Whilst researching into the game What Remains of Edith Finch I felt an encompassing theme of loneliness at times, and wondered at how the sound design might have aided in creating such a feeling. While also considering the nature of our group’s game ‘Phonebooth’, in which the protagonist feels depressed and alone due to the nature of events that have unfolded in his life, I thought it would be useful to take a closer look at how to recreate what I felt whilst watching What Remains of Edith Finch.
After watching a couple videos and visiting forums and websites discussing loneliness in video games I made a lot of fascinating discoveries. When considering the way a train horn might sound in the distance at night and the way it cuts through the quiet darkness, one can begin to realise that it is not so much the actual silence that makes us feel alone, but the sounds that break it. Sounds that remind us of the space were in have a lot of power to illicit emotions of loneliness as this is how we experience it in reality. For example, wind and how it reacts with the things around us can be a tell tale sign of the size of the space were in. Furthermore, other sounds such as the ticking of a clock or the dripping of a tap both come into the forefront of our listening when in a quiet space. In a a public setting, such sounds would sink into the distance as we passively hear and subconsciously register them, as we are bombarded with many different kinds of noises. However when there are only a few sounds loud enough to hear they become a lot more memorable, igniting a sense of loneliness in whatever sense of the word is relevant to the given situation. Moreover, sounds made by the character themselves can also illicit feeling of loneliness. One example would be footsteps. When paired with relative silence it can create a sense of isolation and I have discovered that sound designers will actually increase the volume of footsteps as well as other sounds, in certain settings, to an unrealistic level in order to make them stand out more in the mix. When the primary sound a player hears is the one they’re making, the message being communicated is that they’re alone.
Reverb can also help with increasing the feel of loneliness in a game, as the spatial element it brings helps imagine up the space one is in, perhaps making it seem bigger than it is. Essentially, it is not only the sounds that create loneliness, but how those sounds are heard. Non diegetic sounds, too, can increase the feeling of loneliness as it can potentially remind us of what we are not experiencing, or missing out on. An example could be the sound of muffled speaking in a room next to us. Lastly, juxtaposition can be a good tool also in achieving a similar effect as the contrast serves, again, as a reminder to what was, and what is. For examples, using the game Reverb can also help with increasing the feel of loneliness in a game, as the spatial element it brings helps imagine up the space one is in, perhaps making it seem bigger than it is. Essentially, it is not only the sounds that create loneliness, but how those sounds are heard. Non diegetic sounds, too, can increase the feeling of loneliness as it can potentially remind us of what we are not experiencing, or missing out on. An example could be the sound of muffled speaking in a room next to us. Lastly, juxtaposition can be a good tool also in achieving a similar effect as the contrast serves, again, as a reminder to what was, and what is. For example, using the game ‘Outer Wilds’ we can compare the calming, cruising music that plays whilst driving the spaceship, to the barren silence, enhanced by only the sounds of breathing and the characters jetpack, once you are separated from your ship.
After all this research, a game that I played recently, called ‘Shadow of Colossus’ comes to mind. Set in a vast landscape where there is seemingly no-one but the main character and his horse, all of the sounds play an important role in consistently maintaining the feeling of isolation throughout the game, whether that be the sound of a distant eagle overhead, or the reverb laden clatter of the horses hooves when exploring abandoned ancient ruins. Even the thunderous crashes made by the giants made of stone serve well to remind us of just how vast the world is and how subsequently alone the character is.
In the introduction to Collins’ book ‘Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games’ she begins by outlining how passive listening has made up the majority of our perceptions of sound in media. As a result we have a limited scope of terminologies and methodologies with which we can approach the player’s relationship to sound in video games. Drawing on the importance of keeping the ‘player’ in mind when approaching sound in media, she goes on to explore multiple different theories on listening, but also interactivity as a whole in order to help us better understand what interaction entails so that she can seemingly use this a foundational basis to apply theories of sound within interactivity in later chapters.
Using Chion’s categorisation of the three basic listening modes:
Causal Listening: refers to the act of associating a sound to its producing action, whether it be conscious or not
Semantic listening: refers to the act of deciphering or interpreting messages in sounds that are bound by semantics , applied for example in a linguistic sense
Reduced listening: refers to the act of listening the traits of a sound, such as its tone or timbre (its acoustic properties)
She explains how none of these modes of listening are mutually exclusive of one another as the player may be listening in several different ways at once. Nevertheless she explains how these modes of listening, as individual approaches, can change the way a player experiences a game, using the sound of a signal beep in the game Fallout 3 as an example. Using these three modes of listening we can determine where the sound is coming from and what has produced it, what the signal is perhaps trying to tell us and also where on the frequency spectrum the sound lies.
