‘Everything is Coming Together’
The interrelation between repetitiveness, modern (recording) technology and music in 21st -century electronic dance music.
Augustus 2014
Masterthesis Cultural studies: Musicology University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Maarten Beirens Second reader: Julia Kursell.
Pieter van Vliet
Student number: 10011307 portofcallpieter@gmail.com Loosduinseweg 689
2571AL Den Haag 0634037863
Preface
I am glad to present to you my master thesis, one that focuses on the interrelation between receptiveness, modern technology and music in the 21st century. During the process of writing it became clear that actual studies concerning these topics easily become ‘outdated’: an
extensive study by Mark J. Butler, written in 2006, already shows its limitations concerning contemporary (electronic dance) music when writing in 2014. Technology in general apparently changes fast and to apprehend its essence or grasp its presence in the time of writings is a difficult task, for technology itself is a continuous flow of change: something that keeps altering the way we perceive and perform music.
Just like Nicolas Jaar, I have the impression electronic dance music is slowly changing towards something ‘new’: the possibilities offered by technology (which will be closely studied in this thesis) steer and motivate musicians towards perceiving and producing music differently. This thesis is an attester of this change, focusing on the technology known as Ableton Live.
I gratefully thank Maarten Beirens for supervising my work and the amount of time he spent keeping me on the right track. Secondly I would like to thank Peter Schaap and Gerjan van Geest for proofreading my writings, Bram van der Meij for introducing me to the process of creating electronic music and my parents Petra and Dirk van Vliet for their support. Finally I would like to thank my partner Anouk van Klaveren for being patient and kind during the solitary process of writing this thesis.
Katwijk, July 2014. Pieter van Vliet
Content
Introduction ... 4
1. Ableton: how technology became the instrument ... 6
1.1 Inside the software ... 6
2. Technology ... 10
2.1 Technology: a brief history of a concept ... 10
2.2 Technology and music in the twentieth century: mediated sound ... 13
2.3 The age of technological reproduction ... 15
3. Repetitive music/Repetitive culture ... 18
3.1 (A very short) history of musical repetition ... 18
3.2 Minimalism: repetitive music ... 21
3.2.1 Compositional techniques ... 24
3.2.2 Locating minimal music ... 25
3.3 Electronic dance music ... 28
4. The aesthetics of recording electronic dance music: Ableton Live revisited ... 33
4.1 The Audio Workstation ... 33
4.1.1 A brief history ... 33
4.1.2 The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) ... 34
4.1.3 Recording electronic dance music with a DAW ... 39
4.2 Instrument = software / software = instrument: Ableton ... 40
4.2.1 How the ‘instrument’ works: a simple case study ... 42
5. The practice of Ableton Live: consequences of technology. ... 45
5.2 Nicolas Jaar and the demarcation between DJ and producer: honest versus fake. ... 45
5.1 Pantha du Prince, concerning infrastructure: Live and the live organism. ... 50
Conclusion ... 54
Summary ... 58
References ... 59
Introduction
Technology […] has always been a force in the development of musical styles, but since recording technologies are essentially repetition machines, the advent of these capacities is particularly relevant to practices of repetition in music.1
Elizabeth Hellmuth Mergulus.
We repeated ourselves into this culture. We may—nurtured through love—be able to repeat ourselves out.2
Robert Fink.
In 2001 the first software made by the Berlin-based company Ableton appeared on the shelves: Ableton Live 1.0. Confronted with the problematic division between stage
performance and studio recording, Live sought to find a decisive product that could overcome this gap. Its loop-based structure and live-operating properties, that both became central elements in their software, were the most prominent facets that construct most of Live’s ‘identity’. Co-developer Robert Henke summarizes their first steps towards the integration of live performance and studio production: ‘When we started working on Live, and finally showed a first version in spring 2001, the big music software companies did not take us very serious. "A laptop on stage? You must be crazy!" […] were reactions we got often.’3
This thesis will research how and why both technology and repetition became interrelated subjects during the twentieth century. As the main vantage point, the statement by Elizabeth Hellmuth Mergulus (the first quote of this chapter) serves as an orientation and guideline to this hypothesis. This study will converge research concerning the influence of technology on music with studies concerning musical repetition as both a cultural and musical concept. The main emphasis lies on understanding how Ableton Live could be seen within contemporary music culture and why such a ‘Digital Audio Workstation’ (DAW) became a prominent piece of software in electronic dance music at the advent of the twenty-first century. Two main facets of the software’s specific properties are central: its intention to become a live-operating system and its loop-based structure.
1 Mergulus 2014: 80.
2 Fink 2005: 235.
First this thesis will briefly introduce the software known as Ableton Live 9. A short
introduction to its internal structure and the way the software works will give the reader some insight in what to expect from it (since the fourth chapter will extensively deal with the software and the topics we will discuss in the intermediate chapters). The second chapter will investigate the idea of (digital) technology as a concept within music in the nineteenth and twentieth century: how did technology influence our current understanding of music and how does music as a socio-cultural concept respond to the possibilities of technology? This will be the main focus of the second chapter, in which a historical overview will be given of both (digital) technologies and their relation to music.
In direct relationship to the second chapter, the third chapter will investigate the idea of repetition in music. Not only by giving a historical overview of the aesthetic interest within this compositional style/method, but moreover on the aesthetic implications of repetitiveness and the way it corresponds to our current understanding of technology. To a large extent this chapter will investigate the idea of minimal music and electronic dance music.
The fourth chapter will investigate the process (or at least the implied procedure of it) of composing music with the compositional tools provided in Ableton Live. Investigating the software itself and its main treats and history, we will discuss its relationship to the subjects that are investigated in the first three chapters.
The final chapter will be exclusively dealing with the actual electronic dance music made in the period in which Ableton Live 9 was created. Two composers/producers are being studied from both a musicological and cultural point of view. First will be the aesthetics of the American/Chilean producer Nicolas Jaar. We will discuss how Ableton Live gave rise to the process known of ‘authentification’ withing electronic dance music. Second will be the collaboration between Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory named Elements of Light, in which the live use of recording technology will be our main focus.
Central within this thesis will be an analysis of contemporary music-culture that will contribute to a current understanding of how electronic dance music can be studied (specifically its repetitive attributes) and how technology, focusing on the use of Ableton Live, influenced the practice of electronic dance music at the start of the 21st century.
1. Ableton: how technology became the instrument
Originating from 2001, when the first commercial Ableton Live product was launched, Ableton started as a relatively small firm founded and developed by Bernt Roggendorf and Gerhard Behles.4 Still based in Berlin, Germany, the company has just released its ninth version of the original software known as Live: a digital audio workstation (DAW) that tries to incorporate the performance-aspect (live stage-performance) with the possibilities and merits of studio producing.5 When asked to Robert Henke, co-developer of Ableton’s Live, whether ‘musical tools are changing’, he replied: ‘[Ableton is] actually turning the computer into a musical instrument.’6
Originally, the firm started by developing a ‘relatively simple loop arrangement tool’, but during the years it ‘expanded to a complete DAW’.7 In cooperation with electronics-brand Akai, Ableton started producing different types of hardware, specifically designed for their Live products.
