Subjective Evaluation of Binaural Renderers in Music Composition and Mixing

This study explores listeners subjective evaluation of four binaural renderers that were used to mix experimental and popular electronic music, namely Technology 1 Binaural panner (T1B), Technology 2 Atmos panner (T2A), Technology 2 Binaural panner (T2B), and Technology 3 Atmos panner (T3A). We collaborated with seven performers and composers to produce six tracks. Subsequently, 32 participants completed an online survey that compared two binauralized versions of each track. We assessed their immersive experience and preferences, and asked them to describe the differences that they could perceive between the two versions. Findings indicate that participants can perceive differences between two versions of a binaural mix rendered through two different tools. However, significant differences in immersion ratings and preferences remain stimuli dependent

Alternative Pedagogy in the Banff Practicum:Promoting Non-formal Learning, Diversity, and Excellence in Audio Education

This paper examines the alternative pedagogy of the Audio Recording Engineer Practicum of the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada that hosted up to nine participants per semester until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed by Theresa Leonard for over two decades, this program is known to have achieved gender parity in its international recruitment and is recognized as a world leader in music production vocational training. We detail the background of 13 out of the 29 participants who attended the practicum in 20182020, under the leadership of James Clemens-Seely. Also, we elicit the teaching strategies of the program based on feedback gathered from 24 participants in five focus group sessions at the end of their residency, along with semi-directed interviews of the main program leaders. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of teamwork assignments that bring sound practitioners who represent different gender identities and a range of nationalities to learning by doing in commercial recording studio settings. Finally, we discuss how the strengths of the Banff Practicum could inspire mentors and educators to reinvent the internship model and enhance the curriculum of formal audio programs

The Art of Remixing in Abidjan (Ivory Coast)

In the cosmopolitan city of Abidjan, various music traditions from Western Africa and beyond meet and hybridize with globalized black music genres such as reggae and hip hop. Based on ethnographic data collected in local recording studios, we describe the career of five studio professionals, namely Tupaï, Patché, Gabe Gooding, Charlie Kamikaze, and Lyle Nak; and we report on the workflow and digital signal processing events of three recording sessions. Our analyses reveal that the creative processes of Ivorian studio professionals are centered on remaking or remixing instrumentals that they retrieve from the web or from their past productions. We conclude with our plans for future collaborations with these practitioners and the female network Les Femmes Sont…founded by Lyle Nak

Connecting Free Improvisation Performance and Drumming Gestures through Digital Wearables

High-level improvising musicians master idiosyncratic gesture vocabularies that allow them to express themselves in unique ways. The full use of such vocabularies is nevertheless challenged when improvisers incorporate electronics in their performances. To control electronic sounds and effects, they typically use commercial interfaces whose physicality is likely to limit their freedom of movement. Based on Jim Black's descriptions of his ideal digital musical instrument, embodied improvisation gestures, and stage performance constraints, we develop the concept of a modular wearable MIDI interface to closely meet the needs of professional improvisers, rather than proposing a new generic instrument that would require substantial practice to adapt improvisational techniques already acquired. Our research draws upon different bodies of knowledge, from theoretical principles on collaboration and embodiment to wearable interface design, in order to create a digital vest called Track It, Zip It (TIZI) that features two innovative on-body sensors. Allowing for sound control, these sensors are seamlessly integrated with Black's improvisational gesture vocabulary. We then detail the design process of three TIZI prototypes structured by the outcomes of a performance test with Black, a public performance by a novice improviser during the 2017 International Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, and measurements of sensor responses. After commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of the final TIZI prototype, we discuss how our interdisciplinary and collective process involving a world-class improviser at the very center of the design process can provide recommendations to designers who wish to create interfaces better adapted to high-level performers. Finally, we present our goals for the future creation of a wireless version of the vest for a female body based on Diana Policarpo's artistic vision

Irréductibles défenseurs de la composition improvisée à New York

Cette enquête sur la pratique de la composition improvisée a été menée auprès de 12 musiciens professionnels vivant à New York et menant une carrière internationale en tant qu’improvisateurs. Ces musiciens ont été sélectionnés pour la puissance et le caractère unique de leur voix artistique, aussi pour représenter autant que possible les diversités culturelles et générationnelles qui caractérisent cette scène. Après une introduction situant leurs pratiques vis à vis de l’improvisation libre et du free jazz tels que définis dans la littérature, l’article est basé sur des citations issues d’entretiens individuels de ces musiciens, suivant un protocole de recueil et d’analyse rigoureux. Les citations sont organisées selon trois thèmes : leur définition de la composition improvisée ; leurs différentes approches artistiques ; et les liens entre leur pratique musicale et leur philosophie de vie, incluant d’éventuelles connexions politiques et/ou spirituelles. Cette analyse est illustrée d’extraits vidéo de ces musiciens à partir d’enregistrements réalisés au sein d’un projet de recherche et création plus large, qui fait appel à plusieurs approches méthodologiques pour analyser la pratique de la composition improvisée à New York. Les entretiens individuels à la base de cet article représentent la première partie de ce projet qui découle de l’expérience de terrain de l’auteure en temps que réalisatrice d’enregistrements musicaux professionnels au sein de la scène musicale étudiée