What seemed even more so relevant in regards to interactivity was her expansion on these listening modes, using the musicologists, David Huron’s listening modes that he intended to apply for music. The first being Signal Listening, refers to hearing a sound in anticipation, implying a subsequent action. Using ‘New Super Mario Bros’ she touches on how players must listen to music time their attacks, demonstrating the presence of signal listening and an interaction between player and sound. This mode of listening can also help players determine navigational information, status information and semiotic information. One of the other of Huron’s modes of listening that I found to be of particular importance was retentive listening, in which we try to remember what we have heard with the intention of repeating it. In a gaming context, an example of this would be when a player is required to actively remember a sequence of sounds in order to carry out a certain task. Collin’s refashioning of Huron’s listening modes in the context of video games helps us understand the intricacies of sound in interactivity on a deeper level.
In regards to interactivity as a concept in itself, she touches on how cognitive/ psychological reactions ‘always occur alongside other interactions in games’, putting it at the centre of all other forms of interaction, be it physical, perceptual, socio-cultural or interpersonal. She states that there is a danger in interpreting the word ‘interaction’ too literally, by equating it to a physical interaction between a user and a media object. Moving on from this she mentions that experimental games such as ‘Alpha World Of Warcraft, have demonstrated that players can use their alpha brain waves to change gameplay, thus further confusing any differences between the physical and the psychological’. When thinking on how this progression of technology might apply to sound, it becomes a fascinating to consider, especially so when relating it to Collin’s ideas on evoking sounds vs creating sounds. If we are able to create sounds in a game using brain waves, what would the limits be on what could be created, and how would they be implemented? If the limits allowed the player to create unique sounds then would this then place the player as co-creator of aspects within the game? In correspondence with my thoughts, Collin’s too touches on the axis of creator and audience as interactivity increases as a result of technological feats.
She concludes the introduction to her book by talking about a term called ’embodied cognition’. This term theorises that ‘our cognitive processes use reactivations of sensory and motor states from our past experience.’ In order to understand further, a google search of this term gave the definition: ‘Embodied cognition is an approach to cognition that has roots in motor behavior. This approach emphasises that cognition typically involves acting with a physical body on an environment in which that body is immersed’. From this we can infer that sound can be explored in many ways through the medium of mentally reenacting our physical embodied knowledge .
“In ambient music, Eno often imitated or borrowed sounds from existing locations, and organised them in compositions to produce new environments. He often used tape loops of differing lengths played simultaneously so that their interaction randomly produced ‘sound events in periodic clusters’, in much the same way the sounds of frogs, insects and birds in a natural environment occasionally seem to express chords and melodies.” – Oblique Music – pg 90
“Eric Tamm has suggested that texture and timber may be off the essence in the ambient style, but a few general remarks may clarify the style’s use of rhythm and harmony’. He examined thirty ambient pieces, and found that eleven of these dispensed with pulse altogether, the rhythm consisting of a gentle ebb and flow of instrumental colours.”
Harmonically, Eno’s ambient pieces often use static or ambiguous harmonies, sometimes suggestive of chords but just as often consisting of nothing but a drone with… pitches drawn from a diatonic pitch set appearing and disappearing. — Two textural principles – layering and TIMBRAL HOMOGENEITY. These principles were combined so that a typical ambient piece by Eno was composed of 3 to 7 distinct timbral layers.
The world of music composition, especially in the USA in the 1960’s has deep connections with spirituality, many composers were influenced and inspired by music and spirituality of the East (primarily India, China, Japan). The use of drones and extended durations is perhaps the most obvious result of this interaction – “The Theatre of Eternal Music delved fully into the acoustical universe of single sustained tones, compounding their deeply droning sound with extended duration, bringing each performer into a unified state” (LaBelle, 2006, p.71), also, about Young – “His music, in a sense, strives for the actualisation of the very perceptual tones, loud volumes, extended durations, harmonic frequencies, all encompass and overarching sonic commitment that seeks to make sound an experiential event beyond the human limits of time and space, exploiting the ear as a physiological device and the mind in its moment of perception of sound stimuli.”, and “Duration for Young is not a question of minutes and hours, but days and years. As Philip Glass proposes – “This music is not characterised by argument and development. It has disposed of traditional concepts that were closely linked to real time, clock-time…” (p. 73)
Tom Murphy:When you were studying Eastern mysticism did you find any connections between what you learned that route and the music around you at the time? How would you describe those connections?