1.1 Inside the software
Most particular of the software’s characteristics (and during the course of this thesis the most relevant) is the way the DAW does not necessarily approach music in a linear perspective, but in a circular or repetitive way. Mike Huckaby, a Detroit producer mentions this when he tells that ‘Ableton Live destroyed the concept of linear thinking while making music’.8 Instead of the emphasis on (linear) time which most well-known programs (Apple’s Logic, Avid’s Pro Tools or Cakewalk’s Sonar) use as their main operational window, Live’s main focus lies in the way ‘soundbites’ or samples can be used in a circular way. 9 [Image 1] shows the main Session view, the facet most apparent and notorious in Live. According to Dan Hosken, Live:
4 See <http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/a-brief-history-of-ableton-live-357837> 8 May 2014.
5 A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) refers (in this thesis) to the software used on computers to edit, process and mix audio.
6 Battino 2005: 48.
7 See <http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/a-brief-history-of-ableton-live-357837/> 4 June 2014.
8 See <https://www.ableton.com/en/pages/artists/artist_quotes/> 3 June 2014.
9 A sample is often referred to as a ‘portion’ or ‘fragment’ of something previously recorded (which could be a song, a field recording or anything imaginable).
‘breaks somewhat with the sequencing paradigm […] Live uses a “clip”-based paradigm in which some number of measures of MIDI or digital audio can be organized and triggered independently on the fly’.10
What Hosken mentions as the ‘sequencing paradigm’ can be explained by how audio is processed. Sequencers use one audio fragment, which can be modified and repeated but it keeps the same underlying structure (the original audio file). The ‘”clip”based paradigm’ in contrast, can be adjusted, re-arranged and customized (like [image 1] shows at ‘focus’ one) towards the composers wishes: often the ‘original’ file is completely unrecognizable.
In [image 1] the main ‘building blocks’ of the song are spread out in ‘clips’ Hosken mentioned (colored pentangle-shaped blocks that can be triggered by pushing the ►-button on the left side). Ableton itself mentions the ‘clips as ‘The basic musical building blocks of Live’.11 Once triggered, the ‘clip’ starts to loop or perform as it is programmed to do. The active bass-‘clip’ that’s been highlighted in [image 1] will eternally loop the audio fragment that is shown at the bottom of the screen, until the operator decides otherwise.
Next to the session view a second window (or sometimes referred to as ‘meta-view’) is available which offers the ‘regular’ audio processing: the Arrangement view. This offers a linear overview of what has been recorded. As shown in [Image 2], this screen is still highly influenced by segments that correlate with the ‘clips’ that have been composed in the Session view (one could see the resemblances between colors used in both screens). Both ‘workflows’ have their own specific benefits and disadvantages, but most important: they are both closely related and often complement each other. While the Session view, which is often mentioned as an intuitive approach or sketch,12 ultimately cumulates in the Arrangement view in which (as the name suggests) the final arrangement is constructed: a finished composition.
[…] once you learn to make music in a non- linear way using the Session View, the process will accelerate your art to the next level.13
10 Hosken 2011: 181.
11 Ableton 2013: 18.
12 Both Ableton (on its site) and its clientage (on forums and journalistic platforms) mention the software as being intuitive. Of course, a lot of skepticism can be found on the world wide web as well.
13 See <http://www.emusician.com/techniques/0768/master-class-ableton-live/143426> 12 June 2014.
Image 1: Ableton Live’s session view (simple) with five different ‘tracks’ (1) and nine different ‘clips’ (2). Underneath the ‘clips’ circles can be seen that show the ‘loop-process’ per active ‘track’ (3). The left shows Live’s library with specific sounds, effects and samples (4) and the b ottom shows that soundwave of the selected clip and its adjustments (5).
Image 2: Ableton Live’s arrangement view (simple). Again this window shows five different tracks (1) with multiple ‘clips’ (2). In contrast to [image 1] the library and specific soundwave and/or midi-data isn’t showed.
The whole project called ‘Thesis’ is composed in 120 BPM (meaning: beats per minute) and all the ‘clips’ are synced to this tempo (like the ‘grid’ in [image 2] shows). Most information concerning the projects overall settings can be found on top of the screen (in both the Session view and the Arrangement view).
As we shall see in chapter two, technology like Ableton not just offers a specific method or routine to shape the composer’s final product. Online-magazine Music Radar justly explains how Live (9.0) offers a lot of different (maybe even infinite) ‘workflows’, all
dependent on the composer’s specific wishes, knowledge and efforts:
Live opens up a variety of workflow options. The software isn't just about the features on offer but also about how you use them […] some producers use the ReWire
protocol to integrate it with another DAW, some use Live for pre-production, playing with loops and samples before moving to another DAW to put together arrangements, others compose in Live then bounce tracks, export MIDI patterns and mix in another DAW. 14
14 See <http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/a-brief-history-of-ableton-live-357837/> 12 June 2014.
2. Technology
Since we’re dealing with a concept known as technology within the realm of electronic (dance) music and Ableton Live in particular, we should investigate this concept further and see how we can approach it and conceive its benefits and issues. How do we actually study a concept like technology? To be certain the right concept is dealt with we should find out what exactly could be considered technology during the course of this thesis.
2.1 Technology: a brief history of a concept
Though there are many and often confusing terms relating to the idea of technology (one could think about mechanization,15 automation or democratizing16) we should first start to get a closer look on the underlying structure of the term itself.
Martin Heidegger wrote his inquiry concerning the ‘Question of technology’ (1949) with his own concept of technology in mind. Discussing the origin of the word, he states:
Das Wort stammt aus der griechischen Sprache. Τεχνικον meint solches, was zur τέχνη gehört. Hinsichtlich der Bedeutung dieses Wortes müssen wir zweierlei beachten. Einmal ist τέχνη nicht nur der Name für das handwerkliche Tun und
Können, son- dern auch für die hohe Kunst und die schönen Künste. Die τέχνη gehört zum Her-vor-bringen, zur ποίησισ; sie ist etwas Poietisches.17
According to Heidegger technology, in its essence, is something that would ‘bring forth’ or ‘reveal’ the world around us.18 According to him the term can be applied to more than just the concept of ‘modern technology’. When we consider the concept of technology in this way, we could, for example, look at this concept by studying Daniel R. Headrick’s history of
technology: it would lead us to a story that would summarize millions of years, bringing us examples of the first tools made in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia towards our current
understanding of nuclear fusion.19
The Oxford dictionary explains the concept of technology in different, often confusing, statements. Their first definition refers to ‘the execution of performance of an artistic or scientific procedure’, the second definition refers to ‘skill in a particular field’ and
15 Théberge 1997: 2. 16 Shuker 2001: 45. 17 Heidegger 1949: 14.
18 See <http://www.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/heidegger/guide4.html> 1 May 2014. 19 Headrick 2009: 1.
