Gordon Zaft
University of Arizona
Abstract
This paper is a brief survey of some of the issues raised by the increasing use of computer technology in music composition. New tools, new techniques, and new ways of thinking about music are discussed with a view to how the technology affects the end product, the composition process, and the composer. There are new challenges and opportunities as Western music transitions from the avant-garde to the new tonality. The analogy of the modernity -- postmodernity transition is made to the current state of Western music, and the perennial question "What is Beethoven?" is once again asked, though not answered.
Orchestra Nova and the Virtual Concert Hall
On April 27, 1996, the first "Virtual Concert Hall" debuted to a delighted and enthusiastic audience gathered at two venues at the University of Arizona. The Virtual Concert Hall consisted of the musicians of Orchestra Nova gathered at the School of Music and Dance's Crowder Hall, at one end, and dancers of the School at Gittings Dance Theater at the other end of the campus. The musicians of Orchestra Nova performed two pieces on their Roland A-30 MIDI keyboard controllers; audio and video from Crowder Hall were fed live via network to Gittings Dance Hall where the dancers performed to the live music. Crowds at both halls could see and hear the entire performance on large TV screens hanging from the ceilings.
Such a performance is entirely new to the worlds of both music and dance. Orchestra Nova and its leader, Dr. J. Timothy Kolosick, are breaking new ground in technology, performance, and composition. What does this kind of medium mean to musicians? What does it mean to the audience? Where will the Virtual Concert Hall lead us?
Electronics and computers have not appeared on the musical frontier overnight; they have been a growing presence for many years. Despite this, there is a noticeable dearth of consideration as to what the implications of electronic music and computer-assisted composition mean for music as a whole. Most books on the subject are technical in nature, dealing with the ins and outs of music technology without much reflection on how the technology can, will, or should be used. In this respect musicians have shown themselves to be as entranced by technology as the technical elite.
In this paper I wish to examine some effects of technology on the composition of music; on composers and on the music they write. I want to examine how a composer writes with the Virtual Concert Hall in mind -- how is the end product different? How are the process and tools used different? How is the composer different?
The Sound of a New Generation
Every era views music through its own technology. -- J. Timothy Kolosick
Kolosick (1996) identifies a new era of music starting in the 1950s with the rise of rock 'n' roll and the electric guitar -- an aesthetic split which widened the existing gap between 'serious' and 'popular' music. Analog musical instruments had been developed to a high level of sophistication; the relative stability of analog instrument technology made the introduction of electrical and electronic instruments traumatic --many musicians had never experienced technological change that so directly affected them. The existing music establishment, for the most part, rejected these new instruments and the composers who used them; thus 'serious' music became 'that which is taught at universities and conservatories' while 'popular' music continued to be the music that most people actually listen to. Etzkorn (1982) discusses the split:
Distinctions between serious and popular music typically elaborate assumptions about aesthetic norms. Serious music is assumed to be aesthetically more complex or satisfying than popular music. The sheer numerical preponderance of a style, called 'popular' because of its quantity, is not expected to be able to attain the musical quality of the less frequent, or less popular, serious forms. (p. 564)
It is important to realize that the sound of this new generation is a digital sound, an electronic, synthesized sound. Just as the harpsichord was the instrument of choice for a generation of composers, followed by the piano, followed by the symphony orchestra, so this generation's instrument is the synthesizer. Heifetz (1984) playfully shows the generation gap in this anecdote of an oft-repeated conversation:
"What instrument do you play?
"The computer."
"No, seriously, what do you play?"
"I play the computer." (p. 284)
The point, of course, is that the computer is indeed an instrument. It is a musical instrument as well as a compositional one. Just as the pianoforte was a complex and intimidating instrument at its introduction, so too the synthesizer/computer; yet just as the piano came to be a mainstay of musicians everywhere, so too will the synthesizer come to be the instrument of choice for at least a succeeding generation. Chadabe (1971) points out that just as the piano was used to play music written for harpsichord, so the synthesizer is used to play music written for earlier instruments with a new sound. The difference is that while previous instruments were specialized, making only one kind of sound, the synthesizer is a multi-use instrument, a jack-of-all-trades that can make a variety of different sounds, all at the same time!
