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I had the pleasure of recording recently (May 15, 2009) with erhu virtuoso Yu Hongmei http://yuhongmei.com/. This is an excerpt from one improvisation with Cilia and Erhu.

This is an entire solo recorded at a noise festival at D22, an alternate music club in Beijing. Shows a noisier side of the Cilia.

"Lucky" is a trio with Li TieQiao on sax and Zhang ShouWang on guitar. I have excerpted a Cilia solo here from a recording from Nov. 30, 2008.

On April 30, 2008 (9 am Beijing time) a musical precedent was set very quietly. I was lucky to participate in a 'tele-performance' between Stanford University and Beijing University, conceived administered and organized by Ken Fields. This is an excerpt where the Cilia was featured. Also playing was Yu Hongmei on erhu in Beijing, and Chris Chafe on electric cello at Stanford.

Bruce Gremo – verbal presentation at symposium held on March 14, 2008 as part of the “Sally Can’t Dance” festival of experimental and improvised music, D22 Beijing March 14, 2008.

This festival draws together a relatively small community of improvisers and noise makers, and is an opportunity for this community to identify itself and strengthen itself. Most important is simply presenting works and sounds, and letting the participants and audiences draw the conclusions that they will from listening. This pre-festival symposium is an opportunity for the work to be anticipated with words, but also for the ideas to be introduced that hopefully will be the basis for ongoing discussions.

这次音乐节将一个由即兴乐手和噪音制造者组成的小团体集合在一起，对于这个小团体来说，这也是一次定义身份和壮大自我的机会。最重要的只不过是发出声音，让参与者和观众从倾听中得出他们的结论。这次音乐节前的座谈会用语言为作品的聆听提供预想的空间，同时也是为了阐明观点，以期引发后继的讨论。

So I will start in this spirit, with some ideas, rather than a biog of myself, ideas that will speak to some of the sources of my upcoming Sunday performance using the Cilia, without trying to explain it.

因此，与其做一番自我介绍、对自己的作品做出解释，不如阐发一些理念，让这些理念为我周日的演出开道。

Improvisation, noise and experimentation are terms used to describe this festival, and terms by which I would assume most of us here describe ourselves. I can best understand these as part of a constellation of terms which are paired; composition is paired with improvisation, control with abandon, intelligible with unintelligible, agreement with disagreement, determinate with indeterminate. I choose to understand the relationship of these paired terms as one of contradiction. If contradiction means that something is and is not at the same time, then for example, improvisation is the negation of composition. But what remains harder to grasp is the simultaneity of the two. It is very easy to loose the contradiction and have one resolve into the other. For example, when you begin by understanding noise as the unintelligible and then rationalize it as the physicist might by saying, “all frequencies simultaneously at random amplitudes,” then you have effectively resolved the contradiction, as though it were an unwanted question that needed an answer.

即兴、噪音和实验是形容这次音乐节的词语，我猜想参加演出的大部分乐手也会用这些词语来形容自己。我想用词语总是成对出现的语言格局来解释它：比如“作曲”总是和& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; ldquo;即兴 ”同时出现，而“控制”和“放任”、& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; ldquo;明晰”和“晦涩”、“一致”和“分歧”、& ldquo;确定”和“模糊 ”也总是形影相随。我把这些成对出现的词语之间的关系视为矛盾。假如矛盾意味着是，同时又不是，那么举个例子来说，即兴就是作曲的对立面。然而，仍然令人困惑的是这二者的共生性。矛盾总是很容易相互转化。比如说，若你最初将噪音理解为晦涩，那么试着使它合理化，就像科学家说的那样： “声音是混杂的，含有以不同振幅包络层叠的许多频率”，那么你也就有效地解决了矛盾，尽管这是一个不需要也不必去解决的问题。

Or say again, if you say “that is noise” when music affects you in a powerful and unfamiliar emotional way, and then mute the sensation by saying “no, that is too much for me, I won’t let myself be affected that way again,” then the contradiction has been resolved by disparaging the music as if it were an undesirable practical matter. It is an all too familiar audience response to anything ‘avante garde,’ or difficult.

或者，当音乐以一种有力而又陌生的方式向你袭来时，你还是会说 “那是噪音”，继而紧闭你感官的大门对自己说“不，这对我来说太难以接受，我不会让自己被这种方式感染 ”，这个时候矛盾被你用贬低你所听到的音乐的方式转化，就好像那音乐真的一无是处一样。这是观众们在面对“先锋 ”或者艰深的音乐时的普遍反应。

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu, in the opening lines of the Tao Teh Ching says,” The Dao which can be said is not the genuine Dao.” This is a brilliant formulation of a principle of contradiction. To paraphrase and parse it a little more; we say the Dao when we know that in saying it, we have not nor can we say it.

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus, known for his fragments is especially famous for one, called the river paradox. “The river into which we step is and is not the same river: we are and we are not.” Sounds like successful improvisation to me.

中国古代哲学家老子在《道德经》的开篇写道：“道可道，非常道”，这是对矛盾的对立统一原理绝妙的阐述。进一步分析这句话，可以用语言表述的“道& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; rdquo;，它不是永恒的道。

古希腊前苏格拉底时代的哲学家赫拉克利特提出的“ 河流悖论”更是为我们所熟悉——“我们既踏入又没有踏入同样一条河流：我们既存在又不存在。 ”对我来说，这就是成功的即兴。

There are traditions of thinking that depart from a principle of contradiction rather than a principle of non-contradiction in every culture. The reason for mentioning this is to point out that what I do as an experimenter and improviser is old, not new.

每一种文化都有背离矛盾的思维定势，没有人会想着去打破和谐。

What if one were to think of contradiction not as a problem that needs to resolved, but rather a positive phenomenon through which one could more effectively understand the world at large? This postulation is my point of departure in describing what I try do as a musician. I seek out contradictions in my material. I try to expose it in my performance process. I try to find ways to keep the tension of contradiction alive; I try to resist the tendencies to resolve contradictions into neat answers. There is an emotional quality that I seek that can only be achieved when contraries are allowed to vibrate. The emotional narratives that I engage as a musician are all driven by contradiction in some way.