Laraaji: I observed that drone music at that time reflected the sensation of eternal present time which is emphasized in eastern philosophy—the continuum of consciousness. Also deep yogic level relaxation and meditation as reflected in the music of Stephen Halpern. The heightened sensation of bliss and ecstasy as reflected in the music of Iasos at the time in the late 1970’s. Terry Reilly.
How did you turn a zither into an electronic instrument? Was anyone doing anything comparable at the time you started doing that? Did you process those sounds early on or was it more for amplification?
My first autoharp/zither was acoustic. And after exploring alternative tunings I investigated ways to amplify it. [I then purchased] an electric pickup made especially for autoharps. I dove into amplified autoharp/zither research and decided to add sound treatment with the MXR 90 Phase shifter. After recording the album Day of Radiance with producer Brian Eno my interest in other [effects] pedals expanded to include chorus, delays, flangers and reverb.
How did you meet Brian Eno and as a producer how involved was in shaping the sound of Day of Radiance?
Brian introduced himself to me while I was playing Washington Square Park [in New York City in] 1978 and extended the invite to join him in his Ambient album productions. His suggestions to depend more on live studio microphones and Eventide effects, mixing as well as overdubbing a second zither helped to shape the Day Of Radiance sound.
Going on from my last blog post’s claim that ambience does not exert authority, a look into Brian Eno’s album Reflection only served to reinforce these feelings. Each side contains only one song, partly composed by artificial intelligence with an app that continues the automation process even further. In this sense Eno is no longer the sole creator. In reading up on Eno’s work, including in the book ‘Oblique music’, the dissolution of the hierarchies we find in music and the axis of creator and consumer is prevalent.
One of the most important parts of ambient music is its formlessness, in that we should be able to ignore it as much as we can focus on it, but neither is right or wrong. We are allowed therefore to make our own choices about our style of listening, regaining autonomy where we have subtly lost it in so many other arenas of life …
‘Brian Eno states that ambient shouldn’t come with an instruction manual and we should be free to ignore it. Ambient does not exert authority. Eno’s attempt at dissolving the last remaining hierarchies of this universal field. And he says that to navigate this field and tap into its energy is madly interesting. The calm tones without hierarchy encourage the brain to concentrate, to think precisely. It gives people the chance to reflect, to develop their thoughts, about themselves and the cosmos, about society and the political situation. Does that sound like do-it-yourself therapy for stressed city dwellers whose lives are devoid of meaning? Constantly hooked to digital devices, their tablets and smartphones, networking with everyone and anyone, talking the world up or putting it down with their online friends and always staying within their liberal left comfort zone until they can’t see the wood for the trees. Eno’s advice for the shaken souls of the liberal left: less time wasting online, less overexcited rushing around. Instead: calm down and think. That is the only way to keep track of everything, to leave one’s bubble, change one’s perspective, and regain such things as empathy and a sense of justice – all of which are prerequisites for political action. Eno’s theory is that we so-called goodies are allowing ourselves to be infected with the hectically apocalyptic it’s-the-end-of-the-world stress that the baddies cultivate. Yet if the running temperature is near fever pitch, then we cannot possibly win this fight. This requires an atmosphere of calm and contemplation. Not in order to remain within this inner self and consolidate existing structures but to encourage mental development which leads us to develop political opinions and to enhance democratic processes. After all, if we claim that we want to defend the Western values of an open society, then really we ought to be able to say what these values are – and how these can be consolidated and fostered in today’s digital society.
“Friends, acquaintances, companies, advertisers …, all of these constantly try to bait us with new and ever changing triggers to consume more. That’s how fake needs are created.” We are expected to buy and to share, with every activity being turned into a purchasable commodity, “it’s a system we as people are trapped in”. In the darkest, furthest recesses of our brains we do harbour a belief that life without Uber and AirBnB, without Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp or Facebook is possible. But we aren’t totally convinced of that. We are of course aware that these service providers and all the options they offer, aggressively push us to “simplify our lives”, but mainly succeed in creating more stress. “Ambient music aims to encourage people to reflect on what their real needs are,” Weber says. “Open music like this creates a space onto which I can project all of those inputs that were projected onto me from the outside. And I can re-project those very precisely and intensively.”
