This article reflects on how personal digital musical instruments evolve and presents an augmented violin developed and performed by the author in improvised performance as an example. Informed by the materialism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, an image of ‘flows of inhomogeneous matter’ provokes reflection on a mode of production common to artisanal craftmanship and digital lutherie alike, namely the pre-reflective skilfulness negotiating the singularities of inhomogeneous matter with the demands of the production – a process which itself may be thought of as im-pro-visation (‘un-fore-seen’). According to Gilbert Simondon, all technical objects develop in this way: functional interdependency emerges when abstractly ideated elements begin to enter into unanticipated synergistic relationships, suggesting a material logic dependent on unforeseen potentialities. The historical development of the acoustic violin exemplifies such an evolution, with, like all technical objects, additional latent potential. Digital artists can work like artisanal craftsmen in tinkering with technical elements, teasing out their synergies through abductive, trial-and-error experimentation. In the context of developing digital musical instruments, model-free design of real-time digital signal processing symmetrising action and perception yields highly refined results. Like musical improvisation – constrained by time – improvised development of these instruments turns the material obstacles into their very means of realisation.

In this article we describe a Networked Music Collective for online live performance events. Four characteristics of live performance (bodies, space and time, musical culture and social process) are identified as the conceptual and technological basis of our approach. Our recent distributed comprovisation, Perripplayear, is used to illustrate these concepts and to describe the technology stack we employed. The Kaon’CPT collective uses diverse instrumentation including acoustic and electronic instruments, voice and digital musical instruments (DMIs). Its members span 12 time zones and their comprovisation is conducted via a custom distributed score.

This article details the rationale and creative process behind a collaborative – or more accurately in this case, dialogic – sound composition undertaken as part of research into the acoustic ecologies of people in the early stages of a dementia. Changes in abilities around hearing and listening are among the first symptoms of many types of dementia, making such auditory phenotypes an increasingly common part of lived experiences of sound. Following acoustic ecology practice in doing and presenting research in sound, and more specifically Steven Feld in doing so in dialogic or polyvocal ways, co-composition can be a way of exploring the particularities of others’ hearing, listening and sound practices, which is less reliant on the discursive frames of interlocutors and researchers. The process of making sound art together draws attention to particular sounds and experiences, creating dialogic situations of companion listening, discussion and mutual learning. It also provides a framework for engaging interlocutors in soundscape and ethnographic fieldwork methods. The composition discussed here, Trevurr, documents my time working with Trevor, a keen amateur musician in Cornwall who has mild cognitive impairment, and gradually comes to simulate his experience of hyperacusis in a piece of dialogic, auraldiversity-oriented composition.

This paper describes the background and motivations behind the author’s electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with an augmented drum kit. The use of game structures in music is outlined, while musical expression in the context of commercial musical games using conventional game controllers is discussed. Notions such as agility, agency and authorship in music composition and improvisation are in parallel with game design and play, where players are asked to develop skills through affordances within a digital game-space. It is argued that the recent democratisation of game engines opens a wide range of expressive opportunities for real-time game-based improvisation and performance. Some of the design decisions and performance strategies for the two instrument-controlled games are presented to illustrate the discussion; this is done in terms of game design, physical control through the augmented instrument, live electronics and overall artistic goals of the pieces. Finally, future directions for instrument-controlled electroacoustic game-pieces are suggested.

This article describes my own way to improvise with space using a computer-based tool implemented in SuperCollider. The objective of this spatial performance tool is to have an ergonomic spatio-temporal and spectral control over numerous sound objects in real time, in order to alternate between spatialised polyrhythms and textures. After a brief review of spatial audio context, the spatial performance tool is summarised and detailed here by focusing on one of the core parameters: the playback speeds, which can act both on rhythm and space and enable among others the spatio-temporal articulation of the performance. As well as discussing the word ‘comprovisation’ and my conception of human–computer improvisation, the possibilities and approach of the tool in terms of improvisation and controllerism are illustrated through the use and combination of different controllers (computer keyboard, tactile interfaces, force touch sensors). Whereas some controllers are more dedicated to the selection and triggering of streams of spatialised sound events, others have their own mappings and ways of acting on some parameters (depending on the temporality of the sounds: playing or future events).

This article presents experiences and reflections related to performing improvised, live processed electroacoustic music within a context of networked music performance. The musical interaction is performed through a new collective networked instrument, and we report how the ensemble ‘Magnify the Sound’, consisting of two of the authors of this article, meets the instrument in different networked performance situations, and how this is related to the affordance of the instrument. In our performances the network is inherent to our artistic practice, and we experience a phenomenological and somatic transformation in our roles as musicians, from individual instrumentality to shared instrumentality. The instrument invites new forms of music-making and contributes in fundamental ways to the ensemble’s musical communication and artistic expression. In the present article we outline our methods of working artistically with the networked instrument, and we point at some artistic results. We then discuss how the collective instrument has facilitated new performance and musical practice within the network.

