Hugh Davies’s Electroacoustic Musical Instruments and their Relation to Present-Day Live Coding Practice: Some Historic Precedents and Similarities ames Mooney University of Leeds [email protected] !"S#R!C# The purpose of this paper is to present the self-built electroacoustic musical instruments of Hugh Davies (194 -!""#$ to the international live coding community% and to propose points of similarity bet&een Davies’s practice and present-day live coding practice( )n the *rst part of the paper% the context &ithin &hich Davies’s instrument-building practice developed% in the late 19,"s, is outlined% and a number of speci*c instruments are described( -spects of Davies’s performance style% repertoire% and the ensembles &ith &hich he performed are discussed% as are activities such as instrument-building &orkshops and public exhibitions of instruments, in &hich he regularly participated( )n the second part of the paper% four areas of connection &ith present-day live coding practice are suggested( /espectively% these focus upon live coding’s status: (1$ as part of a long historic tradition of live electronic music performance (as opposed to electronic music constructed in the studio$; (!$ as a practice in &hich the performer him or herself builds the apparatus (&hether physical or code-based$ through &hich the music is mediated1 ( $ as an improvised or semi- improvised art-form in &hich music is developed in real time% &ithin a frame&ork bounded by material or 2uasi-material constraints; and (4$ as a community of practice &ith a distinct agenda of promoting understanding through engagement( This paper is presented as a case study in exploring live coding’s historic precedents, and as a contribution to&ard situating live coding &ithin a broader historical, cultural context( $% IN#RODUC#IO& Hugh Davies (194 -!""#$ &as a musician% historical musicologist% and instrument-builder% professionally active from 19,4 up until his death in !""#( -s &ell as ma.ing signi*cant contributions to the documentation of electroacoustic music's history (3ooney !"1#a$% throughout his career Davies built more than 1!" musical instruments and sound sculptures that 4incorporate5d6 found objects and cast-off materials’ (/oberts !""1$ such as .itchen utensils, plastic bo9les, springs, hac.sa& blades, and many other materials that might normally be considered 4jun.(' The reader is encouraged to &atch the follo&ing video% in &hich Davies plays and brie:y talks about one of his self-built instruments: h9ps:;;&&&(youtube(com/&atch<v=&>?9-")sGgs (Alapper 1991$( Bpeci*cally% Davies plays the *rst of his self-built solo performance instruments, &hich is a device called the BhoCyg. (?o&ards the end of the video he also plays a number of others.$ The BhoCyg &as built in 19,D% and consists of a collection of fretsa& blades, a ball-bearing, and a spring, the sounds of &hich are ampli*ed via t&o contact microphones that feed a stereo output( These objects are mounted inside the cover of a boo. that has had its pages removed1 this is an encyclopaedia volume that covers the alphabetic range of topics from BHE to FG@% &hich is &here the instrument gets its name from. The BhoCyg is electroacoustic because the means of initial sound production are acoustic% but the vibrations—&hich &ould be too tiny to hear other&iseHare ampli*ed electronically( The BhoCyg &as designed to be played &ith the *ngers or &ith the aid of accessories such as 4needle *les, small scre&drivers, matchstic.s, combs, small electric motors, small brushes, coins, .eys, etc(' (Davies 19,Da$( ()n the video Davies appeared to be using a scre&driver($ - second model of the BhoCyg &as built later the same year% comprising a different set of ampli*ed objects; both models of the BhoCyg are sho&n in Iigure 1% belo&( Aeith >o9er—a close colleague of Davies’s for many years at @oldsmiths, University of LondonHmade the follo&ing comments in an obituary that he &rote in the Independent ne&spaper: 5)6n the !1st century% it seems that Hugh Davies’s innovatory% do-it-yourself, lo-* approachHwhich in several respects prefigured present laptop cultureHis finding favour &ith a younger generation to &hom this remar.able and iconoclastic innovator no& appears as a significant father figure( (>o9er !""