Admission requirements:
An interest in electronic music.
Description:
A Seminar which will seek inspiration for music using electronic means
Is it possible to make music without reference to an act of performance? Electronic music is perhaps the only musical genre attempting to develop without a performance practice. Though this situation is no longer the default, basic themes remain in dispute. In the last century European music was for the most committed to its own history and rationalized symbol based compositional systems, but audiences and composers are now comfortable with a wealth of musical inspiration coming from non western sources and hybrids such as Jazz all of which are rooted in hands on practice. We will look at the need for new instruments. What are the issues: the man machine interface, the novelty of synthetic sound or the changes wrought by recording and digital media?
What should we look for in this diversity towards our invention of music? Is it possible to imagine music without pleasure? Is listening a solitary activity? Human culture reveals a myriad of contexts and intentions from celebration and ritual to healing and social harmonization.
Is there a theory of electronic music? What are the real liaisons between Emu and science? How has being digital revised our relation to traditional music? Do we seek out totally new concepts or has the break with the past been greatly exaggerated? What are the obligations of music to ‘objective’ time? Or is there a specifically musical time?
The Paradigm of music creation has been under strain since the invention of recording, now it clearly fractured. Distinctions like author, score, interpretation, copy, do not produce clear lines in the mind. Copyright is a legalistic solution seldom to the benefit of creatives. Subsidy puts decision in the hands of bureaucrats. Is a composer responsible for negotiating these conditions or is music at the service of pre-established social norms of state or entrepreneurial sovereignty? Are constructions of ownership in conflict with the need for of human communication or creative desire?
Study requirements
Students from Leiden University hoping to acquire the 5 ECTS will be expected to do a musical project or writing assignment.
Timetable
First and second term. Mondays 12.45 – 15.00 hours, Varèsezaal at the Royal Conservatory, Juliana van Stolberglaan 1, Den Haag (near Den Haag Centraal Station).
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h3. Mode of instruction
Lecture and seminar
Registration
NB: this course is NOT listed in Usis. Students are obliged to register for this course through the application form that can be downloaded via this link.
Contact
Rogier Schneemann
Kees Tazelaar or info@sonology.org.
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