The sound of the age has affected, and been affected by, the recording industry. While some might naively believe that recordings provide a realistic acoustic image of what the 'live' performance would sound like, the truth is that recordings are tailored toward an ideal sound that no person could ever actually be in a position to hear. This idealistic trend in recording alters the performance and also the composition of music, by influencing composers to compose for the recording studio instead of for the live performance. Struthers (1987) comments:
Recording personnel have chosen to use the facilities to ensure that the finished product includes only what they consider to be the best possible recorded performances. Many fragments are separately recorded and re-recorded a number of times. This search for a 'perfection' is a prominent feature in the process of recording. . . (p. 245-246)
The increasing variety of music that is readily available through recordings has resulted in part in an increasing fragmentation of the listening public. For example, the rise of the youth culture (Snow, 1987) gave rise to a fragmentation of the existing rock 'n' roll genre into a variety of subgenres -- e.g. protest, acid, new wave, punk, heavy metal, and most recently alternative. Perhaps surprisingly, aficionados of a particular subgenre do not adapt well to efforts to broaden the genre; "people committed to traditional styles often became upset over hearing their forms corrupted by something new." (Snow, 1987, p. 338) In this they reflect the same sort of bias that the music 'establishment' has against pop music in general.
When is an oboe an oboe? When is an organ an organ? Kolosick (1996) tells of a discussion where the concern was raised that someday people might not be able to tell the sound of a pipe organ from that of a synthesizer! Yet if the listener cannot tell the difference, is the difference important from a musical perspective? Do we define instruments by their appearance, or by the sounds they produce? Wilding-White (1973) points out that to a large extent our ideas as to the meanings of a particular sound are tied to context. It is "a traditional dogma shared alike by Webern, Beethoven, and the sound effects man: an oboe and a gunshot must always and only be an oboe and a gunshot, and the meaning of the oboe will be revealed by the score, the meaning of the gunshot by the script." (p. 254) An effort has been made in recent years to divorce the notion of meaning from context, and to allow instruments to stand on their own. Is an electric guitar a guitar that sounds strange, or a completely different instrument?
The Composer's Toolbox
Until recently, the composer's basic tools were sheets of paper lined with staves; writing utensils; and an instrument (usually a piano). These tools had changed little in the preceding millennium; Mozart would have felt reasonably comfortable with the tools used by Gershwin and vice-versa. The craft of music composition was well defined and well-known.
While many tools for music composition have been developed in recent years, the most important single development is undoubtedly the adoption and standardization of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) as the lingua franca of electronic music. Virtually every piece of digital electronics used in music today is compatible with the basic MIDI standard, so that most MIDI instruments can communicate with each other. MIDI instruments, computers, and software allow the composer unprecedented flexibility in bringing musical ideas to life.
In thinking about the kinds of tools that composers are now using, a useful distinction can be made between two basic kinds; those oriented toward the eye, and those oriented toward the ear. This distinction is useful because there is a growing gap between an old-style 'visual' approach to composition and a newer 'aural' approach.
The use of visual cues as tools for music composition dates back to the development of music notation. From the first attempts to write down music to the establishment of modern music notation development was slow and there were few tools. It was important to be able to read and write music notation quickly and easily; if a composer could not unambiguously communicate via written notation, he/she had little hope of having the performed music match the musical idea.
Up until just a few years ago, whenever anybody wanted to publish a piece of music, whether classical, operatic, rock, pop, country, disco -- you name it -- the music had to be handwritten out in a form where it could then be mass-produced in the form of sheet music. This in turn was made available to the masses through music stores and all kinds of retailers in the very readable and concise form that you find always it[sic]. But somebody had to handwrite it in the first place. (Newquist, 1989, p.141)
Thus the introduction of notation software that allows the generation of publication-quality scores from MIDI data was a revolution in terms of quality and convenience in the production of published music. While most notation software still requires hand-'tweaking' to correct small discrepancies such as different, equivalent note values, it is still an extremely useful tool that may be likened to a musical word processor.
Another visually oriented tool is software that allows sheet music to be scanned and translated into a MIDI file for use with synthesizers and sequencers. This sort of software bridges the gap between written music and electronically-represented music, allowing existing music to be computerized and manipulated readily.
Wishart (1977) identifies some of the problems in the use of notation (however generated) in the composition and performance of music. He criticizes the use of written notation as an instrument for recording music, since to some extent the vocabulary we use to 'write' music limits the music we compose. Thus in the Western world, at least, there has grown up a divorce of musical notation from sound; we say that composers 'write' music, and indeed they do; they write notation that is supposed to represent sound, but our system of composition and analysis has often focused on the visual and spatial aspects of music notation at the expense of attention to the actual sound of the music! Thus we see analysis of musical styles and structures that are based not on what the music sounds like, but the way the notation of the music appears.
