Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic, and Signal Inscriptions

Cover page
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: On Objects, Humans, and Machines
	The non-origins of music
	Mnemotechnics and music
	Three music technological epistemes
	Unstable objects
	Ergodynamics
	Book structure
Part I Material Inscriptions
	1 Instrumentality
		Musical organa
		Instruments in myth and philosophy
		Instruments in medieval thought
		Instruments of modernity
		Instrumental materialities
		Conclusion
	2 New Instruments
		Instruments and alien objects
		Interfacing sound
		The Karlax
		The LinnStrument
		Resonating acoustic instruments
		Digital affordances
		Instrument or controller?
		Conclusion
	3 Epistemic Tools
		Instruments for thinking
		Theoretical instruments
		Instrumental agency
		Epistemic tools
		Material affordances
		Conclusion
	4 Digital Organology
		Evolutionary organology
		Musical organics
		New instruments, new ideas, new instruments
		Conclusion
Part II Symbolic Inscriptions
	5 Writing Music
		On writing
		On the possibility of writing sound
		Symbols notating music
		Guido of Arezzo
		Mnemonics and notation
		Conclusion
	6 Printing Music
		The printing press
		Musica poetica
		Music as (re)search
		The musical work
		Conclusion
	7 New Languages
		Descriptive and prescriptive notation
		Notating for (human) machines
		Open notations
		Graphic scores
		Multimedia notation
		Rules and process
		Improvisation and the aleatoric
		The cost of freedom
		Conclusion
	8 Machine Notation
		Algorithmic music
		Combinatorics and creativity
		Compose a system and run it
		Generative music
		Musicology of code and systems
		Modular systems
		Conclusion
Part III Signal Inscriptions
	9 Inscribing Sound
		Notating what?
		Mechanical writing
		Sonic pens
		The phonograph
		Crossing the epistemic gap
		Conclusion
	10 Recording
		The seeds of an industry
		Phonography as production method
		Critical studies of the phonograph
		Writing sound
		Sound as compositional material
		Real or synthetic sound?
		Phonographic writing as the condition of jazz
		Ontology of the recorded work
		Conclusion
	11 Analysing
		Interpreting signals
		Objective notation with the Melograph
		Analysis of music through visual means
		The notational quality of the sonic spectrum
		Instruments for seeing sound
		Conclusion
	12 Machine Listening
		What to listen for?
		Machine listening
		Cutting sound up into databases
		Conclusion
Part IV Digital Writing
	13 Transductions
		Wherein lies knowledge?
		Instruments as media and objects of resistance
		Embodied musial gestures
		Ergomimetics
		Ergomimetic interfaces
		Conclusion
	14 New Notations
		Writing on fluid formats
		A piece or an instrument?
		Music as invention
		Semiotics of notation for new instruments
		Composing for digital instruments
		New notations
		Live coding
		Characteristics of postlinear work
		Conclusion
	15 Machine Writing
		Transforming rules
		Machine as a human extension
		Generative music
		A form without a format
		Systematic musicology of systems
		Composers as programmers
		User-generated music
		Deep learning in music
		Conclusion
	16 Music in Multimedia
		Computational thinking in multimedia
		The invention is the work
		New platforms for invention
		Music in other realities
		Sound art as music
		Conclusion
Part V Conclusion
	17 A Future of Music Tech
		The system of the crowd
		Industry developments: a case study
		Shift ing models, but who shifts?
		Conclusion
	18 Transformation of Tradition
		Where is the new stuff?
		From consumption to production
		Composition and system
		Conclusion
	19 New Education for New Music
		New terms for new practices
		Music education in the future
		How to teach invention?
		Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index