W A Y S WAYS & MEANS & M Too Many Notes: Computers, E A N S
Complexity and Culture in Voyager ABSTRACT
The author discusses his computer music composition, Voyager, which employs a com- George E. Lewis puter-driven, interactive “virtual improvising orchestra” that ana- lyzes an improvisor’s performance in real time, generating both com- plex responses to the musician’s playing and independent behavior arising from the program’s own in- oyager [1,2] is a nonhierarchical, interactive mu- pears to stand practically alone in ternal processes. The author con- V the trenchancy and thoroughness tends that notions about the na- sical environment that privileges improvisation. In Voyager, improvisors engage in dialogue with a computer-driven, inter- of its analysis of these issues with ture and function of music are active “virtual improvising orchestra.” A computer program respect to computer music. This embedded in the structure of soft- ware-based music systems and analyzes aspects of a human improvisor’s performance in real viewpoint contrasts markedly that interactions with these sys- time, using that analysis to guide an automatic composition with Catherine M. Cameron’s [7] tems tend to reveal characteris- (or, if you will, improvisation) program that generates both rather celebratory ethnography- tics of the community of thought complex responses to the musician’s playing and indepen- at-a-distance of what she terms and culture that produced them. “American experimentalism,” in Thus, Voyager is considered as a dent behavior that arises from its own internal processes. kind of computer music-making This work, which is one of my most widely performed com- which the word “race” never ap- embodying African-American aes- positions, deals with the nature of music and, in particular, pears, and in which her notion of thetics and musical practices. the processes by which improvising musicians produce it. a “musical class structure” is These questions can encompass not only technological or framed largely in terms of a now- music-theoretical interests but philosophical, political, cul- moribund debate about relative tural and social concerns as well. This is consistent with the privilege between Europe and America. instrumental dimension or tendency in African musical orga- In contrast, Born’s explicit identification of the nearly all- nization, or what Robert Farris Thompson [3] identifies as male, all-white musical and cultural canon articulated not “songs and dances of social allusion,” one of several “ancient only by the French institute, but by its American equivalents, African organizing principles of song and dance that crossed traces the outlines of the development of a post-1950s aes- the seas from the Old World to the New.” thetic of trans-European experimentalism. Given her so far Voyager’s unusual amalgamation of improvisation, indeter- unrefuted thesis that the overwhelming majority of computer minacy, empathy and the logical, utterly systematic structure music research and compositional activity locates itself (how- of the computer program is described throughout this article ever unsteadily at times) within the belief systems and cul- not only as an environment, but as a “program,” a “system” tural practices of European concert music, one can easily and a “composition,” in the musical sense of that term. In imagine a work that, like Voyager, exemplifies an area of musi- fact, the work can take on aspects of all of these terms simul- cal discourse using computers that is not viewed culturally taneously—considering the conceptual level, the process of and historically as a branch of trans-European contemporary creating the software and the real-time, real-world encounter concert music and, moreover, is not necessarily modeled as a with the work as performer or listener. Flowing across these narrative about “composition.” seemingly rigid conceptual boundaries encourages both im- provisors and listeners to recognize the inherent instability of such taxonomies. THE AESTHETICS OF MULTIDOMINANCE Musical computer programs, like any texts, are not “objec- In an influential 1990s essay, the artist and critic Robert L. tive” or “universal,” but instead represent the particular ideas Douglas [8] sought to formalize an African-American aes- of their creators. As notions about the nature and function of thetic, synthesizing visual and musical elements of what the music become embedded into the structure of software-based painter Jeff Donaldson, founder of the Africobra art move- musical systems and compositions, interactions with these sys- ment [9], has called “Trans-African” culture. The aspect of tems tend to reveal characteristics of the community of thought Douglas’s theory that I wish to highlight here is the notion of and culture that produced them. Thus, it