This distinction seems at first blush to be contrary to the essence of music as an aural experience; yet much of the electronic music efforts of the 1960s and early 1970s emphasized just these notational, structural aspects. We see this in the phenomenon that we view the published notation as 'the music' when really, it is only a representation of the music. Unfortunately the world of 'serious' music is for the most part blind to this distinction.
Wishart also points out another important result of the emphasis on notation as a representation of music -- namely, the translation of the musical structure from an experiential moment-to-moment wavefront to a static, spatialised time of the printed page. For example, such inventions as the retrograde fugue or polyphonic line are not really aural constructs so much as they are notational inventions. Few but the most highly trained musicians would be able to detect such a construct purely by listening. Is a retrograde, then, really a musical construct?
The advent of the computer and electronics in music has created a host of tools for the composer to use which are geared not toward the representational, visual aspect, but toward sound itself. Chief among these are the sequencer and the synthesizer.
Modern synthesizers are a far cry from their earlier analog predecessors. Most people's mental image of a synthesizer (until very recently) was the nest of wires and electronics that comprised the early efforts of Moog and his contemporaries. Those early analog synthesizers were in some respects more flexible that today's digital synthesizers since they could make up totally arbitrary sounds; the limitation was really only the imagination of the performer/operator. Today's digital synthesizers are somewhat more limited to a library of sounds that are built in, or loaded in, to the synthesizer's memory. Thus the modern synthesizer usually plays from a standard library of sounds; most of these sounds are 'samplings' of standard instruments such as a flute, trombone, trumpet, etc. The tradeoff is flexibility of the analog synthesizer versus a much, much greater ease of use of the digital synthesizer.
The sequencer is rather like a tape recorder, but infinitely more versatile. A sequencer allows the composer to record sequences of sounds generated on a MIDI device (usually a keyboard-style synthesizer). Thus the composer, even though he/she may be only a mediocre performer, can generate all the different lines or voices for a composition in turn, and then play them back.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the use of the sequencer and synthesizer is freedom from the limits of music notation. Instead of having to restrict rhythms to certain common ratios of duration and time signatures, the modern composer is free to impose his/her own timings. Instead of a standard equal-tempered scale the composer can use smaller or larger intervals than are normally used in Western music. Another important outcome is the freedom from the tyranny of writing for what is commonly available. If the sound the composer desires is really an oboe-sound in the midst of the pipe-organ, the synthesizer allows for the realization of that musical idea despite the inability of most organists to play oboe.
The Composer
One effect of the availability of the new tools discussed above is to make it easier to become a composer. The availability of synthesizers and sequencers in particular have resulted in almost a cottage industry of music composition for a variety of purposes -- stage, television, radio, background music for stores and other public places ('Muzak'). While most of this music arguably has no lasting value, the same can generally be said about most varieties of music down through the ages. The difference is that since music is so pervasive in our society, we are more likely to be hearing such ephemeral music than we are 'serious' or 'pop' music. Those composers lacking in-depth knowledge (not necessarily in a university or conservatory) of music styles and structure will produce simplistic music; those with more training or study will produce more complex and (presumably) interesting music. While all music can perhaps be sorted into "what is rot and what is not" (Kolosick, 1996), an educated ear may be required to reliably tell the difference. Etzkorn (1982) identifies some of these elements of complexity as:
The number of separate parts (voices) in a piece or composition: in its most simple manifestations as a solo versus an ensemble piece.
The relationship of separate parts to each other: are they differentiated by rhythm, timbre, volume, melodic contour?
The relative 'control' over the performance by one individual (the composer) versus the simultaneous creative contribution by several (all?) performers working within a tradition.
The degree of dependence on a system of musical notation.
The duration of a piece and the number of identifiable subsections, i.e. elaboration of basic musical material.
The utilization and mix of sound generators (instruments) of different technological/cultural backgrounds and performance requirements.
The incorporation of pre-recorded sound in live performance.
The degree of reliance on electronic (computerized) sound generation. (p. 558)
While one can certainly argue about the musical basis for these criteria (especially their assumptions about the structure of music) nevertheless they are a helpful starting point. It's interesting to note that only two of them are more-or-less directly related to modern technology. The structural and analytical roots of complexity in music are what separate the novice from the experienced composer.
