What is it about?
This chapter presents a semi-improvised compositional approach, using a hybridised electroacoustic music context. A central component will be an examination of the Analogue Shift Register (ASR) which emerged during the early 70s with the first commercially available unit by Serge. Whilst the ASR is a slightly more 'esoteric' device, the lines or patterns developed using these modules can in turn be resampled and integrated into various types of composition. Areas for exploration and use case scenarios where an ASR may be a better 'fit' for certain sorts of practitioners in a live and/or composition setting will be proposed.
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Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Finding new and intriguing ways to compose musical material is one of the unending quests for musicians. This chapter seeks to document a variety of approaches with supporting (video) examples.
Perspectives
Modular synthesizers, from the outside can appear to be complex systems. Yet, they are also systems where the musician can design every aspect. A simple fluctuating voltage can be anything in this system. It can be a note, timbral change or combined with others to produce non-repeating and unique events. These systems come alive when performed with and, in a time of the encroachment of AI, uniqueness and non-repetition become principles to build amazing music that also cannot be co-opted by capitalist interests.
Mr Hussein Boon
University of Westminster
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Improvising song writing and composition within a hybrid modular synthesis system, January 2021, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9780429345388-12.
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