Joel Chadabe Electronic Music Foundation Remarks on Computer 116 North Lake Avenue Albany, New York 12206, USA Music Culture

Years ago, in the founding days of ASCAP, Richard will also change the world of computer music. The Rodgers, composer of countless wonderful first question is, “Where are we now?” The second showtunes, is reputed to have cast “serious” is, “How is computer music likely to change?” (ASCAP’s term to indicate art as opposed to enter- Computer music (which I would define here as tainment) composers in the collective role of the the type of music made with computers by the research-and-development department of the mu- sort of composers who read Computer Music Jour- sic industry. And it does seem to be true that in nal) and popular electronic music (i.e., dance, the industry of electronic music, the research-and- techno, house, etc.) currently exist within differ- development department has influenced the popu- ent cultures. They are aimed at fundamentally dif- lar music division in different ways. Many ferent publics, and their practitioners exhibit pop-culture groups have acknowledged a back- different motivations and methods for achieving ground in the electronic music classics, many success. Music is communication, and every com- popular-music composers listen seriously to poser communicates with an intended public, real “high-art” electronic music, and many commer- or imaginary, that inhabits the same culture in cially successful ideas and technologies have which the composer lives. It is a composer’s cul- grown out of the “serious” music world. Sampling ture that determines the nature of that composer’s is rooted in the tradition of musique concrète, for music, the nature of the public that listens to it, example, and frequency modulation as a sound- the meaning of success, and the methods em- generating technique was a product of computer ployed by the composer to achieve success. music research. What, then, characterizes the current culture of Lines of influence occasionally seem to point also computer music? First, computer music is aimed in the other direction, from popular music to com- at an elite group of listeners that constitutes a seg- puter music. Some computer music composers have ment of aristocratic high-art music culture. The incorporated popular elements such as jazz stan- elite group of listeners is small in number— dards and folk tunes in their music and, far more smaller than the elite group that appreciates important, some composers have reinterpreted the Wagner, for example—because the technology and dynamics of jazz improvisation into the framework the artistic concepts that have grown out of com- of performance with interactive systems. puter music are so new that a larger elite group In whatever direction influence flows, however, has not yet had the time to grow. Second, com- it is not surprising that composers of one type of puter music is appreciated primarily in aesthetic music might take ideas from other types of music. and intellectual terms. In listening to computer But at this particular moment in the history of music, an audience must be quiet and attentive. computer music, the flow of ideas between high art Third, computer music is consumed by its public and popular art seems to have a particular signifi- in concert or concert-like situations, where the cance. Indeed, the protective parapet that has long public listens without participating, thereby indi- kept high art and popular art mutually exclusive cating its recognition that a performer (or a surro- seems to be showing signs of vulnerability. It seems gate performer in the form of loudspeakers) has a that we are about to enter a new cultural architec- higher level of expertise and virtuosity. Fourth, in- ture that we cannot yet describe; yet we are aware novation—both artistic and technical—is highly that technology is changing the world and that it valued. This does not mean, incidentally, that ev- ery computer music composition is innovative. Computer Music Journal, 24:4, pp. 9–11, Winter 2000 Exceptional composers will produce exceptional © 2000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. work, but the normal practice of computer music,

