Music 680: Electronics in Performance
Fall 2004
Lecture 8: November 8, 2004

assignment (due November 22, 2004) 
	create a computer "improviser" using Pd that either
		responds to input (audio, MIDI) or 
		generates directed structures (phrases, larger formal units) on command

David Tudor: Pulsers, etc.
	composition as instrument-building
	improvisation: exploration vs. recycling

John Cage / Electronic Music for Piano (1964) for piano or pianos and electronics
	score
		opposite tendencies from Stockhausen: informality, randomness (but not necessarily freedom)
		derived from previous Music for Piano series (1960)
		also referring to a variety of other works (Cartridge Music, Variations, Atlas Eclipticalis)
		evocative of the shared culture between Cage and Tudor
			much like Bussotti's Five Pieces for David Tudor
			[sidebar on David Tudor: from avant-garde piano to live electronic performance]
			does the piece require a performance of Music for Piano or is it improvisation?

	realization concepts
		freedom = ethical responsibility
		starting from the premise of Tudor as much as Cage
			feedback systems
			idiosyncratic / "broken" instruments as disruptive to improvisation habits / tendencies
		notion of "points" vs. lines (piano resonances, sustaining feedback tones)

	realization development
		a process of rehearsal, testing, and development
			[rapid development capabilities of Pd]
		seeking ways to integrate piano and feedback
			leads to more direct forms of piano processing
			ring modulation, resonator as ways to impose glissando on piano tones
			distortion layer becomes amplification layer
		serendipities
			interruptions derived from improvisation with audio switching
			spatialization from a separate project
		increasing number of controls and automations over time

env~, fiddle,~, and bonk~