Having been quite heavily involved in the classical music scene here in Cambridge since I arrived, I occasionally find myself in danger of unthinkingly adopting the institutional attitude towards Music (with a capital M): the privileging of the acoustic, the prizing of virtuosity, the hero-worship of composers. While all of these aspects of music are certainly worthy of admiration, I think it's a mistake to think that all musical creativity must be seen in those terms.
One particular area of musical creativity that doesn't fit this model is the rise of the 'virtuoso producer', to (possibly) coin a phrase. The skill that these individuals show - people like Trent Reznor, Danger Mouse; bands like Massive Attack - is not to be underestimated. It's orchestration on steroids. Traditional orchestration is an admirable skill, but at least the acoustic symphony orchestra is a relatively stable space of possibilities with its own established set of heuristics. For the studio producer, however, anything is possible. Instruments are not chosen, so much as sounds, which in most cases have to be constructed, either by analogue chains of signal-processing pedals (in the case of guitars, for example) or in their digital equivalents in the various software packages that exist for the purpose of production. Of course, like orchestrators, producers have their heuristics - but producers must, in many cases, construct the 'instruments' in their ensemble as well as arranging the overall texture. No mean feat.
Any account of musical creativity must bear in mind the ways in which the musical landscape is shifting. And that's just within Western culture; we haven't even begun to think about the ways in which the creative activity in other cultures differs from ours. Given the monolithic nature of Western classical music, it could even be that a university music department is exactly the wrong place to start a review of creative musical practice.
Saturday 11 June 2011
Tuesday 7 June 2011
The Laptop Orchestra
"You see," says the sceptic, stroking his beard, "one of the big problems I have with electronic music has to do with its insularity. Not that that's the only problem I have with it, of course!" He guffaws, compromising the integrity of the buttons on his tweed blazer. "The music - if we are to call it such - is produced by an individual sitting at a computer, feverishly typing and blinking at a screen, without any possibility of interaction with others. And surely, is not the interaction with other musicians one of the most compelling reasons we have to produce music in the first place?"
He's right, of course. Music is, ultimately, a way of communicating. And certainly, I can see how electronic music, thus construed, might be seen as inherently introspective, possibly ruling it out of being considered as music at all. However, it doesn't have to be so. Enter the Laptop Orchestra. Electronic musicians all over the world are emerging from their dingy basements and coming together to improvise in jam sessions with fellow enthusiasts. The only difference is that, instead of guitars and keyboards, their instrument is the computer. Electronic music doesn't have to be insular after all.
Sam Aaron and I are currently talking about setting up a laptop orchestra in Cambridge. This would be by no means limited to bespectacled, Star-Trek-merchandise-collecting ubernerds - the idea is that anybody who's capable of pressing buttons and executing simple commands can join in an impromptu, improvised electronic jam session. More traditional musicians can even bring along their acoustic instruments and play along. We use our computers for almost everything else: why not use them to make music together? Watch this space.
He's right, of course. Music is, ultimately, a way of communicating. And certainly, I can see how electronic music, thus construed, might be seen as inherently introspective, possibly ruling it out of being considered as music at all. However, it doesn't have to be so. Enter the Laptop Orchestra. Electronic musicians all over the world are emerging from their dingy basements and coming together to improvise in jam sessions with fellow enthusiasts. The only difference is that, instead of guitars and keyboards, their instrument is the computer. Electronic music doesn't have to be insular after all.
Sam Aaron and I are currently talking about setting up a laptop orchestra in Cambridge. This would be by no means limited to bespectacled, Star-Trek-merchandise-collecting ubernerds - the idea is that anybody who's capable of pressing buttons and executing simple commands can join in an impromptu, improvised electronic jam session. More traditional musicians can even bring along their acoustic instruments and play along. We use our computers for almost everything else: why not use them to make music together? Watch this space.
Monday 6 June 2011
NIME is on your side
Oslo is probably heaving a sigh of relief after last week's NIME madness. Hordes of programmers, designers, musicians and techies of all stripes descended on the city, brandishing Apple products, to converse enthusiastically about their favourite force-sensitive resistors, among other topics. For a musician/philosopher such as myself, the prospect of conversing with such tech-savvy individuals (who, I reckoned, probably thought in labelled circuit diagrams) was intimidating to say the least, but I needn't have worried. A friendlier bunch I could not have met. Between playing with the new wacky instruments being demo-ed, trying out the latest open-source audio processing software and even running around a classroom pretending to be a sine oscillator (I'm not even joking), I had a whale of a time.
It was truly inspiring to meet so many people from such a wide variety of disciplines who had all come together because of a shared passion for music. One of the main emergent themes of discussion was that everyone, not just the privileged few, should be encouraged to express themselves creatively through music. If we can get more people to overcome their inhibitions and try their hand at making music, in whatever rudimentary way, through designing apps for the iPad (like the Magic Fiddle) or interactive museum installations, then the interaction will be its own reward. This, I thought, is what music is really about: self-expression, communication and above all, fun.
Not only that, but new interfaces for musical expression (as per the conference series title) open up a whole new world of sonic possibilities to the creative performers. We are no longer limited to the native sounds of objects: we can map our actions to whatever musical parameters we want. We can make sounds that nobody has ever made before, in completely novel and bespoke ways. Not only that, but the hardware we need to design such instruments is for the most part very cheap, and there is an ever-growing number of open-source software applications being developed by magnanimous folk all over the world. Of course, this open-endedness brings its own challenges - the removal of all constraints will result in paralysis until we decide which ones need to be reintroduced - but there is no doubt that it's an exciting time to be a musician. Roll on NIME 2012.
It was truly inspiring to meet so many people from such a wide variety of disciplines who had all come together because of a shared passion for music. One of the main emergent themes of discussion was that everyone, not just the privileged few, should be encouraged to express themselves creatively through music. If we can get more people to overcome their inhibitions and try their hand at making music, in whatever rudimentary way, through designing apps for the iPad (like the Magic Fiddle) or interactive museum installations, then the interaction will be its own reward. This, I thought, is what music is really about: self-expression, communication and above all, fun.
Not only that, but new interfaces for musical expression (as per the conference series title) open up a whole new world of sonic possibilities to the creative performers. We are no longer limited to the native sounds of objects: we can map our actions to whatever musical parameters we want. We can make sounds that nobody has ever made before, in completely novel and bespoke ways. Not only that, but the hardware we need to design such instruments is for the most part very cheap, and there is an ever-growing number of open-source software applications being developed by magnanimous folk all over the world. Of course, this open-endedness brings its own challenges - the removal of all constraints will result in paralysis until we decide which ones need to be reintroduced - but there is no doubt that it's an exciting time to be a musician. Roll on NIME 2012.
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