[microsound] musical structure

[David Powers]

My interest in theory is to help me to compose in ways I would not
have thought of composing, and to allow for cross-cultural hybrids.
Now, many of the attempts to cross cultural boundaries end up as
post-modern pastiches, or cut-and-paste some exotic elements from one
style onto another. I am not interested in this. Instead, I would like
to create structures that allow for music that crosses cross-cultural
boundaries but does so in an organized and coherent way. I am involved
in musical practices rooted primarily in 5 traditions:

1. jazz
2. classical
3. world musics and ritual musics
4. house and techno
5. Experimental electronic, rule-based composition (post-serial or
aleatoric), and non-genre based open improvisation

On the side of computer music, my primary interest lies in overcoming
the limitations of current software and hardware tools. My model for
future Human-Computer musical interactions would be the experience of
playing piano and saxophone. Three particular goals interest me:

1. Creating a more physical interactive experience
2. Linking that physical experience to a rich and nuanced sound palate
3. Creating instruments which are intuitive and inspiring, and allow
complex performances, both improvised and composed

~David

> My take on this is theory is not necessary if you already know the
> practice. Xenakis and Roads are most useful if you want to expand
> existing musical definitions and forms. If you don't want to do that,
> then you will learn much more by practicing the existing forms within
> the culture and native praxis of those forms than you will from an
> abstracted theory of it. In other words, for me, theory is best suited
> for discovering the places where practices could exist but does not yet;
> the practices themselves will be more useful when those practices exist.
> Or, put another way, I learn music from the practice of music, I learn
> theory to learn what the practice of music could become.