KEYWORDS
computer
music composition and performance
interactive software systems,
design and implementation,
design and implementation,
gestural-controlled audio systems,
digital
instrument / controller design
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ABSTRACT
| This talk takes a look at the importance of the following three areas to the compositional process of creating music for digital musical instruments: limits; paradigms; sound-gesture combinations. Examples will be drawn from the presenter’s recent compositions for soprano t-stick: solo chamber music and ‘mixed’ work for large ensemble and digital musical instruments. Interfacing with our wide-open sound world, with the purpose of composing and performing a piece of music, requires the implementation of limits from the get-go. In particular, creating an original musical composition for a digital musical instrument demands constraints on aspects such as instrumental voice (i.e., sound) and instrumental action (i.e., gesture). In turn, constraints help to limit the musical material that make up a composition |
A composer benefits tremendously from the interaction with the
musicians who will eventually interpret the composition. Feedback from
musicians often takes the form of spontaneous reactions, based on
musical intuition and intelligence. We observe the musicians’ initial
reactions to the space (acoustic and poetic), for example, created by
their interfacing with technology. Moreover, a composer receives
firsthand knowledge, from musicians, regarding the effectiveness of
written symbols or graphical interfaces for music notation. The
relationship between composer and performing musician sets up a
paradigm that can be followed in order to establish fundamentals, from
which evaluative statements can be made concerning digital instruments.
Any user of new technology—in this case, an innovative digital
musical instrument—must take heed of an observation made by Ihde
(1990), speaking about transferable and embedded technology: “there is
no such thing as ‘an’ equipment ... without its belonging to some set
of culturally constituted values and processes”. Aspects of technology
that are embedded in our culture may inform how we go about combining
an instrument’s sound and the physical gesture producing the sound.
With clear boundaries in place, armed with musicians’ insight, and
considerations from a philosophy of technology, the composer goes about
developing appropriate mappings for physical ‘playing’ gestures, such
that the physical gestures combine successfully with a sound, and
subsequently have an impact on the structure of a composition in a
musically meaningful way.
D. Andrew
Stewart is in the final year of doctoral studies in music composition,
at McGill University, under the supervision of Professors John Rea and
Sean Ferguson. His research in the field of computer music and
interactive electronics has been supported by CIRMMT, IDMIL and the
Digital Composition Studios, at McGill.
Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the Lifeworld. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.