Ch. Y.2
Rhizomatic perception:
In a hierarchical process, musical elements are assigned fixed positions and roles, creating a traceable network with clear boundaries and hierarchies that impose defined relations between each element.
In rhizomatic processes, the emphasis is on the fluid interconnections of musical elements, challenging traditional top-down or bottom-up relational hierarchies.
How we perceive a musical process is directly linked with how the musical element is processed, and thus, the different ways we choose to interconnect processes or make them distinctively independent or even dominating over other processes, will in turn impact how we perceive the musical elements in context: disjunctively or conjunctively.
A practical example is how a lead element like Alessandra's voice can be suddenly tapped into by my rig, fed through a mix of virtual effect chains, sent out through external guitar effect pedals before being redirected back into the audio interface and sent through the speakers in real-time, merging and synergizing with her vocal, augmenting and morphing the resulting musical gesture into rhythmical, polyharmonic and spaceous clouds of sound rather than a distinct voice. The perspective modality used to describe this would determine this process as operationally rhizomatic.
On the other hand; experientially, this might be perceived as a hierarchical musical gesture, given the way Alessandra's voice could be felt as the conducting force dominating and controlling these vast sonic clusters propagating through the music.
This can happen independently of my control of the sonic qualities of these refractive layers of her voice, unless my processing starts to push her voice out of the foreground of the soundscape.
Ch. Y.1 Lens comparison
The Y axis within the Triaxis model serves as a map of potentialities, a spectrum of processual potentials that the remixician navigates to actualize the sonic possibilities inherent in the music-making process. This axis is not just about the sounds themselves, but encompasses the many ways in which these sounds can be perceived, transformed, and experienced. It is akin to a toolbox filled with procedural, perceptual, and transductive methods - each tool offering a different way of engaging with and actualizing the sonic material.
In live remixing, the remixician operates much like a scientist or an explorer, choosing tools (processing decisions) and perspectives (modes of observation) that bring forth different aspects of the sonic landscape. Just as the choice between a microscope and binoculars reveals different details and scales of observation, the remixician's processing decisions determine the nuances and textures of the musical experience. These choices are not neutral; they actively shape the music's emergence, guiding its evolution from potential to actuality.
Each remixician will bring their own refractive lens of intuition and experience into play, which bring novel perspectives into the mix. Novelty depends on the observer and their experientially informed lenses of perception. A biologist might walk through your neighborhood seeing novelty all around due to their depth of understanding, while your own recognition might stop at the surface level of "grass" or "flower". As experience trains our ability to discern, we might start to see subtle deviations or contextual novelty, previously hidden hierarchies and rhizomatic behaviours inside the musical environment. Approach perception with a welcoming attitude towards the "as of yet" unrecognized, rather than a fear of what you do not understand.
The creative role of the remixician in the transmutation of "raw audio" into sonic relationships within the environment. They are not passively presenting predefined materials, but are actively involved in a continuous act of creation, selecting and applying different observational and processing lenses to unveil and sculpt the music's emergent properties.