A Personal Reminiscence on the Roots of Computer Network Music

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
Scot Gresham-Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Personal Reminiscence ◽  
Early Computer ◽  
Network Music ◽  
Heterogeneous Quality ◽  
Transition Points ◽  
Fundamental Shift

This historical reminiscence details the evolution of a type of electronic music called “computer network music.” Early computer network music had a heterogeneous quality, with independent composers forming a collective; over time, it has transitioned into the more autonomous form of university-centered “laptop orchestra.” This transition points to a fundamental shift in the cultural contexts in which this artistic practice was and is embedded: The early work derived from the post-hippie, neo-punk anarchism of cooperatives whose members dreamed that machines would enable a kind of utopia. The latter is a direct outgrowth of the potential inherent in what networks actually are and of a sense of social cohesion based on uniformity and standardization. The discovery that this style of computer music-making can be effectively used as a curricular tool has also deeply affected the evolution and approaches of many in the field.

Genre and Capital in Avant-garde Electronica

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71
Author(s):  
Eliot Britton
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Flexible Boundaries ◽  
Structured Approach

This article applies a genre level approach to the tangled discourse surrounding the points of convergence between avant-garde electronica and electroacoustic music. More specifically the article addresses related experimental practices in these distinct yet related fields of electronic music-making. The democratisation of music technology continues to expand into an increasingly diverse set of musical fields, destabilising established power dynamics. A flexible, structured approach to the analysis of these relationships facilitates the navigation of crumbling boundaries and shifting relationships. Contemporary electronic music’s overlapping networks encompass varying forms of capital, aesthetics, technology, ideology, tools and techniques. These areas offer interesting points of convergence. As the discourse surrounding electronic music expands, so must the vocabulary and conceptual models used to describe and discuss new areas of converging artistic practice. Genre level diagrams selectively collapse, expand and arrange artistic fields, facilitating concrete, coherent arguments and the examination of patterns and relationships. Through the genre level diagram’s establishment of distinct yet flexible boundaries, electronic music’s sprawling discourse can be cordoned off, expanded or contracted to suit structured analyses. In this way, this approach clarifies scope and facilitates simultaneous examination from a variety of perspectives.

The Hub: The Hub Computer Network Music

1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Warren Sirota
Keyword(s):  
Computer Network ◽  
Network Music

The Hub: Live Computer Network Music with Guest Artists Alvin Curran and the Rova Saxophone Quartet

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Jonatas Manzolli ◽  
Wreckin' Ball ◽  
Alvin Curran
Keyword(s):  
Computer Network ◽  
Saxophone Quartet ◽  
Network Music

Supporting Everyday Creativity in Ubiquitous Music Making

2016 ◽  
pp. 78-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damián Keller ◽  
Maria Helena de Lima
Keyword(s):  
Information Value ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Technological Support ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Creative Experience ◽  
Musical Creativity ◽  
Musical Resources ◽  
Music Information ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Musical Activities

The concept of everyday musical creativity is related to non-professional musical activities carried out in venues not intended for artistic practice. Everyday musical creativity demands technological support to provide access to musical resources by non-musicians and by musicians engaging in musical activities in domestic and public spaces. This chapter covers key aspects of the conceptual ubiquitous music framework and its methodological implications for the support of everyday creative activities. We discuss strategies to enhance music information value within the context of two sets of studies, the first set focusing on the development of an interaction metaphor and the second set dealing with the assessment of technological requirements to support creative musical activities in educational contexts. One of the implications of the methodological framework proposed by ubiquitous music studies is the expanded notion of musical information as a product of creative experience rather than as an abstract symbolic system.

Talking Drum: A Local Area Network Music Installation

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Brown
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Time Delays ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
Local Area Network ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Area Network ◽  
Performance Space ◽  
Simple Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Musical Concepts ◽  
Network Music

Talking Drum is an interactive computer network music installation designed for the diffusion of cyclically repeating rhythms produced by four electronically synchronized instruments separated by distances up to 50 feet (16 m). The reverberant character of the performance space and the distance-related time-delays between stations combine with the speed and rhythms of the music to create a complex, multifocal mix that audiences explore by moving independently through the installation. The software uses Afro-Cuban musical concepts as a model for creating an interactive drum machine. It implements a simple genetic algorithm to mediate the interaction between pre-composed and improvised rhythms.

