Reading Response
This chapter was full of useful information that is helping me in a very direct, immediate way! Much of the information presented in the first few sections was familiar from lectures in Music 256A and Music 220A, but, as with any topic, repeated exposure and “over-learning” can force you to understand a concept more thoroughly. I appreciated the walkthrough of ChucK’s inception and design, as well as the small detours through basic digital signal processing, programming syntax, and historical context.
In addition to providing information relevant to my work right now, this chapter also inspired curiosity to learn more about two things in particular: compositions using natural “found sounds” a la Paul Lansky’s Table’s Clear or Ge and Madeline Huberth’s Beijing, and the artistic medium of live-coding as a musical performance.
I listened to Paul Lansky’s piece as I followed Ge’s detailed dissection of its structure, content, and ethos, and I am very glad I did! I really enjoyed the piece, and I can see why Ge’s reaction on hearing it for the first time was that of refreshing surprise. I was struck at how organic and blatantly musical it was, and knowing the history behind the artist and piece added to the experience. It inspired me to want to create something like this, and for a moment I considered drastically revamping my soon-to-be-due audio visualizer project to incorporate music made from manipulated nature sounds. However, I realized this would be too ambitious given the deadline…perhaps a fitting example of the statement towards the end of the chapter: “Designers don’t fail. We just run out of time.”
Live-coding as a performance art intrigues me–the way this chapter describes it as the latest stage of the evolution of computer music seems apt, and I don’t doubt its expressive capability. I have had little exposure to live-coding, so for me it is hard to imagine how this works and what it looks like. The mental image of a computer-musician up on stage, rapidly tinkering with lines of code projected upon the wall seems to lack a sort of immediacy and direct correspondence between action/decision and the resultant aesthetic experience. It seems like it would be difficult to connect with audiences in the same way a live band would. It seems like an analogous scenario would be if a composer got on stage and an audience watched them draft a composition, experimenting with ideas on a piano, erasing and re-writing notes on a manuscript, and then having on-stage musicians perform the idea. This would be interesting indeed, but moreso as a novelty than a natural mode of musical creation and consumption. I wonder what else a live-coding experience would look like, and if there are ways to make it feel more like a traditional musical performance. I’m sure there are a wide variety of creative approaches to live-coding music, but I need to explore and learn more about them to better understand this new frontier!