would be useful here “multidominant elements,” which I will henceforth call to examine the implications of the experience of programming “multidominance.” According to Douglas, the aesthetics of and performing with Voyager as a kind of computer music-mak- multidominance, involving “the multiple use of colors in in- ing embodying African-American cultural practice. tense degrees, or the multiple use of textures, design pat- Among the fair number of studies by artists/theorists who terns, or shapes” [10] are found quite routinely in musical have written cogently on issues of race, gender and class in new technological media (such as Loretta Todd [4] and Cameron Bailey [5]), the ethnographic study of Institut Re- George E. Lewis (trombonist, composer, computer/installation artist), Department of Music, Critical Studies/Experimental Practices Area, University of California, San Di- cherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) by ego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0326, U.S.A. E-mail:
© 2000 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 10, pp. 33–39, 2000 33
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y S and visual works of Africa and its border between form and content is dif- Miyake, and extended cellist Jon Rose. & diaspora. ficult to police. Moreover, these formal The work has been performed in venues M By way of introduction to his theory, abstractions are not universals; as diverse as the IRCAM Summer Acad- E A Douglas recalls from his art-student days multidominance is not present in all emy, the Groningen Jazz Marathon, In- N S that interviews with “most African-Ameri- trans-African music and art and cer- ternational Computer Music Confer- can artists with Eurocentric art training tainly must not be applied as a sonic lit- ences in 1988 and 1994, Xebec Hall will reveal that they received similar in- mus test. In the particular case of Voy- (Kobe, Japan) and the Velvet Lounge in structions, such as ‘tone down your col- ager, however, the composition’s Chicago [24]. ors, too many colors’” [11]. Apparently, African-American cultural provenance The various versions of Voyager have these “helpful” pedagogical interven- lends particular credence to an identifi- all been written in dialects of Forth, the tions were presented as somehow univer- cation of multidominance at the levels curiously hybrid compiled/interpreted sal and transcendent, rather than as ema- of both the logical structure of the soft- environment created by Charles Moore nating from a particular culturally or ware and its performative articulation. around 1970 [25,26]. Seemingly anti-au- historically situated worldview, or as Moreover, whether or not these thoritarian in nature, during the early based in networks of political or social multidominant forms have been con- 1980s Forth appealed to a community of power. Douglas, in observing that “such sciously conceptualized, exploited and composers who wanted an environment culturally narrow aesthetic views would extended by artists with full awareness of in which a momentary inspiration could have separated us altogether from our their implications, they must be viewed quickly lead to its sonic realization—a rich African heritage if we had accepted as culturally contingent, historically dialogic creative process, emblematic of them without question,” goes on to com- emergent and linked to situated struc- an improvisor’s way of working. As the pare this aspect of Eurocentric art train- tures of power and dialogue. Forth culture developed, languages ing to Eurocentric music training, which The African-American composer Olly such as Hierarchical Music Specification in his view does not equip its students to Wilson [17] has identified a set of ten- Language (HMSL) [27] and, later, FOR- hear music with multidominant rhythmic dencies and principles characteristic of MULA (FORth MUsic LAnguage) and melodic elements as anything but African and Afro-American music-mak- [28,29], created by artists working in the “noise,” “frenzy” or perhaps “chaos” [12]. ing, while quite similar principles are field, made Forth and its dialects per- In fact, virtually every extant form of identified by Robert Farris Thompson in haps the most widely used language black music has been characterized as examining African visual forms [18]. In group for interactive music before the “noise.” As historian Jon Cruz notes, the particular, Douglas, Wilson and Thomp- advent of Max, a language that similarly history of this trope in the United States son all identify rhythm as a critically im- centers the dialogic as part of the soft- dates back at least as far as the slavery portant structural element in African- ware construction process. period: “Prior to the mid-19th Century derived music. Wilson notices in My