假如我们不把矛盾看作需要解决的问题，而将它视为一种积极的现象，一种我们可以透过它，更加充分地了解世界的手段，那又会怎样呢？这个假定就是我试着成为一个音乐家的出发点。我在我的素材里寻找矛盾，我试图将它在表演过程中呈现出来。我设法保存这种矛盾的张力，我不想把矛盾转化为工整的答案，我抵制这种思考问题的倾向。我在寻找一种情感特质，而这种特质只有在各对立面并存且产生共鸣的时候才能获得。作为一名音乐家，我所参与的情感叙事始终被矛盾驱使。

Composition and improvisation are two sides of a coin. The composer premeditates, bringing a wide array technical skills to bear on a musical problem. It is not an automated process; there is spontaneity, surprise, accident, trial and error. There have been times when I have not wanted to admit that there is much in one of my scores that I don’t know the sound of until I hear it in actual performance. It ended up on my page through some kind of spontaneity, and its unprecedented quality is precisely what justifies its being there on the page.

“ 作曲”和“即兴 ”好比硬币的正反两面。作曲家针对特定的音乐问题，运用各种技术技巧进行预先谋划。这不是一个机械化的过程，这其中有自发性，包含惊喜、意外和不断地试错。我曾经不愿承认，面对总谱，我并不知道演奏出来是什么效果，直到我在实际的演出中听到它被演奏出来。在我的自发性的指引下，音乐最终在乐谱上固定下来，它的前所未有的演奏效果被它在乐谱上的形式所确证。

John Cage was a student of Arnold Schoenberg’s in Los Angeles briefly. The story that Cage tells, is that one class, Schoenberg approached him, pointed randomly to a note on his page and asked Cage, why is that note there? Cage responded, I have absolutely no idea.

John Cage曾跟随Arnold Schoenberg学习过音乐。Cage回忆说，有一次上课，Schoenberg走向他，随便指着乐谱上的一个音符问他，为什么这个音会在这儿？Cage答道，我怎么知道！

Similarly, no improviser goes into a performance without having practiced, without a set of techniques and musical agendas, ready to be used as the moment inspires. Even improvisers who endeavor to be anti-technicians have inversely honed their skills so as not to sound like they are in control. It is nevertheless, control. There have been times when I have found it hard to admit that I practiced lines to the point of predetermining what I will play in an improvisation.

与此相似的是，没有一个即兴音乐家在演出前不需要排练的，他们也需要为灵光闪现的时刻储备技术和动机。即使是那些一心反技术的即兴音乐家，他们千方百计想让自己摆脱控制，殊不知这其实正是一种控制。我曾不愿意承认，在进行即兴演奏之前，我往往会练习稍后用得上的乐句。

Both accounts, that of the composer and of the improviser speak to an assumption that we fall prey to sometimes, where we think we must be fully in control and consistent in our approach. I think neither; we can never be fully masterful, and therefore we are bound to be inconsistent. That realization is the beginning of another kind of mastery, and this process does not end, it is open ended.

对作曲家和即兴创作者两者而言，有时当我们认为一切都必须得到全然的控制并保持态度的前后一致时，我们就会为此而受折磨。我认为我们永远都不可能完全精通音乐，因此出现不协调是必然的。拥有这种意识是我们走向娴熟的第一步，这个过程远没有结束，它是开放的。

A young new player in Duke Ellington’s orchestra was embarrassed and apologetic when he played some wrong notes in a performance. The Duke replied, “You’re a musician. Next time make them sound right!” I like to think he meant to play the same wrong notes with the right confidence.

Duke Ellington的乐队里有位年轻乐手为自己在演出时出错而感到羞愧，Duke对他说： “下次演奏时好好发挥，你是一位音乐家！ ”

One contradiction to be found in composition and improvisation is between control and abandon. All good players, improvising or not, know this. There is a feedback loop always between listening to the sound you produce and responding by adjusting the technique. In the listening, there is a moment of abandon as you put some sound out there; in the response, an attempt to control and negotiate the resistances of the instrument. With really good instruments, the resistances are so complex that there is always something beyond the player’s control. With great players, the negotiating and feedback happens so fast and so constantly, the listener can’t parse it. The sound just vibrates and shimmers, and even if one can’t parse it, it is still very audible. In live performance, the contradiction is sustained in the event, in the moment.

控制与放任是作曲和即兴间的一对矛盾。所有优秀的乐手，无论即兴与否都深明此理。反馈总在倾听你制造出的声音和调整你的技术对它做出反应这两个过程之间萦绕。在倾听的同时，你发出某些声音，这就是放任；当你适时反应时，你又总会有意地控制并调整你的乐器。好乐器总是很难调适，总有些东西超出你的控制。对好乐手而言，调整与反馈发生得如此之快，以致听众来不及细细分析。声音就这样震动、闪烁，即便你无法分析它，你仍然清晰地听到了它。矛盾在现场演出中被保存并展示出来。

In the kind of music I am thinking of here, the traditional division of labor between composer and performer is not very pertinent. So, it is better to speak of composition performance, certainly of the composer-performer. Musicians who represented this ideal to me, and who represented a tradition of musical thinking which sought out the problem of the contradiction, were electronic improvisers like Richard Teitelbaum, and the extraordinary ensemble that he was a part of, Musica Elettronica Viva (Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski).