This is the way in which humans find the answers to the question of what makes them individuals and what the kind of society they feel comfortable in might look like. And also the answer to what we as humans need in order to make our lives human again, rather than living our lives as a mere series of reactions to triggers. Only if they are able to answer these questions can human beings think politically. Therefore, a music genre that leads people towards reflection is in itself definitely political because it lays the foundations for protest to develop at all. “We are no longer self-sufficient, no longer autonomous,” Hendrik Weber explains. “First of all we’ll have to fight to reclaim these qualities.”THE MISERY OF OUR TIMES: ONE FOR ALL
You can see why this fight is important on a random walk around London. Let’s take South Hackney in north-eastern London. “In and lively” is what the travel guide says about this part of town. We know what that means: boutiques, galleries, restaurant chains. We take a wrong turn and end up in an apparently very hip and busy bar by the name of Bistrotheque. It’s trying to be a restaurant and a wine bar, somewhere to dance and see live events, a place to go with friends and dates. There are customers here who spend six hours or more in this place and switch roles several times during their visit. At first they enjoy a meal at a table they reserved, then they spend time drinking at the bar, later dancing downstairs, then flirting, and finally they end up back at the bar. The organisation for all of this is done by smartphone. If you ask these people whether they feel self-sufficient and autonomous, they’ll answer, “Sure.” However, if you ask them what they would need to make their lives more worth living, they’ll stumble briefly and then one will say, “Time.” Just imagine that: People spend several hours in a restaurant and wish for more time. That’s the world of the Bistrotheques, that’s what Hendrik Weber meant when he said that we, the people, are “constantly being triggered”: We hang out, but we don’t relax because we are continuously being assaulted with stimulation. I would bet that no-one in the Bistrotheque in South Hackney has ever written a novel, ever conceived of a political thought, ever planned a revolution. If the Bistrotheque were a piece of music, it would be a loud, overamplified, modern pop song that’s been compressed to death. SLOWNESS IS THE GOAL
Erased Tapes takes the liberty of opting out of capitalism. An industry is a hierarchy to him: top, middle, bottom. With his label, Robert Raths wants to prevent hierarchies. “In an ideal scenario there is no longer a stage; artist and audience become one.”
This is ambient music, too: the field is open to influences from outside, the rain becomes part of the audio, the reaction of the audience becomes an emotional track and the artist reacts to that. Why should this view of art not become a model for a new view of politics, for a kind of public participation that is different and not your typical information evening where the politicians and civil servants sit on an elevated podium at the front whilst the citizens struggle through the evening on uncomfortable chairs? “None of our artists would dare put themselves above the audience,” says Robert Raths. “That works because the music that we publish doesn’t do hierarchies. The chorus isn’t worth more than the verse. There are no hits, no lead vocals. Each track, each moment counts the same.” He stops, then laughs. “That sounds like dispossession and socialism.”
It doesn’t get any more political than that.
ULTRA-RED – a collective of artists that have made many works and performances ‘that combine ambient music with confrontational politics’. Based in LA… Using field recordings to make sonic montages… – Complex collection of albums and public performances
In the process of trying to hash out a topic to research into I found myself reading an article called RELAX! THINK! ACT! – AMBIENT AS POLITICAL MUSIC. The text was enticing as it offered a new perspective into how music & sound can be used as a form of protest, focusing less on the typically loud and aggressive, but more on calmness as a source of power.
Using the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia in 2011 as an example, whereby large scale protesting and street demonstrations, borne from political unrest and the self-immolation of Bouazizi, led to the eventual ousting of long-time president Zine El Abedine Ben Ali and consequent democratisation of the country, comparisons are drawn between the various soundtracks of the revolution. While some protesters adorned their experience with powerful and politically driven songs, such as those by hip hop musicians El Général and Balti, it was found that others had chosen more minimal and meditational songs as the backdrop to their revolution, as opposed to brute musical force.
When on holiday in Tunisia, Hendrik Weber found that some of the protesters were using his album, Black Noise, as their personal soundtrack. An album sonically rich in field recordings, atonal noise, stray percussion and meditational bells, it does not adrenalise the listener, but rather carries you with it into a reverie of sorts. A strange choice for the soundtrack to a revolution.
Weber goes on to summarise that the over-arching ambience of Black Noise demonstrates a version of music that doesn’t offend anyone. While most other traditional forms of music are made up of formulaic structure, packed tightly with arrays of various instruments and their respective harmonies, melodies and rhythms all intertwining with purpose, ambient music, it can be inferred, has no intention and ‘neither leads the way nor tells others what to do’. It is rather ‘a sonic space with the largest possible latitude for the listener’. It has no hierarchy and no claim to leadership and allows the listener to enrich it with whatever they deem fit, whether that be the sounds of nature or the sounds of revolt.