#% emphasis added$ >o9er does not specify precisely how Davies’s approach pre*gured present laptop culture% nor indeed &hich speci*c laptop culture it pre*gured1 but >o9er’s comments suggest that there might be some connections bet&een Davies’s instrument-building practice% &hich began in the late 19,"s, and present-day live coding practice( The purpose of this paper% then% is to begin to explore &hat some of those connections might be( The author has previously suggested some speculative points of contact bet&een Davies’s instrument- building practice and live coding, based upon three recurring themes in Davies’s &ork0 materiality% economy% and community (3ooney !"1#b$( )n the current paper% t&o of these themes (materiality and community$ are developed further; the third theme (economy$ has for the time being been dropped% in order to allo& for a greater focus upon the aspects that are most directly relevant to the *eld of live coding, though it is still considered relevant and &ill be further explored in the future( )igure $. ShoCyg I (above$1 ShoCyg I) (belo&$( Photo © Pam Davies. Courtesy of The British Library( *% "!C+GRO(&D A&D C'&#E-# )n 19,4% at the age of !1% Davies became personal assistant to the avant-garde composer AarlheinC Btoc.hausen( Davies lived for ! years in Kologne% &here% amongst other things, he became involved in performances of Btoc.hausen's latest &ork% Mikrophonie I (19,4$( Mikrophonie I is a piece in &hich t&o performers excite the surface of a large tam-tam gong, using a range of different objects such as drin.ing glasses, cardboard tubes, hand-held ba9ery-operated fans, and .itchen implements (Davies 19,Db$( - further t&o performers amplify the sounds produced by the tam-tam using hand-held microphones, so that details of the sound that &ould other&ise be inaudible can be heard( ?&o *nal performers affect the further transformation of the ampli*ed sounds using electronic *lters, as &ell as controlling the volume1 thus, there are six performers in total. Mith respect to Davies’s nascent instrument-building practice% three things are signi*cant about Mikrophonie I( Iirst% it involved the repurposing—&hich is to say% 4hac.ing’Hof every-day objects as musical instruments. Becond% it involved the electronic ampli*cation of acoustic sounds that &ould other&ise be too 2uiet to hear( Third% and above all, it &as a &ork of 4live electronic' music% that is, it involved the use of electronic e2uipment to manipulate sound in a live performance context% as opposed to producing electronic music on magnetic tape in the studio( Irom the end of Morld Mar )) up until at least the beginning of the 19,"s, experimental &ork in electronic music &as over&helmingly dominated by magnetic tape (Davies !""1% p(9D$1 sounds recorded and transformed in the studio using tape manipulation techni2ues &ere painsta.ingly assembled into compositions by cu9ing the tape up &ith a raCor blade and stic.ing it bac. together &ith splicing tape( - *nished composition could easily ta.e months to realise( The practice of producing electronic music in real time% to a reasonable approximation% did not exist% and did not start to become common until the 19,"s; and Btoc.hausen's Mikrophonie I &as among the earliest pieces to systematically explore this ne& area( The three characteristics just highlightedHlive electronic music% ampli*cation% and the hac.ing of every-day objects—&ent on to become de*ning characteristics of Davies’s instrument-building practice% and Davies himself ac.no&ledged the in:uence of his experience as Btoc.hausen's assistant in catalysing this aspect of his &ork (Davies 199N% p(1!$( -nother in:uential early &ork of live electronic music% ho&ever% &as Oohn Kage's Cartridge Music (19,"$% in &hich the other&ise inaudible sounds of various found objects are ampli*ed by inserting them into the apertures of gramophone cartridges. )igure *. Some of Davies’s early instruments. Photos © Pam Davies. Courtesy of The British Library( .% E!RLY INS#RUME&#S ($123-85 En returning to Pngland% Davies found that he no longer had access to the sophisticated e2uipment that had been available during his time as Btoc.hausen's assistant% and could not afford to buy any such e2uipment of his o&n (Davies 19N9% p(1$( Hence% the very earliest of Davies’s self-built instruments—dating from 19,NH represent Davies’s efforts to imitate some of the techni2ues he had encountered in Mikrophonie I using found or cheaply available objects, including combs, bro.en light-bulbs, and springs stretched across the opening of a metal tin (see Iigure !$( The sounds of these objects &ere ampli*ed via contact microphones. These early instruments &ere originally developed as &ays of generating sound material for tape-music compositions (Davies 199N% p(1!$% but Davies soon recognised the potential for using such contraptions in a live performance context% and began to build instruments speci*cally &ith live performance in mind( 6% )IRS# LIVE PERF'RMA&CE I&S#RUME&#S ($124-7*5 -s mentioned previously% the *rst of Davies’s performance instruments &as the BhoCyg, of &hich t&o different models &ere produced1 these comprised a prefabricated selection of objects mounted inside the cover of a boo.% and a range of implements or accessories that could be selected to activate those *xed components of the instrument in performance( Leginning in 19N"% Davies built a doCen so-called Bpringboards (3.( ))) is sho&n in Iigure $% in &hich 4a number of springs (from t&o up&ards) are mounted on a &ooden board% and treated rather li.e strings’ (Davies 199N% p(1!$( The springs &ere ampli*ed% usually using magnetic pic.ups.