analysis of Voyager as an interactive black music appears to have been heard African-derived music a “principle of computer music system uses Robert by captors and overseers primarily as rhythmic and implied metrical contrast” Rowe’s taxonomy of “player” and “instru- noise—that is, as strange, unfathomable, [19]. Thompson sees the black Atlantic ment” paradigms [30], although these and incomprehensible” [13]. However, visual tradition [20] as displaying “a pro- two models of role construction in inter- as Cruz points out, for slaveowners to pensity for multiple meter” [21], and his active systems should be viewed as on a hear only noise is “tantamount to being references to Mande cloth work as incor- continuum along which a particular oblivious to the structures of meaning porating a conception of “rhythmized system’s model of computer-human inter- that anchored sounding to the herme- textiles” makes a direct connection with action can be located. In Rowe’s terms, neutic world of the slaves.” To hear only both African and African-American mu- Voyager functions as an extreme example noise is to “remain removed from how sic [22]. Similarly, Douglas connects the of a “player” program, where the com- slave soundings probed their circum- visual with the sonic: “the predisposition puter system does not function as an in- stances and cultivated histories and to use multiple types of rhythm in musi- strument to be controlled by a performer. memories” [14]. cal construction speaks equally to a dis- I conceive a performance of Voyager as The notion identified by Cruz that tinct aesthetic as does the multiple use multiple parallel streams of music gen- “the production of music and other cul- of visual elements” [23]. eration, emanating from both the com- tural forms enabled slaves to collectively puters and the humans—a nonhier- exercise symbolic control” [15] ad- archical, improvisational, subject-subject OMPUTER USIC AND dresses directly the issue of how a formal C M model of discourse, rather than a stimu- aesthetic can articulate political and so- TRANS-AFRICAN FORMALISM lus/response setup. cial meaning. Such modern-day (soon to I conceived and programmed the first Both the sonic behavior and the pro- be old-school) hip-hop groups as Public version of Voyager between 1986 and gram structure of Voyager exhibit Enemy, in full recognition of the disap- 1988. The work was created in multidominance in a number of re- probation of their music by powerful Amsterdam at the Studio for Elektro- spects. First, the Voyager program is con- sectors of the dominant culture of their Instrumentale Muziek (STEIM); I added ceived as a set of 64 asynchronously op- own day, even appropriated and later ameliorations wherever I hap- erating single-voice MIDI-controlled ironicized this trope, challenging them- pened to be in the ensuing years. Since “players,” all generating music in real selves, their listeners and their detrac- then, Voyager has been performed time. Several different (and to some, tors with their explicit intention and ex- around the world, with improvisors such clashing) sonic behavior groupings, or hortation to “bring the noise” [16]. as myself (trombone), saxophonists ensembles, may be active simulta- Douglas’s call for a formalist analysis Roscoe Mitchell, J.D. Parran, Douglas neously, moving in and out of metric does not exclude the realization that the Ewart and Evan Parker, pianist Haruna synchronicity, with no necessary arith-
34 Lewis, Too Many Notes
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y :ap setphrasebehavior ( - - ) S ::ap" general phrasing " ( task recurs at intervals of 5000-7000 ms ) & 5000 time-advance 11 irnd 200 * 5000 + to cycle M E A N begin S ::ev bodymusic 0= \ in this version this red light is always zero if calcork \ set up new group of players, including number and position in space else allplayersoff \ turn off all groups and start over with a new group. then \ set up how system will follow input; set MIDI timbres setfollowbehavior setreplies setvoxbehavior
\ set melody algorithms, pitchsets, reverb and chorus type setwavebehavior setscalebehavior setreverbbehavior setchorusbehavior
computer-solo? \ if no one is playing, I have a solo
\ set volume and velocity, microtonal tonic transposition if setvelbehavior setvolbehavior settonicbehavior
\ set octave, interval range, duration range setoctbehavior setintbehavio setwidbehavior setlegatobehavior
\ set length of notes bodymusic 0= \ in this version this red light is always zero if setrestbehavior \ set up average degree of silence then
\ set portamento, whether or not to follow tempo, and tempo ranges setportabehavior settempofollow setspdbehavior then
;;ev cycle time-advance again ;;ap ;ap
Fig. 1. Voyager’s top-level phrase behavior word, written as a FORMULA active process.
