At dorkbotlondon last Wednesday, the final presentation was Ashraf Nehru's 'Frankie the Robot' an animated 3 dimensional DJ robot who seamlessly mixes up to 4 mp3 tracks, synchronising even the most disparate rhythms, and wiggling his hips provocatively as he spins his virtual vinyl. This is one future of music performance: the endless re-mixing of existing tracks from every genre imaginable, automatically synched into a beat-perfect, uniform rhythm by a faceless performer/player. Frankie is already driven by a Playstation2 controller, and is coming soon as a commercial game. There are other futures, cracks and seams in the veneer of digital music that have their own particularities and aesthetics, some of which are presented here.
These three texts are reflections on music and musicianship, and how the limits, techniques and potentials of those categories are influenced by digital technologies. Alex Mclean, musician, programmer and artist (www.slab.org) picks out some irritating norms of electronic music and then, as curative, introduces us to the bash shell as musical performance tool. Jo Walsh (www.zooleika.org.uk) imagines how semantic webs of meta-information reconfigure our relationship to music and music making. Michael Weinkove's (www.talkaoke.com) text is a critical study of the changing icon of the musician, tracing the passage of the humble technician to the superstar DJ we know today.
But this is not just about music. The performer, the virtuoso, the artiste, the audience; these figures are changing. Perhaps in music, one of the most economically active and universally significant areas of culture, one which has embraced digital technologies most fervently, we can find clues as to how these roles are developing in other areas of cultural production.
Saul Albert
saul@twenteenthcentury.com 23/02/03
Alex Mclean - ANGRY
- /usr/bin/bash as a performative tool
Jo Walsh - Hypermusic
Michael Weinkove - The Future DJ Culture
These are false boundaries.
Laptop musicians have plenty of movement happening inside their computer but usually don't let us in on at any of it. Movement adds so much to musical performance but we can't see it because their software doesn't allow us to, or they are too shy to let us see their screen. Open up your music for us! Your computer can be so much more than a portable music studio. If the music is alive in there, let us see it.
Interfaces should not be so over-important as to hide the very experience they are trying to interface us to. Take http://www.altzero.net as an example. Mapping one dimensional volume controls onto a two dimensional plane, and then hiding them in a three dimensional rotating sphere adds little to music that is by its nature multidimensional. Piling in visual effects on top of all this is playing the audience as a fool.
And finally, random events are no replacement for real interactivity. Random numbers are perhaps the easiest source of data, but are by their nature structureless and meaningless. They should surely not be used as the core structure behind an artwork.
These pieces of work annoy me because when I look for their promise, I either find I am denied access or find nothing when I finally get there. Open up your processes!
I've probably spent more time at a bash prompt than I have in any other place apart from bed. It's my primary computer interface; it's part of most of my daily tasks and rituals. I do use a GUI windowing environment, but still find myself typing far more than clicking.
So what do I perform with bash? I make music with self-written Perl scripts, that synchronise, play sounds and control synthesis parameters via a central server. Some of these scripts are interactive and some aren't, and so a great deal of the performance is controlled from the command line, starting sets of scripts with particular parameters and then choosing the right moment to kill them.
Typing long, textual commands seems like a slow and inexpressive way to make live music. However I find this much faster than using a mouse, and more expressive than using a guitar; but then, I'm a fast typist and am not much good at playing the guitar. I also know a few handy bash shortcuts...
So lets cut to the meat. Here's how I use the bash prompt.
^n ^p ^b ^f ^a ^e
These are navigation control keys, in fact the first four are simple aliases for the arrow keys; down, up, left and right respectively. These are keys I need all the time but are located far away from the 'home keys'. You only save a fraction of a second by hitting ^b rather than left-arrow, but in my opinion shaving all these fractions is what turns you into a bash prompt maestro.
^r
Control and r is perhaps my most used performative expression. It lets you do a reverse search through your entire command history. So if I want to find a command I ran at a gig a couple of weeks or months ago, I can, with a few key-presses. This is great, because I have no memory of my own.
There's a problem with this; you might accidentally re-run that dodgy 'rm -rf .' command and delete all your files. You can pop the following HISTIGNORE environment variable in your .bash_profile to stop this from happening, and while you're there, why not drop in a HISTSIZE variable to keep your history for longer:
HISTIGNORE="rm *"
HISTSIZE="2048"
export HISTIGNORE HISTSIZE
tab completion
Another shell shortcut under-used by many; tab completion! Most know that when you type the first few characters of a command, file or directory name and then press tab, the shell fills in the rest of the for you. But! It doesn't just apply to filenames... Bash now has 'programmable completion', meaning that it will now complete hostnames, process names, usernames, etc, etc... Download a config file from here (http://www.caliban.org/bash/index.shtml#completion) and weep with joy!
the last bit
Well, those are the most important bash keystrokes I use. When performing I tend to end up with a lot of processes all over a mess of xterms, all with various processes running in the background. So I end up using 'ps -wux' and 'kill' a lot to list and kill my processes. People seem to enjoy watching me scrabble around, flicking through xterms running obtuse homemade curses interfaces. Hopefully it's not too distracting everyone from the music itself...