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892600559470 by guest on 01 October 2021 as in the normal practice of any art, is normal pre- rily in clubs where the public participates by danc- cisely because it is unexceptional, produces non- ing and that it is appreciated more in physical than distinctive results, and is practiced by a majority intellectual terms, as in these remarks by of practitioners. Bennington College students: “You can hear it, When the focus of particular compositions is on but bass allows you to feel it.” “You can’t deny acoustic instruments or chamber music (as in the physiological effect of a rumbling bass going Pierre Boulez’ Repons, for example), computer mu- through your entire being. No one ever asked for sic is sometimes performed within the main- more treble.” And popular music conveys the stream culture of 20th-century art music and, sense to a public that “you” could have composed consequently, addresses an audience larger than it: “It’s predictable. You feel like you’re doing it.” the specific public for computer music. In general, In such a cultural environment, innovation is un- the insertion of computer music into other art cul- desirable. But the negative value placed on innova- tures—for example by creating technology-in-art tion does not mean that every popular song is interactive installations, incorporating elements of unexceptional. Innovation may be detrimental to jazz or folk music, using sound in the context of immediate success, but a sound or a rhythm or acoustic ecology, or using recorded sounds as geo- some aspect of the music that is distinctive graphic documents to identify and characterize enough to get attention is certainly to the point. places—also extends the public for computer mu- The public for popular electronic music is pri- sic. But at this time in the history of the field, marily a consumer (as opposed to collegial) public, most of the computer-music public consists of which means that the relationship between com- practitioners, which means that the relationship poser and public is commercial; that the motiva- between composer and public is more collegial tions of professionals are a combination of fame than commercial; that the motivations of compos- and financial success; and that professionals feel ers are oriented not towards commerce but to- no disdain for commercial activities, such as pro- wards a combination of self expression, artistic motion and advertising, in pursuit of worldly suc- fulfillment, and collegial recognition; and that cess. One must remember, however, that the composers’ methods for achieving success reflect commercial world is not entirely devoid of creativ- an aristocratic disdain for commercial effort, even ity or artistic satisfaction. Makers of products feel if they occasionally involve negotiations within rewarded when they do something they consider the network of organizations that define the for- beautiful. They feel even more rewarded when mal structure of the computer music community. their product pleases a large number of people and From a historical point of view, the net result of produces significant financial returns. However, these non-commercial dynamics is that composers sadly—from my perspective—one might observe of computer music do not seem to enjoy subject- that pleasing a large public and producing large fi- ing themselves to the pressures of the commercial nancial returns are not the usual rewards of origi- world any more than is necessary, and they are of- nality in the arts. ten able to benefit from the protective environ- Of course, these never-the-twain-shall-meet de- ments of universities or other noncommercial scriptions of computer music and popular music institutions within which they can experiment. cultures do not describe every musical culture or Popular electronic music, on the other hand, ex- every composer. Many composers have migrated ists within a commercial entertainment culture. A from one culture to the other, or jumped back and song or a performing group is in effect a product forth, or established themselves somewhere in be- designed to be immediately successful within a tween in a kind of “mid-culture” state that repre- targeted segment of the mass market. Further, im- sents the type of music that seems like high art to mediate success demands involvement and partici- the middle class. Yet the contrasting cultures of pation by the public. It follows that popular high art and popular art reflect the antipodal ex- electronic music is consumed by its public prima- tremes of a social and cultural order that has been

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892600559470 by guest on 01 October 2021 in existence in the western world since the Re- mocratize high-art music by making it participa- naissance. tory, and, as a normal consequence of participa- Aristocratic culture, traditionally based on ex- tion, to expand the aristocratic culture so that it is clusive knowledge and skill, is now changing, and no longer aristocratic. The challenge for computer computer music is changing with it. It is well un- music composers in the near future will be to use derstood that by providing universal access to their elite knowledge and skill to create situations knowledge that earlier was available only to an in which members of the public without that educated few, technology is having a democratiz- knowledge and skill can participate meaningfully ing effect in the world. What is less well under- in a musical process. I have no doubt that com- stood is that technology can allow a member of puter music will take this form in the future, that the public to interact in a sophisticated and cre- future composers will be able to think of large ative way with a musical process, even without numbers of ways to create interactive composi- previously acquired musical knowledge or skill. tions, and that a major literature of interactive Rather than invest years in learning to play the music will form—much of it intelligent, musical, violin, for example, a member of the public can and representative of a new approach to high art. perform by adding expressive nuance to a com- The potential social benefits that will accrue puter process which generates notes from a list from this reorientation of computer music culture, and plays them sounding like a violin. Alterna- in which computer music composers will indeed tively, a computer can translate mouse gestures interact with a large public and deal with commer- into controls for algorithms that themselves gener- cial concerns, will have more to do with universal ate sounds, or it can generate unpredictable musi- musical creativity than with an acceptance of cal information with which a member of the popular electronic music culture. At some point in public can improvise by, for example, moving a the future, the antipodal positions of aristocratic finger on a touchpad. and popular culture will no longer describe the Computers, in other words, are not surrogate music world. We are entering a new cultural land- violins. They are interactive devices. Consistent scape, not based on aristocratic and popular tradi- with general technology-driven changes in the tions, and we have not yet found a language in world, computers give us an opportunity to de- which to describe it.

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