Here's Geoff's considered response to my earlier ramble, which I am
happy to share with you with Geoff's permission.
On Tue, 2004-05-18 at 22:38, geoffcox wrote:
> Thought of a few comments that might help develop this... and thinking about
> what we talked about the other evening (from memory).
>
> > There are many comparisions to be made between software and music.
> > For example, both exist as a set of instructions to be interpreted and
> > executed to produce a temporal form. I play this music I've scored, I
> > run this software I've hacked together; I breathe life into my work.
>
> Maybe the relationship between the score and the music could be expanded.
> Adorno thought the score more important than the music played (in 'On the
> Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening'). How does the
> relationship between the code and the execution of that code play out? You
> could describe this quite closely in relation to the live element. (although
> clearly this applies to the conventional score and not the more experimental
> type - such as in Cage's work). This seems to relate to composition too.
> Some aspects are predetermined and some are improvised or at least
> interpreted. There is a slippage between the score and the individual
> interpretation of that score. There's a reductive tendency to see the use of
> computers as deterministic - but the live component tries to undermine this
> view. Live programming tries to reintroduce these interpretative,
> improvisational and unpredictable elements.
>
> > Indeed, some musicians explore their ideas as software processes,
> > often to the point that a software becomes the essence of the music.
> > At this point, the musicians may also be thought of as programmers
> > exploring their code manifested as sound. This does not reduce their
> > primary role as a musician, but complements it, with unique
> > perspective on the composition of their music.
>
> Maybe the craft aspect is important in this. Not all musicians take the
> extreme view that they should make the instruments they play but they
> certainly build a close and intimate relationship to them. There is also the
> link of the tool to the user and the task performed. Florian Cramer explains
> in the case of the typewriter this is important as it breaks down the false
> distinction between the writing and the tool with which the writing is
> produced, and in terms of the computer between code and data. I think there
> is something in this logic that relates to the production of music, in that
> the relationship of the code and the data or the score and the music are
> brought closer together - perhaps more than with conventional music where
> the distinction is emphasised (as with the Adorno comment).
>
> Does that follow?
>
> > Terms such as "generative music" and "processor music" have been
> > invented and appropriated to describe this new perspective on
> > composition. Much is made of the alleged properties of so called
> > "generative music" that separate the composer from the resulting work.
> > Brian Eno likens making generative music to sowing seeds that are left
> > to grow. Much is made of how we may give up control to our processes,
> > leaving them to "play in the wind." This is only one approach to
> > combining software with music, one that this paper wishes to counter
> > quite strongly. We advocate the humanisation of generative music,
> > where code isn't left alone to meander through its self-describing
> > soundscape, but is hacked together, chopped up and moulded to
> > make live music.
>
> But then, paraphrasing the famous Eno quote on generative music is that
> people will not listen to music the same way twice. Again by keeping laptop
> music live this is either emphasised or the statement is made too obvious to
> be useful.
>
> geoff
Received on Tue May 18 2004 - 23:58:44 BST