the third as a means ‘to achieve something’ (which makes the concept, again, problematically broad).20 Interestingly, the Oxford definition includes an important side note, referring to digital technology, describing technology as ‘[t]he application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry: advances in computer technology’21
All of these definitions describe technology so far as something that could be a method, instrument, tool or procedure: something that could be used to actually achieve something, as a means to an end. This can be directly related to Heidegger’s historical stance: ‘[Die Technik] selber ist eine Einrichtung, lateinisch gesagt: ein instrumentum.22 As Andrew Feenberg points out in his Transforming technology, this Heideggerian notion places
technology in a non-neutral position: it isn’t just a tool, but it’s a tool that actually makes us reinterpret and shape our surroundings: a lively part of human shaping their worldly selves.23
To practically use this definition, we could turn our attention towards Ian McNeil’s An
encyclopedia of the history of technology, in which he summarizes the ‘history of technology’ in seven often overlapping ‘ages’: the seven technological ages of mankind. According to him, the first age would be the ‘hunter, master of fire’ in which fire, hunting and the mastery of tools became apparent; second would be the ‘farmer, smith and wheel’ in which a
transition occurs in which the use of metals and farming became a way of life; the third he mentions as ‘the first machine age’, in which roman the time clock and the arrival of mechanisms was foregrounded; the fourth age is called the ‘imitation of automation’,
referring to the first mass products like coins. The fifth age is called the ‘expansion of steam’, in which the first engines where build and used; the sixth as ‘the freedom of internal
combustion’, meaning the age of accessibility of cars and other machines using combustion as its main fuel. The seventh and last is the age of ‘controlled electrons’, meaning the control over electricity.24 McNeil’s notion could be easily seen as an overview of human history and its interrelationship with technologic inventions.
Carlota Perez’s writings concerning the ‘five successive technological revolutions’ are closely related to McNeil’s. According to her the main technological revolutions that occurred during the eighteenth until the twentieth century could be summarized as follows: the
20See <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/technique?q=technique> 1 May 2014 or Soanes 2003
21 See < http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/technology> 4 May 2014. 22 Heidegger 2000: 8.
23 Feenberg 2002: 7 and Schuurman 1990: 12. 24 McNeil 1990: 5-43.
industrial revolution (1771: Arkwright’s mill); the age of steam and railways (1829: First test of the steam-engine for railway); the age of steel electricity and heavy engineering (1875: Opening of the steel plant in Pittsburg ); the age of oil (1908: First Ford Model-T) and the age of information and telecommunication (1971: The first Intel Microprocessor).25 Interestingly most of these facets overlap with McNeil’s notion, though Perez points out how specific years (and even dates, places and objects) can be related to specific technological revolutions.
Last, David Bell’s account on mankind’s current understanding of the subject adds an interesting contemporary perspective. He writes how technology is currently seen as
‘[referring] to things, most often things that are ‘high tech’, that is, those things whose
“technologicalness” is foregrounded or emphasized: gadgets and gizmos, digital things, shiny new devices’.26 Bell suggests different ways to understand the concept of technology namely ‘newness’ as being something not-yet accommodated in society; ‘black boxing’, meaning that ‘common people’ don’t necessarily know what’s going on when using technological objects, and ‘socio-technical use’, referring to the interrelationship between technology and humans or, how humans actually need technology to complete certain tasks they could not have completed without.27 Secondly he emphasizes the human connection to the concept of technology: […] technology means human-made things (and connections between humans and things of different kinds). However, this does not mean that technology has no social effects […].28
With McNeil’s notion of the seventh ‘technological age’ concerning the ‘controlled electrons’; Perez’s fourth technological revolution concerning the age of ‘information and telecommunication’ and David Bell’s contributions on our current understanding of
technology we’ve finally arrived at a practical framework in which we can place the subject of this thesis. Many writers refer to the period after the second half of the nineteenth century as a period of ‘modern technology’. Egbert Schuurman, a Dutch writer and philosopher, wrote an extensive essay on the subject of the technical sciences named Filosofie van de technische wetenschappen. In it he mentions the modern era as being the ‘merging of science and
technology’, starting with James Watt at the end of the nineteenth century and still continuing
25 Perez 2010: 190.
26 Bell 2006: 43. 27 Bell 2006: 44. 28 Bell 2006: 45.
in our current ‘age of information-technology’.29 In direct relation to Schuurman’s writings will be René Munnik’s notion of the ‘modern’: progressive, in a constant ‘new’ and
constantly focusing on innovations and ‘progress’.30 According to him, this notion could be traced to early seventieth-century writings like Francis Bacon’s ‘science-fiction’ story New Atlantis (1627), but becomes most manifest in a period in which the machinery becomes more important. Munnik and Schuurman’s writings can be seen in the light of Perez, McNeil’s and Bell’s notion of technology, all of them offering useful insights in the notion of technology in the twentieth and twenty-first century. In the next chapter we shall further explore the idea of technology, especially within music, and see how ‘modern technology’ influenced our understanding of contemporary music and the way we perceive its production.
2.2 Technology and music in the twentieth century: mediated sound
[…] Mechanical models of the ear and understandings of sound as an effect are necessary preconditions for the technology of sound reproduction.31
Jonathan Sterne
In 2003 Jonathan Sterne published his book The audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. In it, he sought the origin of our current understanding of music as ‘mediated sound’ (meaning: sound mediated by a secondary object instead of the originating sound-producing object/subject) in late nineteenth century writings concerning the specific qualities of sound. Instead of focusing on the object that produced sound, mid-nineteenth century scientists focused on the understanding of sound in the human ear, a shift that caused a large interest in the membrane function.32 According to Sterne, ‘[t]he very workings of the
telephone, phonograph, and related technologies were […] an outgrowth of changes in practical understandings of hearing.’33 Sterne’s argument can be justly seen in the light of Egbert Schuurman’s writings we’ve discussed on the previous page. The interrelationship between science, technology and even the practical use of it becomes most manifest when reading Sterne. 29 Schuurman 1990: 24. 30 Munnik 2007: 74. 31 Sterne 2003: 70. 32 Sterne 2003: 35. 33 Sterne 2003: 35.
Considering sound as something which could just be sound (as in: the projection of sound waves) instead of being inevitably coupled to the original ‘source’, is something which is studied by Mark Katz in his work Capturing sound: how technology changed music. Katz traces seven ‘phonograph effects’ that are directly related to the possibility to visualize and simulate sound by using the phonograph.34 First he mentioned the concept of ‘tangibility’: music becomes a tangible object in which sound is preserved. A recording of a performance becomes something separated from the original performance, something which could be replicated, saved or destructed. The second trait is called ‘portability’: all music becomes just as portable as another, which means Mahler’s ‘symphony of a thousand [performers]’ can be just as easily performed as a little boy singing his bed-time song. All music can be played everywhere, at any time. The third effect Katz called ‘(in)visibility’: the listener and the performer don’t have to actually see each other, removing an important facet of
communication between both listener and artist. The fourth is called ‘repeatability’, which Katz mentions as ‘[…] the most complex and far-reaching consequences of any of the technology’s attributes […]’. It’s the ability to remove the unique experience of a live performance and change it for repeatability, something that is closely related to Walter Benjamin’s loss of aura, 35 something we will discuss in the next paragraph.
