Community Through Listening: Music Constructions for Interaction

7/29/2019 Community Through Listening: Music Constructions for Interaction

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Community Through Listening: Music Constructions for

Interaction

IntroductionMusic is usually considered in essentialist terms, a singular phenomenon in a position ofprivilege as an art form and existing apart from sound in general. However, if music is

conceptualized as a subset of sound, one aural resource among many, it participates on anequal level in the entire immersive experience of sound. Understanding music within the

broader category of sound allows it to be considered as a non-cochlear art form,emphasizing its political and social roles, and extends it into community by connecting

people through idea and shared experience. I am borrowing Seth Kim-Cohensterminology non-cochlear to describe an attitude for encountering music/sound in the

context of its interaction with relevant, epistemological, social, political, and ontologicalconcerns.

1Musics role now expands beyond a particular, discrete type of sound-

structure to become a tool for organizing sound in innovative, collaborative ways. Inestablishing itself in this organizational capacity, it becomes involved in what sound

means beyond the sound itself. Sound carries semiotic weight, and creates meaningthrough a combination of individual apperception and common understanding of each

particular aural experience, be it the washing machine or a Beethoven string quartet.Organizing these seemingly disparate sounds skilfully creates a more complex and varied

experience.

This paper explores how the collaborative use of sound by musicians and non-musicianscan function to create community. In this regard, listening skilfully is crucial to enhance

and develop awareness of sound environments as a first step to using sound in acollaborative manner. With this in mind the paper goes into some depth in exploring what

it means to listen, and how the act of listening itself encourages a sense of communityand understanding.

I will be drawing on my personal experience of creating field recordings and the use of

recording software to both manipulate/transform them and/or to simply place them ona platform that allows for effective control of their implementation. My experience as

a composer of interactive pieces involving the triggering of music events by non-musicianswill be used to support my thesis that music can be understood in terms of an organizing tool.

I will draw on literature focussing on the nature and practice of listening and, more generally,the importance of hearing in daily life. Examples of work using technology to support the

work's realization will be used to demonstrate real world possibilities for the effectiveness ofnew media tools in the creation of community.

Imagine a square room, each wall of which has a window opening to a different type ofsound environment. One opens to the sound of a variety of bird species, each of which

visits the area at particular, identifiable times; another opens onto a construction site with

1Kim-Cohen,Seth.IntheBlinkofanEye:TowardaNon-CochlearSonicArt.New

York:Continuum,2009,xvii.


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a variety of machines, each with a unique sound, each of which you can isolate throughfocussed hearing; another accesses a party in which you can hear different groups of

people conversing, each one gaining prominence at different times. The remainingwindow has the sound of music. Each of these sounds has tremendous variety. Each

carries no greater or lesser meaning than the others. The room is completely silent if the

windows are closed, and extremely loud when the windows are open all the way. Movingbetween these two extremes controls the amount of sound that enters the room.

Now imagine that each of the windows has a person beside it. This group of four peopleis instructed to mix the sounds in a way that they find pleasing by opening and closing

the windows. Participants begin to listen intently, discriminating between sounds theylike and do not like, forming judgements and opinions, enacting social and political

situations, using their own particular sound in enhancement and control scenarios. Theylearn that the use of certain sounds in certain ways influences how other sounds are used.

In the process, participants learn things about themselves and about the other participants,leading to greater understanding in terms of relational dynamics.

This activity also creates formal structures that can be referred to as musical in the

sense of the creation of organized sound rather than as the conventional notion of thatwhich is aurally pleasing. This sense of what is aurally pleasing or beautiful - can

ultimately be derived only from previous subjective experience, based on degree ofexposure, social norms and cues, and personal taste (the latter being influenced in varying

degrees by the former two). Beauty, then, becomes a matter of form and structure ratherthan socio-cultural directives. The degree to which this beauty is perceived relies on the

participants ability to listen and respond. Greater listening ability leads to a moreincisive response, leading in turn to clearer communication. Music-making refers, then,

to the creation of structure in which different sounds interact rather than the making ofsound itself. Sound is sound. Music, on the other hand, is considered as structure built

with sonic material through interaction.

