The creative act of live coding practice in music performance

Live coding is the creative act of interactive code evaluations and online multimodal assessments. In the context of music performance, novel code evaluations are becoming part of the running program and are interrelated to acoustic sounds. Performers’ and audience ability to experience these novel auditory percepts may involuntary engage our attention. In this study, we discuss how live coding is related to auditory and motor perception and how gestural interactions may influence musical algorithmic structures. Furthermore, we examine how musical live coding practices may bring forth emergent qualities of musical gestures on potentially equivalent systems. The main contribution of this study is a preliminary conceptual framework for evaluation of live coding systems. We discuss several live coding systems which exhibit broad variations on the proposed dimensional framework and two cases which go beyond the expressive capacity of the framework

An analytical framework for musical live coding systems based on gestural interactions in performance practices

Gestural interaction in live coding performance is still in its infancy, albeit the long tradition in music performance studies. Computational challenges in musical live coding have been motivating the research community towards the development of novel programming languages and interfaces. On the other hand, given the maturity of many music systems there is an increasing demand for theory building on live coding systems and practices. Here, we present an observational study from videos of live performances available online and we introduce an analytical framework for live coding music systems. We begin by examining how performance practices differ on potentially equivalent systems. On the spotlight of the framework is the viewpoint of gestural interactions under the prism of music psychology and perception. We examined several systems on three main processes: (i) interface design, (ii) gestural mapping and (iii) user\u27s interaction. These processes are presented as an orthogonal three-dimensional framework, so to facilitate visualizations and readers\u27 understanding. Preliminary assessments of the systems in question agree with ground truth knowledge of the computational classification of the systems. Furthermore, we analyze a few notable systems that are stretching the boundaries of our dimensional framework, indicating that more dimensions may be required. Finally, we discuss the analytical framework in relation to a higher-level description of live coding music performance and we discuss future studies that may be conducted to assess the validity of this approach

Feeling Machines: Immersion, Expression, and Technological Embodiment in Electroacoustic Music of the French Spectral School

This dissertation considers the music and technical practice of composers affiliated with French spectralism, including Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Jean-Claude Risset, and Kaija Saariaho. They regularly described their work, which was attuned to the transformative experiences that technologies of electronic sound production and reproduction could inspire in listeners, using metaphoric appeals to construction: to designing new sounds or exploring new illusory aural phenomena. To navigate a nascent but fast-expanding world of electronic and computer music, the spectralists appealed to physical musical attributes including gesture, space, and source-cause identification. Fascinated by gradual timbral transformations, they structured some of their pieces to invite speculative causal listening even while seeking to push it to expressive extremes. I hypothesize that, much as the immersive technology of the cinema can create the illusory feeling of flight in viewers, electronic music can inspire listeners to have experiences in excess of their physical capabilities. Those feelings are possible because listening can be understood as empathetic and embodied, drawing on a listener’s embodied and ecological sensorimotor knowledge and musical imagery alongside referential, semiotic, and cultural aspects of music. One way that listeners can engage with sounds is by imagining how they would create them: what objects would be used, what kind of gestures would they perform, how much exertion would be required, what space would they inhabit. I cite recent research in psychoacoustics to argue that timbre indexes material, gesture, and affect in music listening. Technologies of sound production and reproduction allow for the manipulation of these tendencies by enabling composers to craft timbres that mimic, stretch, or subvert the timbres of real objects. Those electronic technologies also suggest manipulations to composers, by virtue of their design affordances, and perform an epistemological broadening by providing insight into the malleability of human perceptual modes. I illustrate these claims with analytic examples from Murail’s Ethers (1978), Saariaho’s Verblendungen (1984), and Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour (1984), relating an embodied and corporeal account of my hearing and linking it to compositional and technological features of spectral music

Reality overtakes Myth : Ivo van Hove Stages Der Ring des Nibelungen

Ivo van Hove staged Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen for the Flemish Opera from 2006 to 2008. This article argues that the production should be considered among the most innovative takes on Wagner at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Van Hove's daring move to include modern technology into the story turned Information Technology into an updated replacement for mythological magic. The definition of the Ring as a computer chip that could grant world dominance to its owner was the starting point for a thorough interpretation of Wagner's Ring in contemporary terms

Effort in gestural interactions with imaginary objects in Hindustani Dhrupad vocal music

Physical effort has often been regarded as a key factor of expressivity in music performance. Nevertheless, systematic experimental approaches to the subject have been rare. In North Indian classical (Hindustani) vocal music, singers often engage with melodic ideas during improvisation by manipulating intangible, imaginary objects with their hands, such as through stretching, pulling, pushing, throwing etc. The above observation suggests that some patterns of change in acoustic features allude to interactions that real objects through their physical properties can afford. The present study reports on the exploration of the relationships between movement and sound by accounting for the physical effort that such interactions require in the Dhrupad genre of Hindustani vocal improvisation. The work follows a mixed methodological approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse interviews, audio-visual material and movement data. Findings indicate that despite the flexibility in the way a Dhrupad vocalist might use his/her hands while singing, there is a certain degree of consistency by which performers associate effort levels with melody and types of gestural interactions with imaginary objects. However, different schemes of cross-modal associations are revealed for the vocalists analysed, that depend on the pitch space organisation of each particular melodic mode (rāga), the mechanical requirements of voice production, the macro-structure of the ālāp improvisation and morphological cross-domain analogies. Results further suggest that a good part of the variance in both physical effort and gesture type can be explained through a small set of sound and movement features. Based on the findings, I argue that gesturing in Dhrupad singing is guided by: the know-how of humans in interacting with and exerting effort on real objects of the environment, the movement–sound relationships transmitted from teacher to student in the oral music training context and the mechanical demands of vocalisation