metic correlation between the strongly clude turning off all players in all en- ity, but a unique response to input, de- discursive layers of multirhythm. While sembles and starting afresh with this ciding which improvisors—one, both or this is happening, a lower-level routine new group, turning off just the most re- none—will influence its output behav- parses incoming MIDI data into sepa- cently instantiated ensemble, or allow- ior. Further options include imitating, rate streams for up to two human impro- ing the new ensemble to enter the fray directly opposing or ignoring the infor- visors, who are either performing on with the groups that are already playing. mation coming from the improvisors. MIDI-equipped keyboards or playing The setphrasebehavior word also in- The response task word setresponse acoustic instruments through “pitch fol- cludes constituent subroutines that (Fig. 3), which runs asynchronously to lowers,” devices that try to parse the specify for the new ensemble choices of the phrase behavior task, processes data sounds of acoustic instruments into timbre, the choice of one of 15 melody from both the low-level MIDI parser that MIDI data streams. algorithms, the choice of approximately collects and manages the raw data and a The aperiodic, asynchronously recur- 150 microtonally specified pitchsets (see mid-level smoothing routine that uses ring global “behavior specification” sub- Fig. 2), and choices of volume range, this raw data to construct averages of routine setphrasebehavior, which runs at microtonal transposition, tactus (or pitch, velocity, probability of note activ- intervals of between 5 and 7 seconds, “beat”), tempo, probability of playing a ity and spacing between notes. This in- continually recombines the MIDI “play- note, spacing between notes, interval- formation is used by setresponse to decide ers” into new ensemble combinations width range and MIDI-related ornamen- in greater detail how each ensemble will with defined behaviors (Fig. 1). This tation such as chorusing, reverb and respond to elements of the input, such subroutine (or “word” in Forth par- portamento, and how such parameters as tempo (speed), probability of playing lance) first makes determinations as to as tessitura and tempo can change over a note, the spacing between notes, me- how many players will be part of the time. Moreover, each new ensemble lodic interval width, choice of primary next ensemble. Additional options in- chooses not only a distinct group sonor- pitch material (including a pitchset
Lewis, Too Many Notes 35
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y S create partch43 43 i, & 0 s, 21 s, 53 s, 84 s, 112 s, 151 s, 165 s, 182 s, M 204 s, 231 s, 267 s, 294 s, 316 s, 347 s, 386 s, 417 s, E A 435 s, 471 s, 498 s, 519 s, 551 s, 582 s, 617 s, 649 s, N 680 s, 702 s, 729 s, 765 s, 782 s, 814 s, 853 s, 884 s, S 906 s, 933 s, 969 s, 996 s, 1018 s, 1035 s, 1049 s, 1088 s, 1115 s, 1147 s, 1178 s, Fig. 2. Voyager pitchset construction, written as a Forth table representing the well-known 43-tone scale of Harry Partch, with approximate values given in cents (a method of specifying musical intervals in which 100 cents equals a musical semitone). The word “s” translates val- ues in cents to MIDI note numbers with 8-bit microtonal pitchbend offsets, and then compiles the 16-bit result into the next available byte pair in the table. The word “I” creates a transposition factor that allows the program’s melody generators to perform a rough mapping of the microtonal data in a given pitchset to 12-space data received via MIDI. This permits the program to use these scales with effective in- terval widths analogous to those in 12-space, if desired.
based on the last several notes received) detailed representation of its input can computer technology. As I have observed octave range, microtonal transposition then produce a musical output percep- elsewhere, interactivity has gradually be- and volume. tible by an improvisor as analogous to come a metonym for information re- Of particular note here is the fact that various states that were experienced dur- trieval rather than dialogue, posing the in the absence of outside input, the ing improvisation. This notion of bi- danger of commodifying and ultimately complete specification of the system’s directional transfer of intentionality reifying the encounter with technology: musical behavior is internally generated through sound—or “emotional trans- Indeed, the rapid development of stan- by setphrasebehavior. In practical terms, duction”—constructs performance as an dardized modes for the relationships this means that Voyager does not need to intentional act embodying meaning and between humans and computers is un- have real-time human input to generate announcing emotional and mental in- fortunate for such a young and pre- music. In turn, since the program exhib- tention. In this way, I believe, the emo- sumably quickly changing technology. The evolution of the language used to its generative behavior independently of tional state