‘Temporarility’, Katz’s fifth concept, is related to the time-limitations of the recorded object: the recorded object becomes limited by the structure of its sound-carrier, like the LP could only carry a certain amount of music. Sixth is mentioned as ‘receptivity’. This facet tries to describe the phonograph’s limitations concerning the receiving of particular sounds: when recording specific music one comes to understand the impossibility of recording certain sounds (and often, like crooning, the possibility to surpass what could normally be conceived as music). Directly related to this is a trait which we will explore in chapter three, namely the possibility to manipulate sound: ‘manipulability’: ‘with the ability to manipulate sound through such technology, musicians have been able to transcend time, space, and human limitations, and in the process have created wholly new sounds, works, genres, and performance traditions’.36
Furthermore, Simon Frith distinguished three stages of technology in ‘musical storage and retrieval’. The first being the ‘bodily storage’: storing the music in one’s body (or musical instruments) in which music can only be retrieved by its performance. The second stage is
34 Katz 2010: 12. 35 Benjamin 2008: 13. 36 Katz 2010: 47.
focusing on notation. Music becomes something transcendental ‘against which any individual performance can be measured’. The last stage, the stage in which we are currently living, is mentioned as the ‘pop stage’ in which music can be ‘retrieved mechanically’.37 The next paragraph will take a closer look at this third stage.
2.3 The age of technological reproduction
Closely related to - and ‘foreshadowing’ - both Katz’s, Frith’s and Sterne’s analysis of contemporary music culture, is Walter Benjamin essay concerning the ‘Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. Benjamin’s insights concerning the potential and loss of a ‘technologically reproduced art object’ can be read in direct relation to the advent of the phonograph in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century:
Die Technische Reproduktion des Tons wurde am Ende des vorigen Jahrhun- derts in Angriff genommen. Mit ihr hatte die technische Repro- duktion einen Standard erreicht, auf·dem sie nicht nur die Gesamtheit der überkommenen Kunstwerke zu ihrem Objekt machte und deren Wirkung dEm tiefsten Veränderungen unter- warf, sondern sich einen eigenen Platz unter den künstlerischen Verfahrungsweisen eroberte.38
A key concept in the work(s) of Walter Benjamin is the concept of aura. According to him, the reproduced object loses its aura: its ‘here and now’ which is no longer founded on the idea of a ‘ritualesque’ happening. Art philosopher A.A. van der Braembussche distinguishes three consequences of this ‘loss of aura’. First he mentions how the artwork gains a lot more potential places to ‘exhibit’ it, which ‘deprive’ it from its ‘magical power’ (aura: the here and now). Secondly the artwork gets torn from its autonomous properties: the work (like film and music) also becomes dependent on reproduction-technology. Last he mentions how the reproducibility disenchants the artistic performance of an artist: acting a movie or making music becomes completely controlled by other professionals like sound engineers and directors.39
37 Frith 1996: 226/226. 38 Benjamin 1972: 436/437. 39 Braembussche 2007: 215/216.
Benjamin offers a closely an example which is closely related to the subject of this thesis. He summarizes his main argument in his ‘Kunstwerk’ essay and shows its relation to both Sterne and Katz:
Die Kathedrale verläßt ihren Platz, um in dem Studio eines Kunst- freundes Aufnahme zu finden; das Chorwerk, das in einem Saal oder unter freiem Himmel exekutiert wurde, läßt sich in einem Zimmer vernehmen.40
The twentieth century has been a significant age concerning the reproduction of music. As Susan Schmidt Horning’s studies concerning the ‘art of studio recording’ shows, the recording and reproduction of the recorded sound (by cassette, cd or any sound producing medium thinkable) had a major impact on the way we consume music in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Ever since Thomas Edison’s ‘invention’ of the phonograph, the ability to record and reproduce sound has seen significant qualitative improvements:
In music recording, technology offered the way forward, a solution to problems of sound quality, but it eventually became a self-perpetuating creative force. 41
While the early phonograph’s sound quality was debatable. The medium was often plagued by loss of quality by the placement of musicians (everyone had to gather around the horn of one phonograph) or the medium itself. New media and recording equipment like the Long Play (LP) recording disc, the condenser microphone42 and the vacuum-tube amplifier brought the possibilities to record music directly from its source, bringing new situations and
technological improvements with it:
The decades old challenge to engineers of positioning musicians in a recording studio, once a matter of crowding and jockeying for position around a horn, had taken on new proportions with the increased sensitivity of microphones and the desirability of “live”
40 Benjamin 1972: 477. 41 Horning 2013: 220.
42 The condenser microphone has a diaphragm that vibrates when it is exposed to sound. The ‘observed’ vibration (Hz) is then electronically send to a medium that interprets the electronic signal.
rooms for recording. Thus the problems of controlling sound did not vanish; they simply changed […].43
Robert Philip mentions how participation and expectation changed since the advent of sound-recording. He writes ‘Music was […] not just an aural experience, as it has largely become. It was […] a matter of physical presence, social interaction and direct communication between musicians and audience’.44 Most interesting is his account on the impact of recording in relation to our expectations towards live performances. Philip mentions how a
interrelationship has been constructed between the studio ‘performance’ and the actual live performance: ‘just as tomatoes on the vine are still expected to be perfect, so live recordings cannot have mistakes in them. […] we want to have the excitement of the live event without its uncertainties’.45 We tent to expect the impossible from a live concert: a resemblance with an edited and often ‘faked’ representation of what is supposed to be a live recording. Philip even mentions, as a concluding remark, that ‘modern performance has become more
predictable and more standardized than before’, which can be read in direct relationship to his former remarks.
We will come back later on this subject of sound-recording and its implications on the listeners experience in the third and fourth chapter of this thesis, when we deal with
contemporary (twenty-first century) recording-aesthetics and the construction of twenty-first century DAWs.
Concluding, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis’ statement concerning technological improvements in audio recording summarizes the main argument of this chapter and acts as a bridge towards the next chapter:
Technology […] has always been a force in the development of musical styles, but since recording technologies are essentially repetition machines, the advent of these capacities is particulary relevant to practices of repetition in music.46
43 Horning 2013: 91.
44 Philip 2004: 5. 45 Philip 2004: 246. 46 Mergulis 2014: 80.
3. Repetitive music/Repetitive culture
In the first chapter we investigated Ableton Live’s ‘repetitive nature’, which appeared to be a central aspect in the DAW’s design. In this chapter we will investigate the idea of
‘repetitiveness’: its historical, social and musical context will be explored. First we shall have a close look at the concept of repetition, using information that is gathered from different and often opposite disciplines within musicology and cultural/cognitive sciences. Secondly we will have a closer look on the historic movement called ‘minimalism’ and last we shall closely study electronic dance music.
