Artistic research in music: performance, innovation and career at research universities

Successful careers at research universities pose some fundamental challenges to performing artists: merit is traditionally measured through academic publication, the transformation of practice through research is seldom at odds with empirical transmission of musical knowledge, and artistic research, while potentially bridging practice and investigation, is insufficiently theorised in its definition, scope, and objectives. Drawing on Hybrid Augmented Saxophone of Gestural Symbioses (HASGS) as a case- study of artistic research, this paper is aimed at discussing the construction of the professional identity of a music university teacher. HASGS was developed by Henrique Portovedo as an academic project aimed at optimising performance by electronically controlling parameters in mixed music performed in the mechanical instrument, thus reducing the recourse to external control devices for electronic purposes. In its current form, HASGS consists of of anESP32 card integrated in a conventional saxophone providing Bluetooth and wifi connectivity, a ribbon sensor, a four button keypad, a trigger button, two pressure sensors, up and down selectors, and an accelerometer. Emerging as a response to existing works to saxophone and electronics, the system has been progressively developed in a collaboration with composers which resulted in the production of new repertoire for this hybrid instrument. In order to stimulate musical creation, a complete outline of the system’s possibilities is now available to composers. Based on HASGS as case-study, this paper shows, firstly, that research may transform the creative process, and, secondly, that the development of the system itself results from the integration of the performance in a research university, a context marginal to market logic in which experimentation is not only allowed but sought for in career development – overall, how artistic research may pursue the goals of research universities.publishe

El compromiso con la empleabilidad en un contexto de insolvencia empresarial

Número temático: Lógicas de desenvolvimento social inclusivo e sustentávelEste artigo pretende ilustrar e retratar as perspetivas e compromissos de empregabilidade num contexto de desemprego por insolvência empresarial, caracterizando o comprometimento das/dos desempregados/as com a procura de emprego. Privilegia-se, assim, uma análise qualitativa das experiências do desemprego, acreditando que permite não só compreender as vulnerabilidades das pessoas vítimas de desemprego, como os recursos por elas mobilizados para evitar a negatividade dessa experiência. Procurou-se, sobretudo, evidenciar as mudanças na vida das pessoas entrevistadas e a forma como elas representam a reinserção no mercado de trabalho e a necessidade de se reconstruírem pessoal e profissionalmente.This article seeks to illustrate and depict the employability prospects and commitments in the context of corporate insolvency by unemployment, featuring the commitment of the unemployed with job search. The focus is thus a qualitative analysis of the experiences of unemployment, believing that enables not only understand the vulnerabilities of victims of unemployment, but also the resources mobilized by them to avoid the negativity of this experience. Sought, above all, show the changes in the lives of people interviewed and how they represent the reintegration in the labour market and the need to rebuild themselves personally and professionally

The performer as a sound-based composition method

The equation of musical performance has been reformulated, not only because of the pandemic situation as a contribution for the fasten general interest on technological mediums associated with artistic and musical creation, but as well because electronic and mixed music has never been so proliferous, at the same time erudite contents on sound and timbre are arriving from different under- ground and experimental cultures, non-exclusive of formal education institu- tions. Technology is moving faster than musical practices and we are taking some snapshots of techniques applied in musical composition and performance, tech- niques whose materialities will be quickly replaced with new ones, but whose embodied structures continue and become re-implemented in later technical objects as a recycling of skills. understanding how emerging digital musical tech- nologies trace their concepts, design and functionality to practices in the current cultural epoch will bring to light a study of new-media archaeology, conceptual epistles and performative paradigms, directed, in other words, to the study of how the new technologies of mixed music-making trace their design to the prac- tices of material, symbolic, signal inscription and how practice is transforming and leading to creation. Drawing on the development and technical possibilities of Hybrid Augmented saxophone of Gestural symbioses (HAsGs) as a case study, this paper aims at discussing the optimization of augment instruments and the role of the performance in creating a new repertoire. in the context of a perform- ance practice in which the interpreter is required to be a creative agent within a multidimensional context of sonic manipulation, improvisation and expressive extension and augmentation, HAsGs is shown both as a contribute to the optimisation of this new virtuosity and as a result of its repertoire.publishe