就我所谈论的这种音乐而言，传统的将作曲者和演奏者分开的做法是不恰当的。我要明确的是创作并表演，既是创作者又是表演者的情况。在我看来，理想地达到了这种状态，并用音乐思维成功地解决了矛盾的音乐家，是那些电子即兴表演者，比如Richard Tietelbaum，还有他参与的即兴音乐小组Musica Elettronica Viva。

It is common terminology in contemporary electronic performance arts to speak of controllers. On Sunday I will perform on a controller which I invented called the Cilia. It is a flute controller. I have endeavored with it to make an instrument capable of nuance and detail of control that matches and surpasses the standard set by good acoustic instruments. I want it to be a good event controller. In my estimation, electronic controllers have a poor record as live performance instruments. They are too simple; switches and simple direct controllers. They are entirely adequate for controlling processes, and when processes are complex enough to be interesting, event control is not the point and not so relevant. There is a whole other topic here which has to do with non-human control sources. I only mention it in passing. But here is the limit that prompted me to become an instrument inventor; electronic controllers tend to be quite inadequate as event controllers. It’s a problem if the electronic music in question aspires to event control. Acoustic instruments are event controllers. What is produced is simultaneous with the control action, e.g., moving the fingers and breath on a wind instrument. Acoustic instruments are the best paradigm for event control. One promise of electronic instruments is that they can surpass the complexity of control already there on an acoustic instrument. I have pursued this on the Cilia through expanding the control concepts to include; simple and continuous control, dynamic control (controllers directly controlling controllers), and control networks (mediated and indirect control of controllers by controllers).

在谈论当代电子乐表演时，常提到调控器这个词。在周日的演出中，我会用上我发明的一个笛子形状的调控器，我把它叫做“纤毛”。我已尝试过用它来改装乐器，让乐器能表现更细微的音调差别，能被更周全地控制，使原声乐器拥有超越标准原声乐器的性能。我想成为一个优秀的事件调控者。在我看来，电子调控器与现场演奏的乐器一样不尽如人意。它们太简单了，拨弄开关就能直接控制。它们足以控制表演进程，而当演出变得复杂有趣时，控制事件便不再是重点，也不再那么恰当。这是与非人为控制的素材有关的另一个话题，我只想一带而过。不过这种局限性促使我成为一个乐器发明者；电子调控器不适于调控事件。若我们讨论的这种电子乐热衷于事件调控，问题便会接踵而至。原声乐器才是事件调控者。比如当你演奏吹奏乐器时，随着你的调控动作——移动手指和调整呼吸的发生，音乐也被同时生产出来。原声乐器是用于事件调控的典范。电子乐器能保证的是超越业已施加在原声乐器之上的控制的复杂性。这就是我用“纤毛& rdquo;想要达到的目的。

The pertinent point here is that I have an instrument by which I can approach contradiction; meaning here a vibrating between control and abandon, non-control. It can only happen with an ‘event’ controller.

　　恰当地说，我有一把乐器，用它我可以接近矛盾，也就是说在控制与放任，还有零控制之间产生了震动。这种震动只有在使用 “事件”调控器时才会发生。

Okay, so I have an instrument through which I can pursue the tension of contradiction. But why not stick with my flute? That is my first instrument, and there is much that I have already developed in terms of extended technique. After all, old instruments are re-invented all the time, by developing novel ways to play it, either by developing new techniques (e.g., percussive sounds and multi-phonics on wind instruments, (e.g., Pharoah Saunders may have been the first ‘screech’ sax player, Robert Dick developed multiphonics on the flutes), or non-pitch based performance practices developed by guitarists like Derek Bailey, or process oriented performance strategies (e.g., circular breathing and process oriented textural playing (e.g., Evan Parker)). Reinventing old instruments through new performance practices is instrument making as well.

对，我有一把乐器，我可以用它来追求矛盾的张力。为什么不把它固定在笛子上呢？毕竟，人们一直在用各种各样的方式翻新旧乐器，通过探索新奇的演奏方式，或者摸索新的技巧（例如吹奏乐器的percussive sounds和multi-phonics-Pharoah Saunders、Robert Dick等人）、采取新的表演策略（例如circular breathing and process oriented textural playing-Evan Parker等人）。通过新的演出实践来翻新旧乐器，同样是一种制造乐器的方式。

Quite simply in response to my own question, my pursuit of a new computer music controller (the Cilia) has much to do with the semantics of sound. Noise is a powerful concept and material that I am very interested in. It draws me because of the ease by which one can demonstrate the contradiction of intelligible and non-intelligible. The computer enables me to generate fantastic orchestras of sound not available through a symphony orchestra, let alone a flute, my first instrument. There is nothing new here, except… .

很简单，我用新的电脑音乐调控器，也就是我的“纤毛”所要追求的，与声音语义学有很密切的联系。噪音是一个有力的概念，同时也是有力的素材，我对它非常感兴趣。它之所以吸引我，是因为可以通过它展现明晰与晦涩的矛盾。电脑让我能够创造出交响乐团不能创造出的美妙乐曲，更不用说是笛子，我的第一件乐器了。这其实没什么新鲜的& hellip; …

To the extent that the musician is also an instrument maker, and to the extent that the process of making the instrument itself was one that ‘shimmered’ between control and abandon, perhaps then, sounds can be heard that have never been heard before. To make a claim about sounds never having been heard before, we have to point to more than the sonic material, the physical elements. ‘Intelligible and non-intelligible’ are structural and linguistic concepts. We experience noise when we are perplexed, and perplexed when we do not know how one thing follows another. For example, ‘noise’ performers do not generally perform melodies. But the elements of melodies may appear and then be followed by glitches or filtered white sound, or something which seems as though from a different language. This is a moment of structural or linguistic noise. But run the sequence a few times and it takes on familiarity and perhaps therefore, intelligibility. If a performer is to maintain the tension of contradiction then something of a different order has to be introduced. Otherwise the tension resolves as though it were a discomforting moment that needed to be smoothed over. It’s something I hear happen frequently with many looping strategies.

