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Gregory Taylor

ICM.jpg

I’m going to start this review by talking about something that we encounter all the time on the Max Forum but that’s seldom discussed: the patch request (or “grovel,” as it is sometimes more colloquially named).

I’m sure you know that I’m referring to — you may have posted some number of them yourself over the years, or just last week. Reduced to their simplest form, they all take a pretty canonical form:

Although we smile at them (particularly when they cluster at the end of a school term) just before we start typing our responses, I think of them as the outward and visible sign of something far more subtle: 

 we share an enthusiasm for, and to connect with the logic and 

. That, in turn, raises a more general question:

After you shake your head and say, “Wow….”, what comes next?

You’ve almost certainly encountered the work that moves you as a finished audio object. The technique is something of a mystery, the choices are made, the creator seems distanced by wisdom and miles. What are the options for a listener whose natural response is to run toward the object of their affection when that object is a recording of something whose form or content or style is almost entirely alien to them?

That’s what Forums like this are for. In more traditional forms, that what books are for. And, if you’re lucky enough to be in school, that’s what classroom-mediated apprenticeships are for. If you have well-educated close friends, it’s a chance to sit down over a pint and pick some brains.

But what if those circumstances aren’t readily available to 

? What help is there for you, alone in some remote place with questions you may not even be able to formulate?

I have a book for you. Well, it’s something more than a book, actually. 

Michael Clarke, Frédéric Dufeu, and Peter Manning have produced a hybrid cross between a book, 

 (Oxford University Press) that provides the finest example I've yet seen of a way to remotely (and, possibly, privately) explore an extraordinary range of electroacoustic musical works in a way that focuses on the very things you may most want to know: a sense of the interplay between the technology (with some stealth history thrown in, for good measure) used to create one of eight “classic” electroacoustic works, along with an "over the shoulder" view of the way that the individual composers used them to create the works themselves.

What surprised me most about the project is its balance of detailed scholarly research into the development of computer music techniques, software that presents musical analysis of the individual works covered in the book (John Chowning's 

) that let you engage interactively with the tools similar to what the composers worked with to get a real feel for their choices and outcomes, and the chance to — through interviews and the chapter text — hear the creators themselves talk about what they did, how they did it, and why.

image.png

 — the kind of experience that you emerge from hours/days/weeks later muttering, 

"Yikes! why isn't there a book like this on 

<insert your own top 3 works/composers/software techniques here>,

The authors have done a masterful job of mustering "canonical" works that span a broad range of styles within the electroacoustic tradition (granulation, algorithmic composition, brassage/collage, live plus tape/electronics), and touch on very different toolsets (from the earliest FM work at Stanford, to the Composer's Desktop Project, to the halls of IRCAM and GRM, to the World Soundscape Project, and to techniques for spatialization).

2021-07-05_13-42-55.png

Of course, the interesting thing about focusing on earlier canonical works is that many of these techniques are in much wider use and easily available to you on your laptop now, but you can really get the sense of being present at the birth of and at play in the possibilities the development of new software techniques allowed.

. The kind of fun that, in time and as you mess about with the interactive software, stealthily leaves you with the respect that can only come from having consumed and attempted to produce something.

One of the book's great features, from my point of view, extends well beyond its likely enthusiastic reception as a classroom text (which seems assured). The collection and presentation of the text and accompanying website materials can simultaneously serve the larger purpose of accessibility beyond the classroom — something very much on the minds of any of us who think about diversity and inclusivity. While its subject matter focuses on on a specific and historically-located body of "art music," 

does the finest job I have seen of offering the history, insights, and a sense of "how the work is made" to anyone with a curious set of ears outside of electroacoustic music's circle of light.

I'd like to end this little encomium by returning to the notion of the Forum post. In addition to 

the book Reviews we've posted over the years

 to point readers toward books of interest to members of the Max community in general, we've also seen

 in search of specific guidance on working with a given genre for the interested beginner. 

 is an engaging and enjoyable answer to that kind of request, and — as I've said earlier — the kind of project I'd like to see more of.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to working my way through the software to see how Trevor Wishart started with the sound of two whisky glasses clinking together and wound up with his piece 

Hey! I’m really interested in <insert name of person, style of work, technique>. Do you have a patch you could share?