3.1 (A very short) history of musical repetition
Repetition is not an arbitrary characteristic that has arisen in a particular style of music; rather, it is a fundamental characteristic of what we experience as music47
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis.
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis’ statement, that’s been cited above, shows an important issue concerning musical repetition. While, as we shall later see, technology is often seen as a cause or ‘revelation’ of the importance and ‘omnipotence’ of repetitiveness, it’s been around ever since music came to existence: as Margulis writes in her essay One more time, ‘Cultures all over the world make repetitive music’.48
For example Balinese gamelan music is characterized by its focus on ‘musical time as cyclical or regenerative’.49 Western Sudanese music also shows ‘dronelike’ characteristics, with the repetition of ‘short melodic or rhythmic phrases’,50 just like Tahitian music and Tungusian shamanism.51 Many more examples can be given all across the world, both in an historical perspective and in a contemporary scope. [Image 3] shows, in direct relation to Robert Fink’s extensive work on repetitiveness as ‘a cultural practice, one of the earliest Turkish carpets found. One could see the repetitive nature of the work in all its layers.
47 Margulis 2014: 5.
48 See <http://aeon.co/magazine/altered-states/why-we-love-repetition-in-music/> 24 June 2014.
49 Tenzer 1991: 41. 50 Stone 2008: 171.
Image 3: Fifteenth-century carpet with repetitive figures.52
Peter Kivy, specialized in the aesthetics of music, emphasizes the importance of repetition within Western classical music. Examples that show repetitiveness could be easily found in scores: signified by the repeat signs, the simile marks in specific measures and the codas they show a specific repeated passage in a composition. Kivy explored the philosophical deepness of repetition of ‘classical music’ in his book The Fine Art of Repetition. He mentions the idea of repetition when he writes ‘I propose […] to address seriously, as a problem in the
philosophy of art, the function of repeats in absolute music.’53 Kivy explores how musical repetition is incorporated in (mostly romantic) music and stresses how the subject of repetitiveness is something that is still largely unexplored. Most important, a score itself is something that can be used as communication to ‘repeat’ a work.
[Example 1] shows an ostinato bass from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1688). The melodic bass line is repeated eleven times in this aria.
52 See <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1990.61> 24 June 2014. 53 Kivy 1993: 329.
Example 1: Ostinato bass from Purcell’s When I am laid in Earth (1688): mm. 14-28.54
Patrick McCreless, in direct relation to Kivy, shows how repetition was imbedded in musical rhetoric during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. For example Joachim Burmeister’s 1599 manuscript Hypomnematum musicae poeticae mentions several repetitive style figures (that where all originally used in verbal rhetoric): anaploce, for ‘a repetition of a short section by a second choir’ or palilogia, as a ‘repetition of a melodic fragment on the same scale degree’.55
Repetitive culture (both the ‘repetitive qualities’ of the score itself and its fragments that dictate repetition) is implicitly part of composed music, but (as Margulis writes) since the technological ‘foregrounding’ of repetitiveness it became something omnipotent: a composer was confronted with it, whether he liked it or not. Albert Cohen even writes how ‘[t]he invention of the phonograph, late in the nineteenth century, was the first of several
technological developments that where to challenge the authority of the score’.56 Zuckerkandl distinguishes two forms of repetition, the first being the repetition of musical material, the second the repetition of a whole piece of music (overlapping with Mark Katz’s concept of repeatability in paragraph 2.2).57 Margulus refers to this as ‘repetitive behavior’: the Itunes repeat button, revisiting an artist’s performance, playing the same music album over and over again.
54 See <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGQq3HcOB0Y> 16 July 2014. 55 Christensen 2003: 857.
56 Christensen 2003: 549. 57 Margulis 2014: 4.
The next paragraph will focus on the first movement within music history that was largely interested in the repetitive aesthetics and pushed the compositional possibilities of repetitiveness towards its limits.
3.2 Minimalism: repetitive music
The obvious answer to “Anything goes!” was “No it doesn't!” The new maxim was “Reduce!”58
Donald J. Grout.
A first glance at an excerpt from Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians in [Example 2], introduces two of the main qualities of minimal music: its repetitive nature and the reductive method both are presented as an underlying principle to this composition.
Example 2: Steve Reich – Music for eighteen musicians, mm. 45-55.59
The term, minimal, is related to many different cultural expressions: the visual arts (Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns), architecture (Tadao Ando, John Pawson) or literature (Charles Bukowski, Tobias Wolff) contain a certain historical movement known as
58 See <http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-chapter-008.xml> 25 June 2014.
minimalism. Keith Potter justly shows how the term itself refers to many, often confusing styles and characteristics that seem to be incapable of showing the main, distinctive reason why something should be called minimal. Still, he mentions some aspects that could be traced to minimalism’s upheaval during the 1960s. First Potter mentions how minimalism succeeded by ‘doing away with all expressive baggage, in calling into question once again, yet at the same time freshly, just what the viewer was supposed to get out of art’.60 Minimal music tends to be more interested in the sensational aspect of the non-narrative and non-evolutionary ‘now’, instead of the ‘metaphorical interpretation’ that is found in earlier music (for example the passionate interpretation and appreciation of Beethoven’s Eroica).61 Secondly, Potter shows how musical minimalists where often reluctant towards European serialism. Steve Reich exemplifies this when he speaks of the serialism-movement as:
‘[Berg, Schoenberg and Webern] gave expression to the emotional climate of their time. But for composers today to recreate the angst of Pierrot Lunaire in Ohio, or in the back of a Burger King, is simply a joke’.62
Investigating minimalism’s historical position within Western classical music, Potter shows how minimalism breaks from previous music by its reinterpretation of musical material. He states ‘By selecting some of the oldest and most familiar building blocks of music, and subjecting them to the radical scrutiny afforded by remorseless repetition, it takes on the challenge of revitalizing the most hackneyed and debased musical currency available.’63 More specifically, Brent Heisenger stresses the main stylistic methods used in minimalism when he writes how
‘[Minimalism] features reiteration […] - long sustained tones, repeated rhythmic, melodic, and/or harmonic patterns, cells, or phrases, or the like - that creates relatively static "drawn-out" qualities.64
60 Potter 2000: 9. 61 Mertens 1988: 17. 62 Page 1986: 23. 63 Potter 2000: 13. 64 Heisinger 2014: 434.
And Lucy Davies:
‘[s]tasis and repetition replaced the melodic line, tension and release, and climax of conventionally tonal music’.65
This ‘stasis’ can be easily traced in La Monte Young’s Death chant (1961), as shown in [Example 3]. His advice, to ‘repeat the piece as many times as wanted’, speaks for itself.