音乐家也是乐器制作者，制造乐器的过程本身在控制与放任间熠熠生辉，到了这个份儿上，我们从未听到过的声音就有可能被创造出来。要声称创作出某种我们从未听到过的声音，除了声音材料等物质元素外，我们还要给出更多东西。“明晰与晦涩”是结构和语言学的概念。噪音使我们感到困惑，当不知道接下来会发生什么时我们也感到困惑。比如说， “噪音”艺术家通常不会演奏动听的旋律，但构成旋律的元素可能会出现，继之以低频噪音、白色噪音或者某种我们不熟悉的音乐语言。结构的或者语言学的噪音瞬间一连串地出现，渐渐的熟悉感也就会产生，也许，也就会变得明晰。假如一个表演者想要保持矛盾的张力，那么他需要让人们了解另一种不同以往的秩序。否则，如同某种令人不悦的东西需要被抚平一样，这种紧张感就会被消解。这种不太理想的状态在艺术家不停地循环演奏时经常会出现。

There is nothing new here except … how noise is defined. And that is a big deal. My own experience tells me that it has to happen from the ground up so to speak. The instrument needs to be invented anew. It is a point of camaraderie I find in communities of improvisers and experimentalists; most either invent completely new instruments or use old instruments in novel ways. The novelty cannot be understood in terms of sonic material. It is more to do with how the musician structures material. It is entirely possible to re-invent the wheel. The moment of invention is no less powerful. The material that the wheel is made of and how it is implemented; that is where the singularity is. Where there is singularity, there is dislodgment from your sense of the real. Noise alone doesn’t do that. The contradiction inherent within it does, if it is brought out.

其实没什么新奇的，除了噪音是如何被定义的。这是一个重要的问题。我自己的经验告诉我，先要有基本立场，然后再去谈论。乐器需要翻新，无论即兴乐手和实验艺术家发明了全新的乐器，还是在旧乐器上寻找突破，这是我在这些人身上找到的共鸣。新奇的事物不会被理解，假如你只呈现声音素材，更重要的要看音乐家如何结构素材。重新发明“方向盘& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; rdquo;，寻找新的方向是完全可能的。发明的过程也同样重要。用什么来制造，怎么组装这些材料，这才是独一无二的。有了独一无二的东西，才能打破你的惯性，这仅靠噪音是办不到的，靠的是矛盾的固有属性。

The late great experimental composer Stockhausen once said, “The only thing I ask of a composer is that he astonish me.” What an understatement! Of course, it is the most difficult thing to do. Singularity is astonishing. And it is the most difficult achievement in music. That is why I am an experimentalist. Out of necessity. And hopefully, out of humility. Because I don’t know what I am doing half of the time. But like any good experimentalist, I know that I don’t know, and I am aware of the parameters of my ignorance. Here is a contradiction to be found within experimentation; I am both prepared and not prepared.

伟大的实验作曲家Stockhausen曾说过： “我在作曲家身上寻找的是震惊。 ”这想法听上去很保守，但这也是最难办到的。独一无二就是令人震惊，它是音乐领域最难获得的成就。这也是我成为一名实验艺术家的原因。把必然性和谦逊抛到一边，因为有半数的事件我并不知道我在作什么。但像任何一个优秀的实验艺术家一样，我知道我不知道，我知道我的无知的界限。在实验内部我们可以发现矛盾的存在，我既做好了准备又没有准备。

When you make your own instruments, you are compelled to think through all the various sounds, structures and playing strategies that you want to be able to perform. In building an instrument, you are building the conditions for composition performance. In academic composition, it is called ‘pre-composition.’ It was really one of Schoenberg’s gifts to music. But it is not possible to anticipate everything. No amount of pre-composition will allow one to anticipate everything. Nor should it. And so best to conceive of a new instrument as a laboratory, open to what is beyond you. Again, to the extent that the process of making the instrument itself is one that shimmers between control and abandon, such an instrument will not only prepare the composer performer for compositions that have been premeditated in their structure, but also facilitate an indefinite number of compositions that could not be so premeditated. Best if one’s performances seem like gifts from the gods.

当你自己制造乐器时，你不得不思考如何实现那些你想要表现的音效、结构和演出策略。在制造乐器的同时，你也在为作曲并表演准备条件。用作曲理论术语来说，这叫做“前作曲”。这也是Schoenberg的天赋所在。当然，你不可能预先准备一切。“前作曲”也不可能，也不应该预料一切。因此，最好把新乐器当作实验室，以开放的姿态面对你未知的东西。再次重申，就制作乐器的过程本身来说，它在控制与放任间闪光，这样一件乐器不仅能为作曲并演奏预先准备好的结构服务，它还能为不可预知，无法准备的创作服务。最佳状态是使表演看上去像天赐之物。

I was influenced retroactively by one of my teachers, Martin Bartlett, perhaps the first composer to write pitch-tracking interactive music as early as 1980. Martin built his own computers and made his own synthesizers, from scratch and from developer’s kits that were available at the time (1970s into the 1980s). Even David Tudor was in awe of his accomplishments as an instrument maker. Through Martin, I became aware of the long history of the paradigm of the composer performer instrument maker. That is my tradition, to which I owe most of what I do.

我曾经的一位老师Martin Bartlet深深地影响了我，他也许是上世纪80年代最早创作音高追踪互动音乐的人。Martin利用70年代末80年代初可以找到的配件自己制造了电脑和合成器。就连David Tudor也为他制造乐器的才能所折服。通过Martin，我逐渐了解了由来已久的作曲者、表演者、乐器制造者集合一身的音乐史。这种传统也是我一直努力为之奋斗的。

David Tudor was a master of masters when it came to this kind of instrument building composition performance. I was lucky to attend perhaps his last big performance before he passed away, in Brooklyn at St. Anne’s Church (was it 1995?). He performed for more than an hour from one of his extraordinary table tops filled with improbable arrays of wires, chips, processors and interfaces. He suddenly stopped, looked up at the audience and said, “For a little while now, I have completely lost all sense of where my channels are. I guess that means the performance is over. Thank you.”

David Tudor是乐器制造-作曲-演奏领域内大师中的大师。我有幸参加了他在布鲁克林圣安纳教堂的演出，这也是他辞世前最后的大演出。他在成堆的电线、集成块、信息处理器和各种接口面前演出了一个多小时，突然停下来对观众说：“ 就在刚才，我忽地感觉迷失了方向，所有的波段都不见了。我想这表示演出结束了。谢谢你们。”

我想借用他的这句话作为我演讲的结束语，谢谢你们的聆听。

What should an instrument be? A composer’s narrative concerning the making of an instrument.