Music composition is traditionally regarded as an act of individual creation and expression, but can be approached, through the aid of digital platforms, as an activity that encourages learning through social participation. This article describes the development of a tablet-based app, Paynter, intended as a digital graphic interface for group collaborative composition and its experimental use in a primary school in Salford, UK, alongside musicians from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra. The app created a framework for a negotiated language of symbols used by two groups of students at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to tell stories through sound and music. Its functionality enabled compositional thinking to emerge collectively from groups with relatively little exposure to the idea of composing and little knowledge of traditional notational or digital sequencing technologies. The research is grounded in a theoretical context of constructivist approaches to education.

Sound maps, particularly the web-based examples that have proliferated since the early 2000s, have proven compelling and valuable as means of conveying diverse perspectives of urban, rural and wilderness sound environments, while opening the creative process of mapping through field recording to non-expert user groups. As such, sound maps hold the promise of broad public engagement with everyday sonic experience and spatial typologies. Yet this straightforward participatory aim is prone to complication in terms of participatory frameworks and scale of analysis. Drawing on a catalogue of sound maps by the author, this article problematises the participatory norms of sound mapping and, in tandem, calls for a more nuanced approach to scale than typically seen to date in sound maps based on geospatial mapping APIs. A sound mapping workshop in Lisbon with a multidisciplinary participant group provided the opportunity to ‘re-prototype’ sound maps at the scale of a local neighbourhood using multimodal means of representation; the results highlighted questions of form, scale, representation, authorship and purpose in sound mapping and demonstrated its continuing potential as a participatory practice.

This article presents the possible proximity between the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the present-day practice of free improvisation, a musical activity that enjoys its ambiguous nature of not being clearly defined, that is, however, of value to examine as a practice in its own rights. It is used in educational and compositional contexts as a tool, as well as being an established independent performance practice, albeit for a relatively small body of audience. The discussion is led through three concepts that are utilised by pragmatists, but which resonate with the concerns of free improvisers: experience, expressive object and gesture. Outlining these key ideas, the article sheds light on John Dewey’s and Giovanni Maddalena’s thoughts on aesthetics, which provide a perspective for examining these inherent issues of free improvisation. Through a philosophical examination, the article seeks to enlighten the performance processes of the musical phenomenon of free improvisation.

The telematic work instance is a performance for viola and dance that digitally connects performers in Vancouver and Cape Town. The network interface enables a violist and a dancer to simultaneously play multi-user digital music-dance instruments over the internet with music and dance. The composition, design and performance interaction of instance draw from acoustic multi-user instrument paradigms and music-dance interactions in the African performing arts to explore the idiosyncrasies of the telematic performance space. The iterative design process implements soma-based research methods to inspire sonic compositional material with the body and to explore the performers’ embodied experience of sonic aesthetics during their interaction.

While a familiar term in art history, philosophy and cultural studies, ‘hyperrealism’ is rarely applied to music. This is despite Noah Creshevsky’s use of the term to describe his unique compositional process and aesthetic approach. A composer of electroacoustic music and founder of the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music, Creshevsky has described his musical hyperrealism as a ‘language constructed from sounds that are found in our shared environment (“realism”), handled in ways that are somehow exaggerated or excessive (“hyper”)’. In this article, I summarise the ideas behind Creshevsky’s hyperreal music and compare them to philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s theorisation of the hyperreal. Numerous similarities between Creshevsky and Baudrillard’s ideas will be made evident. The first half of this article focuses on Creshevsky’s sampling of sounds as ‘simulacra’ and how the interweaving textures and melodies that Creshevsky makes out of these samples are similar to ‘simulations’. In the article’s second half, Creshevsky’s creation of disembodied ‘superperformers’ is addressed and related to Baudrillard’s transhumanism. Towards the end of the article, Creshevsky’s aesthetic more broadly and what he calls ‘hyperdrama’ are linked to Baudrillard’s ‘transaesthetics’, before a concluding note addressing Baudrillard and Creshevsky’s different dispositions towards hyperrealism.

The adoption of playback media – such as vinyl and the compact disc – by performers as a means of sound creation and manipulation sees our perception of these media ‘elevated’ to the status of an instrument. As this practice develops, improvisers push these devices further in pursuit of new sounds, including actively exploring the sonic potential of failure and destruction. This article argues that when pushed to the point of failure, playback media begin to function as an improviser, exhibiting musical agency over the performance that mirrors that of human improvisers. This article will identify how failing playback functions within a performance, and explore the ways in which it can be understood to improvise, discussing how failing playback media can engage in a dialogical back and forth with human improvisers as well as the ways it can directly influence and determine the structure and musical content of a performance.

This qualitative inquiry into contemporary experiences of human migration, focusing on Anglo olim (English-speaking Jewish diaspora immigrants to Israel) uses interdisciplinary soundscape composition as its primary method. This project is opportune, given the lack of scholarship utilising sound to explore diaspora and Jewish identity. The compositional process was led by the experiences of the interviewees, blending sounds from places familiar to them, melodies and sonic symbolism that mark the seasons of the Jewish year and their own voices telling the story of their journeys. The composition is multilayered, allowing for a rich insight into the in between that diaspora communities inhabit, both in the place they live and in the place they left behind. This article discusses methodological decisions throughout the different stages of the project, with the aim to encourage readers to develop their own work utilising sound to investigate diaspora communities. This investigation sits at the crossroads between the aesthetic concerns connected to the ‘art’ of soundscape composition and the ethical considerations of the ‘science’ of social inquiry. The article concludes that sound studies, and soundscapes in particular, is an especially apt and rich avenue for study of diaspora identities and the oral traditions that underpin them.

