Live Electronics in Live Performance

244 Pages·2012·39.44 MB·English

by  Sebastian Lexer

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Live Electronics in Live Performance:
A Performance Practice Emerging from the piano+ used in Free
Improvisation.
Sebastian Lexer
PhD Thesis in Performance Practice
Music Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK
2012
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Michael Young
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Declaration:
Hereby I declare that all presented material in this thesis “Live Electronics in Live
Performance” is my independent contribution. None of the material has previously been
submitted for a degree or other qualification at this University or any other institution.
_______________________ London, _______________
Sebastian Lexer
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Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Goldsmiths College Music Department for their resources and support for
this research and the INTERLACE concert series, an important outlet for practical
aspects of this project.
First of all, I would like thank Dr. Michael Young, whose extraordinary support and
enthusiasm for the research subject, professional and personal motivation and advice has
enabled its completion. Deepest thanks and appreciation to John Tilbury, whose
exceptional musicality and pianistic finesse have been inspirational and whose friendship
and encouragement have been invaluable. Thanks to Ian Stonehouse, whose technical
wizardry facilitated the practical research, whose support enabled the INTERLACE series
and more importantly, whose musical and artistic advice often helped to refocus the
project. I would like to thank Prof. Roger Redgate and Dr. Mick Grierson for their
generous advice and Rick Campion for patient professional and personal support.
Deepest thanks to my family and friends for their long-lasting encouragement and
support: my mother Helga, Christof, Barbara, Pirmin and my father Thomas Lexer, who
sadly cannot witness the completion of this project. Very special thanks to Heinz
Giesen, Marion Meinhardt-Giesen, Laura and Bodo: central ideas emerged at their
kitchen table and during inspiring walks through the Blackforest and Klettgau. Thanks
to Pietro Dipaola, Elke Schwarz and Jane Dickson for being the most valuable and
supportive friends one could possibly wish for.
Very special thanks also to Eddie Prévost, whose unshaken commitment to
improvisation commenced an inspiring and influential weekly workshop since 1999
allowing the development of the foundation of this performance practice. Finally, thanks
to the inspirational musicians in whose company many ideas could be developed,
applied and scrutinised: in particular Seymour Wright, but also in inspirational sessions
and performances with Paul Abbott, Frédéric Blondy, Jamie Coleman, Jane Dickson, Ute
Kanngieser, Grundik Kasyansky, Ross Lambert, Eddie Prévost, Christoph Schiller, John
Tilbury and all the other improvising musicians whose individual approach and practice
has made a lasting impression on me.
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photo: Sebastian Lexer © 2006/2011
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Abstract:
This thesis explores a performance practice within free improvisation. This is not a
theory based improvisation – performances do not require specific preparation and the
music refrains from repetition of musical structures. It engages in investigative and
experimental approaches emerging from holistic considerations of acoustics, interaction
and instrument, and also philosophy, psychology, sociopolitics and technology. The
performance practice explores modes and approaches to working with the given
potentiality of an electronically augmented acoustic instrument and involves the
development of a suitably flexible computerised performance system, the piano+,
combining extended techniques and real-time electroacoustic processes, which has the
acoustic piano at its core. Contingencies of acoustic events and performance gestures –
captured by audio analysis and sensors and combined to control the parameter space of
computer processes – manipulate the fundamental properties of sound, timbre and time.
Spherical abstractions, developed under consideration of Agamben’s potentiality and
Sloterdijk’s philosophical theory of spheres, allow a shared metaphor for technical,
instrumental, personal, and interpersonal concerns. This facilitates a theoretical
approach for heuristic and investigative improvisation where performance is considered
‘Ereignis’ (an event) for sociopolitically aware activities that draw on the situational
potentiality and present themselves in fragile and context dependent forms. Ever new
relationships can be found and developed, but can equally be lost. Sloterdijk supplied
the concept of knowledge resulting from equipping our ‘inner space’, an image suiting
non-linearity of thought that transpires from Kuhl’s psychological PSI-theory to explain
human motivation and behaviour.
The role of technology – diversion and subversion of sound and activity – creates a
space between performer and instrument that retains a fundamental pianism but defies
expectation and anticipation. Responsibility for one’s actions is required to deal with the
unexpected without resorting to preliminary strategies restricting potential discourses,
particularly within ensemble situations. This type of performance embraces the
‘Ereignis’.
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Live Electronics in Live Performance:
A Performance Practice Emerging from the piano+ used in Free Improvisation.