The Cilia is a new musical wind instrument, recently developed as a performance ready prototype. My design collaborator Jeff Feddersen and I were recipients of the 2004 Harvestworks Interactive Technology Award and Residency. I would like to begin by thanking Harvestworks for making the Cilia project possible. In some ways, this narrative is a report on the results of that residency. As Jeff is not directly involved in the writing of this paper, I would especially like to express my gratitude to him. The Cilia would not have been possible without his initiative, interest and inspiration. Not the least, the name “Cilia” is his contribution.

The Cilia consists of an electronic controller through which a performer can generate musical control through physical gestures, and a software application that receives the data generated by the controller and implements it in generating sound. What is expressly new about this project is the controller[1], and so in reporting on the actual process, I will focus on it over other aspects, such as synthesis. As a performer and composer, the practical results of this process have been exciting. As a composer and philosopher, no less so. Work on the Cilia has lead to some new reflections on first premises. As the title indicates, I will focus on the relationship between (moral) imperative and musical instrument making.

First consider this case. If we want to produce sound ‘x’ and then build instrument ‘y’ to accomplish this, then we should expect results ‘x.’ The instrument should produce the desired results if it is built correctly, doesn’t malfunction, is played competently, and nothing intervenes in its performance. These conditions make possible the desired results. Should indicates an expectation that these conditions will be met; the conditions for the likely-hood of result ‘x’ are set in place. By creating conditions that enable specific results, an instrument’s efficacy and therefore its use value are determined. This looking forward to results we could call a utilitarian ‘should.’

Instrument making also affords an opportunity to look backwards towards an imperative that is not simply utilitarian or self-empowering. In a second case, we consider less the instrument’s use value, and more what the instrument is of itself. Considering the conditions for a desired actual outcome is quite different from considering conditions for the possibility of the existence of something. If in asking for the latter we demonstrate that something always already is the case, then we have demonstrated a relationship of necessity. A moral imperative only has the force of necessity when it derives from such a condition. Here, a utilitarian should (e.g., what should I do (here and now)?) is contrasted with an ontological should (e.g., what do I do (always already)?).

I would simply propose at the outset that our activities as composers are grounded in an ontological imperative; namely, to speak. Furthermore, this imperative derives its efficacy from the very nature of what we are; self-reflecting and discoursing beings. This would best be demonstrated by tracing a thread of consequence from the play of the immediate and mediate of musical gesture, back to the originary linguistic fact of the irreducibility of indication and signification. In this narrative, I will simply trace the terms of the problematic.

As to whether this a practical report or a critical inquiry…. The instrument making process was both practical and critical, and thus this narrative reflects the process more accurately by replicating the complexity. The composer reaches in two directions; forward to results and backwards to premises. Both are needed in pursuing a first topic of the craftsperson, what is my material? Minimally, this two-sidedness simply attests to the complicity of theory and practice.

1. I propose an idea of the orchestra defined from the perspective of a composer. This idea of orchestra is that of a single instrument capable of producing sound with an indefinitely complex inner horizon.

1a. Inner horizon of sound refers to the complexity demonstrated within the simultaneity of a single musical gesture. If it is deemed to be indefinitely complex, this means that the complex simultaneity of sound exceeds ones capacity to hear and to understand it. When single sound gestures have inner horizons that are so complex that they are already narrative, then much has been accomplished.

1bi. Currently, timbre and layering are the concepts by which I organize the Cilia’s sound worlds. There are four types of timbre; instrument timbre, harmonic timbre, timbre density, and texture. Of layering, there are three; monophony, heterophony and polyphony. Together, these concepts enable description of the inner horizon of sound.

1bii. The computer application has an interface for the controller, and signal generating modules that implement the control data. The application interface receives data from the Cilia controller, from audio ports (microphones) and midi ports (track pads).

1biii. Sound generating processes include; complex FM and Ring Modulation, additive synthesis, sample processing, one and two source re-synthesis, granular synthesis, and filtering.

2a. A player attempts mastery over the instrument, and the instrument responds by asserting mastery back, the quick listening performer responds again with an adjustment, and so on. When there is constant adjustment, and when the adjusting happens so quickly that a listener cannot track it, then virtuosity happens. It is not simply control or lack of it. In this regard, controller is an unfortunate choice of terms.

2b. Composition is a species of performance. Composition performance happens with the mediation of concepts of musical material in the immediacy of a musical gesture.

2c. Composition performance happens directly through instruments, in which case it is usually called improvisation. It happens on paper and is then additionally mediated by another musician. This second mediation is a different type of performance. It is to some extent interpretive and certainly mechanical.

3a. It is desirable that such an electronic controller be capable of playing ‘orchestrally’ in this above defined sense; that is, with nuance and complexity with regard to the indefinite inner horizon of the sound. The sound synthesis strategies should facilitate this.

3b. The performance practice exemplified by highly accomplished acoustic musicians is a desirable paradigm for an electronic controller performance practice.

3c. Following from the above, I propose that the Cilia be an instrument of orchestral dimensions used for composition performance.

4. An acoustic instrument is an ‘event’ controller. The control interfacing (the technique and the mechanisms for executing technique) and the sonic results are always in direct relation to one another. A sound follows from a physical gesture as though uttered, as in a simple indication. This is not the only criterion for being an event controller. There is a feedback of response and interpretation that happens; mediation in the form of concepts, memories, value judgments, in short, significations.

4a. The conditions for event controller – an equa-originary relation between indication and signification – is also the condition for language.

4b. By default, this happens primarily with human performers. But by definition, whenever a control source is able to monitor its results, and on the basis of this almost immediately change how it generates control, then event control is demonstrated. It would be a bad human conceit to exclude whatever one might mean by artificially intelligent or robotic performers from this. The standard of event controller is at once a high mark of controller design, but at the same time a limit of acoustic instruments.

