that seems to be predominant. This alternative conceptualisation of electronic music focuses on rudimentary understandings of physical and symbolic framings of machine-based music, which are unfolded through the notion of operative technology, and brings new knowledge regarding key epistemological issues regarding timing, malfunction and operation within electronic and machine-based music.

scholarly journals Synthesizers, Virtual Orchestras, and Ableton Live: Digitally Rendered Music on Broadway and Musicians’ Union Resistance

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. 273-304
Author(s):  
LIAM E. GIBBS
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Production Values ◽  
Downward Pressure ◽  
Acoustic Instruments ◽  
Union Local ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Industry Professionals ◽  
Previous Scholarship

AbstractAs Broadway musicals embrace contemporary popular music styles, orchestrators must incorporate the digital technologies necessary for producing convincing simulations of genres like hip hop and electronic music. At the same time, as production values soar, producers work to minimize their budgets, often putting downward pressure on the size of the orchestra. Although digital and electronic music technologies can expand the sonic register of the Broadway orchestra, they can also replace traditional acoustic instruments and save money. The Broadway musicians’ union, Local 802, has regularly sought to control the use of digital technologies and ensure that live musicians produce as much music as possible. Thus, Local 802's advocacy for the employment of their members can limit the sounds heard on Broadway.The following narrative considers three digital technologies—synthesizers, virtual orchestras, and Ableton Live—and examines case studies and controversies surrounding their use in Broadway orchestras and implications for liveness in performance. Informed by interviews with industry professionals, author observation of pit orchestras in rehearsal and performance, archival research, popular and industry media, and previous scholarship, I argue that the union's entrenched interests and antiquated regulations can stifle musical innovation on Broadway by resisting the use of digital music technologies.

Gaming Musical Instruments

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-130
Author(s):  
Jan Torge Claussen
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Traditional Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Sight Reading ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article addresses the relationship between labour and learning a popular musical instrument like the guitar in the specific context of a video game. Most gamification theories promise that using a video game makes it easy to learn (Kapp 2012; Deterding et al. 2011). Even if this holds true, I argue that this kind of playfulness causes some backlash, which I observed during an experiment in which students played the music video game Rocksmith 2014. Learning and playing the guitar through the medium of a video game comes with diverse experiences as well as expectations that are closely related to the dichotomies between play and work, often discussed in game studies based on the famous texts by Johann Huizinga (2004) and Roger Caillois (1960). Learning any traditional music instrument requires much effort in several skill areas, for example, dexterity, hearing, sight-reading, and performance. In other words, it seems to be hard work and not at all playful like a video game. In this article, the various aspects of playful work and labourious play, found in both music education and guitar games, will be discussed against the backdrop of empirical findings including data from online interviews, research diaries and video recordings.

scholarly journals Imaginary Soundscapes: Electronic Music Culture and the Aesthetics of the Virtual

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Wei-Ming Chan
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Production Performance ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Electronic Dance Music ◽  
Composition Methods ◽  
Unique Manner ◽  
And Performance

This study is an exploration into how dance music cultures (better known as "rave" or "club" cultures) find ways to straddle the divide between human and machine through their incorporation of both of these oft-competing elements. Electronic dance music and its digital composition methods represent what Mike Berk calls "a new sonic paradigm." The different modes of production, performance and consumption within this paradigm require alternative ways of thinking about originality, creativity, and authenticity. While I do look briefly at issues of consumption and performance within dance music cultures, I focus specifically on how electronic music producers are bound by a unique vision of musical authenticity and creativity, borne out of their own "technological imagination" and the sonic possibilities enabled by digital technology. To use the concepts employed within my paper, I contend that dance music cultures make evident what Michael Punt calls the "postdigital analogue"--a cultural condition in which the decidedly more "human" or "analogue" elements of felt experience and authenticity coexist and converse with the predominance of the digital technologies of simulation and artifice. Dance music cultures are an emergent social formation, to use Williams' term, revising and questioning the typical relationships understood between digital and analogue. This postdigital analogue manifests in a number of ways in the cultural, aesthetic, and technological principles promoted by dance music cultures. In terms of production in particular, signs of digital and analogue coexist in a form of virtual authenticity, as the sound of the technological process engaged to make electronic dance music bears the mark of musical creativity and originality. This study reveals the unique manner in which dance music cultures incorporate both analogue and digital principles, bridging a sense of humanity with the acceptance of the technological.

scholarly journals Trautonium: peculiarities of compositions for the electronic musical instrument

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Elena Nikolaevna Piryazeva
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Video And Audio ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
New Generation

The subject of this research is the electronic musical instrument trautonium and characteristic features of compositions written for this instrument. The advancement of electronic music and its instruments is substantiated by innovative transformation, constant emergence of new devices, their improvement and phasing out or transitions into a new generation of devices. One of such electronic musical instruments is trautonium, invented in the first half of the XX century. It did not gain much popularity, but gather its own repertoire and library of video and audio recordings. In the course of this research, the author applied the following methods: historical and systemic approaches; methods of integral, structural, stylistic, and comparative analysis. The novelty is defined consists in the subject of research, range of compositions attracted for musicological analysis, and the angle of their view. The author determines the common to compositions for trautonium concert character of performance reflected in the set of aesthetic and technological principles on various levels of musical composition.

