The Meaning of the Instrument

In this paper we discuss the meaning of musical instruments, particularly an electronic instrument intended for ensemble improvisation that is called the exPressure Pad, which we present briefly. A basic premise is that it is unthinkable to conceive music theory without music, and music without any kind of sound generation device. The output from a musical instrument must be understood as music, and a musician aims to experience music, rather than physical variables. We distinguish between two modes of music making, which we call design time and play time. Design time is activity outside chronological time, which deals with articulation and application of ideas and knowledge, such as music theory concepts, whereas play time is about real time activity where interaction with the environment, embodied knowledge, and the present are at the forefront. It is feasible to claim that aesthetical choices made at design time of a particular musical instrument is mediated and actualized in play time, comparable to a musical composition. In play a multitude of interactions and cross relations occur: between the players, between the instrument and the player, and between the player and the musical outcome. However, the inherent properties of a particular instrument delimit what we can, and cannot do, and therefore we claim that the instrument directs and informs our playing as much as we are shaping the musical output. 

Theory

We distinguish between two modes of music making, which we call design time and play time. Design time is activity outside chronological time, which deals with articulation and application of ideas and knowledge, whereas play time is about real time activity where interaction with the environment, embodied knowledge, and the present are at the forefront. In Formalized Music Iannis Xenakis (1992) claims: “Music participates both in space outside time and in the temporal flux” (p. 264). British improvising percussionist Edwin Prévost (1995), while referring to British composer Cornelius Cardew as being both a composer and musician, talks about “the two modes of music-making” (p. 59). Finally, San Francisco based improviser, instrument builder, and author Tom Nunn (1998) distinguishes between the intellectual mind and the intelligent body (p. 40).


How do design time and play time connect to each other? Implemented theories and playing techniques are interdependent, and necessary to take into account when discussing musical instruments. Norwegian musicologist Tellef Kvifte (2007) states that playing technique is intimately bounded to music theory and music produced. Kvifte argues about relations between instrument/playing, musical sound, and music theory/notation:

 

The instrument and playing action are meaningful because of their relationship to sound and theory. The theory is meaningful because of its relationship to the sound and the instruments, and the sound is meaningful because of its relationship to the instruments and theory (p. 89).

 

It is unthinkable to conceive music theory without music, or a theory without any kind of sound generation device. The output from any instrument must be understood as music, and as Kvifte asserts, a musician aims to experience music, rather than physical variables. 

Design of the exPressure Pad

When we started to develop the exPressure Pad we made up the following criterion: “How can we explore and control complex electronic sound spaces in improvisation, retaining the millisecond interaction that is taken for granted in acoustic improvisation, but has somehow gotten lost in electronic music?”


The design of our instrument makes use of commercially available equipment: the M-audio Trigger Finger is a midi controller, which consists of an array of sixteen pads that sends velocity and pressure data, in addition to a number of faders and knobs, while mapping and sound generation take place within a Clavia Nord Modular G2.


In order to design an exploratory instrument such as the exPressure Pad, one must think in potential, rather then trying to imagine all possible combinations of parameter values. Therefore, we choose a vector implementation operating in a multidimensional musical space. Essentially, the design consists of a set of fifteen randomized vectors in a fourteen dimensional synthesis parameter space. Each individual pad (1-15 in Figure 3) on the interface are assigned a particular vector. All vectors add up in order to arrive at a single point in the parameter space of a monophonic sound. It is possible to explore a parameter space around the current point in all directions. Sound morphology, such as attack and decay times, are under direct control from designated knobs and faders.


Another dimension mention worth is pitch. Initially we mapped pitch from one vector component, which resulted in a lot of glissandi and did not made musical sense. Therefore, we designed an additive pitch algorithm, and superimposed it on the mapping engine; consecutive pads are assigned a chromatic scale, which start at the bottom left and increasing to the right and upwards. Simultaneously pressed pads (= intervals) add up and form a result interval, similar to the valves of a trumpet. This solution is compatible to our notion that higher pitches require more effort (engage more fingers), and the design of clavier instruments where low to high pitches goes from left to right. The interval sum is scaled by a secondary controller, which allows a continuum from no pitch control, via micro tuning to chromatic pitch.


The sound engine (Figure 4) consists of two intermodulating oscillators, high and low pass filters, comb filter, amplitude control, and reverb. Important musical parameters are controlled by vector components, which sum up to approx 30 synthesis and control parameters respectively. However, some parameters are under direct control from assigned knobs and faders, such as oscillator waveforms.

By Per Anders Nilsson and Palle Dahlstedt

Figure 1: Palle Dahlstedt and Per Anders Nilsson playing the exPressure Pad

Figure 2: The connections between instrument, music theory, and sound. In Kvifte (p. xx)

Figure 3: The Tringer Finger interface used in the exPressure Pad

Figure 4: Sound engine of the exPressure Pad

Discussion

What role does a musical instrument play with respect to musical outcome in improvised music? We refer to a point of view and relation David Borgo (2005) claims British saxophone player Evan Parker holds to his instrument:


The saxophone takes on a musical identity only in interaction with a performer. Parker’s horn is not simply dependent on his playing, nor an extension of it, but in important ways his horn shapes his playing. [...] Just as it is valid from one perspective to say that Parker plays the saxophone, it is equally valid from another perspective to say that the saxophone plays Parker (p. 57).

 

Rather than saying that the instrument plays Parker, the saxophone shapes, and to a certain extent confines his playing. Parker understands the musical world by means of his saxophone, is shaped by it, but he also acts within it, and shapes the musical world through the saxophone.

During a stepwise design process our instrument takes shape. However, only by playing and listening are we able to experience and evaluate the implemented concepts. When pushing a pad and listen, we experience and understand what the conception truly is, we perceive the connection between theory, physical action, and sound produced. Most likely, there is always a gap between aim and result, but after each iterative step in the design process of playing-refinement-playing, our understanding of the underlying theoretical concept increases. As Merleau-Ponty (2002) points out: “To understand is to experience the harmony between what we aim at and what is given, between the intention and the performance – and our body is the anchorage in a world” (p. 167). Furthermore, it is also possible to draw a parallel to Kvifte’s model, which states that music theory concepts only are meaningful in relation to an instrument. A web of meanings are revealed in play: an instrument is meaningful in relation to theory and sound; a theoretical concept is meaningful in relation to playing action and the sound it produces, and a sound is meaningful in relation to theory and the instrument that produces it. The development of duo pantoMorf was as much about forming a new ensemble, as to collectively learning to play a new instrument. The duo’s music is as much shaped by properties and possibilities of the expressure Pad, as we form the music. We claim that it plays the role of an open work type of composition: it makes up a musical space, which are explored and actualized by us at each performance.

Literature

Borgo, David 2005, Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age, Continuum, New York.

Kvifte, Tellef 2007 (1989), Instruments and the Electronic Age: Toward a Terminology for a Unified Description of Playing Technique, Solum, Oslo.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 2002 (1945), Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge, London.

Nunn, Tom 1998, Wisdom of the Impulse, On the Nature of Musical Free Improvisation, Thomas E. Nunn, San Francisco.

Prévost, Eddie 1995, No Sound is Innocent: AMM and the Practice of Self-invention, Meta-musical Narratives, Essays, Copula, Essex, UK.

Xenakis, Iannis, and Kanach, Sharon 1992 (1960), Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition, Pendragon Press, Stuyvesant, N.Y.