El compromiso con la empleabilidad en un contexto de insolvencia empresarial

Número temático: Lógicas de desenvolvimento social inclusivo e sustentávelEste artigo pretende ilustrar e retratar as perspetivas e compromissos de empregabilidade num contexto de desemprego por insolvência empresarial, caracterizando o comprometimento das/dos desempregados/as com a procura de emprego. Privilegia-se, assim, uma análise qualitativa das experiências do desemprego, acreditando que permite não só compreender as vulnerabilidades das pessoas vítimas de desemprego, como os recursos por elas mobilizados para evitar a negatividade dessa experiência. Procurou-se, sobretudo, evidenciar as mudanças na vida das pessoas entrevistadas e a forma como elas representam a reinserção no mercado de trabalho e a necessidade de se reconstruírem pessoal e profissionalmente.This article seeks to illustrate and depict the employability prospects and commitments in the context of corporate insolvency by unemployment, featuring the commitment of the unemployed with job search. The focus is thus a qualitative analysis of the experiences of unemployment, believing that enables not only understand the vulnerabilities of victims of unemployment, but also the resources mobilized by them to avoid the negativity of this experience. Sought, above all, show the changes in the lives of people interviewed and how they represent the reintegration in the labour market and the need to rebuild themselves personally and professionally

Structural parameters for the non-place in Hermes, nove da noite

Hermes, nove da noite is a piece for tenor saxophone with live spatialisation and video by composer João Quinteiro. The piece was written in 2017, in collaboration with the saxophone player and, due to its level of technical exploration of the instrument, has been object of a work in progress, also with the collaboration of the saxophone player between 2017 and 2019, having reached its final version with video only in the beginning of 2022. This piece integrates a group of ten satellites, tangential to the opera Returning, and takes the homonymous poem by José Mário Silva as starting point for its compositional structure through several processes of deterritorialisation that position the character Hermes in the non-place of an ambulance, after an accident. As a depurated piece from an opera, Hermes, nove da noite keeps its autonomy by establishing a direct relationship with the original poetic text and its meta-layers of signification, more than with the scenic action of the libretto. The affirmation of the non-place happens in this piece through a compositional, visual and performative signification of limit states of the body by rupturing the possibility of projecting the assured past in the creation of a predictable future. In this scenario, the common function of the present as mediating element between the “from where to where”, transforms into a vortex that disrupts the linear perception of continuum and creates an absolute present At the structural level, the piece articulates three distinct typologies of approaching the treatment of sound materials, having as its nuclear vectors: A) continuity and discontinuity / contemplative resistance to fixation - the absolute present - composed by the articulation between abstract and absolute durations, both with long notes / multiphonics and through long eight tone melismata that achieve their final contour through a continuous dislocation across the sound space. This typology also integrates vocal sounds by the performer that result from a phonetical depuration of the original text, focused on emphasising guttural elements that portray the characters’ present state; B) continuous sound flow of short and percussive sounds on an absolute pitch is of secondary order - the interrupted past - composed by an exploration of materials with and without the mouthpiece (tongue rams, key clicks, air against the neck, slaps, alla tromba, etc.). These materials occupy the space in a contrasting manner with A, placing in evidence a pointillist and contrapuntal contour between several points of the sound space. The saxophone player disappears as sound source, playing these materials behind a fibreglass structure. The sounding body is absolutely deterritorialized of its origins and is presented only as a “spatial synapses”; C) a profane melody, built upon a Greek tonoi with origin in the Peloponnese region of Mount Kyllini (birthplace of Hermes), which spreads eight tones along a two octave register. The rhythm of these sections is completely fixated and is a direct depuration of readings from the original poem, creating an interstice between the place of the melody and the place of the text. The materials in sections C are the only ones that are not spatialized, having as its singular sound source the saxophone player - the crystallisation of the future that will not become. From a structural standpoint, the five A sections are fixated pillars of return, between which the performer defines the sequence of events by articulating six B material sections and six C material sections. Despite its apparent univocity, materialised by the saxophone as a single sound source, Hermes, nove da noite is a chamber object, fundamental for the fluidity and character of the sound materials, both regarding the place they occupy in space with the live spatialisation and the articulation with the video, not in a co- dependent relation, but as simultaneously inferring elements in a shared performatic space. The present deprived of continuity was, at the same time, a determinant agent in the process of relating Hermes with migrant communities, through collected statements and interviews, and a determining formal element for the conception of both the piece and the video. Hermes, nove da noite acquires its artistic and expressive significance by simultaneously exploring the limits of the body and the mechanisms that resist the crystallisation of perception, both of the audience and the interpreter[s].publishe

Perspetivas de reinserção no mercado do trabalho depois do desemprego? Estudo de caso de um processo de insolvência

