W. Andrew Schloss

Using Contemporary Technology in Live Performance: The Dilemma of the Performer

The use of computers in live performance has resulted in a situation in which cause-and-effect has effectively disappeared, for the first time since music began. Once we started to use computers in live performance – to interpret gestures and generate sound as a result – the age-old relationship between gesture and result became so blurred as to be often imperceptible. In historical terms, this problem is extremely recent, involving only the last few decades of musical practice preceded by at least thirty thousand years of music-making by conventional (acoustic) means. The aim of this paper is to show how this affects contemporary performance and the relationship between the performer and the audience.

Intelligent musical instruments: The future of musical performance or the demise of the performer?

Abstract This paper examines the potential problems that “too much” technology in musical performance can create. In developing very powerful computer‐assisted instruments, and in decoupling the sound production from the gesture, issues of what performance is really about start to surface. This is a relatively recent problem, because it is only in the last few years that real‐time performance has been widely possible in computer music. As a case in point, we will discuss a recently co‐composed piece entitled “Wildlife”, that involves many of the critical issues.

Controlling a physical model with a 2D force matrix

Physical modeling has proven to be a successful method of synthesizing highly expressive sounds. However, providing deep methods of real time musical control remains a major challenge. In this paper we describe our work towards an instrument for percussion synthesis, in which a waveguide mesh is both excited and damped by a 2D matrix of forces from a sensor. By emulating a drum skin both as controller and sound generator, our instrument has reproduced some of the expressive qualities of hand drumming. Details of our implementation are discussed, as well as qualitative results and experience gleaned from live performances.

Preservation and extension of traditional techniques:Digitizing North Indian performance

Abstract This article describes systems for capturing gestures from a performing artist playing North Indian instruments. Modified traditional instruments use sensor technology and microcontrollers to digitize performance, enabling a computer to synthesize sound and generate visual meaning. Specifically, systems were built to capture data from three traditional North Indian instruments: the tabla (a pair of tonal hand drums), the dholak (a barrel-shaped folk drum played by two people) and the sitar (a 19-stringed, gourd-shelled instrument). The article discusses how these instruments are modified to capture gestural movement, how these signals are mapped to sounds and graphical feedback, and gives examples of the new instruments being used in live performance. Modified performance techniques with the aid of a laptop computer are introduced; however, the hardware is built to try and preserve the techniques passed down from generations of tradition.

The Computer-Extended Ensemble

Until recently, there have been two basic models of how electronics interact with a performer in a performance situation, and these have been derived from tape music and keyboard performance. Both impose rigid constraints on the dynamics of the ensemble situation. Recent developments have shown these models to be end points of a continuum, and the region between is rich and largely unexplored. We examine one sojourn into this realm: Wildlife, which is a work by the authors written for Zeta violin, Radio Drum, and two computers. It is available on CD in the CDCM Computer Music Series (volume 15 from Centaur Records).

Ambient media in public spaces

As artists working in public art and media, we have repeatedly found that the usual parameters and characteristics for a work of art have to be heavily modified to be successful in an ambient environment. Art does not normally strive to be innocuous or inconspicuous; however every artist who does public art quickly learns to deal with the impact of their art in a public space, especially if the publics exposure to the art is continuous. We have recently created four public art installations, three in Seattle and one in New York, varying tremendously in style and content. In all such work, the issues of ambient sound and its semantics had to be specifically and carefully addressed; in our case, one installation is in a public library, two others are in a workplace where the staff would be exposed to the sound for extended periods, and the fourth is in a gallery that allowed the public to experience the artwork one person at a time. It is the auditory aspect of the artworks that will be the focus here, in the context of ubiquitous ambient sonic environments. Lessons learned from the world of public art may have some resonance in the coming world of ubiquitous computing. Essentially, these installations use the forces and sounds of nature (wind, sun, rain, ocean waves) to generate sounds and images to amplify reality, to draw attention to our natural surroundings that so often get lost in urban environments.