4c. The Japanese shakuhachi (the classical vertical bamboo flute) is the Cilia’s acoustic model for control gestures.

4ci. The shakuhachi is arguably the most ergonomically efficient flute. Furthermore, its capacity for timbre nuance is an inspiration. Given the sound concepts, it is desirable to move away from pitch-centrific concepts of the musical instrument. Finally, the complexity of finger technique on the holes suggests that minute yet dexterous physical gestures are the best model for playing technique. The Cilia is to be motivated by a principle of efficiency, not excess. The Cilia maximizes the potential for highly nuanced performance-time control of timbrally complex sound by minimizing the physical effort associated with complex performance gestures.

4cii. Like the shakuhachi, the Cilia has five continuous controllers for five fingers, four on the front of the instrument, one on the back for the left thumb. Whereas the shakuhachi has holes for the fingers, the Cilia uses fast high resolution speed track pads.

4ciii. Like the shakuhachi, the Cilia is a wind controller. Specifically, it is a flute controller; its mouthpiece is activated by blowing, producing an air column and splitting it. It should be noted that this strategy is unlike any other wind controller that we know about. Wind controllers have been air pressure sensors, requiring a closed lip technique. The Cilia controller requires an open lip technique as on any true flute. On a shakuhachi, this splitting of the air column produces the standing wave complexes inside the instrument. The Cilia analyzes the dynamics of the split air column and derives continuous data control. The air column is split with a mouthpiece which is meant to feel like the shakuhachi. The split air column stimulates the surfaces of two small microphones. These microphones register the speed and pressure volume produced by the player. From this dual measurement, additional streams of data are derived; ratio, maximum volumes, mean volumes, and scaling and mapping. This can be combined into compound controllers, and when applied one to the other, dynamic controllers.

4civ. Like the shakuhachi, the performer holds the instrument vertically blowing down into the mouthpiece.

4cv. Like the shakuhachi, its performance gestures take time to learn and perfect. It is not an easy instrument to play.

5. By contrast, a process controller sets in motion an automatic selecting of discrete elements or values, e.g., through sequencing, algo-rhythms, or control sources external or in addition to an interactive performer e.g., sonification).

6. Electronic controller instruments can be both event and process controllers and that is simply, strength.

6a. It is better to have maximized resources than not. Therefore, the Cilia should be both event and process controller.

6b. The balance that is achieved between the two is an aesthetic, that is, value judgment that arises from the requirements of a particular score, application, performance, or preference.

6c. Whatever the balance, it is important that the Cilia reach a high standard of event control, one that matches if not surpasses the standard set by acoustic instruments. Currently with the Cilia, the balance weighs towards event control, but does not entirely exclude process control.

The amplitude sensor (mic) data from the Cilia mouthpiece was our first big problem as it turned out to be very jittery. It was illuminating to me as a flute player of many years to realize how much the acoustic interior space of a flute smoothed many of these jitters. Although there were recognizable generalized shapes, the jitteriness made it impossible to derive stable control streams directly from the two mics.

Increase the wind speed on a shakuahchi and the pitch will jump into a higher octave. More is involved. In order to maintain consistent timbre and precise frequency control, the speed change is accomplished by making the hole in the lips smaller, much like squeezing a garden hose. The pressure (from the diaphragm) remains the same, the velocity increases and the volume of air decreases, timbre and tuning are controlled, and the player doesn’t expire quickly from hyper-ventilating.

The Cilia uses fricative noise on the entire surface of low gain mics to read amplitudes. There is no hardware component that allows us to track a difference in the surface area affected. Unlike the shakuhachi, the Cilia mouthpiece does not track the changing size of the air column produced by the player. This is a limitation of our first wind control design strategy. But our approach has been to use existing technology in new ways, and to start simply. Creating sensors to enable this additional analysis is a future research problem.[2]

Our ‘octave leap’ solution employed the ratio between the two mics. We track a continuum of proportion between the two mics and define two thresholds, thus three octaves. This is a physically analogous to the shakuhachi techniques of playing in and out of the flute, meri and kari. When the inside mic is more proportionate, then the lowest ‘octave’ is produced. When the outside mic is more proportionate, the highest octave is produced. There is one intermediate octave, produced when the mics have a closer proportionality. A combination of data averaging, ramping, and interval gating (removal of large jumps in the data stream) provided non-jittery ratio streams. When we simply averaged the data out, latency occurred when we wanted the instrument to play as close to the breath as possible. When we relied only on ramping the data (filling in the jumps with continuous streams of values at small intervals, the response became sluggish, losing the original breath gesture profile. When we relied only on interval gating, the jitters were simply reduced, not eliminated. A slow trial-by-error process tweaked the combined techniques to optimize response to the breath. The precise relation of the two mics to each other and to the player’s mouth, the placement of a separator that splits the air column, and the setting of the mic gains all factored into how the three basic data manipulating techniques were tweaked. Lets call this a 1^st order breath controller.

The data stream produced with the above techniques is then parsed, processed and mined for derivative control data streams; e.g., maximum volume, mean volume, scrolling functions. These are often used as threshold triggers as well. All are derived from the original amplitude streams of the two mics. Lets call these 2^nd order breath controllers.

The track pads were an easier control source to work with than the mics. We used specialized track pads manufactured the Synaptec company.[3] This company makes track pads that meet the requirements for script tracking. They have a high resolution (0 – 6000) and are very fast. Stabilizing the data of these 1^st order pad controllers was not difficult. The pads themselves are three dimensional continuous controllers, having an ‘X’, ‘Y’ and a ‘Z’ parameter. The Z parameter tracks the percentage of the pad area covered, but functions like a pressure sensor as one has to press harder to increase the percentage. On acoustic wind instruments, non-vented fingerings completely close the length of the instrument tube from the top down, vented fingerings introduce ‘holes’ into the length of the instrument tube. In addition to these, the Cilia uses ‘numeric fingerings’, determined by the number of pads being used. Doing this required a routine which quickly, collectively and continuously determines the ‘event’ status of all pads (whether fingers are on or off). Lets call these 2nd order pad controllers. Pad ‘event state’ patterns can be tracked to act as triggers, and when combined are used to create note and duration sequence triggers; 3^rd order pad controllers.

