Output details

Music and Technology: What Impact does Technology have on the Dramaturgy of Music?

The article reflects upon the theoretical approach to music dramaturgy that the author has applied in practice in his compositions. It presents a philosophical perspective on technology’s impacts on music’s dramaturgy, particularly contemporary music, and references research by Weale/Landy and Delalande.

It proposes a new categorisation of the concept of music’s dramaturgy and it investigates how the impact of technology in music is perceived from different perspectives, including - those of the creator, the performer and the listener. It focuses on how composers and performers approach technology and how this can be perceived by an audience. Although based on previous research and practice by the author and that of Weale/Landy, it deviates from the latter by not applying test-subject based research. By proposing an own categorisation of music dramaturgy instead, the main focus is set on what happens in the mind of listeners (reception) during a performance and afterwards rather than the creator’s perspective (intention). It also proposes an additional 7th behaviour to Delalande’s six. It asks questions about the impact of technology in music perception and proposes answers categorising different emergent types of music creator.

A previous, shorter paper with the same name published in the 'Proceedings of the 2008 Computers in Music Modelling and Retrieval' (CMMR) and Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning Conference (NTSMB) and presented at the CMMR/NTSMB 2008 - 'Genesis of Meaning in Digital Art' conference won the award of 'best conference paper presentation', for which the enhanced invited paper for the HMM for this output was the actual prize.