Example 3: La Monte Young’s Death Chant (excerpt)
Robert P. Morgan introduces his chapter on minimal music with a contextual backstory, in which the tendency towards ‘simpler and more direct music’ is related to the large interest in Oriental art and thought during the 1960s. Since John Cage’s experimentation with limiting compositional material (that eventually concluded in his 4’33” [example 4]) the focus on limitations and minimalism became a ‘stylistic trend’.66 Robert Fink even goes a bit further when he states the following:
But the rationalized techno-world that began to take final shape in industrialized societies during the long post- war boom of the 1950s and 1960s created for the first time the theoretical possibility of a strange feedback loop, whose many paradoxical complexities I want to fold into the single notion of a “culture of repetition.”67
65 See <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e4427> 25 June 2014. 66 Morgan 1991: 423.
Example 4: Graphic rendition of John Cage’s 4’33” (By John Cage himself).
3.2.1 Compositional techniques
While the compositional techniques of minimalism (if they are as fixed as suggested) are limitless (there isn’t a manifest or anything that strictly forbids or prescribes anything), eight different techniques can be traced over all the works. The first, augmentation, makes a single note or rest twice its length (one count becomes two for example). The second method is called diminution, which makes a single note or rest half its length. Phase shifting is often identified with Steve Reich’s work: two different tempos are used, which causes a ‘shifting’ between two separated fragments of the piece. The fourth technique is called addition: the composer adds notes that will form a motive. Its opposite is called subtraction. Melodic transformation occurs when notes are slowly adjusted towards a different pitch (for example C to C#). Rhythmic displacement moves the beat or pulse from its original position towards a new position within a measure. Last is a technique known as polyrhythm in which different rhythms are places in the same measure.68
68 See <http://musicatschool.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/minimalist-composing-techniques/> and <
http://www.mtrs.co.uk/subscriptions/Downloads/minimalism_OK/minimalism_OK.pdf> 25 June 2014.
Often ostinato is used (like in [example 2]) to reach stasis within a piece. Wim Mertens mentions this when writing ‘[…] this music repeats everything that can be
repeated’.69 Later he adds to this statement ‘This repetition only applies to the micro-structure of their music – the macro-structure is only transformative’.70
The invention of the phonograph, late in the nineteenth century, was the first of several technological developments that where to challenge the authority of the score. 71 Minimalism embraces new methods to communicate their compositions and it is often closely tied to technological inventions. As Donald Grout writes:
‘[If] one had to name the single crucial feature that unites all musicians in the minimalist movement and underlies all their attitudes, it would have to do with their relationship to the recording and communications technologies that set the twentieth century apart from all previous centuries.’ 72
Interestingly, the compositional methods aren’t just restricted to pen and paper. Most famous is Steve Reich’s Come out (1966) piece, which is composed by using tape-recording (and is an example of phase shifting).
3.2.2 Locating minimal music
Minimal music is often referred to as an ‘American movement’, though many of its originators (like John Cage or Steve Reich) where highly influenced by non-American thought (for example Zen Buddhism) and European composers like Erik Satie and
Perotinus.73 As Wim Mertens writes: ‘[…] minimalism is not the exclusive property of this American music, since one finds “minimal” means are just as much a characteristic of Indian, Balinese and West African music’.
Robert P. Morgan (and Keith Potter) emphasizes how four composers ‘developed’ the idea of minimalism (as a musical movement): La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Phillip Glass during the 1960s. According to Potter the genre can be credited to ‘the
California counterculture of the 1960s, to which Riley belonged, and the ‘downtown’ 69 Mertens 1988:16. 70 Mertens 1988:16. 71 Christensen 2003: 549. 72 See <http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-chapter-008.xml> 25 June 2014. 73 Morgan 1991: 424.
Manhattan scene of the 60s and 70s, which formed the main base for the activities of Young, Reich and Glass […]’.74 Most important about the original movement, was that the name ‘minimalism’ hasn’t been used until 1968. Since 1968, when Michael Nyman began to use it in the sphere of music criticism, the term was considered applicable to music.75
Later, a second movement, known as post-minimalism, occurred. While the first movement was credited by paving the way for a new generation with their new aesthetic, this new generation was educated with the methods and knowledge of minimal music. Kyle Gann closely studied this second movement. He mentions how post-minimalism had:
‘[…] a reliance on minimalism's steady beat, diatonic tonality, and even formal archetypes, but an inclusiveness bringing together ideas from a daunting array of musical sources. Within its smooth exterior, post-minimalism is a big melting pot in which all the world's musics swim together in unobtrusive harmony.’76
Composers like the Dutch Louis Andriessen, and John Adams are closely related to this idea of post-minimalism. While often referred to as ‘holy minimalism’, composers like Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki are also highly influenced by minimalism and show the same qualities Kyle Gann described about post-minimalism.
Most interestingly, minimal music hasn’t just been adopted as ‘classical music’ or ‘serious music’, but (just like the visual arts) has adapted itself towards popular music as well. As Donald Grout mentions: ‘[Minimal’s] existence and success have […] been among the strongest challenges to the demarcation between “high” and “popular” culture on which most twentieth-century aesthetic theorizing and artistic practice have depended’.77 Phillip Glass, for example, is largely influenced by rock music, producing the works of rock groups like
Polyrock and The Raybeats during the 1970s. Potter justly makes the connection between Glass’s work and the development of the german ‘krautrock’: Kraftwerk, Neu! and Faust. Later music, like Giorgio Moroder’s, is also closely related to Glass’s compositional
74 See <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40603> 25 June 2014. 75 See <http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-chapter-008.xml> 25 June 2014. 76 See < http://web.archive.org/web/20110604040811/http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id= 1536> 25 June 2014. 77 See <http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-chapter-008.xml> 25 June 2014.
techniques.78 Robert Fink mentions how both minimalism and disco, music that Moroder produced, emerged from the same twentieth-century background (and often uses disco and minimalism as one and the same ‘idea’) as minimalism:
‘Disco and minimalism appear as two linked instances of a new theoretical possibility in late-twentieth- century Western music: not the absence of desire, but the
recombination of new experiences of desire and new experiments in musical form across a bewildering spectrum of teleological mutation.’79
He specifically mentions Moroder’s production of Donna Summers I feel love (1977) when describing how facets of disco music can be traced towards minimalism’s ‘legacy’. Fink also emphasizes how both musical genres where ‘born’ from the same ‘Empire of the Beat’: a world ‘constructed by mass consumer capitalism into a sonic environment that is equally loud, overwhelming, repetitious, exciting, exhilarating, exhausting, relentless, and (sometimes) terrifying’.80
This brings us towards the next paragraph and one of the main topics of this thesis: electronic dance music. Peter Shapiro describes how disco can be described as ‘insistent on the 4/4 beat, the development of the synthesizer and drum machines’: qualities we shall again find in electronic dance music.81 We conclude with Robert Fink’s remark, which constructs a perfect bridge towards the next paragraph:
Disco and electronic dance music are “minimalist” in this way. It is not so much that any given dance track or record itself is like an autonomous, self-contained “piece” of minimalism; rather, it is the entire cultural matrix within which these tracks are chosen, combined, and listened to that defines a repetitive musical practice.82
