Traces of Codes from Afar

Every musical work traces developments: of the cultural environment in which it emerges, of its creator(s), and not at least of itself, as – distinct from other artifacts – it unfolds in time.

What composition is and how the process of composition – or making music – usually happens within and through individuals – has always been a fascinating and mysterious question for me. In comparison, the structure of music is a more straight thing. While it can be rich and complicated, it is factual – at least in the case of scores and fixed media electronic works. However, concerning the process of composition, much remains in the dark, often hidden by composers. The answers I heard from many sources didn’t help me – as a student of instrumental composition – very much at first. I recognized two poles in the usual recommendations. At first, start from a strong imagination and approach the “inner voice” with an existing instrumental – and maybe also electronic – framework. But why on earth should the result of my sound imagination be worthwhile, even assuming that I could approach it successfully? I could be trapped in my memories, repeating old stereotypes. And as my sound imagination could fool me in many other ways, how could it work as a reliable starting point? I was skeptical and gave up on that one.

The other pole would be a constructive approach in one of the many variants that occurred in the 20th century: serialism, systems derived from the overtone series, statistic thinking, etc. With a background in mathematics, that resonated with me much more. But still, this is rather formal at first. What about the most relevant aesthetic questions, the – for the lack of a better term – “expressive” qualities of music, the intertwining of formal methods with the individual – but possibly still unknown – preferences? How could all this be combined? Does it have to be combined at all?

Well, in general, no: there exist quite many aesthetic positions in the 20th century, but also before the classic-romantic era, where music aims to be something decisively super-individual such as the representation of cosmic order, a glass bead game, or a wonder machine. The emphasis on individual expression peaked in romantic and early modern music. The avant-garde after World War II rejected it, an extreme point of view that could not last for long. The struggle between subjective and objective forces in the history of the arts – and within us, the agents thrown into history, as well – are at the core of the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno, which had a heavy impact on my thoughts about music. His roots in early modernism let him sympathize with the idea of an aesthetically responsible individual who has to stand the ground against the dangers of style, fashion, and dogma. Adorno, an astute observer of social history, was very aware of the close relationship between the technological means of an epoch and its artistic output (see the numerous paragraphs dedicated to that topic in his Aesthetic Theory!). At the same time, he was exceptionally critical of the attitude of scientific thinking, in which he assumed complicity with power and oppression.

In retrospect, I can hardly decode the exact chronological order in which all of these partially contradictory thoughts would settle in my head. At some point, I decided on an algorithmic foundation for my compositional process, still in the instrumental domain: by pen and paper at first, then, naturally, by writing software. The latter stuck with me. In the case of instrumental composition, I liked the practice of instrumental simulation and empirically judging the output of coordinating rules affecting voicings, rhythms, harmony, density, and other properties. Trial-and-error, a cornerstone of scientific and technological innovation, practically served me in my compositional process. I probably did so before I came to a preliminary assumption of what was happening in such human-machine interaction. One crucial point is repeated aesthetic judgment. That’s different from trial-and-error processes in the sciences or technology, where comparison and contradiction with theory or approximations to a predefined goal happen at a judgment step. Every aesthetic judgment in a chain of similar decisions challenges the artist’s position toward history. A myriad of pros and cons, most of them scanned on a subconscious level! Now, such a working process is not limited to human-computer interaction. It can happen in many musical situations, e.g., in the (human-machine) interaction with an instrument like the piano. In a composition for an ensemble, the composer might rehearse with chamber musicians and change things after being unsatisfied with the timbral results (maybe subconsciously comparing them with well-known historical or recent examples). While trial-and-error processes are very different inside and outside the arts regarding their goals, they are likewise beneficial for creation and adaptation. What’s new about them regarding musical creation with the computer is the enormous potential to speed up the feedback. One striking new possibility is the experimental testing of musical forms: processes over a long period can be designed with algorithmic tools and adapted after listening, both in the instrumental and the electronic domain.

After composing with algorithms for acoustic instruments for several years, I began questioning my practice. While I was focussing on the combinatorial means, sound exploration had gone under. Although I was well aware of the mesmerizing possibilities that, e.g., granular synthesis could offer, its usage had been a side-line of my artistic production. I didn’t combine it yet with my instrumental composition practice. In the sequence Lokale Orbits for small instrumentations and multichannel fixed media, I developed a new working process: I collaborated with musicians and electronically manipulated extended new playing techniques. It was a relief in a double sense: I could end my split in production, and I learned to trust that I could start a composition without having any pre-fabricated ideas: the sound experiment – instrumental or electronic – can be the absolute starting point of a composition. Algorithms of many kinds could be involved in the sound characteristics, but they could also help to develop these characteristics in time.

The sequence Matters for multichannel fixed-media started in 2017. Again, I wanted to expand my experiments and explore new synthesis and processing techniques outside granulation. A new channel of inspiration now came from some other sources. Since I taught sound synthesis at IEM Graz from 2014 onwards, I became increasingly aware of the hidden possibilities of many synthesis methods I had neglected before. Also, I realized the didactic problem of teaching the standard techniques in their simplest form: necessary for the explanation and often unsatisfying soundwise. But why do we judge synthesis results as dull and cheesy? It’s the same as with all aesthetic judgments: we compare perceptions with our memories and, in general, history. That is true for electronic sounds as it is for every music: when we hear something that reminds us of a poorly sounding old synth melody, we possibly wrinkle our noses or smile. Otherwise, to let oneself be positively surprised in the electronic domain, extending or recombining well-known synthesis and processing techniques is equally promising as snooping for exotic ideas. My software development in SuperCollider was often motivated by both of these guidelines. Specialized conferences, symposia, and online platforms have also been inspiring places for discussing alternative synthesis ideas in recent years. Those streams connect more and more sound practitioners from around the globe and from very different artistic and scientific scenes.

Far from being an additional aspect, the spatial organization of sound has also become part of my compositional trial-and-error design (*). The spatial techniques used in Matters – having eight channels as a basic setup in mind – are various but often intertwined with the synthesis methods in place. In analogy to the algorithmic control of sound, I like to see changes in the spatial organization as part of a formal development.

While concrete compositional challenges have changed for me over the years, I always knew coding and computer feedback should be at the heart of the process. It’s the chance of our age. And given the developments of machine learning and AI, it’s only the beginning. A road I’d like to continue traveling.

Music can grasp things we couldn’t grasp in words.
Code can grasp music we couldn’t grasp otherwise.

(*) A binaural version of Matters for headphone usage, derived from higher order ambisonics, is launched in addition to the stereo format.

Daniel Mayer (*1967) is a composer who focuses on works including electro-acoustics. He is active in sound synthesis and generative computer algorithms, developing dedicated software. Performances of his work took place at numerous international festivals of electronic and contemporary music. In 2007, he received the Giga-Hertz production prize for electronic music at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM). Daniel Mayer completed master’s studies in pure mathematics and philosophy at the University of Graz and music composition with Gerd Kühr at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria. 2001/02 postgraduate study at the Electronic Studio of the Music Academy of Basel, Switzerland, with Hanspeter Kyburz. Since 2011, he worked at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) Graz. From 2011 to 2014, scientific cooperation within the FWF-funded artistic research project Patterns of Intuition. Since October 2016, he taught electro-acoustic composition as a visiting professor. From 2014 to 2017, he curated new music at Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, since 2016 – together with Gerhard Eckel, Marko Ciciliani, and Ina Thomann – the concert series signalegraz. In the winter term 2022/23, he was Edgard-Varèse guest professor of DAAD at TU Berlin. 2023 habilitation in Computer Music and Sound Art (venia docendi). https://daniel-mayer.at