of the improvisor may be reflect the multimedia revolution is a the improvisor, decisions taken by the mirrored in the computer partner, even compelling testament to the power of computer have consequences for the if the actual material played by the com- corporate media. Corporate power as- music that must be taken into account puter does not necessarily preserve the sumes an important, even dominating by the improvisor. With no built-in hier- pitch, duration or morphological struc- role in conditioning our thinking about computers, art, image, and archy of human leader/computer fol- tures found in the input. sound. Much of the descriptive lan- lower—no “veto” buttons, footpedals or In improvised music, improvisors of- guage surrounding multimedia (and physical cues—all communication be- ten assert both personal narrative and related areas, such as “cyberspace”) tween the system and the improvisor difference as critical aspects of their serves to hide the power exercised by corporations [32]. takes place sonically. work. For me, what Jerry Garcia called The simultaneous multiplicities of the “anti-authoritarian” impulse in im- Finally, Wilson notices in African-de- available timbres, microtonal pitchsets, provisation led me to pursue the project rived music a tendency toward a high rhythms, transposition levels and other of de-instrumentalizing the computer. If density of events in a relatively short elements in Voyager—all emblematic of the computer is not treated as a musical time frame [33]. It is to be noted that an aesthetic of multidominance—reflect instrument, but as an independent im- the work of many important African- my inheritance from the Association for provisor, difference is partly grounded American improvisors—in particular the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ in the form of program responses that Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane and Albert notion of “multi-instrumentalism,” are not necessarily predictable on the Ayler—exhibit a notion of extended where a number of AACM improvisors, basis of outside input. As we have noted form that involves the sustained use, of- including Wadada Leo Smith, Henry earlier, Voyager’s response to input has ten for very long periods, of extremely Threadgill, Douglas Ewart, Joseph several modes, from complete commun- rapid, many-noted intensity structures. Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony ion to utter indifference. This seeming Donaldson’s 1988 visual work Jam Packed Braxton and others moved to develop lack of uniformity is not necessarily cor- and Jelly Tight [34] exemplifies the ap- multiple voices on a wide variety of in- related with “lack of structure,” as is so proach of the Africobra artists, who, ac- struments [31]. In AACM performances, often expressed in the vernacular dis- cording to Douglas, the extreme multiplicity of voices, em- course of “randomness.” Rather, while used the jampack and jelly-tight con- bedded within an already highly collec- tendencies over a long period of time cept as a means of filling up the void, tive ensemble orientation, permitted the exhibit consistency, moment-to-moment to add as much as possible to the act of timbral diversity of a given situation to choices can shift unpredictably. creation. Africobra members accept exceed the sum of its instrumental parts, It is a fact, however, that the system is these concepts as an African axiom: affording a wider palette of potential or- designed to avoid the kind of uniformity that to add to life is to ensure that there is more to share [35]. chestrations to explore. where the same kind of input routinely The attempt to thoroughly map, parse leads to the same result. Voyager’s aes- The Voyager program often combines and develop the input data is based on thetic of variation and difference is at dense, rapid accretions of sonic informa- the notion that, through the accumula- variance with the information retrieval tion with sudden changes of mood, tion and articulation of many small de- and control paradigm that late capital- tempo and orchestration, eschewing the tails, an interactive, adaptive input struc- ism has found useful in framing its pre- slowly moving timbral narratives charac- ture that generates a sufficiently ferred approach to the encounter with teristic of much institutionally based com-
36 Lewis, Too Many Notes
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y setresponse ( -- ) S setinputbasedur \ set tempo ranges based on input note durations & bodymusic 0= \ in this version this red light is always zero M E if setinputplayprob \ probability of note or rest, based on input A N then S
\ set duration range and length of notes, interval range setinputlegato setinputwid setinputint
\ use pitchset based on last few input notes; set octave and microtonal tonic transposition setinputscale setinputoct setinputtonic
\ set MIDI volume and velocity setinputvol setinputvel ;
Fig. 3. Voyager’s input response word, written in Forth, sets parameters based on analysis of MIDI input.
