Saturday 1 November 2014

The problem with music tech in the wrong hands.

Music Technology is great. I love it. Electronic toys and tools allow us to make some awesome music. However, there are a couple of things which really get on my tits about the way some people use it.  This is particularly focused on that strange little world of electroacoustic composers and acousmatic fossils. Others seem either content with the issues or too afraid of the electroacoustic Mothers' Union to say anything. So I am going to pick on 5 things which wind me up: 

1. It just doesn't work
If you are going to give your work (or other people's for that matter) in a concert, check that you can load up your laptop really quickly and the software will come up fast enough. Make sure that you have full compatibility with that oh-so-fancy soundcard that venue is using and that you have installed the correct drivers. 

When I go to a concert I want to be entertained and intrigued. Aside from the stand up comic in my head ripping the shit out of you for being a bellend, there isn't much entertainment in sitting in a technical rehearsal for the concert you are already giving. It's embarrassing and it's foolish. Not sure it will work? Don't do the piece. 

I know things go wrong from time to time but in electroacoustic music there are far too many fails, far too much bad planning and a total lack of musicianship. If you write music because you are not a perfowr then for the love of God stop trying to perform it. Oh and don't turn up in a dirty t-shirt and ripped jeans looking like you slept in the bin store! It's rude to your audience. 

2. Be in control of your laptop
Be sure that you have turned off your screensaver, disabled anything which will ping or make an unwanted addition.

If you have system sounds turned on after day one of owning a laptop I have to question your ears in the first place... These are crap sounds inflicted on us like the lift music of errors they shouldn't be there and definitely not in a concert. 

3. Hide the bloody cursor!
If your ever so clever reinvention of electroacoustic music (with the same chords, pedals, bleeps, squeaks, wind, water and kicked leaves as you used in the last piece and the one before) has a big visual of the 'score' (why the fuck do I want to read the score when I should be listening?) at least have the respect to hide the cursor so I don't feel like I'm watching it over your shoulder in the kitchen. 

4. Use tech as a tool and write music! 
If you think that your laptop, your studio, your surround rig, your mixer are musical instruments forget it. They are not. They are tools to capture, cut, copy and paste. 

The strange notion of 'instrument' means that you people don't think beyond the really obvious and it all sounds the same after a bit! Spend more time on the material and less on the at ever so clever patch in max msp which doesn't actually do anything more clever than proprietary software and hardware. This is using software as a dildo and does not make your music great. 

5. Don't be late
The reason that only your mates come to the concert is because you treat the audience like your mates at a party. Make the show go up on time, be welcoming and friendly but cut out the in jokes. Plan your time so you have a good 20 minutes to settle the room after rehearsals. Don't keep the audience waiting half an hour while you tit about with software that you should have working days in advance. Look at massive pop shows which are far more complex in their use of tech. They wouldn't dare have a catastrophic failure using the same gear that you have. It's bad planning and it's embarrassing. Thanks. 

Dr Paul J. Abbott is a composer working with electronic and experimental music. He is gobby and opinionated about music and doesn't really care if his opinions bother you. 


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