Black Noise – Pantha du Prince
The hard hitting, politically motivated albums of artists like Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine or the The Clash, among many others, fill a very importance space in the world of protest, clinically mobilising its listeners to resist with a clear message and explicit lyrics to hold on to. Yet upon listening to the album I began to understand for myself the power of ambient music. Perhaps due to my personal battle for sanity against my neighbour’s relentless construction works, that definitely exceed legal noise limits, this discovery has been timely and I am maybe more able to empathise with the need for such an ‘enhanced silence’, as Weber describes it.
Parallels of solace in ambience can be drawn between my very personal experience of intrusive industrial noises and the sounds of rebellion and uprising in Tunisia. When surrounded by sounds that have imperative and demand to be heard, the liberation from authority that ambience offers and its mutability to be what we need it to be, I find, is increasingly important in retaining our humanity and remembering who we are individually in a world of pressure and expectation.
After a fairly substantial period of retreat from the world and consequent neglect towards my education, I am writing this entry as a marker, to signify the beginning of a new relationship with myself, that will hopefully break down the senseless walls that have fortified my creative abilities, and instead, give me the strength to cultivate this underlying tension into actual matter. Focus, action and intention. A reminder to the self.
In an ideal world I would have hoped to bring an installation proposal of mine to life. However after consideration, I have concluded that it would be unwise to try, given how late I’ve left it, as it may very well lead to a series of thought patterns that could overwhelm me. It seems like a silly notion as I type it out, yet on this path of rediscovery I have thrust myself on I am growing aware, more so than ever, of the reasons as to why I crumble at the feet of expectation, and am determined to overcome my self-made predispositions and reach for my potential.
Idents: A sonic identification or label of a specific brand, device, tv channel/ program, etc. They typically last for about 10 – 20 seconds and are a clever device for marketing products as these ‘audio logos’ are recognised globally, despite differences in language. Some of the most famous idents are that of Brian Eno’s idents for Microsoft.
The link above is a short clip of audio I composed in Ableton a while back. Struggling to describe it’s nature to others I kept on referring to it as ‘introductory cinema music,’ yet after having learnt about sonic branding, ‘Ident’ seems like a much more fitting name.
Possibly my favourite speaker from the visiting practitioner series, Khyam Allami offers a very different perspective on the relationship between the western musical system and other more marginalised musical cultures. Specifically honing in on tuning systems and microtonality, his opinions on the subconscious western bias we are all subject to has definitely made an impact on the way I now view western confines of music.
Khyam Allami – Background
Born in Damascus, Syria, Khyam Allami migrated to London at the age of 9. His renewed interest in cultural history and ethnography was born from the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Spurred by a need to reconnect with his roots he started playing the Oud as his primary instrument in his twenties, achieving much renown as a performer of the ancient instrument. Alongside this he studied ethnomusicology at the university of SOAS, specialising in Arabic and Iraqi music. He is currently in the process of finishing a PhD in composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, giving him the platform to further his research into the application of ‘contemporary acoustic, electro-acoustic and electronic compositional techniques and processes to Arabic music through the use of technology and various instrumentation.’
An ancient short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringedinstrument
Pythagoras and Historical Misconceptions
Khyam’s research into microtonality and tuning systems lead him to the ancient Ionian Greek philosopher Pythagoras. Not only credited with ‘many mathematical and scientific discoveries’ he is widely seen to be the discoverer of the relations between music and mathematics. Upon deeper introspection however, the reality of it is that many of the ideas that Pythagoras, and the pythagoreans that followed him, developed were already being practiced across the east. Some examples include a clay tablet in Mesopotamia, dated to 2500 B.C. that talks about a specific tuning system that was used to tune the Mesopotamian lyre. There is also documentation of a Chinese technique for creating tuning systems using bamboo panpipes, dated at around 1700 B.C. Cross referencing this to Echo Ho’s work, it brings to mind the Guqin instrument that can be traced back to the Zhu dynasty in China (1046 BC – 771 BC) and is ‘one of a few instruments which changes the pitch tunings in order to change the key.’ Paradoxically, Pythagoras and his theories are only dated back to around 500 B.C. and according to Greek theorists, documentation of divisions of strings originated from the revered mathematician Euclid at around 300 A.D., revealing a very worrying discrepancy between the actual origins of tuning systems and the western view on the matter.
