Composition portfolio : producing techno grooves

PhD Thesis Additional music to be consulted in Robinson Library only.PhD submission consisting of a portfolio of recordings presented both in their published form on five twelve-inch vinyl records and on two compact discs. The portfolio is accompanied by a commentary intended to facilitate access to the aesthetic statement presented in the portfolio. Following Charles Keil’s distinction between ‘embodied meaning’ and ‘engendered feeling’ this project investigates approaches to the creation of Techno music in terms of the significance of specific sounds, techniques and technologies in generating subsyntactic value. The concept of the groove and the importance of microtiming as they operate in my practice are discussed in the commentary and demonstrated through the production of a series of Techno records including both original compositions and remixes

Commentary on the Portfolio of Compositions submitted for the degree of PhD in Music Composition, University of Durham by Mariam Rezaei, 2016

The compositional practices in turntable writing as a solo and ensemble instrument in the works of this portfolio are research based, exploring a variety of methods to notate work in response to experiments. The challenges and opportunities that have arisen throughout this development of composition have directed the research along different routes, promoting the turntable as a musical instrument in different instrumental ensembles. Devising a repertoire that did not previously exist has in part developed the turntable as an instrument where there are gaps in its history and also helped firmly established its place within contemporary music instrumental ensembles. Within this commentary, the defined techniques employed in the turntable works are not simply derived either from hip hop turntablism or New Art turntablism, but instead establish a synthetic practice. Skills from both traditions are mixed together with fluidity in order to establish a new repertoire for turntable through taught skills by developing a new ensemble of turntablists, NOISESTRA. This approach, combined with experiments in graphic notation, brings together performers in a new way, where established and highly skilled musicians work with young performers in a community music setting, willing to experiment and fail in search of successfully creating new sounds with turntables. The research includes a working methodology of compositional process that relates to popular teaching theories of Roger Hart, David Holb, John Stevens and Neil Fleming. Observations from conventionally notated and graphic scores, analysed writings of Katz, Smith alongside Brewster and Broughton broaden the search for the appropriate means for which to notate for turntables both with and without instrumental ensembles. Concluding that there is no one correct way to notate for turntable, I demonstrate several notational methods including an adaptation of the 5-line system in some compositions, and experiment with 2D, and 3D video graphic scores in others, proving that there are advantages and disadvantages in each individual context. I evaluate my compositional practice and assess the success of strategies in writing for turntable ensemble by comparing my initial theoretical ideas with the practical experiments and results. It is recommended that performers and readers of this work read the glossary and notes in A Guide to Turntablism and Turntable Notations for Performers1 found in the appendices before reading this commentary

Studio Bench: the DIY Nomad and Noise Selector

This thesis asks questions about developing a holistic practice that could be termed ‘Studio Bench’ from what have been previously seen as three separate activities: DIY electronic instrument making, sound studio practice, and live electronics. These activities also take place in three very specific spaces. Firstly, the workshop with its workbench provides a way of making and exploring sound(-making) objects, and this workbench is considered more transient and expedient in relation to finding sounds, and the term DIY Nomad is used to describe this new practitioner. Secondly, the recording studio provides a way to carefully analyse sound(-making) objects that have been self-built and record music to play back in different contexts. Finally, live practice is used to bridge the gap between the workbench and studio, by offering another place for making and an opportunity to observe and listen to the sound(-making) object in another environment in front of a live audience. The DIY Nomad’s transient nature allows for free movement between these three spaces, finding sounds and making in a holistic fashion. Spaces are subverted. Instruments are built in the studio and recordings made on the workbench. From the nomadity of the musician, sounds are found and made quickly and intuitively, and it is through this recontextualisation that the DIY Nomad embraces appropriation, remixing, hacking and expediency. The DIY Nomad also appropriates cultures and the research is shaped through DJ practice - remixing and record selecting - noise music, and improvisation

Sonic utopia and social dystopia in the music of Hendrix, Reznor and Deadmau5

Twentieth-century popular music is fundamentally associated with electronics in its creation and recording, consumption, modes of dissemination, and playback. Traditional musical analysis, placing primacy on notated music, generally focuses on harmony, melody, and form, with issues of timbre and postproduction effects remaining largely unstudied. Interdisciplinary methodological practices address these limitations and can help broaden the analytical scope of popular idioms. Grounded in Jacques Attali's critical theories about the political economy of music, this dissertation investigates how the subversive noise of electronic sound challenges a controlling order and predicts broad cultural realignment. This study demonstrates how electronic noise, as an extra-musical element, creates modern soundscapes that require a new mapping of musical form and social intent. I further argue that the use of electronics in popular music signifies a technologically-obsessed postwar American culture moving rapidly towards an online digital revolution. I examine how electronic music technology introduces new sounds concurrent with generational shifts, projects imagined utopian and dystopian futures, and engages the tension between automated modern life and emotionally validating musical communities in real and virtual spaces. Chapter One synthesizes this interdisciplinary American studies project with the growing scholarship of sound studies in order to construct theoretical models for popular music analysis drawn from the fields of musicology, history, and science and technology studies. Chapter Two traces the emergence of the electronic synthesizer as a new sound that facilitated the transition of a technological postwar American culture into the politicized counterculture of the 1960s. The following three chapters provide case studies of individual popular artists' use of electronic music technology to express societal and political discontent: 1) Jimi Hendrix's application of distortion and stereo effects to narrate an Afrofuturist consciousness in the 1960s; 2) Trent Reznor's aggressive industrial rejection of Conservatism in the 1980s; and 3) Deadmau5's mediation of online life through computer-based production and performance in the 2000s. Lastly, this study extends existing discussions within sound studies to consider the cultural implications of music technology, noise politics, electronic timbre, multitrack audio, digital analytical techniques and online communities built through social media

