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COMPOSERS and OBJECTS by ADAM SCOTT NEAL a DISSERTATION PRESENTED to the GRADUATE SCHOOL of the UNIVERSITY OF

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COMPOSERS and OBJECTS by ADAM SCOTT NEAL a DISSERTATION PRESENTED to the GRADUATE SCHOOL of the UNIVERSITY OF BUY, BUILD, BREAK: COMPOSERS AND OBJECTS By ADAM SCOTT NEAL A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2014 1 © 2014 Adam Scott Neal 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my chair, James Paul Sain, and my committee members Paul Koonce and Silvio dos Santos for their insights and probing questions as I created this project. I would also like to thank other professors who took time to chat about my research in its early stages, including Paul Richards, Jack Stenner, Ed White, and Michael Leslie. I must thank my colleagues Andrew Babcock, Zach Lovitch, and Benjamin O'Brien, who graciously agreed to read through early drafts, providing honest and invaluable comments. Thanks to all the artists who gave their blessing to discuss their work and reprint scores and photos. Special thanks are due to Caleb Herron and Amy O'Dell of Chamber Cartel for premiering Keys. Finally, I would like to thank my external committee member, Scott Nygren, from the Department of English. Scott passed away less than a week after my defense, which he attended via conference call from his hospital bed. Scott's intellect, patient demeanor, and dedication to scholarship are qualities I will always admire. Scott was always greatly supportive of my efforts as a scholar and artist. I am forever in his debt. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................................3 LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................6 ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................8 Object-Oriented Composition......................................................................................10 Buying, Building, and Breaking: Three Modes of Practice..........................................12 Dissertation Structure..................................................................................................15 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS..................................18 Literature Review.........................................................................................................18 Historical Overviews of Instruments........................................................................18 Histories of Electronic Music Technology................................................................20 Recent Interest in Building and Breaking................................................................22 Theoretical Foundations..............................................................................................23 Fetish: Objects of Worship......................................................................................23 Myths: Objects of Control........................................................................................26 Actants: Objects and Humans as Equals................................................................32 Conclusion...............................................................................................................35 3 BUY..............................................................................................................................38 Toy Piano.....................................................................................................................39 Theremin .....................................................................................................................45 Minimoog.....................................................................................................................49 Laptop..........................................................................................................................53 Conclusion...................................................................................................................55 4 BUILD...........................................................................................................................57 Acoustic instruments...................................................................................................59 Harry Partch's Instrumentarium..............................................................................59 Mark Applebaum's Sound Sculptures.....................................................................60 Other Sculpture Composers ...................................................................................64 Electronic Instruments.................................................................................................65 Atari Punk Console..................................................................................................66 Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Symphony.............................................................................68 4 Arduino....................................................................................................................71 Modular Synthesizers..............................................................................................72 5 BREAK.........................................................................................................................76 Prepared Piano............................................................................................................77 Speak & Spell .............................................................................................................81 Nic Collins's Hacked CD Player..................................................................................83 Conclusion...................................................................................................................86 6 TOWARD OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPOSITION.......................................................88 555...............................................................................................................................90 Keys.............................................................................................................................93 Further work.................................................................................................................96 APPENDIX A: SCORE FOR KEYS.................................................................................98 APPENDIX B: DISCOGRAPHY.....................................................................................126 LIST OF REFERENCES................................................................................................127 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH............................................................................................134 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 2-1 Barthes's myth framework ......................................................................................26 3-1 Schoenhut toy piano ...............................................................................................40 3-2 Opening of Karlheinz Essl's Kalimba .....................................................................42 3-3 Excerpt from Karlheinz Essl's Miles to go ..............................................................42 3-4 Excerpt from Karlheinz Essl's Miles to go ..............................................................43 3-5 Moog Etherwave Theremin......................................................................................46 3-6 Excerpt from Percy Grainger's Free Music No. 1 ...................................................47 3-7 Minimoog ................................................................................................................50 4-1 Harry Partch's Quadrangularis Reversum ..............................................................60 4-2 Mark Applebaum's Mouseketier .............................................................................61 4-3 Excerpt from Mark Applebaum's Magnetic North ...................................................63 4-4 Paul Stapleton performing his Bonsai Sound Sculpture ........................................65 4-5 Atari Punk Console in Altoids tin .............................................................................67 4-6 Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Symphony .............................................................................69 4-7 Materials from Perich's 1-Bit Symphony ................................................................70 4-8 Arduino Pro Mini and Arduino Mega .......................................................................71 4-9 Serge modular synthesizer .....................................................................................73 5-1 Close-up of piano preparations ..............................................................................78 5-2 Speak & Spell and Speak & Read ..........................................................................82 5-3 Score to the first movement of Nic Collins's Broken Light ....................................85 6-1 Excerpt from the author's Mirror Universes 3 ..........................................................89 6-2 Instruments used in the author's 555 .....................................................................91 6 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor
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