O afastamento do trabalho é cada vez mais uma constante, e significa, além das perdas materiais, uma desorganização do tempo e do espaço vividos, a perda do estatuto de trabalhador/a e a perda da sociabilidade existente no seio do trabalho. Este artigo pretende ilustrar o modo como um processo de insolvência pode ou não levar a um processo de desqualificação social. Partindo de um caso concreto, a Ceres, pretende-se dar voz àqueles que involuntariamente perderam o emprego de uma vida. A análise qualitativa das experiências do desemprego permite não só compreender as vulnerabilidades das pessoas vítimas de desemprego, como os recursos por elas mobilizados para evitar a negatividade dessa experiência. Essencialmente, pretende-se compreender quais são as perspetivas de reinserção no mercado do trabalho, apurando se o desemprego, como consequência da insolvência, tem ou não impacto nas representações das condições de trabalho perspetivadas para o futuro. As experiências do desemprego analisadas à luz dos fatores de vulnerabilidade e dos mediadores de compensação – Estado, Sociedade-providência e atividades de substituição – permitem ainda concluir que é o Estado quem se assume como elemento primordial nas estratégias das desempregadas e desempregados da Ceres. A Sociedade-providência e as atividades de substituição surgem apenas como estratégias complementares

Slippery singularity studies: multidimensional performance as creation

The intertwining of computation with artistic environments leads to a state of permanent articulation and supports the development of artistic creation. We are immersed in computation, living in a post- humanistic and post-digital world, in which it becomes fundamental to artistic practice, to artworks, and the aesthetic experience. Since the close of the twentieth century, there has been an outbreak of musical genres and musical expressions according to two principles: the integration of tradition and technological means; and the rupture of all the contexts that cannot be seen as directly deriving from the computer and digital technology. This means that the creation process trajectory goes from concrete realities towards an external space, based upon an understanding of the adaptation of the technical and technological realities to the needs of creation, while the creation process relies on an awareness of the technological potentialities as a means to attain an artistic result. Slippery Singularity Studies belongs to a series of pieces for multiple saxophones. These pieces were developed over the specialized algorithmic composition software named Slippery Chicken, which is written in and functions on the principles of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), the Common Lisp facility for object-oriented programming. These pieces for saxophone and electronics explore microtonal relations of tone pitches and layers of multiphonics permutations. The multiphonics were organised into layers of tremoli, producing timbral changes, and were selected through a process that uses two different methods and software. The first method was implemented through a patch named SaxMultis and allows the recording of all multiphonic timbral permutations and its cataloguing. It provides, as well, the possibility of random positions of key combinations for saxophone sounds. This software is organized in the following order: Selection of Key Position, Position of Tremolo, Indication of Dynamics, Creation of Buffer with positions code, Recording. The second method, Multi2Chord, is a software as well, which analyses the spectrum of each multiphonic permutation and translates it to musical notation using ZSA and BACH Max/MSP Libraries. Technology is moving faster than musical practices and we are taking some snapshots of techniques applied in musical composition and performance, techniques whose materialities will be quickly replaced by new ones, but whose embodied structures continue and become re-implemented in later technical objects as a recycling of skills. Understanding how emerging digital musical technologies trace their concepts, design and functionality to practices in the current cultural context will bring to light a study of new-media archaeology, conceptual epistles and performative paradigms, directed, in other words, to the study of how the new technologies of mixed music-making trace their design to the practices of material, symbolic, signal inscription and how practice is transforming and leading to creation.publishe

Composition models for augmented instruments: HASGS as case study

This paper presents the concept of HASGS regarding the augmentation procedures applied to an acoustic instrument, at the same time that it is analyzed how composers applied technology prototyped to the composition of works. The development of HASGS has been driven by the compositional aspects of the original music created for this specific electronic augmented instrumental system. Instruments are characterized not only by their sound and acoustical properties but also by their performative interface and evolutionary repertoire. This last aspect has the potential to establish a practice among performers at the same time as creating the ideal of community contributing to the past, present and future of that instrument. Augmenting an acoustic instrument places some limitations on the designer ́s palette of feasible gestures because of those intrinsic performance gestures, and the existing mechanical interface, which have been developed over years, sometimes, centuries of acoustic practice. We conclude that acoustic instruments and digital technology, are able to influence and interact mutually creating Augmented Musical Performance environments based on the aesthetics of the repertoire being developed. This work is, as well, a resource of compositional methods to composers and programmers.publishe