Origins of Western Bias On Music Theory
Khyam Allami claims that Pythagoras is the first point in the musical bias that society has developed. The misplaced reverence of Greek history and philosophy and the historical view of ancient Greece as a hub of western civilisation unwittingly ostracises many important practices within other ancient cultures that have made transformative contributions to contemporary western society. This is controversial as the representation of the Greeks being the centre of these ideas nestles into the heart of discussions about music theory. These inherent biases are then inherited by following generations creating a mass confusion and misinterpretation of musical history.
Equal temperament and the Limitations of Digital Software
The majority of digital tools today use equal temperament which is the western system for dividing the octave into 12 equal steps. This default tuning system thats available in the majority of sound based softwares and hardware we use today is representative of western music theory, yet is used by countries all over the world, a lot of whom use tuning systems that don’t rely on equal divisions of the octave.
Khyam opened up about his experiences with digital softwares, expanding on how the encoded equal temperament led him in a different direction to his Arabic foundations. The tools intrinsically went against the way he had learnt the Oud and music in general. The difficulty he met from using such softwares and the resulting frustration drove him to work on a creative solution for applying more marginalised tuning systems to digital music making. His work in max for live saw him create a device called ‘Comma’ that enabled one to tune any synthesiser by ear using specific values.
Whilst studying for a PhD on composition, focusing specifically on contemporary and experimental Arabic music, he again found himself developing pastiche ideas based on his predecessors in composition. Dissatisfied in his approach to his work he realised that, whilst his previous imperative had always been to find some sort of end result in which he could apply his accumulated knowledge, his underlying aim had always been to liberate himself creatively as opposed to having a means to an end. In a more understandable sense, the ability to discover a creative spark through the process of making music, instead of trying to execute a preconceived idea within the confines of western technology. This ultimately lead him to his work with the browser based applications Apotome and Leimma.
The Apotome Project
The Apotome project is a transcultural musical venture based on two browser based software applications, Leimma and Apotome, that provides a formula for the creation and exploration of tuning systems. While Leimma solely focuses on the creating of individual tuning systems, its sister application Apotome is a generative music making environment focused on making tuning a fundamental element of it.
A4 = 440Hz is a well known figure in western music and has become ‘the tuning and manufacturing standard for instruments.’ In reality tuning is a far more complex matter than simply ‘A being 440hz.’ This very idea contains an exclusion of other musical cultures that uses scales with more notes than the traditional ones used in the west.
Remnants of colonial perspectives of what music is supposed to be is inherited in the tools and softwares we use. Apotome and Leimma are so crucial to unpacking these biases as they deconstruct scale systems and de-colonialise musical preconceptions. These tools treat musical culture as equally as possible, but also encourage not only cultural, but individual identity.
After having tried Leimma myself, I found it to be a very user friendly and intuitive application. Through creating my own tuning system, mapping chosen frequencies to my midi keyboard, I was able to hear things I normally wouldn’t, exposing myself to a whole world of compositional ideas and concepts. Moreover, one can send their personal tuning system by simply copying and pasting its URL link making collaboration and feedback very accessible. I was disappointed to find however that I was limited by the amount of keys on my keyboard, unable to create a tuning system with more than 12 notes in one octave. Liberated in a sense by this application, yet once again confined by the amount of piano keys in one octave. I wonder whether seeking out a midi enharmonic keyboard, if one even exists, would alleviate this problem.
A screenshot of my work in Leimma
Another interesting thing to note is that ‘Comma, Leimma, and Apotome, all take their names from ancient Greek terms used to describe specific microtonal intervals that result from various mathematical nuances associated with creating tuning systems.’ The re-appropriation of these terms are fitting as they subtly expose misconstrued histories but also ‘advocate for celebration of difference across cultures’
Eggs – A Metaphor forSocietal Crutches
At one point in the lecture Khyam tells of the unexpected dissatisfaction he experienced with the culmination of his initial Max For Live project (Comma). Despite having a tool he had yearned for so long at his disposal, he was unmotivated as the difficulty in developing the idea was the main drive in the first place. He likened this realisation to, what I found to be, a very intelligent anecdote describing a group of housewives asked to bake a cake.
Instructed only to add water to a provided cake mix, most of these housewives felt like they were not able to creatively represent themselves in the process. Consequently, the egg was removed from the mix and a new line was added to the packets instruction, asking its users to add a single egg themselves, whilst following the rest as required. As soon as this update was undertaken the cake mix soared in popularity.