Frequently, several 1^st and 2^nd order breath controllers are compounded, or dynamically interpolated. Lets call these 3^rd order breath controllers. For example, a central function in the application is the generating of amplitude envelopes. The 1^st or even 2^nd order controllers are not enough to manifest the musical intention behind the breath work of the player. The design complexity begins by asking how one can follow the player’s intentions. As a player, I want to be able to blow intensely and quietly. I want to be able to hover on the threshold of silence without worrying that my sound will jitter on and off. I want a staccato attack followed by the smoothest legato. And so on. If Cilia is a wind instrument, it will do such things. Difficulties arose at the threshold of ‘silence,’ where the mic stops registering data. Using only 1^st and 2^nd order controllers, the threshold was always jittery. Even after consistently ending the breath gestures (after much practice), there were numerous little indeterminacies that ‘jittered’ the data back above the threshold. At the other end of the amplitude spectrum, when I shifted into bel canto mode and wanted to ‘sing,’ the controllers were reading my intentions too literally and I never achieved a stable maximum envelope value.

I took one microphone control stream, the maximum volume, and drove controlled ramps with it. The ramps were intended to account for the non-linear response of the ear to amplitude. And so I achieved a stable maximum. However, this had an inflexible envelope signature which never reflected my musical concept. There are micro-inconsistencies, moments of indecision or decision in the breath technique of wind players which make for nuance and vitality. To retain this vitality, I routed the ramped control through a scaled attenuator itself controlled by the mean amplitude (2^nd order) run through a table which biased a bandwidth of the amplitude spectrum. (At this point of ad hoc, I realized I would never be a computer scientist, and would remain a bricoleur!) Still I had to resolve the silence threshold.

The acoustics of the shakuhachi tube (resonances, reflections and resistances) enables ramping of the volume into nothing, relatively easily. On the Cilia I had to find something analogous to this. Strictly speaking, reflected sound continues after the player stops blowing. It is certainly true with a room; it is true at a micro-level within the space of the shakuhachi tube. Reflected sound was the clue to my solution. The maximum volume activates an attack portion of the ramped envelope which freezes at that level until it receives a ‘0’ value from the mean of the two mics. Until it does so, the tabled control mentioned above is in effect. When the breath stops, the mean reads zero, triggering the fixed first envelope down to zero. And upon this zero, the modifying amplitude envelope also slopes down to zero. It works.

There is a certain excitement in trying verbalize a MSP patch, as though it were a play-by-play delivered by a sports-caster. But please compare with this diagram.

Apparently, continuous controllers are best characterized by their relation to a control destination. Without the destination in mind, there are no criteria by which to tweak and manipulate the control data. Another way to say this; much of the control tweaking happened by ear, by conjecturing that a certain form of synthesis might be an effective destination and hearing whether it was so. Recording the data and analyzing it next to the audio results was a common procedure for us. I believe however, that more decisions were based on how the application sounded, and the recorded control data simply corroborated what we heard. (Probably the most important single realization from recording all of the control data was just how enormously complex the act of blowing into a shakuhachi is.)

Cascading FM synthesis can mean many things given the myriad ways that modulating and control signals can be configured, multiplied and added to one another. In most cases, the strategy enables very rapid change from simple sounds (sine waves) to extremely complex noisy textures. There is a direct route from the instrumental timbre to timbral density. This is a huge asset. But slight changes in the control configuration can yield hugely different sonic results depending where in the cascading process the control data is routed. This makes the strategy inherently unstable depending on the control destinations.

For example, say that a finger pad control is being routed to a modulating frequency. The pad has a very high resolution, a finger is never absolutely still, so the pad almost always generates data. Even when one scales it down and removes the repeated values that result, considerable instability in the sound can result. Quick lesson and conclusion; pad continuous control parameters are not useful for controlling modulating frequencies. Or rather, it generates intense sonic activity, especially when there are four steps in a cascade. My ‘ears’ told me this immediately. Or rather my hair did, as it too often stood on end! But this poor modulating frequency control source, turned out to be an asset when directed to the modulating signals’ amplitudes. In changing a layer of the overall cascaded frequency spectrum rather than the frequency spectrum itself, the impression is one of highly controlled timbre change.

Some controllers work best for specific destinations. Control sources have idiosyncrasies. It is important to develop them along with particular sound generating process. It has proven true for all synthesis forms used. Currently, the application routing of control sources and destinations is almost all hard-wired.

The CIilia has approximately twenty continuous control parameters, an indefinitely large number of discrete controllers (triggers), and no end of compound and/or dynamic controllers. This is a surplus of control. If we analyze the shakuhachi in terms of continuous control functions, perhaps we find two per each of the five finger holes (amount of the hole covered and the distance of the finger from the hole), and five related to the breath technique (ratio of the split air column, velocity of air stream, volume of air, diaphragm pressure, and placement of the tongue). By comparison, the shakuhachi has around fifteen continuous controllers, fewer discrete controllers, and everything is already a compound and dynamic controller. To have this potential for control surplus with a minimum of hardware was really our first success.

Having a surplus of control, our next task was to find the most effective limits, and so reduce the player’s effort in producing complex sound, and responsibility for tracking every control stream. It is a practical matter here. The premise is that not only more controllers, but additionally, more dynamic relations between them makes for nuanced, complex and compelling sound production. However, although a capable instrument can therefore not be an easy one to play, it should not be more difficult than need be.

Three ways of making instruments and a

problem.