Introduction 9
Chapter 1: General Considerations Concerning Live Electronics 23
1.1. Historical Points – the Role of the Instrument Within Musical Progress 24
1.1.1. Motivation For the New 25
1.1.2. Progress for Itself or Through Social Relevance 27
1.2. Electronic Instruments 29
1.3. Sound Source, Sound Manipulation and Amplification 30
1.3.1. Defining the Source 32
1.3.2. Focus on Process 33
1.4. Turning Digital 34
1.4.1. Metaphors for Musical Control 36
1.4.2. Digital Music Instruments 39
1.4.3. Parameter Mapping 40
1.5. Performance Characteristics 40
1.5.1. Performativity and Contingency 42
1.5.2. Sound Sculpturing and Live Electronic Music 44
Chapter 2: Towards the instrument 47
2.1. Properties of Sound 47
2.2. Extended Sound Properties of the Acoustic Piano 49
2.3. Electronic Augmentation 50
2.3.1. Fundamental Properties of Electronic Augmentation 51
2.3.2. Amplification, Filtering and Placement/Locality 52
2.3.3. Time Placement 54
2.4. Operational and Performative Activity 55
2.5. The Infrastructure – General Structure of the Augmented Performance System 56
2.5.1. Audio Capturing 58
2.5.2. Control Structure and Parameter Distribution 59
2.5.3. Audio Analysis 62
2.5.4. Algorithmic and Intelligent Instruments 63
2.6. Concerns About the Electronic Instrumental Space 65
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Chapter 3: Free Improvisation 68
3.1. Improvisation as an Activity 70
3.2. The Negative Sentiment 75
3.3. Idiomatic – Interpretation – Authorship 77
3.4. The Absolute Versus the Event 79
3.5. Critique of the Non-Idiomatic 81
3.6. Reductionist Approach of Improvisatory Musical Activity 86
3.7. The Potential 90
3.8. Aspects on Learning 92
3.9. Non-Linearity in Thought (PSI-theory) 93
Chapter 4: Technical Implementation – piano+ 100
4.1. piano+ 100
4.1.1. The Core – the Piano in the piano+ 101
4.1.2. First ‘Surrounding’ Layer – Extended Acoustic Piano Techniques 103
4.1.2.1. Extended Techniques 104
4.1.2.2. T he “Prepared Piano” 104
4.1.2.3. T he “Inside Piano” – Variants of Plugging and Hitting 105
4.1.2.4. Complex Variations 108
4.1.2.5. Linking Gesture Methods To Performances 109
4.1.2.6. Direct and Indirect Involvement in Sound Production 110
4.1.3 Second ‘Surrounding’ Layer – The Electronic Augmentation 112
4.1.3.1. Infrastructure to Focus on Intended Functionality and Practicality 113
4.1.3.2. Implemented Electroacoustic Processes 114
4.1.3.3. The Schematic of the piano+ 116
4.2. Sources of Controls for Parameter Mapping: Direct and Indirect control 117
4.2.1. Indirect Control Through Audio Analysis 118
4.2.2. Indirect Control Through Sensor Readings 119
4.3. Comparative Case Studies 120
4.3.1. Case Study: Live Sampling 120
4.3.2. Case Study: Granulation 125
4.4. Parameter Space – the Potential of Triple Controller System 128
4.5. Other Implemented Processes 133
4.5.1. Ring Modulation and Pitch Shifting 133
4.5.2. Filters 133
4.6. Processes as a Space Outlined by the Vertical and Horizontal 135
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Chapter 5: The Theory of the Practice 139
5.1. Models of Improvisatory Activity 140
5.1.1. “Arrow Model” 141
5.1.2. “Flash Model” 142
5.1.3. Fragmented “Flash Model” 143
5.1.4. Ideas as Movement in Spaces 145
5.2. Personal Space 148
5.2.1. Objective – Subjective 149
5.2.2. Building Personal Spaces – Equipping One’s Inner Space 150
5.2.3. Objectifying the Personal Space and Making it Uniform 151
5.2.4. Infinity and Immunity 153
5.2.5. The Personal Space Extrapolated 155
5.3. Revisiting the Instrumental Space as the Potentiality Space 159
5.4. Improvising Within the Metaphor of Space 163
Chapter 6: The Practice of the Theory 169
6.1. The Practical Conception and Background of piano+ 169
6.1.1. Synthesis Revisited in Aesthetic Terms 171
6.1.2. Aesthetics of piano+ 174
6.2. Performances and Studies 178
6.2.1. Studies 178
6.2.2. Performances – Solo 182
6.2.3. Performances – Ensemble 188
Conclusion 193
Bibliography 205
Appendix I – Performances 2004 - 2011 216
Appendix II – Performers 225
Appendix III – Publications 227
Appendix IV – piano+ (Version 2011) 228
Appendix V – piano+ (Version 2005) 234
Appendix VI – Audio Examples (CDs + DVDs) 239
Item 1: Sebastian Lexer and Seymour Wright, Blasen 239
Item 2: Sebastian Lexer, Dazwischen 239
Item 3: Audio CD “Extended Piano Techniques” 239
Item 4: Data-DVD 241
Introduction 9
Introduction
The two uses of ‘live’ in the title of this thesis – “live electronics in live performance” –
stress that each might not necessarily happen in real-time and that aspects of each can
be dislocated from the moment of an assumed ‘live’ event. While ‘live electronics’ is
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establishing itself as a term to distinguish real-time processes used in performance
from studio production and the presentation of electroacoustic composition on fixed
media such as tape, CD and computer playback, ‘live performance’ could appear a
superfluous description. Performances, however, often rely on prepared material, in the
form of notation or practised and memorised activity. The intentional inclusion of ‘live
performance’ in the title signifies that the use of electronics is approached in a
performance setting concerned with all aspects of the activity in situ – the here and now.