78 Potter 2000: 338. 79 Fink 2005: 9. 80 Fink 2005: 30. 81 Shapiro 2005: 101. 82 Fink 2005: 30.
3.3 Electronic dance music
Reich shares his “terrifying control” with dance music producers and DJs. It is syntactic control, a transformed, complex musical erotics of repetitive tension and repetitive release, and as such completely inaccessible to a hermeneutics of musical jouissance.83
- Robert Fink
The subject matter has been briefly introduced in paragraph 3.2.1, for electronic dance music owes a lot of its musical background to minimal music.84 Not only do many subgenres directly refer to minimal music (like a subgenre that is named ‘minimal’),85 but many artists in particular also relate themselves to American composers (see for example Pantha du Prince’s and Matthew Herbert’s performance of Terry Riley’s In C).86 Just like minimal music, EDM is considered ‘American’, even though its popularity is often credited to the mass interest in the United Kingdom.87
A second major influence to electronic dance music is disco, which is often referred to as its ‘genesis’. Electronic dance music’s repetitive, loopy nature is commonly considered as a direct legacy from disco’s compositional characteristics. As disco slowly ‘faded from the main stage’ during the 1980s,88 it became an underground movement led by people that ‘cherished [and] […] invested perhaps the most meaning into it […]’.89
According to Mark J. Butler, who wrote an extensive dissertation on electronic dance music, EDM can be generalized as:
‘having a steady, relatively fast, tempo (120-150 BPM) and contains a repeating bass and drum pattern’ and ‘[its] production is its utilization of electronic technologies such as synthesizers, drum machines, sequencers and samples […] In EDM, a traditional instrument or live vocal is exception rather than the rule’.90
83 Fink 2005: 41.
84 Electronic Dance Music is, just like Mark J. Butler’s dissertation, often referred to as ‘EDM’.
85 Nye 2013: 162.
86 See < http://thequietus.com/articles/13016-matthew-herbert-pantha-du-prince-in-c> 30 June 2014.
87 Butler 2006: 33/34. 88 Frith 2001: 171. 89 Fikentscher 2000: 11. 90 Butler 2003: 8.
According to Thom Holmes, this focus on the electronically produced, so called synthetic, sounds is what makes electronic music. The main focus according to Holmes, lies on the composition of sound itself (which is also an important characteristic of minimalism), in contrast to ‘compositions for traditional instruments’. It becomes possible for producers to control the complete set or parameters that construct a sound: ‘any imaginable sound is fair game’.91 Also Mark Butler stresses this focus, stating that ‘sound is the force that drives people to dance […] studying the sonic dimensions of electronic dance music can help us understand the specific choices and behaviors that go into its creation and appreciation’.92 An interview with Richie Hawtin in 1994 clearly shows this ‘timbral focus’ when he mentions to the interviewer: ‘I don’t give out equipment lists. If I give out a definitive list, it’s like
someone’s gonna go out and buy all the gear I have, and try to get my sound.’93
Mark J. Butler emphasizes how the rhythms that are used in electronic dance music are often based on duple values: ‘groups of two, four, eight, sixteen’ etc.94 Most of the EDM track’s contain measures with repeated ‘loops’. According to Butler these loops are ‘the fundamental unit of the musical structure of electronic dance music’.95 Many small, but often returning stylistic elements that are closely related to the loops qualities are also mentioned by Bruno Rocha et all. According to them the loop also functions as a point of departure, for example: ‘The dynamic of removal and return is pervasive within EDM, appearing at some point in nearly every track’.96 Although, like Mark Katz writes, dance music itself is ‘highly dependent on repetition and a steady beat’, the repetitiveness in electronic dance music is something which is omnipresent and almost static. This makes it different from other forms of dance music.97
The example that contains a rough transcription of Richie Hawtin’s Stereo Virus-Talk to Me-Dimishing Returns [Special Edition ...] ([example 6]) clearly shows many of the
characteristics as described above.98 The part that is transcribed shows its eight-bar focus, its 91 Holmes 2002: 9-10. 92 Butler 2006: 12. 93 Kempster 1996: 67. 94 Butler 2003: 92. 95 Butler 2003: 99. 96 Rocha 2013: 3. 97 Katz 2010: 156.
98 One of the main characteristics of popular music in general, which is justly designated by Theodor Adorno in his essays on popular music culture, is its tendency to be mostly interested in the texture or sound of the music (Adorno 1991: 49). Unfortunately this can’t be described
repetitive nature and the ‘groove’ that is found in the bass. Another important element is its ‘four to the floor’ characteristic: the kick-drum steadily ‘underscores’ the rhythmic 4/4 pulse. Just as in minimal music, an additive process is shown: slowly extra instruments are
introduced (the hi-hat and the snare-drum).99
Example 5: First eight measures from Richie Hawtin’s Stereo Virus-Talk to Me-Dimishing Returns [Special Edition ...].
by common Western notation, for most of the sounds used are ‘synthetic sounds’. In this thesis we shall not describe the sound (which will eventually become way too poetic), but only refer to the specific recording in the ‘audiography’.
99 Later, the ‘percussive sound’ goes through a process that closely resembles the
Kembrew McLeod focuses more on the social aspect of electronic dance music. He writes how electronic dance music is often used as ‘umbrella term’ that should cover many
subgenres, which he mentions as a ‘heterogeneous group of musics made with computers and electronic instruments’.100 Mcleod’s work contains a lot of references to cultural
anthropology, being mostly interested in both the social and economic (which is mentioned as ‘accelerated consumer culture’) impact of electronic dance music in society. His final
statement in his 2001 essay, summarizes his main idea: ‘[…] extensive subgenre naming is, on closer examination, revealed to be deeply bound up in both the political-economy and group identity formations of electronic dance music communities.101 Simon Frith also mentions how many subgenres within EDM can be considered as ‘mythologies’ (which can be read as a direct attack at Simon Reynolds writings in Energy Flash, in which he
extensively describes how these scenes distinctively came to being)102:
[…] in the 1990’s, The major styles of dance music could each be traced to a United States birthplace: house to Chicago, techno music to Detroit, the garage sound to New Jersey and New York City. These musical scenes have all remained the stuff of legend, even when the most important developments of these styles have clearly been taken place elsewhere.103
To be more specific: Chris Kempster mentions the ‘origin of house’ briefly. While still focusing on major characters like Frank Knuckles and his relation to the Chicago Warehouse Club, he finds its origin in the New York underground scene, which according to him
‘immediately preceded the disco explosion’.104
On another social level, Mark J. Butler distinguishes three different functions within EDM culture: that of the producer (producing the music), the DJ (mediating sound between the producer and the audience) and of course the audience. According to Butler ‘a high degree of participation’ (meaning: having some experience with DJing or producing music) is very common in electronic dance music. He elucidates this tendency by pointing out the
100 McLeod 2001: 60.
101 McLeod 2001: 73.
102 Mark J. Butler also criticizes many of the publications on electronic dance music, stating ‘as scholarly sources, these works are not without problems […]’ (Butler 2006: 7). This thesis shall no further mention this issue.