scholarly journals Exploring the motivations for building new digital musical instruments

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Emerson ◽  
Hauke Egermann
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Interview Study ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Sound Synthesis ◽  
Responsive Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Digital Sound

Over the past four decades, the number, diversity and complexity of digital musical instruments (DMIs) has increased rapidly. There are very few constraints on DMI design as such systems can be easily reconfigured, offering near limitless flexibility for music-making. Given that new acoustic musical instruments have in many cases been created in response to the limitations of available technologies, what motivates the development of new DMIs? We conducted an interview study with ten designers of new DMIs, in order to explore (a) the motivations electronic musicians may have for wanting to build their own instruments; and (b) the extent to which these motivations relate to the context in which the artist works and performs (academic vs club settings). We found that four categories of motivation were mentioned most often: M1 – wanting to bring greater embodiment to the activity of performing and producing electronic music; M2 – wanting to improve audience experiences of DMI performances; M3 – wanting to develop new sounds, and M4 – wanting to build responsive systems for improvisation. There were also some detectable trends in motivation according to the context in which the artists work and perform. Our results offer the first systematically gathered insights into the motivations for new DMI design. It appears that the challenges of controlling digital sound synthesis drive the development of new DMIs, rather than the shortcomings of any one particular design or existing technology.

Tectonics Glasgow, 1–3 May 2015

Tempo ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (274) ◽  
pp. 62-64
Author(s):  
Matthew Hammond
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
The Common ◽  
Music Programming

Ilan Volkov's Tectonics series continues to break new ground in contemporary music programming and curating. Tectonics has now seen its third edition in Glasgow, where Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and has also sprung up in other locations to which he has connections – beginning in his home city of Tel Aviv, the series has spread also to Reykjavik, Adelaide and New York. The common theme is a blend of new commissions (usually orchestral works), important recent works, and performances from figures from other areas of avant-garde music making – free improvisation, electronic music and the outer fringes of noise and metal.

scholarly journals Digital Musical Performance as the Refl ection of the Axiosphere of Culture and the Educational Space of the Digital Age

ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Natalia N. Petrova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Artistic Process ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Digital Performance ◽  
Generation Z ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Analysis Of Performance ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The article examines performance on contemporary digital musical instruments, such as the keyboard synthesizer, the digital piano, the digital button and keyboard accordion and others, as a direction of artistic creativity in the contemporary sociocultural space on demand by numerous music lovers and professional performers. Evaluation is given to the possibilities of functioning for electronic musical creativity in the culturalcreative, communicative and educational angles. A phenomenological analysis of performance on electronic musical instruments is carried out and data is provided about the peculiarities of the sociocultural perception among various target auditoriums. The heuristic potential of electronic music-making for the young generation is highlighted in the refl ection of the demands of generation Z on poly-timbre and multi-genres in the artistic process. Examples are brought of successful attempts of realizing of individual and ensemble digital performance which has made it possible to manifest the fundamental functions of artistic culture, to create a system of moral and aesthetic values which would be relevant for society, and to form an aesthetically organized, highly technological sociocultural milieu.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Klisala Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Capability Development ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

This introduction considers the author’s position to the subject matter and book, including its insistence that people who experience poverty should enjoy human rights all of the time, even at the time of music-making. A critical ethnography of human rights in artistic practice, it introduces what musicking, or the social processes of engaging music, does and does not do for urban poor from the perspective of capability development and human rights. Developing capabilities is a key element of struggling toward human rights, but these capabilities may not be human rights in themselves. The prelude describes the author’s roles as a violinist, arts organizer and researcher in urban poverty as well as how she overcame methodological challenges faced during the study.

The Mobile Device: A new folk instrument?

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Jones
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Device ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Sound Processing ◽  
The Core ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Live Electronic Music ◽  
Mobile Music ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Consumer Devices

Barbara Ballard's ‘carry principle’ defines the core elements of the mobile experience: small, personal, communicative, multifunctional, battery operated and always connected (Ballard 2007: 71). These qualities have ensured that for many of us some form of mobile device has become indispensable. Developments in mobile computing have meant that consumer devices are capable of increasingly sophisticated sound processing, leading to the emergence of new forms of mobile music. If this music is looked on as a new sub-genre of folk music, we might be able to put it in the context of live electronic music-making. With this in mind, this article will ask whether the mobile device has the potential to be considered a new folk instrument.

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