The performance of Western notated art music is usually associated with the notions of execution, recitation, transmission, reproduction, or interpretation, relying on the existence of a commonly accepted, sedimented musical text, and on a set of stabilised conventions that regulate the communication between composer, performer, and audience. From this perspective, performance is the moment for the concrete sonic representation of an already known sound structure. This book challenges this view, proposing a different perspective, understanding performance first as a space of problematisation, not of representation. It proposes a critical stance on the diversity of the available musical sources and materials, stressing their epistemic complexity and their potential for productive reconfigurations, suggesting new modes of creatively operating with them. Moving beyond the work concept, the book presents a new image of musical works, based upon the notions of strata, assemblage, and diagram, and proposing innovative practice-based methodologies that integrate archival and musicological research into the creative process leading to a performance. This view is not primarily intended as a rejection of interpretation, but as a movement towards a space of problematisation that is situated beyond interpretation, and that might include interpretation as one component of its fabric. Thus, my effort is to push interpretation into post-interpretation. It is, however, important to make clear that post here is to be understood neither as an epochal category, nor simply as chronologically following interpretation, but rather as a rupture and a beyond that continue to entertain relationships with interpretation. It involves subjecting the traditional relationship between music and interpretation to a critical reconsideration. This critical deconstruction of interpretation creates a productive tension with representational models, which resist change, and it is a proposal for critical renderings infused by research and inventiveness. Musical practice becomes primarily a critical act, allowing performances to be critical studies of the works performed, significantly in, by, and through the means of performance itself. In this sense, performance gains a supplementary dimension, and can be thought of as an independent form of art: independent of works of music, of supposedly uncorrupted traditions, and of idealised reconstructions of past practices and instruments. Consequently, this view also argues for a new kind of performer, emancipated from authoritative texts and traditions, and open to 21 Experimentation versus Interpretation gained visibility within the musicological subfields of performance science and performance studies, at least since the 1990s. In his essay "From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment," Frank X. Mauceri (1997, 193), distinguishing between the use of the word experiment as a historical or stylistic category and its use in science, states: "Experiment is a technique by which evidence is gathered in suppor...
Transduction is Gilbert Simondon’s key concept for understanding processes of differentiation and of individuation in a number of fields, including scientific disciplines, social and human sciences, technological devices, and artistic domains. Originating from the sciences and crucially developed in its philosophical implications by Simondon, transduction refers to a dynamic operation by which energy is actualized, moving from one state to the next, in a process that individuates new materialities. This chapter appropriates this concept for musical practice, aiming at establishing a foundational conceptual layer for a broader research effort that crucially includes artistic practice—both composition and performance—as its starting and end points. After an introductory depiction of what transduction might mean for a music performer, this paper focuses on the presentation of different definitions of transduction, mainly stemming from Simondon himself, but including two further extensions: one to Deleuze’s concept of haecceity (and via Deleuze, to my own micro-haecceity), the other to Brian Massumi’s notion of corporeality. Keeping in mind the potential of these definitions for the making of music, this essay explores eight different, yet complementary ways of thinking transduction, which are presented in a growing scale of complexity from the incandescent light bulb (3.1.) to the intricacies of decision-making in living organisms (3.8.), passing by the question of time and temporality (3.2.), thermodynamics (3.3.), information theory (3.4.), a redesigned theory of haecceities (3.5.), Riemannian topology (3.6.), and corporeality (3.7.). All these topics are presented here in short, as opening gates to wider fields of inquiry, suggesting future avenues of research, rather than claiming to offer finished thought.
In the 1990s Daniel Wolf talked about a "post-experimental" phase, meaning that "'experimental' refers to a type of music of a particular historical era, essentially, if not quite exclusively, the music of the fifties, sixties, and seventies stemming from Cage's 'hard' definition" (Gilmore 2014, 27). This era implies the operating and maintenance of a complex "experimental scene" that supports itself from within and that includes "the composers themselves, [and] mediating factors compris[ing] a complex network of festivals, foundations, academic institutions, venues, private patrons, performers, publishers, publicists, critics, musicologists, and so on" (ibid.). (5) "'Experimental' is all the interesting new music that isn't avant-garde" (Gilmore 2014, 28). [Michael Nyman's definition.] ical implications when one advocates and puts into action an "experimental attitude"? Or, formulated differently, Does experimental music (or experimentation in music) remain in a beautifully encapsulated limbo, independent of the world "out there," as suggested by Daniel Wolf 's definition, which seems based on an ivory-tower "experimental scene"? At the very end of his essay, Bob Gilmore (2014: 29) refers to the first question, stating, "As regards the work of older composers, I'm of the opinion that some music is inherently, not temporarily, experimental." What, then, is music that is "inherently experimental"? Reflecting on this question triggers many other related questions: Is there an experimental attitude recognisable in different times, styles, and places? Are there any detectable "experimental affinities" throughout music history? How do new artistic paths emerge through experimental performance or compositional practices? What is the character, function, and potential of experimentation in musical practice? How does experimentation shape artistic identity and expertise? These were the fundamental questions discussed at the International Orpheus Academy for Music and Theory in the
In the 1990s Daniel Wolf talked about a "post-experimental" phase, meaning that "'experimental' refers to a type of music of a particular historical era, essentially, if not quite exclusively, the music of the fifties, sixties, and seventies stemming from Cage's 'hard' definition" (Gilmore 2014, 27). This era implies the operating and maintenance of a complex "experimental scene" that supports itself from within and that includes "the composers themselves, [and] mediating factors compris[ing] a complex network of festivals, foundations, academic institutions, venues, private patrons, performers, publishers, publicists, critics, musicologists, and so on" (ibid.). (5) "'Experimental' is all the interesting new music that isn't avant-garde" (Gilmore 2014, 28). [Michael Nyman's definition.] ical implications when one advocates and puts into action an "experimental attitude"? Or, formulated differently, Does experimental music (or experimentation in music) remain in a beautifully encapsulated limbo, independent of the world "out there," as suggested by Daniel Wolf 's definition, which seems based on an ivory-tower "experimental scene"? At the very end of his essay, Bob Gilmore (2014: 29) refers to the first question, stating, "As regards the work of older composers, I'm of the opinion that some music is inherently, not temporarily, experimental." What, then, is music that is "inherently experimental"? Reflecting on this question triggers many other related questions: Is there an experimental attitude recognisable in different times, styles, and places? Are there any detectable "experimental affinities" throughout music history? How do new artistic paths emerge through experimental performance or compositional practices? What is the character, function, and potential of experimentation in musical practice? How does experimentation shape artistic identity and expertise? These were the fundamental questions discussed at the International Orpheus Academy for Music and Theory in the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.