He compares the idea of this ‘egg’ to the way in which people approach composition, but also life in general. I agree with his observations of people and the sense of agency that is generally needed to feel good about what we do. This agency has fused with instant gratification in todays world and causes society to rest on the crutches of technology in order to complete a task. “Most music technology that we deal with today revolves around this idea of the egg – all these defaults and settings are in place and all we are asked to do is break an egg and feel like we have some sort of agency or ownership to what we are doing – the ingredients are all laid out for us and they’re framed in a way that harbours a specific way of thinking about music”
So eloquently put, I feel this comparison really puts form to the pitfalls of western modern man in a spectacular way. It asks us to be self critical and to make sure the choices we make are not just ‘eggs.’
Cultural/ Social Ramifications
A final point to make is that the western dominance of the musical software and hardware market is another issue, in that it imposes its ideologies through its software onto people of other cultures. People, who may have differing notions of music to the ones coded into a certain device’s framework, have no choice but to use the western softwares they are limited to. Another interesting point, in the form of a question asked in the Q n A session, shone a light on the price of Ableton and its inaccessibility for those of a certain class. The very fact that people seem to be drawn to Ableton for its notoriety as the most (or rather coming closest to) creatively freeing music software brings social ramifications with it when considering the class based disenfranchisement that can occur for people from a poorer background.
Conclusion
I feel Khyam Allami is a prime example of someone who engages in consistent self reflection, constantly recreating himself in line with his changing theories on music and life. It can be hard to dig deep into our self conscious in a self critical way and unpack the biasses that we’ve inherited. Yet Khyam demonstrates the huge advantages that come with it. I feel as if his work resonates with me on a strong level as I often times feel disconnected from my heritage. His work has spurred me to get in touch with my roots more so then I have currently done. As someone who has a deep appreciation of many musical cultures outside the western sphere, whether that be the Malian blues of Boubacar Traoré, the ancient sounds of the Persian Ney or the Brazilian funk of Azymuth, Khyam has taught me the dangers of western centric, surface level exotification of said genres, and that personally delving deeper into these marginalised forms of music will only aid me in my outlook on music.
References
“Apotome: Khyam Allami X Counterpoint — Khyam Allami.” Khyamallami.com, khyamallami.com/Apotome-Khyam-Allami-x-Counterpoint. Accessed 19 May 2021.
Festival, C. T. M. “Microtonality and the Struggle for Fretlessness in the Digital Age.” Microtonality and the Struggle for Fretlessness in the Digital Age, www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/microtonality-and-the-struggle-for-fretlessness-in-the-digital-age.
“Guqin Tunings.” Wikipedia, 1 Aug. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin_tunings#Method_of_tuning. Accessed 19 May 2021.
“Roel’s World – Blog» How Did A4=440Hz Became the Standard?” Roel’s World, 19 Oct. 2013, roelhollander.eu/en/tuning-frequency/standardization/. Accessed 18 May 2021.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Pythagoras.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Mar. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras.
The oldest traditional Chinese string instrument, Guqin, is made from two pieces of wood with 5 strings, although modern versions of it include 7 strings on its body. The instrument is acoustically low in tone, with its open strings tuned in the bass register. It has a range of around 4 octaves. Traditionally, the Guqin’s strings were made from very thin pieces of silk twisted together. After the 50’s however, nylon strings are now used on the instrument giving it a fairly different sound aesthetic. The dots on the Guqin shows the position of harmonics on the instrument. In total there are 91 possible harmonic sounds that can be made on it. It is seen as the “father of Chinese music” by the Chinese and is tied to Confucianism and other modes of spiritual practice and philosophical thought. A culturally important and ancient instrument that has not only been a tool of music, but a catalyst in the conception of prehistorical concepts such as Qi and Tao.
Guqin instrument
Slowqin
Echo ho, a Phd candidate researcher at the Tangible Music Lab, is an experimental performer and composer. Her main body of work has involved reinventing the Guqin into a more modern context, driven by an interest in exploring gesture-based composition. Named the Slow Qin in ode to it’s predecessor it is made from transparent plexiglass, fitted with a piezo pick up under its bridge and boasts ‘7 switches, 4 pushbuttons, 8 potentiometers, a light sensor, 2 pressure sensors, and a long slide potentiometer’ to allow for gesture based composition and provide ease in ‘wireless connection to computer software.’ Primarily using the software Supercollider which intelligently facilitates ‘real time data and sound sampling and processing,’ Echo has hybridised the instrument in a way that enables many possibilities within improvisation.