A Home Away From Home – Improviser au 21ème siècle

Special issue editor Amandine Pras introduces this issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation

Généalogies des professionnels du studio d’enregistrement à Bamako (Mali)

À partir d’une enquête ethnographique des studios d’enregistrement menée à Bamako (Mali) depuis 2014, cet article porte sur la figure et le métier d’arrangeur/ingénieur, véritable fabricant de musique et de son. Au fil d’une socio-histoire de la musique enregistrée au Mali depuis le premier studio d’enregistrement de Radio Soudan créé à la fin des années 1950, on verra comment, à partir du début des années 2000, ces arrangeurs/ingénieurs inventent une culture du studio numérique, sans quasiment aucune référence historique au studio analogique. Dans un pays où l’accès à internet est limité et où il n’existe aucun cursus de formation professionnelle aux métiers du son, il s’agira de se demander comment se constituent des communautés d’apprentissage, d’observer les modalités locales d’acquisition de savoirs audionumériques globalisés et de voir comment se dessinent des généalogies d’arrangeurs/ingénieurs

Delving into special moments of free improvisation

International audienceThis paper investigates the discrepancy between musicians’ subjective experience when they are improvising and their opinion on the musical result when they are listening back to their performance. We identified the importance of this discrepancy when we interviewed twelve New-York-based musicians coming from diverse cultural backgrounds and generations, all having an international career with more than fifteen years of professional experience in free improvisation. To further investigate the contrast between musicians’ memory about their performance experience and their feedback about the musical result, we videotaped three concerts and three studio sessions and then asked these musicians to watch, listen andcomment the video.In our paper we will present the different improvisation processes that we identified through the analysis of our interviews, with an emphasis on the similarities and disparities among the interviewees’ artistic approaches. We will describe the procedure of our feedback sessions that we adapted according to each ensemble or soloist and we will focus on i) special moments for which the musicians reported intense feelings when they were performing and ii) musical moments that were selected when listening back to the improvisations. The descriptions of these moments will be illustrated by video excerpts of the concerts.This paper contributes to designing new methods for analysis of improvisational practices by triangulating semi-directed interviews conducted within a phenomenological approach (Vermersch, 2009), observations in concerts, and self-confrontational interview methods in feedback sessions (Theureau, 2003). Our research takes place in the recent field of Tracking Creative Processes in Music (Donin & Theureau, 2007) that gives greater importance to the practitioners’ voice rather than the analysis of musical elements from recording transcriptions.By adapting the procedure of the feedback sessions to the specificities of each ensemble, we address the complexity of investigating this social practice based on creativity and idiosyncrasy

"Catching the waves and surfing your way out of them or into them" : Creativity in musicians’ discourse about free improvisation

International audienceThis title quote from saxophonist Tony Malaby illustrates musicians’ experience when they are improvising as opposed to interpreting a pre-existing composition. More specifically, free improvisation refers to non-idiomatic improvisation (Bailey, 1992), i.e. without following musical constraints implied by a tradition. Previous research on free improvisation in music has been conducted mainly in Musicology. In Cognitive Sciences, this practice has received scant attention despite the increase of works studying creativity in dance and theatre (Nakano & Okada, 2012; Magerko et al., 2009). In this communication, we investigate musicians’ practices and representations in the context of free improvisation, within and through their discourse.We interviewed twelve New-York-based musicians with diverse social and cultural backgrounds, all recognized as professional improvisers with more than fifteen years' experience. Our semi-structured interview guide combined i) questions about the inside of the practice, e.g. personal motivations, feelings related to a specific performance; and ii) questions about the outside of the practice, e.g. solo versus ensemble playing, free improvisation versus other musical genres. As we did not want to rely on musicians’ memory and capacity to share their experience only through discourse, we also recorded them in concert and then collected their feedback while listening to their performances.We analyzed all the free-format data following three approaches: i) identifying emergent concepts by using the constant comparison technique of Grounded Theory (Corbin and Strauss, 2008); ii) isolating idiosyncratic representations from consensual knowledge in musicians’ discourses by tracking various linguistic cues such as the use of personal pronouns (Dubois, 2008); and iii) detecting linguistic creativity such as metaphors, lexical creations and unexpected variation in prosody (Cloiseau, 2007). We focus the presentation of our findings on the connections between the musicians’ practice of free improvisation and their identity; the musicians’ relationship with their instrument; and the possible synesthesia between sounds and textures, kinesthesia or visualizations.To investigate the practice of free improvisation that can be either personal and/or collective, our approach conceives of language as a practice that contributes to express, share and therefore construct individual representations and consensual knowledge. In keeping with this approach, language participates to the co-construction of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Furthermore, tracking creativity in musicians’ discourse allows us to highlight the interdependence of their personality and their artistic practice. In this interdisciplinary research we thus develop new methods to address the link between representations and practices in order to investigate the musicians’ perspective on their own experience of free improvisation