puter music. Thus, Voyager is in clear vio- Part of the task of constructing Voyager rhythm. Control of musical process is lation of the dictum that Douglas identi- consisted of providing the program with shared among players; inter-player com- fies here as Eurocentric: “Don’t over- its “own sound.” In Voyager, this notion of munication takes place without neces- crowd your composition with too many sound appears in tandem with a kind of sarily involving a central authority. Local elements” [36]. These real distinctions technology-mediated animism, ex- decisions taken by individual players from much institutionally produced pressed as an interactive aesthetic of ne- percolate up to the global level, at which trans-European computer music led one gotiation and independent computer the overall form is maintained. puzzled Italian listener to ask me “why so agency. This recalls the frequent refer- The Javanese musician Hardja Susilo many things are happening at the same ences by Malachi Favors Maghostut, characterizes “improvisation” in court time.” Or, to quote the king from the contrabassist and co-founder of the Art tradition according to its interactive, so- movie Amadeus, speaking of Mozart’s Ensemble of Chicago, to someone he cial or intentional role, acknowledging work, “There are too many notes” [37]. met on his travels as “this African brother how intentionality of process affects the who had instruments that played them- musical result. For example, the EMOTIONAL selves.” Further, the trope of musical per- Javanese term kembangan (literally, “flow- formance on an instrument as communi- ering”) refers to an improvisation that TRANSDUCTION: SOUND, cation between two subject intelligences adds beauty. Isen-isen (“filling”) is an im- PERSONALITY, DIFFERENCE is exemplified by Francis Bebey’s descrip- provisation that “pleasantly fills a In the context of improvised musics that tion of an incident wherein an accom- vacuum.” On the other hand, ngambang exhibit strong influences from African- plished African musician, after trying an (“floating”) refers to musicians who are American ways of music-making, musical instrument briefly, handed it back to its improvising without clear knowledge of sound—or rather, “one’s own sound”— owner with the remark that he had no where the music is going, and ngawur becomes a carrier for history and cul- way of communicating with “someone (“blunder”) denotes an out-of-style or ir- tural identity. As Yusef Lateef maintains, who did not speak the same language” as relevant improvisation [41]. Thus, the “The sound of the improvisation seems he did. Bebey, in general discussion of success of this heterarchically oriented to tell us what kind of person is impro- African music, further maintains that in a approach to large-group musical interac- vising. We feel that we can hear charac- number of African musical traditions a tion can be seen to depend not only on ter or personality in the way the musi- musical instrument “is often regarded as the performative skills of the players, but cian improvises” [38]. Essentially the a human being.” As evidence he offers upon their real-time analytic capabilities. same notion was advanced in the 1940s the story of another African musician, Finally, it is striking to note how an Af- by Charlie Parker, who declared that who described his refusal to sell his drum rican-American perspective on improvi- “Music is your own experience, your (despite his near-destitution) by saying sation reflects a similarity with recent thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live that he did not want to “deliver a slave thinking in the game of basketball, an it, it won’t come out of your horn” [39]. into bondage” [40]. area in which African-American players The incorporation and welcoming of The other important notion that ani- have continually presented revolutionary agency, social necessity, personality and mates Voyager is that of the improvising possibilities. The situation with improvi- difference as aspects of “sound” distin- orchestra. While Voyager can be seen as sation, conventional classical music wis- guish such music from work that “incor- appropriating or even playing the doz- dom notwithstanding, is remarkably porates” or “uses” improvisation, or that ens with the notion of the nineteenth- similar to basketball coach Phil Jackson’s features “indeterminacy” or aleatoric century European orchestra, my model description of the triangle offense, in practices. “Sound” becomes identifiable, in this regard is the Javanese gamelan which “there are no set plays, and the not with timbre alone, but with the ex- ensemble, where a large number of play- defense can’t predict what’s going to pression of personality, the assertion of ers playing a relatively fixed composi- happen next.” As with improvisation, the agency, the assumption of responsibility tion nonetheless have considerable lati- ideal of the triangle system is for each and an encounter with history, memory tude in interpretation, even at primary player to be “acutely aware, at any given and identity. levels such as pitch, duration and moment, of what’s happening on the
Lewis, Too Many Notes 37
