Exposition

Feedback Saxophone: Expanding the Microphonic Process in Post-Digital Research-Creation (2024)

Greg Bruce
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About this exposition

The microphonic process is the term I use to encapsulate how microphones, loudspeakers, and related media are used to support, extend, and innovate musical practice. In this research-creation thesis, I contextualize, document, and analyze my own application of the microphonic process – feedback saxophone. My feedback saxophone system combines the unique characteristics of the tenor saxophone with the idiosyncrasies of various microphones and loudspeakers to produce and manipulate acoustic feedback. While there are examples of similar systems, there is no standardization and little documentation exists outside of audio recordings. Furthermore, my work employs feedback in a systematized fashion that challenges its conventional, indeterminate use in performance and composition. To support this research-creation, I discuss the history of the microphonic process, examine contemporary “microphonic” practices, and use these findings to describe and analyze my own works. For the history of the microphonic process, I discuss how microphone amplification changed popular vocal technique through the work of early-microphone singer Bing Crosby. I then discuss how microphonic instrumentaria were variously employed by avant-garde and popular artists using the examples of Mikrophonie I by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hugh Davies’ feedback work Quintet, and the guitar-feedback practice of Jimi Hendrix. Following this discussion of instrumentaria, I establish the contemporary context in which my research-creation occurs by examining two present-day microphonic saxophonists, Colin Stetson and John Butcher. I use their distinct electroacoustic practices as a springboard to explain recent musical-technological trends: from the accelerating consumption of digital media in the new paradigm of sound, to the reactionary concepts of post-digitalism and the minimally augmented instrument. Lastly, I describe the creation of three concert etudes for my post-digital, minimally augmented feedback saxophone system, and critically examine the new works’ processes of creation, musical materials, and aesthetics.
typeresearch exposition
keywordssaxophone, Feedback, feedback loops, electroacoustic music, electroacoustic composition, improvisation, research-creation, artistic research, loudspeaker technology, microphones, music, Augmented Instruments, post-digital
date22/06/2023
published04/02/2024
last modified04/02/2024
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationUniversity of Toronto
copyrightGregory Bruce 2023
licenseCC BY-NC-SA
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2214806/2214807
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/rc.2214806
published inResearch Catalogue


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2215034 Navigation Buttons 2023 Public domain
2220518 Stride for Feedback Tenor Saxophone - Greg Bruce (2023 edit) Greg Bruce 2023 All rights reserved
2221679 Doina for Feedback Tenor Saxophone - Greg Bruce (2023 edit) Greg Bruce 2023 All rights reserved
2221687 Yen for Feedback Tenor Saxophone - Greg Bruce (2023 edit) Greg Bruce 2023 All rights reserved
2221757 FIg 1-1 - Borgdoff-Skains Music Research Categories Greg Bruce 2023 CC BY-NC-SA
2225728 5-1 Feedback saxophone signal chain Gregory Bruce 2023 CC BY-NC-SA
2225742 Fig 5-2 Gregory Bruce 2023 CC BY-NC-SA
2225787 5-7 Doina grammar sketch Gregory Bruce 2023 CC BY-NC-SA
2225792 5-8 Doina form sketch Gregory Bruce 2023 CC BY-NC-SA
2227278 Hendrix with Strat David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images All rights reserved
2227308 Hendrix Albert Hall, 1969. Michael Simmons, 1969 All rights reserved
2227389 Strandline Guitar Bowyers and Archer 2005 All rights reserved
2229511 Drawing_for_a_Phonograph_-_NARA_-_595515 National Archives 1880 Public domain
2229514 Bing_Crosby_1951 1951 Public domain
2229526 Drawing_for_a_Phonograph_-_NARA_-_595515 National Archives 1880 Public domain
2229527 Bing_Crosby_1951 1951 Public domain
2543790 TaPIR blue TaPIR Lab University of Toronto 2022 All rights reserved

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