Conclusion
The microphonic process is a phenomenon whereby musicians employ microphones and related media within a musical instrumentarium to innovate musical practice. Beginning with the conversational crooning of early microphone singers, the microphonic process transformed live performance practice and continues to be an innovating force today. In this research-creation thesis I described the advent of the microphonic process and discussed its history through the music of Bing Crosby, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hugh Davies, and Jimi Hendrix. I then showed how microphonic practices continue in the 21st century through saxophonists Colin Stetson and John Butcher, and ended with a discussion and analysis of how I newly applied the microphonic process in my own feedback saxophone work.
This research embodies the epistemological promise of research-creation to meaningfully combine artistic practice with scholarly inquiry. Though there remains opposition to this concept, research-creation is becoming more widely understood to compliment conventional forms of scholarship by contributing to artistic knowledge. Many academics agree that to use creative practice as research, its methods and findings must be made explicit and communicated clearly. Creative practice without any exegesis should be viewed as art for art’s sake, and not be considered, nor held to the standards of, scholarly research. Rather than producing a binary of “pure” research-creation and “pure” art, varying degrees of creative practice can be applied as a research method or act as findings. This spectrum of research methods and results is illustrated by my music research compass, on the centre of which lies my research that balances conventional and artistic methods and results. By combining creative practice with discursive analysis, my “problem-practice-exegesis” methodology ensures that my research-creation was systematically carried out, that it was contextualized for academic and artistic communities, and that it produced original contributions. This methodology can be used as a model for other research-creation projects in general, while my version of the AGNI method, used within, could be applied for similarly situated research.
Examining the history and current state of the microphonic process reveals a cross-genre, musical-technological practice spanning nearly 100 years. This practice cannot be fully appreciated without understanding how drastically popular vocal technique was transformed by the shift from pre-electric, acoustical sound reproduction technology to that of the microphone, amplifier, and loudspeaker. In both recordings and live performance, the convergence of these three technologies was most effectively harnessed by Bing Crosby, whose microphone-enhanced crooning made him a multimedia superstar. Those familiar with his rise to fame understood that he was perceived as using the microphone as an instrument, but his success contributed to the microphone’s complete assimilation into musical practice, thus obscuring its instrumental nature. Cathy van Eck, whose writing on microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments has been invaluable to this research, is one of many who take the microphone’s assimilation into musical practice at face value. The device had become such a natural, expected inclusion in vocal performance that even microphone techniques, such as changing the distance from the singer’s mouth, were not considered instrumental interactions by her. Karlheinz Stockhausen also had this bias, not even viewing the microphone as an extension of the body, but as lifeless as a piece of furniture. This attitude allowed Stockhausen to believe that he was revitalizing the microphone as an instrument, ignoring the performance innovations of popular singers in the 40 years leading up to the creation of Mikrophonie I.
Treating Mikrophonie I as a work that engages in the microphonic process, however, shifts the focus away from the microphone and towards the work’s instrumentarium of media. Moreover, much like the spectrum of creative practice in research, my analysis of the microphonic process does not rely on a binary of instrumental nature. It instead recognizes the varying degrees and ways all media within an instrumentarium contribute to musical outcomes, regardless of the genre or historical period. Using the microphonic process as a framework then allows the musical-technological relationships within Mikrophonie I to be compared with the singing of Bing Crosby. Continuing to apply this framework, in harnessing the acoustic feedback between microphones and loudspeakers, Hugh Davies’ Quintet achieved a much greater degree of instrumental revitalization than Mikrophonie I ever did. Despite Davies’ success, indeterminate feedback works are still uncommon in the classical world. This should come as no surprise, as the microphonic pieces of Stockhausen and Davies were never intended or expected to have implications beyond the avant-garde sphere. Successful musical-technological fusions in popular music, however, often are. Bing Crosby’s crooning was the first microphonic practice to gain wide appeal, followed by Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar feedback. By transforming what was initially intended as a sound reproduction device into a vital part of an instrumentarium, capable of catalyzing new performance techniques, Hendrix did for the loudspeaker what Crosby did for the microphone.
By repurposing microphones, loudspeakers, amplifiers, mixing boards, and more, these four ground-breaking artists divergently employed the microphonic process to innovate their genres. Though their full impact remains to be seen, the works of saxophonists Colin Stetson and John Butcher present significant innovations in saxophone performance practice and continue the lineage of the microphonic process that has been evolving since the 1920s. Following in the footsteps of Crosby and Hendrix, and borrowing from the experimental realm of Stockhausen and Davies, Stetson has used the microphonic process to package extended saxophone techniques into a new style of instrumental avant-pop. Unlike the packaging of Stetson, Butcher likely pioneered an entirely new technique in manipulating indeterminate feedback with the saxophone, using it in free improvisations that forgo systematization.
Despite the accelerating adoption of digital technology in the 21st century, the instrumentaria of Stetson and Butcher avoid digital media – defying the longstanding relationship between technological innovation and musical practice. Throughout most of the 20th century, new technologies were used to develop novel performance techniques, as the works of Crosby, Stockhausen, Davies, and Hendrix demonstrate. According to Paul Théberge, however, the increased availability of digital hardware and software in the 1980s began to fundamentally shift musicians’ technical relationship with technology, referred to as the style paradigm, towards a consumerist one, referred to as the sound paradigm. This meant that, rather than develop new musical experiences through technologically extended instrumental technique, musicians were more likely to acquire the newest devices and software to stay current. Though the sound paradigm played out somewhat differently in classical music, responses to the sound paradigm’s shortcomings included “interactive” computer music and digitally augmented instruments.
In spite, or perhaps because, of the cutting-edge nature of digital enhancement, the extensions used in augmented instruments frequently overshadow the technique and acoustic qualities of the core instrument, which is one of the reasons they have failed to meaningfully impact woodwind performance practice. Under the guiding principles of post-digitalism, however, minimally augmented instruments can provide a model for integrating woodwinds with technology without being consumed by the sound paradigm. In harnessing the idiosyncrasies, accidents, and noise of both media and acoustic instruments, minimally augmented instruments recentre musical-technological relationships on technique and away from consumption. The instrumentaria of Stetson and Butcher are excellent examples of this concept: by using the fundamental technologies of the microphonic process to innovate saxophone technique, these artists have contributed to saxophone performance practice in lasting ways that will be largely unaffected by changing tastes or new technological innovations.
My work in feedback saxophone similarly reimagines the saxophone as a minimally augmented, post-digital instrument, and uses the microphonic process to expand its expressive capabilities. To exhibit the creative potential and to establish the fundamental grammar of this new instrumentarium, I composed three concert etudes, Stride, Doina, and Yen. With each work increasing in complexity, they build the foundation of what is becoming a much deeper practice and clearly document the research-creation for interested parties. Despite the preliminary nature of these works, they represent a hitherto undocumented and under-explored approach to electroacoustic performance and instrumental practice. Perhaps most significantly, they show how acoustic feedback may be systematized, something that has not been meaningfully done before or since Jimi Hendrix. These works demonstrate that the microphonic process, as well as musical-technological approaches that embrace limitations and material imperfection, such as post-digitalism, are means by which new sounds, techniques, and musical aesthetics may be developed. The utility of these approaches highlights the importance of studying disparate artists across genres and times, which is reinforced by my research on the microphonic process. The expressive cache of novel phenomenon based in human interactions with physical instrumentaria will likely grow in importance as digital hegemony increases. Ultimately, this research shows there is much to be gained by rethinking the possibilities of everyday technologies and creatively engaging with the material world.