This artistic PhD project is a composer-performer oriented exploration of live electronics understood as modular musicking systems. The conceptual framework draws upon an understanding of agency that views musical instruments as real or virtual objects-in-time that come into existence through the act of musicking. The systems created and presented in the thesis are explored through various scenarios presented as patches that include compositions, performance systems, and strategies for musicking. The project seeks to gain knowledge about the co-evolutionary processes found within the acts of composing and performing with such systems. At the core of the research is an exploration of the field of tension between the relative stability and flexibility in the affordances of live electronic instruments. It presents strategies for the design of live electronic systems in order to obtain a balance between these two states, and to understand how instruments are adapted in relation to the artistic processes of composing and performing. The thesis addresses the following research questions: 1. In what ways are my live electronic setups adapted within the acts of composing and performing? 2. How do my live electronic instruments manifest the field of tension between stability and flexibility? 3. What type of strategies can be used to create a predictable field of affordances of live electronic instruments? Through artistic research methods of meletē, transcription, and re-composition, the project gains a deeper understanding of when, how, and why human and non-human agents co-evolve in musicking with live electronics. It presents four core systems developed and refined within the project: Paragraph – a live coding environment, Parsimonia – a modular digital musical instrument, the EMP Triangle – a serial and modular composition tool, and the Sinew0od feedback system – used as a foundation for three transcriptions. The artistic outcomes are further studied using qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. The main contribution of this thesis is a novel understanding of live electronic musicking as co-evolutionary acts of patching. These acts entail processes of making and breaking connections between human and non-human agencies, and through patching create, transform, and manipulate compositions and performance setups, in order to achieve metastable systems. Hereby, the thesis proposes a cybernetic understanding of musicking as a process, challenging the traditional notion of fixed musical works, blurring the lines between compositions, instruments, interpretations, and performances.

>> Systems

1. Paragraph

2. Parsimonia
3. EMP Triangle
4. Sinew0od

Patches >>

1. TCP/IP: NIME
2. TCP/IP: Sestina
3. TCP/IP: Reconciliation
4. Re-patching Bach
5. Triangular Progressions
6. Sinew0od for Bass Clarinet
7. Sinew0od for Halldorophone
8. Sinew0od for Buchla

Publications >>

1. Global Hyperorgan

2. Exploring Sinew0od

3. Live Coding the Global Hyperorgan

4. A New Morphology

Book >>

Rotations

Traditional counterpoint techniques, such as inversion, mirroring, and mirrored inversion, as well as various transposition algorithms, could also be applied. As shown below, the triangle as a whole as well as individual rows can be rotated, mirrored, inverted, and further manipulated according to different algorithms.

Readings
Furthermore, the sequences of numbers can, of course, be read in several different ways. This includes the obvious left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, and bottom-to-top readings, but many other options like looped sequences, randomness, and changes in direction are also possible. I think of this system as similar to a sequencer module in a modular synthesizer, where different clock pulses are used to advance to the next value according to specified reading patterns.

Applications
Besides being entangled with the other systems presented within this project, the EMP Triangle has been used in several of the patch scenarios. This includes Patch 5: Triangular Progressions and the three Sinew0od transcriptions presented in Patch 6, Patch 7, and Patch 8.

System 3: EMP Triangle

The EMP Triangle is a modular compositional tool for the generation of musical ideas, sonic material, and structure that have been used in my practice for a long time, and hence, intertwined into all the other systems.

Construction

It was constructed using the series of 1 - 8 as a first row of numbers and then derive the next row by pairwise summing and taking the digital root of each, i.e., reducing all numbers to single digits (which gives the same result as n mod 9). Continuing this process, a number triangle with symmetrical properties emerge. As seen in the image above, these properties include symmetrical alignment of numbers that sum to nine, the rows all sum up to numbers that can be reduced to nine, and the number nine itself perfectly lined up in the middle of every second row. When i discovered these properties, I thought of it as something magical, and I still find it fascinating, but of course this is just a consequence of the use of the Base-10 number system. However, this triangle has been proven to be useful as a catalyst for new compositions and sonic structures ever since I discovered it. It has laid the foundation for many compositions and is an important part of my composer's toolkit.

Modularity

Over the years, I have developed a modular understanding of the triangle. Instead of applying a unidirectional notion of mapping, this enables a notion of multidimensional patching where digits, rows and symmetries can be used as modules that can be patched both internally and into certain musical dimensions or as containers for musical gestures or parts on a higher structural level. The patch example below shows internal connections between numbers 3, 5, and 7, and their corresponding rows (read from the top). The four nines are patched to 1 and 8, 2 and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5, respectively.

Such patching techniques have been used to generate patterns for note durations, pitches, subdivisions of durations and pitches, chords, various timbral parameters, as a re-mapping filter for musical gestures, and form.

A crucial factor for the patching possibilities described here, is a SuperCollider implementation of the EMP Triangle. Working with the triangle in practice thus means that the connections are made in a coding interface. This, in turn, enables a simplified handling of complex patching, e.g., between several instances of the triangle, with different rotations and permutations, and a simplified mapping between musical structure and sonic control.

Tip

Tip

System 3: EMP Triangle

Construction

Modularity