Although it tends to come as default with Linux based systems, 'bash' is by no means the only Unix shell. For example 'zsh' is well loved among its loyal fan base. So have a look around, but whatever shell you opt for and whatever Unix art you are creating, check out the man pages and you might find some wonderful shortcuts to command prompt heaven.
a chunk of data can speak for itself - 'i will be intelligible by the rules of this format', 'so-and-so created this copy of me at such-and-such a date'. a statement about the data can live somewhere else - 'the data at that location, properly deployed, is a kind of jazz music', 'it relates strongly to this other thing in my personal taste' - remembered, and offered or spidered into a distributed network of agent stores.
or statements can emerge through a process of inference, extrapolating new statements from the connections between existing ones - 'if X was in this band at the time they made this tune, then X is probably playing in it' [better] or the data that can be described by rules in the system - properties like 'bar length' and 'bpm' with algorithms to discover them in chunks of musical data.
a commercial service offers to identify any recorded tune, no matter how noisily played back, compared against its vast database of recordings. with feedback and progressive reification, it will become easy to identify and describe, for example, the structures most associated with certain states of mind, or changes in atmosphere. to note and annotate the progression of a musical progression, a certain (pattern)(regularity) of repetition working its way through centuries and cultures. the identification of different synths, software, fundamental sound sources becomes simpler with each propagating piece of music.
the music data and metadata contained in the filesharer systems and on the web is much greater and more deeply cross-referenced than the largest commercial system. imagine; properties extrapolated from those properties, peoples' opinions about all of them, indicating some archetypal tune or beat pattern.
the establishment of prior art amounts to copyrighting the musical genome. a representation of the contrasting legal complexities of musicmaking and software making. music can also be software, software can produce perennially different music, like infinite drum and bass; each performance of the same named thing is effortlessly variable. music is subject to transclusion, to filtering, at the hands of the ultimate listener or through an intermediary.
between us all we make a kind of hypermusic, in a network modelled to reflect more change.
Dance Factory
We enter a building bigger than an aircraft hangar-like a recently erected, warehouse or factory, yet to be let. An ocean of resin -coated concrete floors, the only machines present are the sound system. But it's dark and deafeningly noisy. There are 10 000 people there, all facing an illuminated figure on a distant stage, the DJ, a man engrossed. In the era when factories have become buzzing, silent, peopleless, computer controlled kingdoms, so the future DJ festival becomes a reenactment of the classical factory experience. This system is capable of generating over 120 decibels of sound. A tiny diamond the size of a poppy seed vibrates as the concentric vinyl channel beneath rotates at a set rate. The resulting tiny fluctuations in charge are amplified by a series of transistors in the mixing console. The signal is passed through a series of processors, split according to frequency as it is sent to several racks of power amps and amplified again. Magnified many million tim! es, the signals are converted back to sound by the loudspeakers.
Here in Barcelona, at the Sonar Festival of Electronic Music, it's possible to enjoy the latest stage of development in the evolution of the dance movement. Once upon a time the DJ appeared as the behind the scenes technician, a man who tastefully, tirelessly and thanklessly selected hits that the people wanted to dance to, occasionally introducing a new tune. He meekly facilitated enjoyment at the party. With the emergence of hip hop, the DJ began to accompany the rhymes instead of a backing band, and became an equal, if somewhat backstage member of the band. Now the DJ has been promoted to the position of lead singer and the musicians who created the music are no longer required to be present for the live event. But the DJ's elevation has not stopped there. The superstar DJ has graduated from the discreet DJ booth of contemporary nightclubs to the upstage -illuminated with smoke, strobes and laser lights.
Selector, Mixer, Refiner
The DJ's job description is threefold.
"journey by DJ" - The DJ chooses the records to play in which order. It is suggested that he selects tracks according to the mood of the crowd. This is the most important part of the DJ's job a kind of dance music curator-a facilitator for dance music to be heard in the right order.
"scratchmaster" - Interestingly DJ competitions which have arisen don't concentrate on this aspect of the DJ's role but focus on the second part- the DJ's ability to mix and blend individual records together into a continuous seamless soundtrack and the DJ's own input of scratching; playing the record rhythmically backwards and forwards, and sampling; taking a digital clippet from a pre-existing track and overlaying it repetitively.
The third part is to get the sound right, adjusting the EQ levels (treble and bass but more complicated) and other more sophisticated sound manipulation exercises which give the DJs their "unique" sound.
"he uses a Pioneer FX500 for delay and echoes especially and two super filters that completely kill the sound ... people notice. They always come up asking what the mix is and I tell them, 'It's the original mix, but I'm fucking with it and throwing an accapella over it'" - Erick Morillo in DJ magazine, 2nd -15th June 01
The DJ's role is one part editorial, two parts technical. It's a job which requires connoissieurship and technical skill but it's not especially performative. To worship the DJ on the stage is to engender a cult that celebrates technical ability on an equal level with creativity. The body language of the DJ on stage is the body language of an expert getting on with his job, like a diamond cutter.