Although we smile at them (particularly when they cluster at the end of a school term) just before we start typing our responses, I think of them as the outward and visible sign of something far more subtle: the desire to connect. To connect with each other, with the work we share an enthusiasm for, and to connect with the logic and manner of its making. That, in turn, raises a more general question:

After you shake your head and say, “Wow….”, what comes next? 

But what if those circumstances aren’t readily available to you? What help is there for you, alone in some remote place with questions you may not even be able to formulate?

I have a book for you. Well, it’s something more than a book, actually. Much more.

Michael Clarke, Frédéric Dufeu, and Peter Manning have produced a hybrid cross between a book, a website, and downloadable software called Inside Computer Music (Oxford University Press) that provides the finest example I've yet seen of a way to remotely (and, possibly, privately) explore an extraordinary range of electroacoustic musical works in a way that focuses on the very things you may most want to know: a sense of the interplay between the technology (with some stealth history thrown in, for good measure) used to create one of eight “classic” electroacoustic works, along with an "over the shoulder" view of the way that the individual composers used them to create the works themselves.

What surprised me most about the project is its balance of detailed scholarly research into the development of computer music techniques, software that presents musical analysis of the individual works covered in the book (John Chowning's Stria, Barry Truax's Riverrun, Philippe Manoury's Pluton, Hildegarde Westerkamp's Beneath the Forest Floor, François Dhomont's Phonurgie, Trevor Wishart's Imago, Jonathan Harvey's 4th String Quartet, Cort Lippe's Music for Tuba and Computer, and Natasha Barrett's Hidden Values—The Lock) that let you engage interactively with the tools similar to what the composers worked with to get a real feel for their choices and outcomes, and the chance to — through interviews and the chapter text — hear the creators themselves talk about what they did, how they did it, and why.

It's a tour de force — the kind of experience that you emerge from hours/days/weeks later muttering, "Yikes! why isn't there a book like this on <insert your own top 3 works/composers/software techniques here>, anyway?"

The authors have done a masterful job of mustering "canonical" works that span a broad range of styles within the electroacoustic tradition (granulation, algorithmic composition, brassage/collage, live plus tape/electronics), and touch on very different toolsets (from the earliest FM work at Stanford, to the Composer's Desktop Project, to the halls of IRCAM and GRM, to the World Soundscape Project, and to techniques for spatialization). 

And, in case I haven't been clear, Inside Computer Music is a lot of fun. The kind of fun that, in time and as you mess about with the interactive software, stealthily leaves you with the respect that can only come from having consumed and attempted to produce something.

One of the book's great features, from my point of view, extends well beyond its likely enthusiastic reception as a classroom text (which seems assured). The collection and presentation of the text and accompanying website materials can simultaneously serve the larger purpose of accessibility beyond the classroom — something very much on the minds of any of us who think about diversity and inclusivity. While its subject matter focuses on on a specific and historically-located body of "art music," Inside Computer Music does the finest job I have seen of offering the history, insights, and a sense of "how the work is made" to anyone with a curious set of ears outside of electroacoustic music's circle of light.

I'd like to end this little encomium by returning to the notion of the Forum post. In addition to the book Reviews we've posted over the years to point readers toward books of interest to members of the Max community in general, we've also seen the occasional post in search of specific guidance on working with a given genre for the interested beginner. Inside Computer Music is an engaging and enjoyable answer to that kind of request, and — as I've said earlier — the kind of project I'd like to see more of.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to working my way through the software to see how Trevor Wishart started with the sound of two whisky glasses clinking together and wound up with his piece Imago....

Inside Computer Music is a hybrid cross between a book, a website, and downloadable software. Together, they provide the finest example I've yet seen of a way to remotely (and, possibly, privately) explore an extraordinary range of electroacoustic musical works in a way that focuses on the very things you may most want to know.

book-review-inside-computer-music

This sounds super interesting, thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

This is exactly what I am looking for! I even went to Ircam seeking for information and insights in contemporary techniques ...

An interesting article. The way you started it made me feel close krunker. This will definitely be one of my favorite books. 

An interesting article. The way you started it made me feel close. This will definitely be one of my favorite books. 