In other words, the quality of our work/play/connection with others in the creation ofstructure becomes the primary source of beauty and defines the depth of this beauty. The

sound becomes secondary while at the same time being the primary material with whichbeauty is constructed. This phenomenon allows participants to experience sound and

what is often labelled noise - in a different way: it becomes associated with positivecreative and social interaction. Quality of sound becomes intertwined with quality of

interaction and depth of listening ability. The process of experiencing sound in thecontext of positive, creative interaction creates a new relationship to sound, allowing it to

become familiar and useful (useful in its role as a social, relation-enhancing tool). This inturn allows the possibility of its inherent beauty to emerge, due to the increased

inclination of participants to actually listen to sound they would otherwise ignore.Sound becomes a generator of social connection, and ultimately associated with positive

activity. Now imagine if you could include sounds from your memory. The entireexercise becomes profoundly personal, since choice based on personal history and the

sharing of that history - becomes an integral part of the process. I will demonstrate how it


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is possible to re-discover and re-create memory-sounds through the practice of listeningand the use of technology.

Consider the following in relation to memory-sound. Every sound we hear in our day-to-

day life sends us in directions unpredictable in their ramifications, evoking various

locations and times, in different social situations. There is a way in which sound affectsour sense of being in the world, and the way in which we come to understand that world.Wind through trees triggers memories of the park I went to last week with a group of

friends; a camping trip I took with my family when I was a child; my daughters treeswing. A car driving past our house reminds me of friends picking me up to go to the

lake/party/etc when I was an adolescent.; a highway through the mountains; any numberimportant destinations. Almost anything - from the lawnmower to water running in

another room - allows us access to other worlds at various times and in various places.When we enter these worlds, we inevitably draw distinctions between who we were then

and who we are now. We unconsciously compare the workings of knowledge and powerbetween then and now, and we transform, through memory, our sense of being in the

world, how we interact both with it and with others, and how we know what we know.This is the world of personal memory-sound alluded to earlier, and it is this memory-

world that we are able, through technology, to share with others.

When sound expands beyond its immediate world of aurality in this way (whetherthrough the broader concerns raised by non-cochlearity, or through personal memory), it

become a source for meaningful social interaction. The process of recording personal yetuniversally relatable sound and sharing it draws people together, allowing for a richer

social life than would be otherwise possible. Community music-making expands tobecome a practice of aural awareness, a way of engaging in sound that leads greater

listening skills, and to what Jean-Francois Augoyard and Henry Torgue refer to as soniccompetence

2 the ability to more strongly perceive and, hence, to more deeply engage

with everyday sounds. Sonic competence leads to deeper connections between peoplethrough recognition of shared experience. These deeper connections can, in turn, create a

social and artistic life of greater possibility.

ListeningFollowing Jean-Luc Nancy, listening implies tension, intention, attention intensification and concern, curiosity or anxiety.3 In other words, listening produces a

caring about what we hear and, by extension, what others hear. This caring helps to formour perception of the world through a type of interaction that can be virtual (when we

connect to others internally through social memory produced by the sound), or physical

(shared sound-creating sessions with others in real-time). Virtual interaction throughlistening is a solitary activity that creates connection. When listening is solitary, we findourselves re-living previous moments in our lives that often involve other people. In this

consideration of others through sound, we establish a virtual/imaginative interaction. This

2Augoyard,Jean-Franois,andHenryTorgue.SonicExperience:AGuidetoEveryday

Sounds.MontrealandKingston:McGill-QueensUniversityPress,2005,p.3Nancy,Jean-Luc.Listening.NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2007,p.5.


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virtual experience can be used to create resources memory-sounds - that can be broughtinto the physical experience through the use of technology. In this process, we essentially

create and re-create our lives with others through our experience of listening. Listening,then, is always active, always engaged in the production of experience. Listening,

whether as solitary or physical, is interactive.