The composer as technologist : an investigation into compositional process

This work presents an investigation into compositional process. This is undertaken where a study of musical gesture, certain areas of cognitive musicology, computer vision technologies and object-orientated programming, provide the basis for a composer (author) to assume the role of a technologist and acquire knowledge and skills to that end. In particular, it focuses on the application and development of a video gesture recognition heuristic to the compositional problems posed. The result is the creation of an interactive musical work with score for violin and electronics that supports the research findings. In addition, the investigative approach into developing technology to solve musical problems that explores practical composition and aesthetic challenges is detailed

Fantasy and functionality : Surveying personal italo disco related musical experience as a metaphoric-affective conceptualization process

In this thesis, I study personal musical experience in the light of so-called embodied cognition. According to this research paradigm, meaning arises from our interaction with the physical world in a process where the human body has a mediating role. The process has been shown to be metaphorical by nature, due to which I base my introspective findings mostly on the conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) of Lakoff & Johnson. Interaction with environment invokes affects, which has consequences in terms of person’s preference for metaphoric content. The goal of my work is to investigate reasons for my penchant for certain kind of music. Addressing this involves scrutinising my own perceptions and feelings when listening to italo disco, thus, music that I like, and supporting the findings with theories and earlier research. Besides CMT and also traditional music analysis, I utilise, for example, the complementary theories of the sonic object and musical gestures in pointing out experiential entities from textural and timbral elements of an italo disco song. The entities (sonic objects) are expected to arise from an affective sensation of motion, a process where conceptual metaphor plays an important role. Therefore, at the second stage of the analysis, I demonstrate metaphors on the grounds of the sonic objects in an attempt of establishing at least a part of my personal “metaphorical repertoire”. Arnie Cox’s mimetic hypothesis and framework for the study of musical affect is applied particularly during the second part of the analysis. The results of the inquiry confirm my hypothesis about the central role of conceptual metaphor in the emergence of (personal) musical experience. The set of metaphors I succeeded to point out suggest that I’m inclined to music that communicates powerful and energetic, thus clearly arousing affects–music that responds to the need of indulging in fantasy.Tutkin työssäni yksilöllistä musiikkikokemusta niin sanotun kehollisen kognition paradigman kautta. Tämän lähestymistavan mukaan merkitykset syntyvät vuorovaikutuksessa fyysisen maailman kanssa. Keholla on tässä prosessissa välittävä rooli. Prosessi on osoittautunut metaforiseksi, minkä vuoksi pohjaan introspektiiviset havaintoni pääasiassa Lakoffin & Johnsonin käsitteelliseen metaforateoriaan. Ympäristön kanssa vuorovaikutuksessa oleminen herättää affekteja, millä on vaikutusta siihen, minkälaisen metaforasisällön henkilö laittaa etusijalle. Työni tavoitteena on tutkia syitä musiikkimieltymyksiini. Metodina käytän omien aistimusteni ja tunteideni tarkkailua kuunnellessani italodiskoa–musiikkia, joka vetoaa minuun. Tuen introspektion tuloksia eri teorioilla sekä aiemmalla tutkimuksella. Käsitteellisen metaforateorian ja esimerkiksi perinteisen musiikkianalyysin lisäksi käytän muun muassa niin sanotun ääniobjektin ja musiikillisten eleiden teorioita pyrkiessäni osoittamaan kokemusperäisiä kokonaisuuksia italodiskokappaleen tekstuurisista ja äänenvärillisistä osatekijöistä. Kokonaisuuksien (ääniobjektien) voidaan olettaa syntyvän affektiivisen liikkeen aistimuksen pohjalta. Tässä prosessissa käsitteellinen metafora on tärkeässä roolissa. Siksi analyysin toisessa vaiheessa osoitan ääniobjekteihin pohjautuvia käsitteellisiä metaforia tarkoituksenani esitellä osa henkilökohtaisesta ”metaforarepertuaaristani”. Arnie Coxin mimeettistä hypoteesia ja musiikillisen affektin viitekehystä sovelletaan varsinkin analyysin toisessa vaiheessa. Tutkimuksen tulokset vahvistavat hypoteesini käsitteellisen metaforan keskeisestä roolista (henkilökohtaisen) musiikkikokemuksen synnyssä. Osoittamani metaforakokoelma viittaa viehtymykseeni voimakkaita ja energisiä, selvästi kiihottavia affekteja viestivää musiikkia kohtaan–musiikkia, joka mahdollistaa heittäytymisen fantasian maailmaan