Abstract
With electronics and code as an essential part of new musical instruments, the boundaries between composition, instrument design and performance are blurring. With code that can be changed and compiled on the fly, the design of an instrument becomes a fluid process, which can even be a performance in itself. Starting with an example from my own artistic practice, I explore the concepts of composition, instrument and performance and what role the design of electronics and software plays in these. What influences design decisions when developing instrument? How does the materiality of electronics and code inform these decisions? How do the knowledge and skills of the makers play their role in this?
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Notes
- 1.
“Wezen—Gewording” can roughly be translated to Being—Becoming.
- 2.
API stands for application programming interface; it defines which functions can be called from a library. In the context of livecoding it defines the set of commands that can be called during the performance, thus determining the vocabulary that is available.
- 3.
During his talk during the Musical Organics Symposium, STEIM, Amsterdam; May 5, 2016.
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Baalman, M.A.J. (2017). Interplay Between Composition, Instrument Design and Performance. In: Bovermann, T., de Campo, A., Egermann, H., Hardjowirogo, SI., Weinzierl, S. (eds) Musical Instruments in the 21st Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2951-6_15
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