This is different than hearing, which is passive, providing cognitive information withoutsensorial investment in the sound itself. Since listening creates deeper awareness and

perception, it can produce form in sound as opposed to simple understanding. If we heara barking dog, we think/understand dog. If we listen to that dog-sound, we discern ashape to it, an identity reflecting a deeper sense of the affect of the sound. Dogdisappears, to be replaced with resonance. Resonance is considered here as a collapsing

of boundaries between perceiver and perceived.4

In this context, sound arrives at thebody, which absorbs and experiences it sensorially rather than cognitively. In other

words, sound is felt before it is interpreted. This sense of listening/resonance - sensing theunderlying feeling/form of the sound - allows for an interaction between people that can

produce something beyond cognitive understanding. Meaning becomes a particular typeof connection associated more with direct experience of sound rather than cognitive

understanding and taxonomy. Communication and sharing of sound moves fromchecklist (thats a dog) to - in the context of sharing/playing - feeling and response (the

dog-sound I experienced makes me want to share/play my [fill in the blank] sound).

This approach to sound produces an edge, a space of uncertainty and openness in whichtime is not experienced as simple succession, but as waves on a swell, not in a point on a

line; it is a time that opens upthat is enlarged or ramified5

This places us on aprecarious edge where meaning is placed outside of cognition. Nancy again:

To be listening is always to be on the edge of

meaningas if the sound were precisely nothing else thanthis edge, this fringe, this marginnot as an acoustic

phenomenon, but as a resonant meaning, a meaning whosesense is supposed to be found in resonance.

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Nancy indirectly references the acousmatic experience of sound in which the sounds

concrete meaning is bracketed out, leaving us with the sound object alone, existing in aliminal space between the real world and our direct, unmediated, and unnamed

experience of it. Entering this space with others in the type of community music-makingthat I am describing here (and which I will elaborate on in practical terms) creates a

particular type of openness/intimacy directly related to perception and deep engagement

4Erlman,Veit.ReasonandResonance.NewYork:ZoneBooks,2010,p.10.5Nancy,Jean-Luc.Listening.NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2007,p.?.6Nancy,Jean-Luc.Listening.NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2007,p.?.


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with everyday sound. This engagement is created through Augoyard and Torgues soniccompetence.

One develops sonic competence and the ability to enter this liminal space by developing a

practice of listening. This can take a variety of forms. Most university music departments

train students to recognize musical singularities (pitches, scales, intervals, chords,rhythms) and the relationships between them. Other approaches to training the ear morerelevant to the matter at hand - involve attending to sounds in the world we inhabit. This

is a much less abstract practice, engaging the imagination of everyone, not just musicians.This includes the deaf who are generally more attuned to the vibrational aspect of sound.

As deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie says:

Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch. Sound issimply vibrating air which the ear picks up and converts to

electrical signals, which are then interpreted by the brain.The sense of hearing is not the only sense that can do this,

touch can do this, too. If you are standing by the road and alarge truck goes by, do you hear or feel the vibration? The

answer is both.7

As Glennie implies, we listen with our entire body. This is true not only of the deaf.When somebody speaks to us, plays an instrument or a recording of their favourite sound,

we feel these things as sensations in our body as well as hear them. In the context ofcommunity music-making, this becomes another level of engagement, as we feel, both

physically and emotionally, what others are providing. In fact, while physical experienceof music is guaranteed, emotional response is not. Key in this practice of sharing sound

and music is the expansion of awareness and attentiveness implied here.

This level of awareness is attainable by anyone caring to do the work to acquire it. Thereare a number of books available which outline a practice designed for this, includingEarCleaning: Notes for an Experimental Music Course,8by composer R. Murray, whichnicely outlines the attributes of music in such a way as to allow its linkage with sound.Composer Pauline Oliveros, in her bookDeep Listening, goes into great detail indescribing a practice with which to attune oneself to the world of sound through Qui

Gong exercises and meditation in order to develop awareness and attention. She alsoprovides a variety of exercises designed to strengthen the act of listening through partner

and group work.9

Andrew Hugills bookThe Digital Musician10has a generous amountof projects designed to develop awareness of the sound-world.