Book Review: Inside Computer Music

This book review started with an email with questions about the pandemic and the end of the world. No, 

I should begin by mentioning something that some of you may already know but that I don’t talk about a great deal here: I host a radio program of electronic and experimental and contemporary music on a local Community Radio station and have done so for several decades. Since it’s community radio, there’s no playlist – I share what interests me with an audience who support the station directly (it’s a different model than Public Radio, and operates on a smaller scale, which means I have a great degree of freedom).

I recently received an email from a listener who mentioned something I’d never thought much about. They started by thanking me for doing the show, told me a little bit about how they were doing during lockdown, and then asked me about why “so many of the groups and albums and song titles had to do with darkness or the end of things.” It took me by surprise. 

? My first thought was that perhaps - since so much of what I program was largely instrumental, my listener was thinking that I broadcast two (glorious) hours of lonesome every Sunday night - "music with no people in it," more or less. But I popped open 

 going back for some time and rummaged around, there 

 a bunch of end-of-something-end-of-everything stuff there. Groups. Albums, Track names. Since the work I programmed was a collection of my choices, 

was it my choices rather than a sign of the times

Disclaimer: I am not a depressed or mopey person. Ask anyone.

As I read and listened, I realized that my correspondent was reacting to a specific kind of music that I broadcast with some regularity: work that falls somewhere between very minimal ambient and drone work, which often did express itself in those terms. In a flash, I knew just what to do: It was time to re-read Joanna Demers' 

Drone and Apocalypse: An Exhibit Catalog for the End of the World

. Once I'd finished, I also knew it was time to recommend it to 

 - my friends out there weathering these times. And here we are.

 certainly isn't a self-help book, although what kind of book it precisely is is a bit difficult to describe. Let's try it this way: It's a book about drone music that references music many of you will know and love (William Basinski, Thomas Köner, Celer, Eliane Radigue, Tim Hecker) that goes about its business in a most unusual way. The questions at the heart of the book are simply stated, I think: What might the philosophical foundations of drone music be? How does a kind of music which is often dismissed as being "devoid of content" - either by being boring or pretty in a way that serves little purpose find an audience and function in the present age? What laid the groundwork for its existence and our enjoyment of it? And does that work say something to us as we live in the shadow of various forms of apocalypse?

I'd have to say that this is quite likely one of the odder books I've recommended to you - in terms of both its form and its content, it is certainly a good deal closer to 

 (or even Joanna's own earlier book on the aesthetics of electronic music 

, which I highly recommend for its breadth and analysis). So I'm going to try to describe this odd beast of a book, in the hope that you'll either be interested in checking it out, or have a... different response. Fair enough?

Although this isn't a work of fictional, it starts with a fictional artifice (I dislike the word "artifice" - since it is often used to refer to clever 

 - but I don't have better one). The essays are presented as an imaginary exhibition catalog curated sometime in the 22nd century dedicated to the work of a largely unknown 21st century artist of sorts (you'll probably smile reading the curator's biography of the fictional artist Cynthia Wey, an MFA grad working payroll as an administrative assistant at a state university - one foot on the academic platform, and the other foot on the train). The catalog includes her essays along with propositions for various artworks that were never realized. The structure that Joanna Demers sets up lets her manage a neat sidestep from the conventions and affordances of "academic" or "scholarly" writing. The equally fictional "curators" of the catalog attempt to contextualize her work in its time, and then step back to let Cynthia Wey speak.

Using Cynthia Wey's voice/character, the essays in this book are more a personal record of listing to and being 

 by the music you're supposed to be writing about from a scholarly distance (I think that the act of choosing works of art one loves and writing about that as a main subject is something that also made Miller Puckette and Kerry Hagan's anthology 

 a better than average scholarly read, so I guess I'll have to admit some bias). In the course of writing about what she loves, Wey/Demers also makes a wide number of pretty dazzling connections of what she sees as the ideas behind the work to the work of thinkers and writers from Aristotle to Medieval iconography to... well, it's quite a ride. My only bumps in the road involved the decision to not leave Cynthia Wey's proposed works viewed as visionary by future scholars and curators as imaginary. While Sean Griffin's photocollages and 

Get the Latest on Max and our Community

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