Producing the self: Digitisation, music-making and subjectivity

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110093
Author(s):  
Paul Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Creative Agency ◽  
Music Software ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Online Tutorials ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation ◽  
Software Interfaces ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
User Friendly

This article demonstrates how the availability of music platforms, the guidance of online tutorials and user-friendly affordances of software interfaces have democratised the making of electronic music. Software users traverse new forms of technology as part of their social and cultural selves, the confluence of musical affiliation and specific social media platforms supporting the production and exploration of identity. Case studies of women and non-binary identifying music-makers highlight digitisation’s role in enabling creative agency. Music emerging through these processes evidences a stylistic fluidity that indicates its means of construction, using the sampling, pitch, and time-stretching capabilities of the digital audio workstation. Digitisation provides the inspiration of a world of music and the means and knowledge of how to make it, allowing musical, personal and collective subjectivities to be explored.

DIY Recreational Recording as Music Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Patrick Bell
Keyword(s):  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Tape Recording ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Audio Engineering ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Ease Of Access ◽  
Home Studio

This chapter presents a portrait of DIY (do-it-yourself) recreational recording as it exists currently, using the personal example of a band’s music making processes. It also examines the evolution of DIY recording from its genesis to its current iteration (e.g., digital audio workstation) to illustrate how present practices have been informed and influenced by past practices. While DIY recording may not always be recreational by nature, the chapter focuses specifically on DIY recording as a leisurely pursuit. The ethos of DIY, self-sufficiency, is summarized by the idea that music making is all about producing your own music using whatever resources are available to you. Interspersing autoethnographic excerpts with an analysis of select primary and secondary historical documents on recording (home studio, project studio, tape recording, audio engineering), this chapter charts the development of DIY recreational recording as a process-based music making practice tethered to the tenets of ease of access and ease of use.

Electronic Music School

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kuhn ◽  
Ethan Hein
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
State University ◽  
New York University ◽  
Music School ◽  
Technology Program ◽  
College Age ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation

This book is a practical blueprint for teachers who want to begin teaching project-based music technology, production, and songwriting to secondary and college-age students. It aims to inspire teachers to expand beyond the usual ensemble offerings and to create a culture of unique creativity at their schools. The approach primarily draws upon the authors’ experiences developing and implementing the music technology program at Lebanon (Ohio) High School, one of the nation’s largest secondary-level programs, and courses at New York University and Montclair State University. While the lesson templates can be used with any hardware and software setup, the popular digital audio workstation Ableton Live is used for specific examples and screenshots.

scholarly journals Making Music, Finishing Music – An Inquiry Into the Music-Making Practice of Popular Electronic Music Students in the “Laptop-Era”

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-178
Author(s):  
Andreas Waaler Røshol ◽  
Eirik Sørbø
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Original Music ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation ◽  
Meta Learning ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Masters Students ◽  
Experience Of Flow

In this study we seek to present a description of how bachelor and masters students in popular electronic music experience making original music in their chosen Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The chapter focuses on how the participants understand their role while making music afforded by the DAW environment, their strategies for getting started when making music, and the challenges they experience when finishing music. In the study we interviewed six students at bachelor and masters level. We see a tendency in how participants attribute the technical component of music making as the defining aspect of the producer role. The respondents seem to understand themselves as primarily producers when making music in the DAW environment. When starting out with a new song, most of the respondents describe an experience of flow that gradually dissolves as the structure of the song emerges and their inner critique gains foothold. The respondents concur on the challenges of finishing music in the rich decision-making environment that the DAW affords. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of students developing their own creative strategies suited to their unique music-making practice. We argue that the students need to become self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop such creative strategies. Arguably, teaching practice that facilitates such meta-learning is therefore highly relevant in higher electronic music education. This is especially relevant in the DAW environment where discipline is required in order to stop fiddling with details and release their music to the world.

Tech You Will Need for Your Program

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
Will Kuhn ◽  
Ethan Hein
Keyword(s):  
Music Teachers ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Creative Music ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation ◽  
Practical Recommendations

This chapter presents an optimal equipment list for establishing a creative music technology lab. While preservice music teachers are taught how to purchase and maintain instruments, they are rarely given equivalent advice for music production tools. This chapter provides practical recommendations for purchasing and maintaining hardware, software, and furniture, including computers, digital audio workstation software, headphones, MIDI controllers, microphones, tables, podiums, display screens, and soundproofing. Suggestions are given for arrangement and design of the overall space as well as design of individual workstations. The chapter also includes suggestions for managing wear and tear on equipment, for maintenance and cleaning routines, and for sustainable budgeting. Finally, for situations where the optimal setup is not immediately attainable, the various items described here are ranked in terms of priority.

The Digital Audio Workstation

2017 ◽  
pp. 219-264
Author(s):  
David Miles Huber ◽  
Robert E. Runstein
Keyword(s):  
Digital Audio ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation

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.

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.

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