Presentation
This atelier is about concepts, ideas, theories and practices of live electronic music.
"In live electronic music the technology is used to generate, transform or trigger sounds (or a combination of these) in the act of performance; this may include generating sound with voices and traditional instruments, electro-acoustic instruments, or other devices and controls linked to computer-based systems. In live electronic music loudspeakers are the prime medium of transmission".[1]
The main objective of the atelier is to offer the possibility to the participants to develop their skills and knowledge in the discipline of electroacoustic performance. As a matter of fact, the wildly increasing repertoire of music including different forms of electroacoustic means and their extensive use in a large range of musical genres make the competences in electroacoustic performance a key for the modern musicianship.
The atelier consist in weekly séances of theoretical and practical work focusing in the study of a set of electroacoustic instruments. Those instruments will be investigated through the lens of organology and through a collective creative perspective including the existing repertoire. Organology is the study of musical instruments, the science of instruments, their historical development, their musical and cultural uses. The performance aspects include playing techniques, improvisation strategies and interpretation.
The use of electronics in a musical context has provoke dramatic changes in the way music is perceived, played and thought. Even the basic concept of musical instrument has been re-defined by the introduction of extended instrumental techniques, by the openness of the instrumental palette and considerably challenged by the possibilities offered by the transduction of electricity and sound. Amplification, modification, synthesis and a fine control over all the parameters in the sonic chain that stretches between finger and ear have open new aesthetical doors. Therefore the theory and the practice continually interact with each other and I expect from this atelier to generate questions and answers based in our conceptual and artistic investigations.
"There is no agreement as to what constitutes ‘live’ electro-acoustic music. The presence of a live performer cannot always be detected from a recording; even at a concert there is often no apparent relationship between a visible human gesture and an acoustic result. The human performer may be influencing streams of computer data calculated in real time which, when heard, give no clear indication of human activity. Research in the psychology of sound and music perception may begin to explain what we perceive as ‘human presence’ through our ears alone. There remains a divide between the idealist view that computers may learn to become ‘independent’ performers (and composers) and the argument that computers should be used to extend essentially human performance creativity which may continue to be recognized as such through its sound alone".[1]
[1] Simon Emmerson and Denis Smalley. "Electro-acoustic music." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online.(accessed August 9, 2012)