School of Creative Arts

Experimental musics are extreme cases of sonic organization, defying easy categorization as ‘music.’ They situate themselves as disruptive agents at music’s fringes, either by tugging gently at loose threads of cultural norms, or by more iconoclastic interventions. Musical experimentalism, such as that found in the 1960s/1970s New York ‘Downtown’ loft scene, encompasses a diversity of carefully structured (or carefully unstructured) media and performances that play with social/cultural, technological and, perhaps most fundamentally, cognitive-perceptual limits. This use of extreme materials often creates novel musical environments as much as performances. The conjunction and cross-pollination of this scene with more traditional institutionally-based research at New Jersey’s Bell Labs suggests that the experimentalism of composers such as La Monte Young and John Cage was part of a larger cultural dynamic.

Sometimes, it seems like Western music has spent most of the last 2,500 years trying to ‘kill off’ the body (counting from Pythagoras of Samos)!

The body is, obviously, at the center of music production activities, whether in performance or the recording and manipulation of that performance using contemporary digital technologies. It provides a vehicle for musical performance and an interface between a producer/engineer/editor/composer and the recording technologies they use. However, until relatively recently, bodily structures and their capabilities did not feature in the mainstream of academic musical discourse on the Western art–music tradition, being largely confined to the circumscribed domain of ‘performance practice as interpretation.’ Similarly, for much of the history of computer music, the lack of available processing power for ‘real–time’ (low latency) responses of systems meant that richer embodied interactions within these systems could not be a priority. Even as the increase in available processing power has provided for more real–time interactions, this ‘body–blindness’ remains a feature of many interfaces: the
dominant embodied strategy is to reference the ‘tried and tested’ embodiment of certain legacy studio hardware through digital re–creations of mixing desks and analogue synthesisers. One of the key challenges for contemporary music technologists is to provide the rich variety of control available from complex digital processes whilst providing a more imaginative, yet coherent, means of interacting as performing. A renewed emphasis on embodied models at the centre of interface design may provide one solution.

Public lecture for the Crash Ensemble/Project Arts Centre.

Composer Brian Bridges will present a survey of Glenn Branca’s early guitar ensembles through to the harmonic series and non-harmonic series symphonies, discussing the ‘Downtown’ context and of Branca’s music and his significance to the new music scene. The talk will include audio examples, documentary footage and an informal opportunity to ask questions.

Guest lecture/lecture–recital for the MA/MSc in Music Technology, University of Limerick (Digital Media and Arts Research Centre), on the composition of 'Angels at the Shotgun Wedding' , a multi-movement microtonal composition for massed electric guitars and electronics.

http://www.dmarc.ie/events/upcoming/

'Angels at the Shotgun Wedding' by Brian Bridges (Maynooth Electric Guitar Array, conductor Marc Balbirinie), is a large scale piece for 23-member electric guitar ensemble. The piece uses a combination of electronic drones, microtonal tunings, and amplification to create novel harmonies and textural effects. The aim is to create a piece which balances the inherent force of the ensemble with the subtlety of the materials. Creating something both delicate and visceral with blunt instruments. - See more at: http://www.dmarc.ie/events/upcoming/#sthash.gP9Ueinv.dpuf

This thesis engages with the topic of microtonal music through a discussion of relevant music theories and compositional practice alongside the investigation of theoretical perspectives drawn from psychology. Its aim is to advance a theory of microtonal music which is informed by current models of auditory perception and music cognition. In doing so, it treats a range of microtonal approaches and philosophies ranging from duplex subdivision of tempered scales to the generation of intervals in just–intonation– based schemes, including systems derived directly from the structure of the harmonic series. It contains an analytical survey of case studies relating to twentieth–century microtonal approaches, focussing on the conceptual and perceptual implications of the use of such materials by these early microtonal practitioners, through engagement with their stated theories and compositional practice. Through this process, it begins to advance components of a perceptually and cognitively–informed theory of microtonality, which is then consolidated by a series of theory–based chapters which investigate the phenomenon from the perspective of current theories within the field of psychology. The theories which are thus advanced are further informed by a component of compositional practice in the research process, which is used as a vehicle to refine and extend them. The result is a comprehensive theory of microtonal music which incorporates contexts drawn from ecological and embodied perspectives on perceptual and cognitive processes.

The thesis is available online and in print from the Maynooth University Library: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/6737/

This paper will discuss issues relating to the integration of an expanded vocabulary of sonic materials in music (for the sake of brevity termed ‘sound’ in the title). It will examine this issue from three perspectives: (1) contextual and referential aspects of the use of such materials in composition, (2) timbral organisation in music, and (3) organisational influences in music which have themselves been influenced by structures to be found in environmental sounds. It will largely focus on music rather than sound art (the version of the sonic artform which owes much to conceptual art) directly, though it will touch on issues (from this perspective) relating to how differences between the two artforms may be articulated. Indeed, it may be that the central question of this paper could be reframed as ‘can sound function in music without such music becoming indistinguishable from sound art?’.

Can harmony be non-linear? This is the question which New York composer Glenn Branca has posed in relation to the potential for new developments in the role of harmony in contemporary music. The question will be investigated in relation to a discussion of the characteristics of more traditional conceptions of harmony. The discussion will first focus on aspects which could be considered to be ‘linear’ along with a brief survey of changing approaches to harmony in Western music history. This will be followed by a survey of possibilities for the construction of harmony based on principles of non-linearity in terms of temporal, textural and pitch elements. These possibilities will be discussed with reference to experimental compositions and compositional approaches