In this manner the field of relevant topics range from the musical to the extra-musical,
from technology to philosophy and from individualistic concerns to sociopolitical
implications.
This thesis proposes a novel performance practice employing extended techniques,
preparations and a computerised extension of a piano within a freely improvised
musical approach. Musical instruments have a fundamental flexibility and adaptability
in their use allowing spontaneous changes as well as subtle alterations and variations.
My expectation of a performance system is that these fundamental characteristics are
matched by enabling instantaneous adjustments and flexibility while maintaining the
means to work with subtleties of control in the sound production. The thesis explores
whether these characteristics, found in established acoustic instruments, are also able to
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be implemented in computerised performance systems. My performance system, piano+ ,
consists of the acoustic piano augmented by layers of extended techniques and
electroacoustic processes. The development of technologically augmented instruments
requires discussion of parameter mapping. Introducing the terms ‘direct’ and ‘indirect
controllers’ as well as ‘operational’ and ‘performative gestures’ facilitates an exploration
of the interrelationship between design and timbral and structural possibilities during
live performance.
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The Grove Music and Oxford Music Dictionaries are not listening an entry header ‘live electronics’, but
it is used within several entries.
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Developed and patches programmed by the author in Max/MSP (http://cycling74.com ).
Introduction 10
A variety of concerns about music improvisation, philosophy, psychology and
technology inspired and aided the outline of a performance approach. The discourse of
this thesis developed through a symbiosis of theoretical, technological and practical
research. The first two pillars are the foundations of theoretical considerations inspired
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by major philosophical and psychological theories and the development of a
sophisticated electroacoustic performance system augmenting the acoustic possibilities
of the piano. The third pillar has been the continuous application of this hybrid
instrument for freely improvised performances, which explored the use of technology
within the sociopolitical context of various ensembles. This generates a problem of
research discipline and approach: Edgar O. Wilson makes reference to different
scientific disciplines as having their “own practitioners, language, modes of analysis,
and standards of validation” to express that an interdisciplinary field is “an increasingly
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unstable and disorienting region.” It does not feel fully appropriate to claim that my
practice based research equates to Wilson’s problematisation of the scientific limbo
between environmental policy, ethics, social science and biology, nevertheless, some of
the problems have been encountered. Philosophy as an inspiration for performance
practice does not result in a philosophical realisation of music. Likewise, the research
into computer based technology to enhance interactivity does not mean the performance
practice is an exemplar of interactive technology.
Despite a substantial amount of time committed to the technological development of the
piano+, this thesis goes beyond an introduction of the computer system to discuss
practical and musical outcomes. Conceptual and technical aspects are considered in
tandem with practical applications within performances of improvised music. The
technical aspect and topic of this thesis might suggest that the research and practice
developed out of the electroacoustic, computer or electronic music tradition of the past
60 years, but without negating the technical importance and impact – this research is
more concerned with a further development of the piano and its tradition. It is necessary
to consider the research and discussions on electroacoustic techniques and processes for
the technical aspects concerning the development of the computer program, but it is
important to relate to these from an aesthetic perspective to retain a fundamental
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Philosophies by Peter Sloterdijk and Georgio Agamben, theoretical discussion of improvisation by
Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost and Christopher Dell among others, and the psychological PSI theory
developed by Julius Kuhl.
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Wilson 2009, 9+10.