Superstar DJ
Why must the superstar DJ must be on stage? Because he is a superstar. What we see at this DJ festival in Barcelona is a visual terminology originating from the rock star stadium gig: a tiny figure on a high stage in a massive sports arena. One thinks of Robbie Williams or U2, performers with an exuberant, distinctly messianic character. Robbie Williams is the sex god, the audience shamanised as a single body by the charisma of the performer, before he has even opened his mouth. Abetted by hype, lights and sound reinforcement, he can whip the crowd into a frenzy. By the way, Robbie Williams is just an ordinary bloke, except he's Robbie Williams. This idea of the ordinary bloke/megastar oscillation has been taken further by Williams than any other British performer. He says himself he was just a man in the right place at the right time. he likes girls, junk food and football. British pop stars don't have to be extreme anymore. Their personas have none of the exuberance of Bo! wie or Bolan or Lennon.
One of the developments of late nineties pop was that pop stars no longer had to prove their specialness. It is self evident from their position within the structure. Earlier pop stars had to be extreme, weird and arty to justify their status. The distancing/familiarization of the celebrity system is now enough to establish them without distorting their personality (though perhaps concentrating it). The Spice Girls gained popularity by being marketed as the girl next door having a bit of fun. They are more genuine, everyday, down to earth. The superstar DJ takes this celebration of the ordinary man even further.
But where does this leave the crowd? In a conventional dancehall or nightclub, people dance in small huddles, facing each other. Here they face the non-performing superstar DJ, no longer interacting with each other but facing a single central node. The attraction of these large festivals or concerts has always been as much about the gravity and craziness of so many people in one place as about what they have come to see or do. A large crowd brings excitement to itself in its very presence, a worry as much as a mass marketing opportunity. The crowd has a unity, a power, a modus operandi that deviates from the normal rules of social engagement. The rock star has a power to coalesce this mass of individuals into a single motile force in the same way that one imagines that a radical orator may have done in the nineteenth century. Even when nothing happens, the sudden realisation within the mass of its potential gives an event a buzz. There is a force inherent in so many young pe! ople coming together. How does the future DJ manage to neutralise this force so effectively?
Power means nothing without control
The DJ is a leader who is respected not for his passion or charisma but for making the right choice at the right moment. We celebrate professionalism above all. In this respect the DJ gives the people what they want. Through his expertise he anticipates what the crowd wants. Yet he feels the vibe, rather than explicitly consulting them. After all he is the man with the vision in control of the crowd. The superstar DJ is a new kind of leader, who leads by example into an ever more simplified cultural paradigm. It's like rock and roll without the jazz or the funk or spunk what ever you want to call it.
One of the features of the evolution of the future DJ culture is the attitude to requests. A friend of mine was a DJ twenty years ago. His "set" was made up of requests-playing the hits of the time that people knew from the radio, or things that were current in the dance halls and discos at the time. A friend of a friend of mine is a DJ in London clubs today. He has a business card printed especially to give to people who ask him for requests. It says, "Fuck off you cunt". The recipient is generally so excited to receive a business card from the DJ, so intoxicated, so disorientated by the ambience, that he puts it in his pocket and walks off. This suggests a growing confidence. DJs have in their own vision, in their ability to take control of the crowd and take it where they think it should go. The crowd have faith in the DJ to be able to do this.
The tendency towards an evermore "efficient" entertainment.
'Deep, progressive grooves' - Flyer advertising a club night
Producers no longer bombard us with creativity but refine it and present as little of it as possible within as bigger structure as possible. A diamond is nothing without its display case. So the most is made of every gem that is discovered. The gem is there too at the centre of the DJ's setup. The stripping away of everything non-functional from a non-functional product reveals its context only. Through streamlining to maximize profits, mass entertainment products actually reveal the structure of the commercial world. Thus mass culture has a kind of fractal structure; i.e. the patterns repeat at various levels of analysis.
Take the example of the TV show Blind Date. It repeats endlessly the essentially dilemma of the product. How can I choose from this limited range of merchandise without first knowing about them? I cannot know about them without having first made my commitment. The necessary typical dissatisfaction at the outcome of this choice becomes the entertainment. It is a dissatisfaction which is echoed by the viewers who spent an hour watching the programme to find out what would happen.
In the same way the DJ's music is stripped to the bare minimum. This is undoubtedly the cheapest way to entertain 10 000 young people at a live event. The prevailing mass product is always the cheapest thing you can sell to the maximum number of people. A DJ is cheaper than a band. There is only one person to pay rather than perhaps four. They need less technical support than a band, no soundchecks or complicated and dangerous cabling. They are more predictable than a band. The DJ gets on and does the job. He plays the music. There will be no encore, no prima donna strops, no last minute nerves, no laryngitis. Formerly people would only come in thousands to see bands. With the advent of the superstar DJ, a man playing other people's recordings can bring in just as many. The two turntables and a mixer connected to a PA system is the universal setup that you can find in virtually any country worldwide. It is the lingua franca of live entertainment.
I stand, moved by this global event. I don't see people having a good time, I see the future here, it is a future of global sameness. Gradually everything that makes us different will be dissolved, because it is everything that is different that makes us fight.
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