Re: [microsound] maths science and electronic music

[David Powers <dpowers3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I might have to investigate this book - this is a very reasonable way of
describing some of the processes at work in musical creation.  I think
it is quite reasonable to include "PROCESS" as an important component in
musical creation, but I think the real question is - which process?  

I would posit that there are MANY processes...  Life itself is process,
or becoming rather than being.

Consider this, if you use a computer to create music - what about the
capitalist process of production hidden in your tool, the process of the
people that worked in a factory in Mexico or elsewhere to assemble your
PC.  As I understand it, everything is interconnected, every process
connects to another process.  Is that process in the factory less
important than the coding of software and the virtual interface design? 
Is it also a part of the art and the performance?  Ultimately, no
artwork can reveal all the processes embedded in it, because the number
of processes are potentially infinite.

Furthermore, I think the improvised vs. "finished product" dichotomy is
misleading.  Just because a work is written down does not mean process
cannot be revealed or realized - one can easily improvise around a sheet
of written music.  Or one can record/transcribe an improvisation and
turn it into a "finished product".  One can extract fixed elements from
the ongoing process of the improvisation.  There are always both fixed
and fluid elements within art.  To me, Mahler's "Song of the Earth"
might reveal more process, especially in its exploration of time in the
last movement, than an improvisation that keeps repeating fixed elements
over and over.  And likewise, musical instruments themselves, whether
saxophones or software packages, might be equally considered to be fixed
compositional element, though also the result of processes.