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y S floor” [42]. While in both areas, triangle the form of a written text, a coded set of least in a good blind date—Voyager asks & offense author Tex Winter’s dictum that symbols, intended for realization in per- us where our own creativity and intelli- M “the offense must utilize the players’ in- formance by a “performer.” gence might lie—not “How do we create E A dividual skills” has major relevance, it is This metonymic dialectic between intelligence?” but “How do we find it?” N S absolutely crucial that both basketballers “composed” and “improvised” ways of Ultimately, the subject of Voyager is not and experienced improvisors “develop producing musical texts serves to ob- technology or computers at all, but musi- an intuitive feel for how their move- scure a more fundamental constructed cality itself. ments and those of everyone else on the binary comprising the two most influen- floor are interconnected” [43]. tial musical cultures of the twentieth References and Notes Thus, continuous awareness is the century, the trans-European and trans- 1. George Lewis, Voyager, Disk Union-Avan CD 014 means through which these possibilities African. Proponents of each form-com- (1992). are articulated in performance. Part of plex tend to construct an Other from 2. George Lewis, Endless Shout, Tzadik TZ CD 7054 the analytic task facing any improvisor proponents of the complementary (2000). (whether or not that improvisor is a form—particularly in creating compet- 3. Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: Afri- computer) involves discovering or even ing notions of “art music”—but the can and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York: positing ways in which seemingly unre- asymmetrical distribution of cultural Vintage, 1983). lated material can become part of either power clearly rests, for the moment, 4. Loretta Todd, “Aboriginal Narratives in an existing or a new structure within the with the “bringers of structure.” In Euro- Cyberspace,” in Mary Anne Moser and Douglas MacLeod, eds., Immersed in Technology: Art and Vir- emergent music. Depending on context, American art-music culture this binary is tual Environments (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, the responses of the computer to the routinely and simplistically framed as in- 1996) pp. 179–194. improvisor’s input can potentially be volving the “effortless spontaneity” of 5. Cameron Bailey, “Virtual Skin: Articulating Race seen as either related or unrelated, ei- improvisation, versus the careful delib- in Cyberspace,” in Moser and MacLeod [4] pp. 29– ther during the improvisation itself or eration of composition—the composer 49. upon further reflection. Moreover, the as ant, the improvisor as grasshopper. 6. Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, explicit possibility of encountering com- To move beyond this tendentiously Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Avant-Garde (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1995). pletely unrelated material encourages posed opposition, a meaningful distinc- the possibility of changes in the music tion between these different ways of 7. Catherine M. Cameron, Dialectics in the Arts: The Rise of Experimentalism in American Music (Westport, initiated by the computer as well as by knowing—the improvisational and the CT: Praeger, 1996). the humans. compositional—must inevitably turn 8. Robert L. Douglas, “Formalizing an African- Thus, with both computers and hu- upon the axis of interaction. Improvisa- American Aesthetic,” New Art Examiner (June/Sum- mans, the data gathered must be viewed tion must be open—that is, open to in- mer 1991) pp. 18–24. in a variety of contexts and from diverse put, open to contingency—a real-time 9. Jeff Donaldson, “Africobra—African Commune perspectives in order to decide how the and (often enough) a real-world mode of of Bad Relevant Artists: 10 in Search of a Nation,” material to be presented next might production. In machine terms, what we Black World (October 1970) pp. 81–89; Ann Gibson, “The African American Aesthetic and Post- function in terms of what has already may have in Voyager is a composing ma- modernism,” in David C. Driskell, ed., African Ameri- been presented. The relatedness of par- chine that allows outside intervention. If can Visual Aesthetics: A Postmodernist View (Washing- ticular materials need not be, and quite we do not need to define improvised ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995). often cannot be, “objectively” demon- ways of producing knowledge as a subset 10. See Douglas [8] p. 18. strable. Rather, the framing, by all par- of composition, then we can simply speak 11. See Douglas [8] p. 18. ties to the music-making, of the relation- of an improvising machine as one that 12. See Douglas [8] p. 18. ship that the new material has to the incorporates a dialogic imagination. overall piece at that moment is a crucial Thus, if there is to be serious talk 13. Jon Cruz, Culture on the Margins: The Black Diaspora and the Rise of American Cultural Interpreta- factor in structure formation. This pro- about “our” identity as humans, those