Chips with everything:coding as performance and the aesthetics of constraint

Constraint has always been a powerful driver for musical creativity. Every culture expresses shared ideas about musicality. Arguably, it is the role of the musician both to satisfy and to challenge these ideas by extrapolating from the agreed norms that emerge largely from the constraints of musical structure. Without these, music would develop by aleatory, making it near-impossible to recognise expressed musical creativity. One style of music for which constraint is a primary driver is the chiptune, a minimalist electronic style that evolved from the programmable sound generators (PSGs) of home computers and video game consoles of the early 1980s. Early gaming hardware offered limited scope for musical expression, usually only a few channels of polyphony a prescriptive palette of waveforms. In response there arose from this digital frontier a period of intense creativity, as game programmers and musicians coaxed the hardware into performing feats of musicality that it had never been designed to achieve. This paper explores the role of technical constraint in the developing aesthetic of the chiptune. By considering PSGs as expressive musical instruments whose hardware specification embodies their form and function as do the wood and strings of a clarinet or violin, we explore coding as both the virtuosic expression of technique and the means by which players might explore and transcend the boundaries of the instrument. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for chiptune analysis, both in terms of its expression as game music and in its recent emergence as a popular musical style

Designing constraints: composing and performing with digital musical systems

This paper investigates two central terms in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) – affordances and constraints – and studies their relevance to the design and understanding of digital musical systems. It argues that in the analysis of complex systems, such as new interfaces for musical expression (NIME), constraints are a more productive analytical tool than the common HCI usage of affordances. Constraints are seen as limitations enabling the musician to encapsulate a specific search space of both physical and compositional gestures, proscribing complexity in favor of a relatively simple set of rules that engender creativity. By exploring the design of three different digital musical systems, the paper defines constraints as a core attribute of mapping, whether in instruments or compositional systems. The paper describes the aspiration for designing constraints as twofold: to save time, as musical performance is typically a real-time process, and to minimize the performer’s cognitive load. Finally, it discusses skill and virtuosity in the realm of new musical interfaces for musical expression with regard to constraints

Design and use of a hackable digital instrument

This paper introduces the D-Box, a new digital musical instrument specifically designed to elicit unexpected creative uses and to support modification by the performer. Rather than taking a modular approach, the D-Box is a hackable instrument which allows for the discovery of novel working configurations through circuit bending techniques. Starting from the concept of appropriation, this paper describes the design, development and evaluation process lasting more than one year and made in collaboration with musicians and hackers.This work was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant EP/K032046/1 (2013-14)

Conformity, deformity and reformity

In any given field of artistic practice, practitioners position themselves—or find themselves positioned—according to interests and allegiances with specific movements, genres, and traditions. Selecting particular frameworks through which to approach the development of new ideas, patterns and expressions, balance is invariably maintained between the desire to contribute towards and connect with a particular set of domain conventions, whilst at the same time developing distinction and recognition as a creative individual. Creativity through the constraints of artistic domain, discipline and style provides a basis for consideration of notions of originality in the context of activity primarily associated with reconfiguration, manipulation and reorganisation of existing elements and ideas. Drawing from postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives in the analysis of modern hybrid art forms and the emergence of virtual creative environments, the transition from traditional artistic practice and notions of craft and creation, to creative spaces in which elements are manipulated, mutated, combined and distorted with often frivolous or subversive intent are considered. This paper presents an educational and musically focused perspective of the relationship between the individual and domain-based creative practice. Drawing primarily from musical and audio-visual examples with particular interest in creative disruption of pre-existing elements, creative strategies of appropriation and recycling are explored in the context of music composition and production. Conclusions focus on the interpretation of creativity as essentially a process of recombination and manipulation and highlight how the relationship between artist and field of practice creates unique creative spaces through which new ideas emerge

Co-tuning virtual-acoustic performance ecosystems: observations on the development of skill and style in the study of musician-instrument relationships

In this paper we report preliminary observations from an ongoing study into how musicians explore and adapt to the parameter space of a virtual-acoustic string bridge plate instrument. These observations inform (and are informed by) a wider approach to understanding the development of skill and style in interactions between musicians and musical instruments. We discuss a performance-driven ecosystemic approach to studying musical relationships, drawing on arguments from the literature which emphasise the need to go beyond simplistic notions of control and usability when assessing exploratory and performatory musical interactions. Lastly, we focus on processes of perceptual learning and co-tuning between musician and instrument, and how these activities may contribute to the emergence of personal style as a hallmark of skilful music-making

Hackable Instruments: Supporting Appropriation and Modification in Digital Musical Interaction

This paper investigates the appropriation of digital musical instruments, wherein the performer develops a personal working relationship with an instrument that may differ from the designer's intent. Two studies are presented which explore different facets of appropriation. First, a highly restrictive instrument was designed to assess the effects of constraint on unexpected creative use. Second, a digital instrument was created which initially shared several constraints and interaction modalities with the first instrument, but which could be rewired by the performer to discover sounds not directly anticipated by the designers. Each instrument was studied with 10 musicians working individually to prepare public performances on the instrument. The results suggest that constrained musical interactions can promote the discovery of unusual and idiosyncratic playing techniques, and that tighter constraints may paradoxically lead to a richer performer experience. The diversity of ways in which the rewirable instrument was modified and used indicates that its design is open to interpretation by the performer, who may discover interaction modalities that were not anticipated by the designers

The sound of 1-bit:technical constraint and musical creativity on the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum

This article explores constraint as a driver of creativity and innovation in early video game soundtracks. Using what was, perhaps, the most constrained platform of all, the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum, as a prism through which to examine the development of an early branch of video game music, the paper explores the creative approaches adopted by programmers to circumvent the Spectrum’s technical limitations so as to coax the hardware into performing feats of musicality that it had never been designed to achieve. These solutions were not without computational or aural cost, however, and their application often imparted a unique characteristic to the sound, which over time came to define the aesthetic of the 8-bit computer soundtrack, a sound which has been developed since as part of the emerging chiptune scene. By discussing pivotal moments in the development of ZX Spectrum music, this article will show how the application of binary impulse trains, granular synthesis, and pulse-width modulation came to shape the sound of 1-bit music