Processes of Instrumental Learning: The Development of Musical Expertise

2012 ◽  
pp. 657-676
Author(s):  
Susan Hallam ◽  
Alfredo Bautista
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Instrumental Learning ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Recreational Activity ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Require Time ◽  
Music Making ◽  
And Performance

This article explores the processes underlying learning to play an instrument. The processes underpinning the learning of a musical instrument require time, effort, and commitment, although the extent to which these are needed depends on the nature of the music itself and the particular cultural traditions that pertain in relation to its creation and performance. Widening participation in instrumental learning means that most learners will engage with music-making in the longer term as a recreational activity either through amateur music-making or as listeners. What they need to develop as a result of their learning is a love of music and the meta-cognitive skills that will support them throughout their lifetimes in whatever musical activities they choose to pursue. To reflect these changes, music educators need to consider what their curricular priorities should be. Learning is most enjoyable when what is to be learned is challenging (not too easy or too difficult) and there is a sense of achievement when it has been mastered.

scholarly journals Interpretation and Performance Practice in Realizing Stockhausen's Studie II

2016 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 445-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Williams
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Electronic Devices ◽  
Great Care ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
And Performance

ABSTRACTIn the 1950s, using electronic devices to make music seemed a new paradigm for composers eager to remove the effects of interpretation on their relationship with their audience. The promise was that compositional ideas could be directly made into sound with the help of a technician whose task it was to carry out instructions. By making a new realization of Stockhausen's Studie II, composed in 1954, I interrogate many of the original techniques and practices, and show that there are many sites which require interpretation and raise issues of performance practice. The implication of these discoveries is that there may be advantages to an analysis of early electronic music of the 1950s and 1960s from the perspective of the practice of instrumental music, and that where there are references to ‘technicians’, great care should be taken to understand and appreciate the range of musical skills often required by such individuals. This approach to realization also raises serious questions about the ontology of electronic music.

scholarly journals Idiomatic Patterns and Aesthetic Influence in Computer Music Languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew McPherson ◽  
Koray Tahıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Computer Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Music Programming ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

It is widely accepted that acoustic and digital musical instruments shape the cognitive processes of the performer on both embodied and conceptual levels, ultimately influencing the structure and aesthetics of the resulting performance. In this article we examine the ways in which computer music languages might similarly influence the aesthetic decisions of the digital music practitioner, even when those languages are designed for generality and theoretically capable of implementing any sound-producing process. We examine the basis for querying the non-neutrality of tools with a particular focus on the concept of idiomaticity: patterns of instruments or languages which are particularly easy or natural to execute in comparison to others. We then present correspondence with the developers of several major music programming languages and a survey of digital musical instrument creators examining the relationship between idiomatic patterns of the language and the characteristics of the resulting instruments and pieces. In an open-ended creative domain, asserting causal relationships is difficult and potentially inappropriate, but we find a complex interplay between language, instrument, piece and performance that suggests that the creator of the music programming language should be considered one party to a creative conversation that occurs each time a new instrument is designed.

Ian Fredericks in interview: ideas of an Australian spatial synthesis and mixed media innovator

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-67
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Computer Music ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Mixed Media ◽  
Media Composition ◽  
Performance Group ◽  
Visual Composition ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Way

Ian Fredericks played a prominent role in the development of Australian electronic music and mixed media composition from the mid 1970s until 2001. His work in establishing both the SEUSS electronic music studio at Sydney University and the subsequent founding of the computer music and audio-visual composition and performance group watt with Martin Wesley-Smith in 1976, paved the way for the generations of artists that have since explored this field. The author presents lightly edited excerpts from the last interview with Ian Fredericks before his passing on 15 March 2001.

scholarly journals Personalizing HRI in Musical Instrument Practicing: The Influence of Robot Roles (Evaluative Versus Nonevaluative) on the Child’s Motivation for Children in Different Learning Stages

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heqiu Song ◽  
Emilia I. Barakova ◽  
Panos Markopoulos ◽  
Jaap Ham
Keyword(s):  
Random Order ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Learning Stage ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
Role Design ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Real Practice

Learning to play a musical instrument involves skill learning and requires long-term practicing to reach expert levels. Research has already proven that the assistance of a robot can improve children’s motivation and performance during practice. In an earlier study, we showed that the specific role (evaluative role versus nonevaluative role) the robot plays can determine children’s motivation and performance. In the current study, we argue that the role of the robot has to be different for children in different learning stages (musical instrument expertise levels). Therefore, this study investigated whether children in different learning stages would have higher motivation when assisted by a robot in different supporting roles (i.e., evaluative role versus nonevaluative role). We conducted an empirical study in a real practice room of a music school with 31 children who were at different learning stages (i.e., beginners, developing players, and advanced players). In this study, every child practiced for three sessions: practicing alone, assisted by the evaluative robot, or assisted by the nonevaluative robot (in a random order). We measured motivation by using a questionnaire and analyzing video data. Results showed a significant interaction between condition (i.e., alone, evaluative robot, and nonevaluative robot) and learning stage groups indicating that children in different learning stage groups had different levels of motivation when practicing alone or with an evaluative or nonevaluative robot. More specifically, beginners had higher persistence when practicing with the nonevaluative robot, while advanced players expressed higher motivation after practicing with a robot than alone, but no difference was found between the two robot roles. Exploratory results also indicated that gender might have an interaction effect with the robot roles on child’s motivation in music practice with social robots. This study offers more insight into the child-robot interaction and robot role design in musical instrument learning. Specifically, our findings shed light on personalization in HRI, that is, from adapting the role of the robot to the characteristics and the development level of the user.

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