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[microsound] correspondence between hand-made electronics and Pd/Max/MSP (was Socio/political implications of microsound music?)

On Jun 30, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Kevin McCoy wrote: 
So let's consider craft again: many of the pioneering electronic
artists of the 1960s and 1970s (from what I understand) were very much
into fashioning their own electronic equipment for their sound and
music pieces.  I see a direct correlation between their activities and
those working with Pd (a considerably broader base).

Very interesting discussion so far; I have some other things I'll want to add later, but for now I want to jump off of something that Kevin wrote. That is, what exactly is the correspondence between the development of electronic hardware and abstractions of that hardware in software? I definitely don't want to turn this into the dreaded hardware versus software discussion again. Rather, I'm more interested in what I see as possibilities for serendipitous discoveries that come with long-term involvement with a physical system (i.e., acoustic instruments, bought as well as hand-made electronics) that I feel is somewhat absent from the enforced exactitude that is inherent in a digital system.

Let me try and explain further. In my experiences with learning the violin and viola over the last twenty years or so, I have developed an extraordinarily developed relationship with the instruments that I use. They are _my_ instruments, and while another violin might have the same acoustic set-up, I will not want to play it because of the idiosyncrasies I have developed with my instrument. Thus every once in a while I come across these moments of discovering something new that _my_ instrument can do, that I wouldn't be able to discover if I were switching instruments often. From my limited understanding and experience in the area, this also can happen with home-made electronic instruments as you discover by chance some incredible sound that can be made because you, for example, chose to solder a 1K ohm resistor instead of a 2.2K ohm one.

I don't seem to have the same experience with software-based systems. The mutability of a patch enables me to change things I don't "like", rather than developing my performance or compositional practice around what I don't "like", only to find, a few months down the road, that this seeming constraint has actually turned into something door-opening. I also don't feel a strong affinity towards any one software-based system and realize that if somebody told me tomorrow that I couldn't use Pd, I'd say okay and move onto something else; but if somebody told me that I couldn't use my viola I'd be extraordinarily upset. The end result would be the same: I'd move to something else (buy another viola and begin the process again), but the reactions would be quite different in the two cases.

I'm trying very hard to not make a value judgment amongst these differing correspondences and relationships, and I'm sure that others have contrary experiences and views. And perhaps in the end my wedding to my instrument is inherently limiting. Yet in my view there is an interesting difference between the long-term (decades) experience that people have with certain types of physical musical- making objects, and the shorter-term, often-times constantly changing, mutable software systems. I want to understand what this difference is.

Full disclosure: I'm working on this for my thesis. :-) If anybody is interested in continuing a longer-term discussion off-list, drop me a line. I'm also going to be doing some ethnography-style interviews about peoples' relationships to their instruments, so if you'd be interested in being interviewed for this, let me know as well.

Best,

nick

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