Published
23-10-2024
Type of Work
Creative Work - Music
Abstract
This composition offers perspectives on collaborative, networked, multi-phonic technologies in production, reproduction and composition by harnessing contemporary mobile music-making technologies and traditions of 20th-century serialism and algorithmic music composition.
Mobile music-making platforms and devices have become commonplace within the contemporary musical landscape and represent innovation in the way in which musicians generate and interact with the raw compositional material. These devices are natively configured to be ‘network-ready’ which presents a new set of collaborative affordances unavailable to more traditional music-making platforms.
Residual Memory is a multichannel surround composition which we created using an iPad running mobile music-making apps and a laptop running a Pure Data patch generating serialised control data. The work is inspired by integral serialism, a brand of serialism that applies numerical organisation not only to pitch, but also to elements such as duration, dynamics, and timbre. The work of Gottfried Michael Koenig in particular has had an influence on this project as it represents an ideological bridge between early dodecaphonic music and the later, computer-assisted implementation of the serial method. Using integral serialism as the point of departure, a computer running a Pure Data patch communicates the output of a serial algorithm via Bluetooth to the iPad. The iPad music app host AUM, receives the serialised control data via MIDI and routes the control change information to the various synthesis parameters which are hosted within AUM. The multi-gesture interactivity of mobile music apps allows for further control in live performance.
We hope that this work represents the expression of tensions found at the intersection between tradition and innovation within electronic music composition and performance.
Citation
Chechelashvili, D., Brown, A. (2024, October 22–23). Residual Memory [Conference presentation composition]. The Australasian Computer Music Conference, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. https://computermusic.org.au/conferences/acmc2024/