7Hugill,Andrew.TheDigitalMusician.NewYork:Routledge,2008,p.23.

8Schafer,R.Murray.EarCleaning:NotesforanExperimentalMusicCourse.DonMills:BMICanada,1967.9Oliveros,Pauline.DeepListening.NewYork:DeepListeningPublications,2005.10Hugill,Andrew.TheDigitalMusician.NewYork:Routledge,2008.


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As we develop listening skills, imagination comes more strongly into play as we listen tothe sounds communicated by others. We imagine our own experience with the sound that

is being presented, and connect more deeply to it physically and emotionally. In doing so,we can both empathetically relate to others, and share our own experience of this same

sound.

In developing this type of deep listening skill, it is helpful to consider the composerPierre Schaeffers modes of listening which he identified in 1966. These are as follows:

1. couter treating sound as a sign for identifying a source. Also known as causallistening.

2. Our hearing passively without listening or understanding, as in continuoustraffic sound that one is not aware of.

3. Entendre aural discrimination, or showing the intention to listen, and choosingwhat we particularly interests us.

4. Comprendre understanding, or grasping a meaning and communicating thismeaning through language. Also known as semantic meaning.

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Of these four modes, entendre is the closest to resonance, and points to Schaeffers ideaof reduced listening, derived from Husserls phenomenological concept of bracketing out

knowledge of the external world in order to in order to focus on the process ofperception. Schaeffer uses a two-part process to achieve this effect: removal of visual

cues; and disregard for perceived sources.12

This has been widely criticized asimpossible, but ample evidence exists in the practice of meditation (involving a

bracketing out of thought itself) to the contrary.

In the purely practical sense of creating music/sound-art with others in real time, the actof listening while in the activity is necessary for any meaningful experience. The deeper

we are able to connect with the sounds that we are involving ourselves and others with,the deeper the experience of community. There are ways to develop the sonic competence

necessary for this, and through this development, encourage sonic creation andinteraction. As mentioned, Andrew Hugill outlines a number of projects designed to

increase sonic competence in his book, The Digital Musician. He describes what he refersto as both the simplest and the hardest project in the book:

1. For a predetermined period of time (less than fiveminutes is best), listen intently to the sounds around.Become aware of sounds not normally noticed.

2. Follow the first instruction again, but this time try towrite down what is heard using a system of symbols. A

11Hugill,Andrew.TheDigitalMusician.NewYork:Routledge,2008,p.19.12Demers,Joanna.ListeningThroughtheNoise:TheAestheticsofExperimental

ElectronicMusic.Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2010,p.27.


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good way to start is to draw out a timeline on graphpaper first.

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This exercise is also done without notation or timeline, with the name of the sounds being

written down as a list. Placing symbols on a timeline draws awareness to the temporal

element of sound, however, adding another level of understanding in terms of how soundworks. Doing the exercise with others can be quite stimulating, as a compare/contrastelement is introduced at the end of the exercise. Comparison of results often leads to

greater awareness since there are always similarities and differences in terms of whateach person hears. This leads from community-through-sound-awareness to community-

through-sound-manipulation, as awareness enables us to identify and document ourdiscoveries by recording and sharing them.

Field RecordingField recording is a tremendously effective way to become a perceptive listener, and adeeply gratifying treasure hunt for sounds that we want to share in the music-making

experience. When we travel out in the world with a sound recorder, we essentiallybecome an aural photographer, seeking out and recording the most interesting sounds thatpresent themselves to our ears. In doing this, we develop our listening skills in the

process of making a choice about what is important to us. When we share these sounds,we give others an opportunity to connect with us.

By recording sounds and playing them back, we create something that is both absent and

past, while at the same time heard as happening in present time and space.14

This retrievalof the past can be tremendously affecting in the process of sharing it. In this process, we

become aware that the variety of sound from environment to environment (say, from theravine to the freeway), is every bit as varied and interesting as the visual world. Sharing

these sounds can be thought of as a aural form of public authoring, or knowledgemapping, a process by which people share their knowledge, stories, and experiences

linked to local places. In the aural manifestation of this idea, the knowledge is of a lessconcrete sort, allowing for awareness and communication of what is happening aurally in

our communities, as well as a means of personal expression.