tion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999) p. cess may be subsumed under the gen- identities are continually conditioned 43. eral heading of “creativity.” and reinscribed through processes of 14. See Cruz [13] p. 47. interactivity, where negotiation, differ- 15. See Cruz [13] p. 47. AFTERWORD: STRUCTURE ence, partial perspective—and in the case of music, sonic signaling—enter the 16. “Bring the Noise” is the second track on Public AND FREEDOM Enemy’s second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions picture. Voyager asks questions concern- to Hold Us Back (1988). “Structure,” as we understand it in music ing ways in which historically contingent 17. Olly Wilson, “Black Music as an Art Form,” in pedagogy, is highly desirable. On the meanings are exchanged through Robert G. O’Meally, ed., The Jazz Cadence of American other hand, at the same time that most sound. Even given my emphasis on the Culture (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1998) pp. students learn fairly early on that “jazz” personal conception of “sound,” Voyager 82–101. (whatever that might be) is improvised, is not asking whether machines exhibit 18. See Thompson [3] p. xiii. the dominant culture informs them, in personality or identity, but how person- 19. See Wilson [17] p. 84. myriad ways that are continually alities and identities become articulated 20. Paul Gilroy describes the “black Atlantic” as an reinscribed across the breadth of daily through sonic behavior. Instead of ask- “intercultural and transnational formation” that experience, that “improvised” is a syn- ing about the value placed (by whom?) encompasses Africa and its diasporas, on both sides onym for “unstructured.” In apparently of the Atlantic Ocean, including Europe (especially on artworks made by computers, Voyager Britain), the United States, the Caribbean and welcome contrast, we are provided with continually refers to human expression. South America. In particular, he argues that “the the role of the “composer,” which can be Rather than asking if computers can be literary and philosophical modernisms of the black Atlantic have their origins in a well-developed sense usefully summarized as “bringer of struc- creative and intelligent—those qualities, of the complicity of racialized reason and white su- ture.” The structure inevitably arrives in again, that we seek in our mates, or at premacist terror.” See Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlan-
38 Lewis, Too Many Notes
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570585 by guest on 01 October 2021 W A Y tic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mainstream Aesthetics,” Black Music Research Journal Selected Discography S MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993) pp. ix–x. 12, No. 1, 79–95 (1992); Ekkehard Jost, “The Chica- & goans,” in Jost, Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo Press, George Lewis, Endless Shout, Tadik TZ CD 7054 21. See Thompson [3] p. xiii. 1994; originally published 1974). (2000). M E 22. See Thompson [3] p. 207. A 32. George E. Lewis, “Singing the Alternative George Lewis, Homage to Charles Parker, Black Saint N Interactivity Blues,” Front 7, No. 2, 18–22 (Novem- BSR 0029 (1980). 23. See Douglas [8] p. 19. S ber/December 1995). George Lewis, Voyager, Disk Union-Avan CD 014 24. Recent citations and reviews of this work in- 33. See Wilson [17] p. 84. clude the following: Joel Chadabe, Electric Sound: (1992). The Past and Promise of Electronic Music (Upper 34. Jeff Donaldson, Jam Packed and Jelly Tight, art- George Lewis and Douglas Ewart, George Lewis/Dou- Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997) pp. 299–301; work, mixed media on canvas, 36 × 50 in (1988). glas Ewart, Black Saint SR 0026 (1979). Ben Ratliff, “Improvisers Meet the Machines,” New The work is reproduced in Driskell [9] plate 10. York Times (14 October 1997); Zane East, “George Richard Teitelbaum, Concerto Grosso, hat ART CD E. Lewis: Voyager,” Computer Music Journal 19, No. 1 35. See Douglas [8] p. 21. 6004 (1988). (Spring 1995). 36. See Douglas [8] p. 18. 25. Leo Brodie, Starting FORTH (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981). 37. Amadeus, Milos Forman, director (1984). Manuscript received 30 March 2000. 38. Yusef A. Lateef, “The Pleasures of Voice in Im- 26. FORTH was spelled in upper case until the late provised Music,” in Roberta Thelwell, ed., Views on 1970s because of the prevalence of upper-case-only Black American Music: Selected Proceedings from the I/O devices. The usage “Forth” was generally Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Annual adopted when lower case became widely available, Black Musicians’ Conferences, University of Massachu- because the word was not an acronym. E.D. Ratner, The work of George Lewis has explored impro- setts at Amherst, No. 3 (1985–1988) pp. 43–46. D. Colburn and C.H. Moore, “The Evolution of vised music, electronic and computer music, Forth,” ACM SIGPLAN Notices 28, No. 3 (March 39. Michael Levin and John S. Wilson, “No Bop Roots computer-based multimedia installations, text- 1993);
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