"For better or worse, the next generation is a group of digital composers." (Kolosick, 1996) That is, most composers now have at least some familiarity with electronic music and composition techniques and most make at least some use of computers in their work. My own (admittedly small) survey of composers shows that 75% of them use at least some computer technology. This results in a very different way of looking at and experiencing the composition process. Heifetz (1984) writes, "When I compose music, I also need to touch and fondle my material. This sensual, interactive quality, so lacking in the compositional act of instrumental and vocal music, is a principal feature of both analogue and digital electro-acoustical media." (p. 283)
Composition at the End of the Millennium
The rise of electronic technology in music composition and performance has resulted in the usual sorts of reactions as in any other case of technological development -- fear from those who worry about the loss of employment due to automation; enthusiasm from the technocracy; confusion on the part of the consumer. Those who stand to gain discount the fears of those who stand to lose:
Electronic music will no more rid the world of perfumeries than medicare will rid the world of doctors. The symphony orchestra which is the AMA of music will surely die and with it the performer who is overpaid for merely being more or less competent in performing one hundred and fifty years of music. The Paul Zukofskys and Buell Neidlingers are too good to be content to play in symphonies and their versatility will ensure their survival. (Ceely, 1971, p. 210)
Musicians are not, generally speaking, technological determinists. In fact Struthers (1987) argues that "technology is unavoidably shaped by social, political, and economic interests." (p. 255) Most composers use the tools and techniques that they feel comfortable with, but as creative people they also show a willingness to experiment with new tools and techniques in the effort to do something new, something different. Still, the economics of music as a business have driven musicians toward automation just as in any other field, and many of the same effects are seen; division of labor, deskilling, increased throughput. These factors affect composers just as they affect anyone else. For example, the use of sequencers and MIDI synthesizers has at times resulted in more music that is pre-recorded or pre-sequenced straight from the composer with less, or little, intervention or improvisation from the performer. The increased use of synthesizers means that keyboard players are now playing many other 'instruments' with only the same basic keyboard skills. The use of notational software, scanners, and MIDI librarians allows composers to increase the amount of composition they do and to 'quote' themselves in new pieces easily.
While these developments can seem disturbing, they really bring out the fundamental questions -- what is music? What makes Beethoven Beethoven? What are we trying to accomplish?
Is music really just notation, symbols on paper or a computer screen? If that is your conception of what music is then you have every right to be concerned about the future of music! As I argued above, notation is not music; it is notation. Music is, fundamentally, sound. And as sound it must be experienced if it is to be music and not merely the subject of dissection and analysis.
What makes Beethoven great? Do we listen to Beethoven in order to see a great symphony orchestra -- the pinnacle of a certain kind of musical technology, with a large number of highly trained specialists each playing (usually) exactly one highly expensive instrument? Do we go to see a conductor and sit in a hall? How much of the essence of Beethoven is caught up in our sociocultural experience and expectations, and how much is truly Beethoven's creation?
In recent years, the practice of performing compositions on 'period' rather than contemporary instruments has gained popularity. Such performances are valued as being more 'authentic', though there is no way of checking such purported authenticity. Whether Beethoven would have preferred to play his piano sonatas on a modern concert grand rather than on an authentic Hammerklavier will forever remain a moot point! Should Bach today be performed on a clavichord or on an electronic synthesizer? Such questions focus on the close relationship between musical practice as a social activity interlinked with the general state of technology and the culture of its times. (Etzkorn, 1982, p. 563)
In asking what we are trying to accomplish, I am coming perilously close to asking such imponderables as What Is Music. Rather than ask that question, I would rather ask, "What is the goal?" Kolosick (1996) tells a story of a music educator who told him that in 50 years no one would play Beethoven. The question is not really, "will people play Beethoven in 50 years?" It seems reasonably certain that Beethoven's value is lasting enough that we can be sure that people will play Beethoven in 50 years. The question becomes, what will they play Beethoven on? Does it matter? And is that really Beethoven?
Those who are most frightened by the technological developments of the past 30 years, and those who most fervently reject them, are those who have lost sight of the goal. The goal is not playing violin, or flute, or tuba. The goal is making music; and the music is where the action is -- especially now.
At the end of the millennium, it would appear that Western music, at least, is approaching a turning point as it has so many times in the past. Ehle (1984) sees it as the exhaustion of the avant-garde idiom. It is not that composers are unable to compose, but that they have nothing new to say in that style. He sees in the rise of composers such as Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich the beginnings of a new musical style, one usually called 'the new tonality'. In this return to musical basics he sees not the rise of a new popular music, but the direction of art music ('serious' music) for the coming century. He regards the widespread availability of the new technology as a positive element, bringing increased power to the novice composer at the expense of the university-trained elite who were the early experimenters in the field.