These recorded sounds are personal expressions that become source material for thecreation of art though the process of sharing discussed above. We present to other ears a

part of ourselves, a type of aural self-portrait made from those sounds most important tous. When we allow these sounds to be altered by others through the use of technology,

we enter into a relationship of trust. There are many ways to share these sounds, but I am

concerned here with sampling, transformation, and looping for the sake of collaborativesound-art creation.

13Hugill,Andrew.TheDigitalMusician.NewYork:Routledge,2008,p.232.14Dyson,Francis.SoundingNewMedia:immersionandEmbodimentintheArtsand

Culture.Berkley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2009,p.9.


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Digital TechnologyDigital technology can be used to organize sound that has been recorded, and gives

individuals the ability to generate aural environments for the benefit of entirecommunities. This is different than writing a song to be shared. Non-musicians are

included in the creative process through the use of a variety of digital tools, and through

the ability to identify and creatively manipulate the sounds that have meaning to them.This practice has a visual correlate in painting, with different sounds considered asdifferent colors which can be placed on a digital canvas.

The aural environments I refer to here can be generated through sampling and looping,

which can be shared, and used to create collaborative pieces; virtual instrument creation,storage of field recordings, and organization of these with the help of digital audio

workstations (DAWs); collaborative sound creation and improvisation; and interactivesound installations. I will look at each of these approaches to shared music and sound

creation in turn, and look at ways that each of these environments can be used to createcommunity.

Sampling and LoopingSampling refers to the digital recording and playback of a small amount of sound - from a

single stroke on a snare drum to the voice chip of an action figure or a dog-sound -andthen using that sound in a new context.15 Technically, any digital recording could be

considered a sample, but generally it is smaller than something like a guitar or vocaltrack. The sample, once recorded can be performed on a device such as a keyboard.

Looping is generally better understood, and essentially refers to the ongoing repetition ofa sample.

Sampling and looping are easily employable using standalone loopers or digital audio

workstations (DAWs), and both of these are as affordable as a mid-range student guitar.The looper requires the input of live or recorded sound samples. These sounds can be

produce using musical instruments, but any sound can be input, and this opens up theworld of these techniques to non-musicians. It also engages sonic competence, since

people with a higher degree of sonic perception will notice more possibilities withregards to employing everyday sound in a constructivist way. Low priced field recorders

can be used to gather sounds in the environment, bring these sounds home, and put themon your looper or on your DAW. As sonic competence and awareness of the possibilitiesof digital audio technology rise, so rises the inclusion of non-musicians into the world of

sound construction.

Possibilities for collaboration and sharing rise as samples are sent to others, who add to ortransform them and then send them back to the original creator, or on to others. Websites

for the storage of downloadable samples can be created for the purposes of sharing andcollaboration. The Creative Commons can be used in this way as well. From the website:

Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure

15http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a-introduction-sampling-

audio,1155.html


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that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.16

Digital Audio WorkstationsDigital audio workstations (DAWs) are software platforms that can store the sounds that

we have recorded. Once downloaded to a DAW, these sounds can be performed as

samples on a keyboard, or used as raw material for composition. It is easy to imagine agroup of people - each person in the group with a DAW and a keyboard getting togetherto produce sound-art using found sound as the basis for music making.

DAWs can also be used to record acoustic or electric instruments, and to store pre-

recorded environmental sounds in audio tracks; and to create music using softwareinstruments - emulations of acoustic instruments stored in the DAW. It is this latter option

that is most attractive to the non-musician, since the DAW gives them to capability toplay any instrument from orchestral instruments to the Japanese koto and to create

entire songs from scratch, one note at a time. These constructions can be combined withthe recorded environmental sounds that have been collected through field recording.

