[literal]
When using technology, I need it to be 'necessary', the piece should attempt to exploit the technology because only 'this technology' can achieve what the piece is trying to achieve – this is notwithstanding the possibility that several similar technologies may have possibly been used in any given piece, that Max/MSP or Supercollider would be equally 'necessary' to the piece: there is also the possibility that at a deeper level of enquiry(or knowledge of the technologies), specific pieces could be written which exploit specific differences between, say, Max/MSP or Supercollider. The literal use of technology follows from a sentiment expressed by Christopher Fox in the context of mixed music and electroacoustic music in general, that just because we can do something, doesn't mean that we should (Keynote lecture, Brunel concert 2007?). The Book of Functional Harmony began as a compositional problem, what could I write for instruments of fixed temperament? Without resorting to scordatura, how could I bend pianos/harps/etc. to my musical language. The solution I found at the time was to write for any instrument of fixed temperament, and live electronics (specifically Max/MSP). The electronics aspire to use the instrument against itself [...?]. The piece does not need to be specific to any one instrument because the problem is the same for any of them – the specifics of the piece may change but the compositional problems and solutions remain the same, different instruments simply change the colour: this issue will be further explored in the chapter on Form.
The only piece from The Book of Functional Harmony to be completed to date is Distemper, which takes its cue from Lucier's I am Sitting in a Room with it's successive layering of recorded sound, but with the intention of generating acoustic beating between the 'real' and electronic parts. The text score defines the nature of the material, only notes with long decay may be used: in the scored version for Harp, only the pitch class E was used. The electronics record one minute of the live sound, let this be A1. During the second minute the player continues, the electronics playback A1 but reversed and minutely pitch shifted (by slowing the file playback speed), let this played back file be A1R, this is all being recorded to a second buffer, let this be B1. Excepting the first minute, when the player is alone, the text-score stipulates that the player must strive to place their attacks at the end of the computer's reversed notes, thus creating chords which have a fade-in and fade-out. In the third minute, the player continues as above while the computer plays back B1R and records the third minute, let this be C1. The continues, building layers of chords which fade in and out, each layer being slightly out of tune so creating further layers of beating within the chords. The intention is that the electronics add nothing but functionality to the piece, no extra colour or 'music', they simply do what the instrument cannot do on its own.
[Technology as performer]
In some pieces, Whitewater being the most notable example presented here, the technology acts as a performer. The distinction between technology as performer and technology as process, is that the performer aspect requires that the technology be an autonomous agent, with a level of interaction and responsibility comparable to that of the human performers: notwithstanding the computer's inevitable (quasi-Asimovian?) limits of spontaneous creativity.
Such an agent is useful in writing music with emergent form
As an autonomous agent, the computer abides by rules of interaction
[Technology as a processor – the 'stomp box' model]
As a you guitarist, I dreamed of a single guitar pedal which would be completely customisable and could produce any effect that I could imagine. Somewhere along the way, this dream has filtered into my compositional method. A considerable amount of my mixed music output takes the form of a live input into a 'black box' which processes the input and provides an output but without being interactive: the performer may interact with the generated sound, but this has no effect on the computer's output.
*Define the differences more, find the crux and elaborate more*
The distinction made above between performing technology and processing technology is necessarily artificial, but shows *something*. Within my output of mixed music, most works are situated somewhere on the left or right of an imaginary centrepoint in this continuum. Primes (2006) for Violin and Max/MSP is a piece which occupies the middle ground. The violin part is improvised around given material and rules, the main formal tension/material is the player's moment-to-moment decisions on whether to blend with the computer part or to act independently of it. The player may affect the computer only through a switch statement, three short, sharp attacks in succession trigger the computer to listen to the violin's next pitch, this will be the computer's harmonic fundamental until the next trigger. Apart from this, the listener may perceive that the violinist is interracting with the computer, but the computer is unaware of it and continues to play according the whim of its programming. So the live player leads the computer, directing the macroform and allowing the computer its own way with the microform.