The (oft-disputed) transition from modernity to post-modernity makes a good backdrop to the changes in music from the avant-garde to the new tonality. The change from atonal music, from Stravinsky and Schoenberg to the new tonal music of Glass and Reich can be seen writ small in the evolution of electronic music from the esoteric and abstracted early works of Hiller and Chowning. to the lush (if simplistic) works of Vangelis and Kitaro. The postmodern nature of the new tonality is best expressed in the view of what Ehle (1984) calls the new internationalism -- world music as pastiche. The increasing variety of ethnic music, of musics and instruments from a wide variety of cultures across the world is part and parcel of the postmodern view.
Richard (1994) presents a view of computer music which she claims is really modernism in hiding, the "modern disguised as postmodern." (p. 32) Claiming that post-modern works are being produced with the support of modernist ideology, she views this as evidence of "the fundamental continuity of the modernist spirit in our culture." (p. 31) In this I think she is mistaken, primarily because she is looking at the late modernists (mostly the academics) rather than the newer postmoderns. She fails to realize that, as Ehle (1984) points out, the changing musical eras often exhibit considerable overlap so that it becomes difficult to determine when one starts and another begins. I submit that we are in that phase now, that the new tonality is music's version of postmodernity which is in the process of supplanting the modernism of the twelve-tone scale and serial music.
Machover (1985) sums it up well:
We are at the frontiers of a new era in music, one that will offer fresh and exciting answers to fundamental questions of language and organization, propose a clearer role for music in the social structure and a surer form of communication to a public, and integrate and express that which is most important about life as it is now and how it should or could be in future generations. We are only at the beginning of this road, so it is above all a time for composers to maintain a certain humility at the immensity of the task to be done. We must realize the need for common effort but simultaneously keep the courage and vision necessary to trust our own judgments, thoughts, feelings, and, above all, ears, and do what real composers have always done: stop talking and write music! (p. 111)
References
Ceely, R. (1971). Excerpts from "Thoughts about (Electronic) Music" in E. Schwartz (Ed.), Electronic music: A listener's guide (pp. 208-210) (rev. ed.) . New York: Praeger.
Chadabe, J. (1971). Untitled excerpt in E. Schwartz (Ed.), Electronic music: A listener's guide (pp. 210-212) (rev. ed.). New York: Praeger.
Ehle, R.C. (1984). Music and change: The music of the new millenium. Music Review, 45,(3/4), 287-292).
Etzkorn, K.P. (1982) On the sociology of musical practice and social groups. International Social Science Journal, 34, 555-569.
Heifetz, R.J. (1984) Computer music warmware: The human perspective. Music Review, 45(3/4), 283-286.
Kolosick, J. T. (1996, April) Unpublished interview.
Machover, T. (1985) Thoughts on computer music composition. In C. Roads (Ed.), Composers and the computer (pp. 90-111). Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann.
Newquist, H.P. (1989) Music & Technology. New York: Billboard.
Richard, D.M. (1994) Computer music and the post-modern: A case of schizophrenia. Computer Music Journal, 18(4), 26-34.
Snow, R. P. (1987) Youth, rock 'n roll, and electronic media. Youth & Society, 18 (4), 326-343.
Struthers, S. (1987) Technology in the art of recording. Sociological Review Monograph, 34, 241-258.
Wilding-White, R. (1973) Untitled excerpt in E. Schwartz (Ed.), Electronic music: A listener's guide (pp. 253-256) (rev. ed.). New York: Praeger.
Wishart, T. (1977) Musical writing, musical speaking. In J. Shepherd, P. Virden, G. Vulliamy, T. Wishart (Eds.), Whose music? A sociology of musical languages (pp. 125-153). London: Latimer.
Appendix I
The survey form below was used to gather impressions about the composition process. Unfortunately, not enough responses were received to make the survey valid as anything other than impressions of the individual respondents. Nevertheless the survey was helpful in confirming impressions formed from the existing literature.
This survey is part of research for a paper I'm doing on the effects of music technology on the composition process. When complete the paper will be posted to my Web page (http://aruba.ccit.arizona.edu/~zaft). Please note that by filling out and returning this survey you are consenting to let me use the data contained therein for scholarly purposes. All replies will be kept confidential. Thanks for your participation.
1. Name:
2. E-mail address:
3. Day telephone:
4. Please describe your educational background:
5. How long have you been composing?
6. How many pieces (approximately) have you composed?
7. What genre(s) do you compose in?
8. Please describe the process you go through while composing:
9. How have changes in music technology affected your composition process? For example, MIDI synthesizers, notation software, etc?
10. How has the music you compose changed since you began composing? Is any of this a reflection of better/different tools and technology?
11. Please describe any tools you use in your composition process:
12. Other comments:
Thanks for your participation.
Copyright 1996 by Gordon Zaft.