103 Frith 2001: 173. 104 Kempster 1996: 11.
individualism that is most common in producing and DJing: one doesn’t need ‘a band, organize rehearsals or gain access to music industry recording studios’. Another facet that he writes about is the relatively inexpensive material that is used. This shaped the possibilities of both producers and DJs to create and performs their music:
During the formative years of house music, however, this situation began to change. A series of inexpensive machines from Japan’s Roland […] made production
significantly more affordable and accessible.105
David Hesmondhalgh, in direct relation to Butler’s and Mcleod’s writings, elaborates on how dance music, since its ‘boom’ in the 1980s, became a real challenge to the ‘domination of the music industry’: The appropriation of digital technologies of production by musicians is felt by many journalists and dance fans to have ‘democratized music-making’.106 Hesmondhalgh later criticizes this ‘myth’ of autonomy and individualism within electronic dance music, when he writes: ‘In spite of a general skepticism about corporations, many dance labels turn very quickly to the multinationals for deals […]’.107
105 Butler 2003: 19.
106 Hesmondhalgh 1998: 235. 107 Hesmondhalgh 1998: 249.
4. The aesthetics of recording electronic dance music: Ableton Live revisited
This chapter is meant to discuss the aesthetics and history of recording music. It tries to relate the findings of previous chapters to Ableton Live’s internal design, functionality and
‘workflow’ and to give an history account of the recording studio in general.
4.1 The Audio Workstation 4.1.1 A brief history
The first recording studios where mostly American, small-machine shops and inventor’s laboratories, mostly working with the technology known as the phonograph.108 The technology was obviously still analogue: the ‘objective time’, meaning the sound of the performance, was transcribed upon the material (wax rolls or discs), through the horn of the phonograph. We’re speaking about the late nineteenth century now. During the 1890s the technology to mass-produce recordings became available and since began a ‘tremendous growth’ of its sales.109
According to Susan Schmidt Horning, the recording industry saw its golden age after the 1910s ‘dance craze’, which lasted until 1922 (when record sales saw a decline because of radio’s arrival, which eventually after 1939 gave rise to a ‘boom period’ of records). During this period new technology was developed by scientific electroacoustics: the studio became ‘electrified’, which meant microphones that could record individual instruments where used instead of a large horn that had to record everything at once.110 During this period the studio was often mentioned as being a ‘musical instrument’: something the producer considered as a technical skill that he controlled and created music with.
During the 1940s and 50s a large interest can be seen in the ‘spatial dimensions’ of sound recording: churches, temples and dance halls where used to get ‘the right sound’. As Horning mentions: ‘It was as if the studio, like the musicians’ instruments, could now be tuned to meet the needs of a given recording session’.111 This gave rise to the emergence of the studio’s identity, which all had their ‘own unique styles’ that where often connected to
108 Horning 2013: 11.
109 Horning 2013: 13 & 27.
110 Pras 2013: 614 and Horning 2013: 32/33. 111 Horning 2013: 89.
specific recordings and styles. Secondly, the emergence of audio adjusters, for example the equalizer, became an important part of the studio’s mastering process.112113
The introduction of tape-recording, stereo sound and the LP have been important accelerants of what Horning calls ‘high fidelity’. Interestingly, like already shown in
paragraph 3.2.1, tape recording brought with it the possibilities of adjusting the recording by adding musical material or even redoing specific parts by using technology known as
‘magnetic recording’ (which can, for example, be heard in the song Strawberry Fields by The Beatles at around one minute of the song).114 Armadine Pras sagaciously describes tape’s importance when she writes: ‘By the end of the Second World War, magnetic tape recordings emerged and transformed recording studios into musical instruments’.115 With this she means that engineers gained the ability to really adjust recorded performances and thus shape the recordings to their demands.
During the 1950s a large interest began to emerge in systems to control the studio environment. Especially since stereo recording became available, the amount of tracks that could be recorded ‘rapidly changed from two to sixteen’ (and more).116 And so, mixing became an important part of the process of producing a record.
Unfortunately, Susan Schmidt Horning’s extensive account on recording’s history reaches its final conclusion in the 1970s: a decennium that wasn’t yet influenced by digital processing. The next paragraph will have a closer look upon the post-analogue characteristics and history.
4.1.2 The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
Paul Théberge mentions how the idea of ‘home recording’ began to appear during the 1970s, first ‘in the homes of star performers’ and later in the homes of ‘semi-professionals’.
According to him the home-studio wasn’t intended to produce ‘complete recordings’: they often where used as places to experiment with musical material, mostly because of the lack of tracks that where available to record (usually four) and the quality of the sound.117 With the
112 Horning 2013: 113.
113 Mastering is considered as the ‘final step’ of finishing a recording: the complete project’s audio is adjusted to its purpose (cd, LP or radio all have a different aesthetic within
mastering).
114 See < http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beatles/strawberry-fields.html /> 4 July 2014. 115 Pras 2013: 614.
116 Horning 2013: 123. 117 Théberge 1997: 232.
advent of MIDI,118 this started to change: because there is no loss on audio fidelity when using MIDI-files, music that ‘heaviliy relied on electronically generated sounds’ became more professional, causing a ‘greater integration of the home and professional studio.119 The Digital Audio Workstation (which will further, like the first chapter, be referred to as DAW) is most distinct from the recording practice described in the previous paragraph by its focus on the ‘digital’. In contrast to analogue processing, digital processing captures moments from the waveform that is recorded in the analogue process. An example is shown in [Image 4]. While the analogue signal is a continuous, fluent signal, the digital is build around ‘samples’ taken from the original analogue form.120
Image 4: left demonstrates an analogue signal (in fluxus) while the right shows a digital signal (in which many samples are taken).
While computer-generated sounds can be traced to the early 1960s, the common use of the computer as a recording device has a different history.121 Since the first digital recording in 1977,122123 the 1990s are widely considered as the decennium in which digital recording technology became more and more accessible to independently functioning studios. The main causes that digital recording became ‘feasible for consumers’ are the increased working speed, memory and hard disc capacity. 124
The first DAW is widely considered to be Soundstream’s Digital Tape Recorder, which is developed in 1976, but only properly used in 1978.125 Since then many companies
118 MIDI refers to a standard ‘language’ between different electronic musical devices, introduced in 1983. Nummerical values are assigned to the ‘notes’ that are played. Most common data is its velocity, exact location within the piece of music, its duration and its pitch. It’s a crucial element to communicate between different hardware-pieces. (Théberge 1997: 83-85)
119 Théberge 1997: 232. 120 Hosken 2011: 52. 121 Collins 2007: 203. 122 Fine 2008: 1.
123 Thomas Fine’s account on the ‘emergence of the digital’ clearly shows this ‘first-year’ is debatable.
124 Cook 2009: 173. 125 Fine 2008: 1.
