[Microsound-announce] A Collection of essays on digital and electroacoustic music

[Barnabás Batta]

Dear Collegues in Digital and Electroacoustic Music,


My name is Barnabas Batta and I am a PhD student at the University of
Pécs, Hungary where, together with the University of Szeged, Hungary
and  in collaboration with a small publishing house, we would like to
edit a collection of writings/essays on digital and electroacoustic
music.
Please find below a synopse of the aesthetic, cultural, musical and
media-theoretic changes that were made by the analog/digital switch in
music. We expect for the collection translations and writings on the
topic mentioned above. Anyone interested in this enterprise should
send me a synopse of the intended text in either Hungarian, German or
English.

Best wishes,

Barnabas


A collection of essays on digital music

- synopsis /

There were two major changes in the musical practice and thought of
the 20th century. On the one hand, broad ranges of musical spectra
became candidate tools for creation, in addition to the otherwise
expanded boundaries, and, by the same token, the previous theory and
practice that discredited certain aspects of sound, ceased. On the
other hand, and organically interrelated with the former, new
inventions helped in exploring new, innovative sounds. Brand new
compositional methods arose that had their essence in the sampling
techniques, in which processes existing artworks became raw materials
for techniques underpinning a novel paradigm of music aesthetics.

      The formerly coherent, integrated concept of artwork has got
into a new constellation, in which the former aesthetic norms lost
their explanatory power, therefore, in the present state of art they
substantiate re-consideration. The hermeneutic triad have broken up,
since the question of both creation, creator, and of the beholder, as
well as of reception have changed. Through sound recording, not only
the concept of authentic musical space (e.g. a cconcert hall) became
anachronistic since all space became a space for music and every sound
segment became a musical segment, but the
recipient-(performer)-creator distinction, too, due to the fact that
creation itself became an apparently academic literature philological
work. The creational methods of musical ‚text' with adequate ‚audio
signals' and ‚syntax'  generated new and previously unknown layers of
authors surpassing all entry-quota of instrumentalists, entailing
serious copy-right problems on the other hand.

      The medial switch in fact led to a culture-theoretical switch,
questioning the concept of the canonical musical content and principal
critical distance as ceased, due to the sampling techniques. Mozart
and Madonna, in the same time and at same place, became raw materials
for a third author, became pure musical signals, replacing the
formerly sound interpretational and significational system. The
present situation, on the other hand,  raised serious problems not
only to the creational methods, but even to the authentic language of
thought on music, and to its technical terms. Especially, this is the
point where descriptive analysis necessarily becomes academic
scripture on acoustics, or merely literature, deploying a rich palette
of language, that is, and it might be a most exciting question,
becomes a permanent discursive action in which new musical structures
and those seen in novel aspects are classified under new musical
labels or constitute sub-systems of the former system of forms. So now
begins a permanent canonisation and differentitation on every possible
medial forum. In this way, every description broadens the vocabulary
of thinking about tomorrow's music and that is the reason and the
worth of the frequent and multi-leveled examination of authors,
labels, trends, and tendencies that take place or can take place on
the palette of electronic music.

      The concept of musical space, creation and artwork
consequentially has changed and so allow novel, previously unknown
distributional methods. The problem of p2p networks, video and sound
sharing (e.g. youtube), net-radios and net-labels undermined the
former system of music distribution and modified the well known forms
of distribution. E-trading has re-drawn these market limits, as well.
A re-alignment goes on on every continent adjusting the emergence of
market mechanisms to the social and economic system of certain
countries.

      The medial switch substantiates a re-consideration of music and
related fields. If digitalisation can flatten every medial content
into one dimension, then the questioning of the tenability of a
separation of media is worth its while, since all content on a
hypertext get aligned to a de-centralised unity. What is the role of
acoustic phenomenon in a visual culture that replaces the text-based
one? And what is the role of vision in an acoustic culture replacing
musical notation?

      Only a thorough analysis of the limits and problems can help us
in developing a more complex and flexible concept of music for the
future.