Fig 1 Audio tracks (blue) with software instruments (green)

The DAW has the potential to become the next electric guitar in terms of culturaliconography and popularity, due to its use in computing devices, a learning curve that

allows the user to create material in a relatively short time, and tremendous versatility.From sampling and looping found sound to creating your own instruments using sound

16http://creativecommons.org/


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transformation tools, the user is able to create soundfiles that can be sent to others who canmodify them and send them back. Entire pieces can be written in this collaborative,

interactive manner using any number of participants. Figure 2 shows the variety ofsoftware instruments in a DAW.

Fig 2 Software Instruments in a DAW

For those who do not wish to create songs from scratch, the DAW comes with premade

loops. With these, the user can create songs using stylistically predetermined musicalphrases. A typical scenario would have a user choosing a piano sound in a particular

style, and then adding bass, drums, or any other instrument, thereby building an entire


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piece. At any point in the process, the user can save and send the soundfile to anotheruser for input.

Figure 3 shows the way in which loops are organized in a DAW.


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Fig 3 Loops in a DAW


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The Uses of New MediaArtists are using new media to create work that integrates sound and collaborative

interactivity. Squidsoups project Come Closer uses wearable technology andcollaborative interaction to explore and challenge our sense of personal space and

proximity to others. 17 The project uses a wall projection as a virtual mirror, along with

music generated in real time. Both sound and image are based on proximity andmovement of the participants in relation to each other, creating community andconnection. Imagine moving within a space and gradually coming to understand that

proximity to others creates sonic and visual events. How would this affect yourexperience? How would your interactions with others change? Undoubtedly, your

listening and awareness of sound would be enhanced. Presumably, your experience ofothers would become more intense, as well. Technology, used in this way, encourages a

type of community-based music/sound-making that goes beyond the jam session and intothe context of developing positive social relationships in the creation of art. Based on

physical proximity in the production of sound, the experience of creation in this contextbecomes quite intimate.

Aside from proximity, an improvisational, playful type of collaboration in which anyone children and adults - can take part, comes into play. Since it exists in the context of a

public art installation, it encourages contact between strangers in a safe, interactiveenvironment. This collaboration is organic, based on a gradual awareness of the actions

of other participants. As participants become aware of the effects of proximity andmovement, behaviour is affected by what in reality are unnatural physical relationships.

Unnatural here means simply unlooked for in the context of an altered reality such as

is presented in this project. This is what technology is particularly well-suited for: thecreation of convincing experiences of a sort unattainable otherwise. We know, in our

day-to-day lives, how space unfolds sonically and visually. The experience provided byCome Closer alters this quotidian reality, and offers something that changes the meaning

of what we refer to as community.18

Similar in terms of interaction is Sensory Threads, a project initiated by Proboscis, a self-described non-profit social and cultural innovation studio.

19Combining sound and

electronic sensing, the project allows for the creation of shared soundscapes. Essentially,four participants move about an external environment - one thinks urban environment

initially, but rural is equally possible carrying wearable sensors which createsoundscapes depending on location of the participants, their movements, their proximity

to one another and, perhaps most importantly for this project, phenomena at the

periphery of human perception.

20

Implied here is a sense of exploration, a way of using17http://squidsoup.org/comecloser/18http://squidsoup.org/comecloser/

19http://proboscis.org.uk/20http://proboscis.org.uk/


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technology to allow access to barely noticeable events, and to use these as a resource forcreating shared sound.

The Reactable21

is an example of an instrument completely designed with new media.

Through the placement of objects on a translucent round table, participants can create

collaborative compositions, combining synthesizers, effects, and loops. As objects areplaced on the surface, they influence sounds created by other objects already on thesurface. Touching the surface can also influence the sound produced. Think of a virtual

synthesizer that you build by placing objects that represent the different parts on thesynthesizer (oscillators, filters, etc.). Manipulation of the objects produce the sound by

transmitting their image and movement through a video camera to a personal computerwhich translates the images to sound through an audio engine based on the programming

languages Pure Data and Supercollider. This is about manipulating sound as opposed tocreating it. Think sculpture the use of raw materials to form a previously undetected

structure. Now think of doing this with a group of people situated around the table. Thisis another example of how digital technology creates the opportunity for collaboration

between musicians and non-musicians.