Echo playing a Slowqin
A cross cultural challenge
The Slowqin is so contemporarily engaging as its very nature brings together the ancient and the modern, paving the way for Echo’s cross cultural work that interweaves Chinese traditions, Western experimental music and the Guqin’s representation of a practical philosophy. Grounded in Confucianism and Taoism, the Guqin is historically seen as a medium to cultivate ones mind and an interface between man and nature. Tied to these philosophies the instrument has rarely been explored outside of its meditative qualities and ancient scores. Treated as a ritualistic object, it is believed to have been created by anceient shamans. While the historical imperative of the Guqin remains important, it can be said that these old values may impede the progression of the Guqin as an instrument in its own right.
I feel that ‘Crossroad Bridge Chronicles’, an installation and karaoke performed by Echo and Karin Harrasser serves as a metaphor for this. Inherently a science fiction and ethnographic performance, it tells a story of two woman who travel to Chinese cities in 2020. One of them is possessed by the idea of playing the Qin, going back to old traditions and becoming more in tune with nature, while the other is an ethnographer fascinated by the magic of modern megacities. Two personalities. Two states of mind. Yet both have a justified outlook on what they wish to safeguard and explore, respectively.
‘Substituting the environment of nature with the landscape of contemporary mega-cityscapes, skyscrapers become the new mountains, highways the new rivers, and the SlowQin becomes the new Guqin.‘
Performing with the Guquin and Slowquin
Ancient Guqin tablature is known to have been accompanied by images of animals that poetically evoke the type of gesture needed to play the instrument successfully.
Top: a flowing spring illustrates juan: three fingers pluck inward as one Bottom: a crane dancing in a breeze illustrates pi: inward thumb pluck
Examples of animal representation in ancient Guqin tablature
Echoes work with the Slowqin takes this a step further by using the Supercollider application to open up her articulate artistic gestures to a world of self reflective improvisation, continuously rethinking the Guqin’s possibilities. This is evidenced in her work on her performance and installation ‘Still Noise’ for ‘Guqin, SlowQin, and electronics to be performed in public space’. Featuring modular structured improvisation and an electronic ensemble, an elaborate sonic landscape is created where performers react to one another by triggering sounds in response to a graphical notation on a sheet of manuscript paper, all of which increase the immersivity of the sonic environment .
Taken from the article ‘The SlowQin: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Reinventing the Guqin’
Related works that also delve into the gesture based nature of the Guqin include the ‘Physical Gesture acquisition system for Guqin Performance,’ developed by Jingyin He. It involved a ‘wearable sensor system for the Guqin player’s hand, enabling Guqin playing technique to become meaningful physical gesture control that interacts with a computer.’ Another individual, Eng Tat Khoo used an interactive system of lasers and physical sensors to allow performers to use full body gestures to play notes on a VST Guqin.
Conclusion
I feel that the Guqin, an instrument rich in historical context, has been given even more context in todays society via Echo’s philosophical and sociopolitical work with the Slowqin. Her historically informed performances bring light to many modes of traditional thought that must be challenged in order to reap the benefits of the old and the new. The ideologies attached to the Guqin and of Echo ho have helped me reconnect with the concept of physicality within art and how motion is exceedingly important in expressing oneself. I see the Slowqin as a device that naturally allows one to tap into their creative stream more intuitively, providing inspiration for an open-ended design process, conjoining the mechanical body and digital brain. I view both the Guqin and the Slowqin as not only an instrument but a vehicle of thought.
Personal notes
PLEXIGLAS® is the brand name of the transparent plastic acrylic, just like Perspex. … Acrylic has a very high light transmission and with 92% this is much higher than glass. In addition, it is 25 times stronger than glass and only half as heavy. Acrylic is also easy to work with and will not shatter, which glass does.
Particularly fascinated by the concept of image based gesture notation, I wonder if a similar tablature can be made, or exists for a more well known instrument like the piano perhaps…
References
Behance. “Slow Qin.” Behance, www.behance.net/gallery/13587311/Slow-Qin. Accessed 17 May 2021.
“Guqin Aesthetics.” Wikipedia, 24 July 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin_aesthetics#Philosophy_of_the_qin.
Ho, Echo, et al. The SlowQin: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Reinventing the Guqin.
“Qin Playing Technique.” Www.silkqin.com, www.silkqin.com/07play/fngrng.htm. Accessed 17 May 2021.
“Zo-on Slows.” Goechospace, goechospace.com/echospace/performance/crossroad-bridges-chronicle. Accessed 17 May 2021.
