Paper accepted to EMS conference, Lisbon (June 2013)

My paper describing the methodologies of working with the Milapfest musicians has been accepted for presentation at this years Electronic Music Studies Network Conference (June 2013, Lisbon)

Performer as sound source: interactions and mediations in the recording studio and in the field

Abstract

In this paper, the author takes particular interest in the collection of sound material from musical instruments (for use in both acousmatic and mixed works) and how the composer manages creative intent and concepts while collaborating with a performer. Interactions at this stage ultimately impact upon the sound material collected as well as the final composition. The frontier for exchange during these composer/performer encounters enables collaborative work to flourish – but what are the optimum conditions for a successful recording session? Is there a requisite limit or a bare minimum on how prescriptive one should be as a composer when directing the performer in order to avoid confining the creative possibilities of one’s own imagination or the performer’s own input? And how does one navigate the same situation cross-culturally with foreign and ethnic instruments where unfamiliar performance practice traditions and language barriers may exist?

It is common to interact with object sound sources (eg. keys, coins, slinky etc…) in an exploratory fashion, prizing out unusual gestures and textures while always on the look out for those happy accidents that might lend themselves well to the transformation process in the studio. With instrumental sound sources, where a performer is involved, the same exploratory activity may not be immediately possible and we must therefore effectively communicate to the performer our request for specific experimentation with sound types and timbres. Approaches to this activity differ from composer to composer and modes of collaboration between composer and performer subsequently change as a result. How we, as composers, conduct this sound capturing process is led ultimately by what we want to work with in the studio. With the use of composer interviews, existing repertoire and previous noteworthy collaborations I am aim to propose, and distinguish between, the following modes of collaboration:

q      Instructive/directional: The composer is prescriptive in outlining how and what the performer is to play.

q      Explorative/interactive: Details of material remain somewhat unspecified. Some loose ideas and concepts may be discussed beforehand. Contributions from both sides allow a creative exchange to flow.

q      Unstructured: An open session where the performer is given free reign/carte blanche to decide what to play. A typical example of this is when a performer demonstrates extended techniques specific to their instrument – the composer acts as a listener and thus learns directly from this process as to what the available sound possibilities are.

Two further distinctive situations are worthy of discussion:

q      The composer becomes the performer. The composer experiments with an instrument that they have no formal training on as a means of generating sounds. This also applies to situations where the composer performs or plays with objects (not instruments as such) often in unconventional ways.

q      Adapting to source. The composer adapts to a sound source or performer. On-the-fly field recordings (eg. recording environmental sounds, street performers etc…) where the composer cannot intrude upon or affect the sounding outcome. All adaptations here refer to technical considerations eg. Position, microphone handling and volume control on field recorder).

This paper examines the authority and instructive role of the composer in the recording studio along with how one might take ownership of these captured sound materials in future creative work.  Finding oneself within the material generated by others (sounds, notes, phrases, motifs and even melody lines), especially from unfamiliar cultures and contexts can be challenging. This part of the paper draws upon first hand accounts of collaborating with Milapfest (UK, Indian arts development trust) in building an online sound archive of Indian musical instruments as part of an ongoing educational outreach program at Liverpool Hope University. The sound archive material came to exist as a bi-product of collecting sound material for my own creative work (two new electroacoustic music works exploring the use of culturally significant sound material). A significant proportion of this research project (supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK) involves individual recording sessions with approximately 25 - 30 instrumentalists from this highly specialised performance tradition. This raises important issues regarding cross-cultural exchange and what, as an electroacoustic music composer, I might achieve sonically from exploring their practice, along with the question of how and what the performers take away from these encounters. Within the ‘give and take’ of a cross-cultural collaboration, I am posing the question of how possible it is to exert one’s creative and personal compositional voice when considering each different mode of collaboration. As creative projects evolve, take shape and are eventually performed, how is the performer’s reception of the final work informed by the early stage collaboration between composer and performer? The collection of both idiomatic and unconventional sound materials provides a discussion point within this discourse, which will be supported by personal perspectives and those from performers involved in this collaborative process.