Design process of augmented instruments

Augmented instruments (instruments expanded through their placement in a sound chain, the use of sensors and software tools) use advances in electronic and computational technology to develop new forms of expressiveness in musical performance, sonic possibilities, and compositional languages, widening the frontiers of musical art and its staging. This article focuses on describing the design process behind a series of case studies of hyper instruments: The augmented violin developed at IRCAM (Frédéric et al. 2006), the Hybrid Augmented Saxophone of Gestural Control (HASGS) (Portovedo, Lopes, and Mendes 2018), the augmented concert harp (Sullivan et al. 2018) and the sets used by Yaron Deutsch for the performance of contemporary electric guitar works. One of the aims pursued by studying these examples is to categorize the augmented instruments according to several parameters: types of sensors and hardware, mapping, need for computers and kind of software, type of gesture control (Newton and Marshall 2011), graphical user interface (Portovedo, Lopes, and Mendes 2018) and need for a musical assistant (Perrotta, Menezes, and Martins 2014). These parameters can be defined as present or absent (mapping, graphical interface, musical assistance, use of computers), specific data (sensor name, software name) or two values parameters (applicable to gesture) (Jansenius, Wanderley, and Godøy 2009). The data is analyzed for each case study and plotted in tables. Another aim is to characterize non-measurable aspects such as the importance of the performer and his involvement in the design of the instrument considering the relationship of the new instrument with the base instrument and the connection among the composition, the performance of the instrument and its theoretical and technological design. Finally, the flexibility of augmentation, that is, the possible appearance of new uses for which the instrument was not originally conceived, is also discussed. The case studies range from Deutsch's proposal, where the performer designs the different hardware connections, no software is used and each set is defined based on the work to be performed, to the concert harp, where technological analysis prevails, the performers test the operation, mathematical and mapping models are of utmost importance and there is a graphical software interface for the user. Like this case is the augmented violin of IRCAM, without a graphical interface in its description, but with a much closer collaboration of the composers. Finally, the HASGS approaches the versatility of the Deutsch sets and is designed from the interpretation and its needs, but places special emphasis on the composition of several specific works for the instrument and on the importance of the graphical user interface. From the analysis of collected data, criteria are established to describe the augmentation process and the different organological typologies, making it possible to organize the family of augmented instruments under a logical classification that allows delving deeper into their repercussion and possibilities. The additional description about the “non-mensurable” offers an image of the background and artistic framework in which the instrument is inscribed.publishe

Towards a non-computercentric performance: an augmented e-guitar proposal

Due to the potential of gestural, parametric, and interactive control of the computer as a sound medium, various interfaces have been created that externalize software and give it a more useful instrumental form for the performers, namely keyboards, pads, pedals, etc. (Bongers 2000). In the practice of an augmented instrument, herein the electric guitar, the need of gestural independence while using a computer is multiplied since most of the time the hands are playing the instrument, and the performer is focused on the musical discourse. Several obstacles occur in performances that integrate a DAW (in this case Ableton live) and electric guitar (Berweck 2012), specifically in adjusting the live mix and the levels of certain effects. Given the closed nature of many sets and effects, these, once configured, are difficult to modify during live performance (Lähdeoja and Navarret 2010). Technical issues increase when the performer tries to control all the parameters of the augmentation with the feet, since they lack the sensitivity of the hands. In addition, the hands already have an integrated gesture because of the performer's embodied knowledge (Portovedo 2020). To achieve this desired flexibility and expressivity, both in improvisation and in the interpretation of contemporary music for electric guitar and electronic media, a midi keyboard has been converted into a new interface adapted to the electric guitar, which allows a more organic control of the parameters. In the interface, one part is handled with the feet and another part is integrated into the guitar. In this way, processes such as live looping, change of set, or sequencing of pre-recorded material are controlled with the feet, and other more delicate controls, such as adjusting levels on tracks and effects, with the hand, using the knobs installed on the guitar. This presentation provides a theoretical framework for the intervention and flexibility of electronic devices (Diegert and Artacho 2018), applying a design perspective based on performance needs, trying to explain and extrapolate the process to provide DIY (Do-It- Yourself) information for building similar devices based on the same underlying principles. For example, to increase and modify the augmented e-guitar device, the functionalities designed for other performers (pianists, DJs, or electronic musicians) are used, employing its circuits in a modular way, and spatially relocating the components. Part of the interest of the process is its relationship to a cultural perspective of reuse, the customization of components adapted to specific needs and the simplification of the technical / technological process (Keller, Schiavoni, and Lazzarini 2019). Finally, three reflections will address the issues that constitute the central axes of the project. The first analyses the factors that determine the instrumental specificity of an electronic device. The second addresses performance with the computer and an augmented instrument on stage, and how to prevent the computer from becoming the performer’s focus of attention. Finally, a brief digression on the Do It Yourself counterculture (McKay 2017) and its ability to generate social value in the field of electronic music creation and augmented instruments is proposed.publishe