TY - JOUR
T1 - Electroacoustic Improvisation and the Metaphysical Imaginary
AU - Noone, Matthew James
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2022/8/1
Y1 - 2022/8/1
N2 - In a previous edition of Organised Sound, I discussed the potential for using the North Indian sarode in electroacoustic music. In that article, I explored how electroacoustic music artists manage to integrate multiple cultural frameworks, while also acknowledging the importance of personal artistic agency. The primary question that emerged from that research is extended in this article: how does an electroacoustic performer of a non-Western instrument improvise outside the idiom of their tradition? In order to address this question, I draw on Tomlinson's concept of the metaphysical imaginary. In my own performance practice, I employ the metaphysical imaginary as a framework to explore a transcultural, transcendent, perhaps even spiritual potential of electroacoustic improvisation. The metaphysical imaginary will be explored in two dimensions: the synchronic and the diachronic. The synchronic dimension looks horizontally across cultures, while the diachronic dimension looks in a temporal verticality, looking inwards and downwards, to a time before modern culture. In the article, I discuss the performance practice of other musicians working across different cultural frames who explore the metaphysical in their improvisations. The article also looks backwards in cultural historical time and investigates how improvisers draw inspiration from a pre-modern cultural world, combining these imaginaries with modern sound techniques. I will situate my own work within this mosaic of practices, concluding with a discussion of electroacoustic improvisations using the sarode, extended technique and the re-imagining of pre-historic sonic rituals.
AB - In a previous edition of Organised Sound, I discussed the potential for using the North Indian sarode in electroacoustic music. In that article, I explored how electroacoustic music artists manage to integrate multiple cultural frameworks, while also acknowledging the importance of personal artistic agency. The primary question that emerged from that research is extended in this article: how does an electroacoustic performer of a non-Western instrument improvise outside the idiom of their tradition? In order to address this question, I draw on Tomlinson's concept of the metaphysical imaginary. In my own performance practice, I employ the metaphysical imaginary as a framework to explore a transcultural, transcendent, perhaps even spiritual potential of electroacoustic improvisation. The metaphysical imaginary will be explored in two dimensions: the synchronic and the diachronic. The synchronic dimension looks horizontally across cultures, while the diachronic dimension looks in a temporal verticality, looking inwards and downwards, to a time before modern culture. In the article, I discuss the performance practice of other musicians working across different cultural frames who explore the metaphysical in their improvisations. The article also looks backwards in cultural historical time and investigates how improvisers draw inspiration from a pre-modern cultural world, combining these imaginaries with modern sound techniques. I will situate my own work within this mosaic of practices, concluding with a discussion of electroacoustic improvisations using the sarode, extended technique and the re-imagining of pre-historic sonic rituals.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153352466&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S135577182100056X
DO - 10.1017/S135577182100056X
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85153352466
SN - 1355-7718
VL - 27
SP - 172
EP - 181
JO - Organised Sound
JF - Organised Sound
IS - 2
ER -