The development of an audio-visual language for digital music performance

This practice-based PhD consists of a portfolio of creative work and a supporting commentary. The portfolio illustrates the design decisions relating to my digital music performance system, and focuses upon the visibility and the fluidity of digital music performance. The goal of the design is to enhance the visibility without violating the audience’s auditory imagination unnecessarily, and to enhance the fluidity without relinquishing the unique fixed nature of digital music. The performance system consists of an audio engine, control mapping engine and visual engine. The audio engine and the control mapping engine were programmed with Cycling ‘74 Max. They let the performer deconstruct and reconstruct pre-recorded audio files with her/his hands via MIDI controllers during performance. The visual engine was programmed with Derivative TouchDesigner. In various ways, it visualises and exaggerates the performer’s actions which cause sonic changes, and filters out the rest. The works are presented as videos and the supporting commentary, deals with the contexts and thinking processes which determined the current performance system. By exploring theories of electronic music performance, audiovisual, visual music, acousmatic and medium specificity, I aim to explain the reasoning behind the performance system

The Utility of Resistance in Environments for Live Performance with Electronics as Part of a Compositional Strategy

The portfolio of compositions and accompanying commentary presented here deal with three key themes: resistance, liveness, and studioness. In the introduction, resistance is split into two forms: aesthetic and practical. Aesthetic resistance is established as a productively disruptive relationship with a perceived set of musical conventions, building on theoretical work by Kohn (1997), Hegarty (2008) and Thompson (2017). Practical resistance is identified in the relationship between performers and their performance environments, inspired by Noise performance practice and Ferguson’s (2013) writing on the subject, where performers perceive unpredictability and instability in their performance environments as resistant to their authorial control. Following Phelan (2005) and Auslander (2012), liveness is found in real-time public renderings of music where performers look to take advantage of the unique affordances of their live performance situation. Studioness is identified in situations where performers make use of the unique affordances of the studio to make work where the studio’s presence is clearly evident.The portfolio of compositions (comprising two projects: ‘Spectra’ and ‘Slow Loris’) seeks to investigate the relationship between live performance and studio practice in Experimental Electronica. It employs the idea of resistance to help cultivate a condition of liveness within this context. This live practice is then examined in the studio, asking how the resistant qualities of the live material might be expressed in the studio practice? Can these artefacts of resistance be translated into something with an idiomatic studioness? The possibilities of this approach are the focus of both music and commentary. The commentary also deals with resistance in historical and contemporary theorisations of improvisation and live performance with electronics, and expressions of liveness and studioness in Noise and Experimental Electronica, reflecting upon the effectiveness of the author’s compositional methodology and the ongoing relationship between his live practice and studio work

Computer Mediated Music Production: a Study of Abstraction and Activity

Human Computer Interaction research has a unique challenge in understanding the activity systems of creative professionals, and designing the user-interfaces to support their work. In these activities, the user is involved in the process of building and editing complex digital artefacts through a process of continued refinement, as is seen in computer aided architecture, design, animation, movie-making, 3D modelling, interactive media (such as shockwave-flash), as well as audio and music production. This thesis examines the ways in which abstraction mechanisms present in music production systems interplay with producers' activity through a collective case study of seventeen professional producers. From the basis of detailed observations and interviews we examine common abstractions provided by the ubiquitous multitrack-mixing metaphor and present design implications for future systems

The grain of the digital audio workstation

This thesis explores the material conditions and practices of the digital audio workstation (DAW), treating them as a subject of musical composition. The DAW is a software application currently ubiquitous in facilitating the creation of recorded and electronic music. Despite its prominence, few have articulated its unique possibilities for compositional practice, or historically contextualised the emergence of such practices. To clarify the locus of inquiry, a theoretical framework termed the grain of the DAW is developed. Derived primarily from Roland Barthes’ notion of the grain (1977), it is understood as the sonic effects in a recorded musical work that infer the unique material conditions and practices associated with a sonic medium. It is argued that compositional techniques can foreground or conceal this grain, the latter of which is more common in many musical traditions. Employing practice-led research strategies and methods derived from experimental electronic music, compositional techniques that foreground the grain of the DAW are investigated, culminating in an album entitled Thru, the creative component of this thesis. Composition in this mode involves negotiating between sound design, arrangement, mixing, critical listening, data organisation, and managing conceptual burden (Duignan, 2008). It also involves situating the DAW as a socially constructed technology (Sterne, 2012; Pinch & Bijker, 2012), promoting individualised musical practice and mobilising several metaphors that articulate this condition