This article aims to explore how the theoretical and pedagogical intersections of sonic art and creative oral history may work together to enhance the public response of socially engaged, interdisciplinary artwork. The main topics of discussion will include Panos Amelides’s paper ‘Acousmatic Storytelling’, the socio theoretical approach suggested by Salome Voegelin in her paper ‘Sonic Memory Material as “Pathetic Trigger”’, the behavioral study from the oral history sound installation by Dr Luis Sotelo Castro called Not Being Able to Speak is Torture, and the Deep Listening and Sonic Meditation practices and teachings of Pauline Oliveros, as well as compositions by Yves Daoust, Hildegard Westerkamp and Trevor Wishart. One consistent theme revealed through these investigations was that socially engaged, aurally focused artwork informed and woven by familiar and documented ‘life’ sounds or nostalgic sound events increases emotional triggers for the audience, creating a deeper engagement with the art piece or performance. Furthermore, an informed and host-led directive encouraging participatory and attentive listening through either meditation or discussion increases audience reception and takeaway, thus inspiring and unifying mass group empathy. This article suggests that the application of these techniques by electroacoustic composers, sonic artists, oral historians and interdisciplinary artists will create informed, passionate and empathetic listening spaces that live beyond the insular, creative experience itself.

The life and times of Peter Zinovieff (1933–2021) have been amply commented upon and there are numerous testimonies of his role on developing electronic music as well as his strong impact on musicians throughout the 1970s. However, besides his important role in developing synthesisers, sound processing and various other devices, he is now recognised as a significant pioneer in music with computers. His collaboration with Harrison Birtwistle’s opera The Mask of Orpheus has been deemed an important contribution to contemporary music in Great Britain. Finally, his late return to composition and performance shows his lifelong attachment to innovation and experimentation in music.

This article discusses the affordance of headphone listening as a sensory experience within a responsive, interactive and improvisational site-specific audiowalk. The intention here is to elucidate how correlational and dialectic tensions between improvisation and listening have informed an approach to creating the geolocative project: Audiowalk – St Enda’s Park. Initially using the concept of soundwalking, as both a touchstone and a springboard, I explore some of the theoretical and dialogic underpinnings that have grounded this process-orientated work. The discussion is then extended into a phenomenological application of improvisational listening and walking in this form of somatic art, and particularly how this can impact the immersive experience for the participant/performer. The theoretical grounding and telos are explored in terms of the improvisational ‘flow’ state and how this accentuates and engenders an awareness of a soundscape through contextual and ethnographic aural histories. Critical reflection and analysis will be discussed throughout in attaining greater epistemological efficacy dealing with concepts of place and memory within this site-specific work.

Electronic systems designed to improvise with a live instrumental performer are a constant mediation of musical language and artificial decision-making. Often these systems are designed to elicit a reaction in a very broad way, relying on segmenting and playing back audio material according to a fixed or mobile set of rules or analysis. As a result, such systems can produce an outcome that sounds generic across different improvisers, or restrict meaningful electroacoustic improvisation to those performers with a matching capacity for designing improvisatory electroacoustic processing. This article documents the development of an improvisatory electroacoustic instrument for pianist Maria Donohue as a collaborative process for music-making. The Donohue+ program is a bespoke electroacoustic improvisatory system designed to augment the performance capabilities of Maria, enabling her to achieve new possibilities in live performance. Through the process of development, Maria’s performative style, within the broader context of free improvisation, was analysed and used to design an interactive electronic system. The end result of this process is a meaningful augmentation of the piano in accordance with Maria’s creative practice, differing significantly from other improvising electroacoustic instruments she has previously experimented with. Through the process of development, Donohue+ identifies a practice for instrument design that engages not only with a performer’s musical materials but also with a broader free improvisation aesthetic.

This in memoriam tribute for Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer focuses on his seminal work in establishing soundscape studies and the World Soundscape Project. It discusses his intellectual legacy in terms of emphasising a perceptually based approach and the importance of soundscape design, along with critical responses to his ideas.

This article considers the ways in which soundwalking and field recording entangle the listener in a sociopolitical relationship with place. The place is a physical site in which the listener encounters complex sonic sociopolitical factors, shaped not just by the interactions of people but also by involving living and material objects that voice themselves through sound and vibrations. Sets of expectations and personal identities inform listening experiences, in addition to the material-orientated tendencies in the field, deriving from soundscape composition and acousmatic music. Specific sociopolitical examples that inform sonic experiences in diverse listening situations across different geographic regions are used to uncover bias, and some of the preconceptions of listeners. The article argues for a greater reflexivity in regard to the motives that inform our listening, relationship with places and awareness of the widest spectrum of cultural, historic and sociopolitical contexts.