Another instrument is Syzygryd, an amazing example of digital technology providing anopportunity for collaborative music making. As the creators say, Its a public space, its

a sculpture, and its a professional musical instrument. Its the most beautiful expressionwe can imagine of the joy we take in community, music, technology, fire, sculpture and

architecture.22

Three large custom hardware grid sequencers each control a singleinstrument which share a clock. In this way, they are all synchronized. By controlling

time, pitch, and harmony, these devices make it easy for people with no musical trainingor talent to create melodious compositions.

The consoles are arranged at three equidistant points around a 60 diameter circle, far

enough apart that the participants can see one another but cant communicate verbally.Each console reflects the state of the others. Three people collaboratively create a

continuously evolving piece of music without communicating, except through the musicitself. The center of the circle is a huge metal tornado of cubes, pulsing with

synchronized sound, light, and fire.

Game 1 for musicians and dancersMy focus in this paper on our relationship to digital media has served to include non-

musicians in the act of music-making through the use of non-musical instrumentmachines. In doing so, we come to understand the inherent musicality of everyone. This

can be extended to musical instruments through interaction with their practitioners.

My work as a composer has explored the sharing and manipulation of sound betweennon-musicians and musicians in Game 1, a piece for string quartet and two dancers. Inthis piece the musicians are given music fragments, which the dancers trigger by using

21http://www.reactable.com/products/reactable_experience/reactable/22http://www.syzygryd.com/about/


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specific large-scale movements along with smaller-scale improvisatory movements. Theintent is to explore three levels of relationships: dancer to dancer; musician to musician;

and dancer to musician. As each dancer initiates and ends the sounds that the musiciansmake, they either support or subvert the intentions or desires of both the musicians and

the other dancer. A variety of musical narratives are possible in this process.

What we hear in the sound and see in the movement is an effort to assert individualpersonality and/or collectivity in the process of collaborative music-making and

movement. How do the dancers work together? How do they support and/or subvert eachothers intentions? How does the sound being produced affect the behaviour of both the

dancers and the musicians? How does all of this affect collaborative music-making?

This approach can be used in a variety of settings and can be realized quickly. In popularmusic contexts, chords can be assigned to particular movements, drum beats to others,

bass lines to still others. As an alternative, a group using this approach can include anynumber of conductors, each using a limited gestural vocabulary to trigger specific and/or

general sounds from those playing instruments. These sounds can be notated beforehand,or chosen collaboratively by both musicians and non-musicians. The piece becomes a

forum for social interaction, as well as music-making. In this way, musicians and non-musicians come to understand the others priorities and predilections, and enter into a

exploratory game-like environment.

ConclusionThe practice of listening and the use of new media can lead to meaningful communitybuilding. Since specialized musical knowledge is not necessary in this context, the

inclusion of non-musicians is possible, enabling a broad spectrum of experience. As theworld of sound opens up to practitioners of this approach to music-making, their daily

sensory experiences are heightened. Not only do we build community, we discover,through the sharing of experience, who we are in relation to our private experiences and

the experiences of others. Facilitating this activity is our relationship with machines, andthe ways in which we communicate with them and how they communicate with us. In

Game 1, musical instruments are understood as being part of the machine family.


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Bibliography

1. Augoyard, Jean-Franois, and Henry Torgue. (2007). Sonic Experience: A Guide toEveryday Sounds. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2005, p.Nancy, Jean-Luc.Listening.New York: Fordham University Press.

2. Creative Commons. (2012). http://creativecommons.org/ Accessed 26 June 2012.

3. Demers, Joanna.Listening Through the Noise: The Aesthetics of ExperimentalElectronic Music. (2010). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4. Dyson, Francis. Sounding New Media:Iimmersion and Embodiment in the Arts andCulture. (2009).Berkley: University of California Press.

5. Erlman, Veit.Reason and Resonance. (2010).New York: Zone Books.

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Community Through Listening: Music Constructions for Interaction

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