Thinking of instrument making as composition is hardly new or controversial. Since the early days of electronic music, there have been in-numerable examples of composers who built their own instruments from scratch. It is interesting to consider that the recourse to and interest in improvisation shown by many experimentalists grew more from the character of their new instruments than from some polemic with paper scores and pre-determinism. That their instruments had character, which is to say that they predetermined or pre-delineated what could happen in a performance, was how they were already scores. I believe it to be a combination of philosophical conviction and an obsessive character that keeps such composers engaged in what they do.

Yet still, and after all, it would seem that only a minority of composers engage sonic material at this most basic level. Perhaps it is the case that a greater percentage of composers do so given a different definition of instrument. What is the inference here? It is the ‘modernist’ argument that new structures (the pre-compositional creation of something like a consequence logic) will be sufficient to recalibrate the old physical instrument into new ones. Whether they know it or not, composers always presuppose something like a consequence logic, an understanding of how one thing follows from another, even if it can only be accounted for as a vague concept of narrative. Such composers explicitly and deliberately create new ways of structuring. It is how one makes something new, not for its own sake, but because it is of this time, and is right for this time. In this way, the symphony orchestra can be turned into a new instrument with each new piece. How one hears a musical thing is dependent upon the context in which ones hears it, and new structures continue to provide new contexts. Accepting this for a moment and also whether or not the symphony orchestra is able to contribute to the future of music instrumentation, there are still relatively few composers who see their task as re-inventing the symphony orchestra as an instrument through the creation of new structures.

Creating new ways to play old instruments has been another answer; that is, an instrument is defined by performance practice (extended technique playing, new modes of interacting and listening). Many composers have attempted this, first in the 60s and 70s, either suggestively through new notations or through a more hands-on definition of technique (e.g., multi-phonic fingerings for wind instrumentalists). My impression is that anyone who attempted to develop such novel performance practices with conventional orchestras ran up against the bill. Even if their performance was reasonably good, the rising cost of orchestras and the rising ire of professional players kept them from a second performance. Apparently, such scores have seldom been invited back. There are notable exceptions, especially in the past decade in smaller ensembles where traditional orchestra players are no longer the paradigm. But it is not my task here to make a report on this, and I do believe that what I assert here is general knowledge.

Any sociology of music will be quick to point out prevalent economic and market driven conditions. New instrumentation equates with un-intelligibility and this with noise. Noise has no market, and is not marketable unless one changes it into something else by making it intelligible. New instruments always run the risk of being noisy. These premises perhaps lie somewhere in between Adorno[4] and Attail[5]. I mention it not because of the merits of this type of argumentation, of which I think there are many, but because it does not inform my problem. I am not complaining or lamenting. I believe that it is a composer’s obligation to inform the rest of the world what it should know. The composer knows something that the rest do not. So the injunction to the composer is, tell the rest. So what is the problem here?

The problem is to find the means to tell what one knows. In this composer’s case, it meant becoming an instrument maker. Electronic music (read technology) has made this a possibility. Technology would appear to be the metaphysics of the present, and only on this basis can we speak of the future of music. But I can only be a musician of the future because I have immersed myself in the past. It is the study of the past that reveals who we are and then what we may become. After all is said, it suffices to conclude that the Cilia is a flute. The flute is a very old musical instrument.

Cilia Propositions 2.

7. The instrument should be the first topic in a composer’s inquiry concerning musical material.

7b. Musical material originates in the instrument, not in the physically abstracted sound of the scientist.

7ci. It is no different even when one considers acts of listening as composition performance. Then the ear is ostensibly the instrument. But the ‘ear’ is more than the physical sense organ. It is also response to and interpretation of ‘stimuli.’ Listening is crafted, no less than the Cilia. For what end does such crafting take place? Above we suggested that the composer knows something, and the first composition problem in any piece is how to ‘tell’ what one knows.

8. From early on, we have suggested that performance is always complex; that there is an oscillation between what is immediate and what is mediated. Linguistic philosophers would here speak of indication and signification[6]. The movement between the two is a condition for language, and then for listening and telling, or discourse.

8a. If truth is a property of language, and if music is linguistic in the above sense, then truth is also a property of music.

8ai. We have a simple syllogism here. In itself it demonstrates little, but it does aid in articulating a problem. The problem concerns the discursive character of music. Of any truism concerning music, that it is a language is both the most easily offered and the most difficult to understand. Given the problem of the relation of truth and language, the higher stakes become clear indeed.

9. Building an instrument is as radical or originary a thing as a composer can do. It is what enables insight into the fundamental discursive character of musical material.

10. What should an instrument be? With so little demonstrated, it will seem too hopeful to answer ‘truth teller,’ but doing so is irresistible. Always one returns to it. Already I am there.

[1]

These photos are of the pre-prototype; performance ready, but not road ready, nor optimized.

These two shots are of the prototype currently being finished.

[2] We anticipate at least four areas for future development.

All ‘controllers’ on a shakuahchi have the same destination. The sound produced immediately feeds back and affects these same controllers. Control and sound generation are bound together. Not so with the Cilia. Its design is predicated on the separation of the controller from the sound generating processes. It is linear, control source to destination. Future development of the Cilia application will continue to pursue this analogy with the shakuhachi, and have its sound feed back and alter the controllers.

When we think of control configurations working over time, we are able to describe controller behavior. This is a clue as to how the control dimension of the Cilia can continue to develop.

As mentioned earlier, creating sensors to enable tracking of the changing size of the air column produced by the player is a future research problem.

At first, I had concept of a hardly visible instrument of light, translucent and visible from afar because of LED lights. Jeff researched the prospects and demonstrating his brilliance and initiative, re-conceived and designed the body from three dimensionally milled rosewood and aluminum tubing. Whereas I had thought invisibility in terms of translucency, Jeff reconceived it in terms of profile. When you look at the instrument frontally, it is almost like a line. It is also very light weight. That is of ergonomic importance. What remains to be done with the current prototype is to find the best solution for fashioning the mouthpiece, making and routing cables within the instrument and printing a circuit board. The current prototype is tethered. When the right inexpensive wireless technology becomes available, we will use it. There are battery and power supply issues that need to be resolved then as well.

[3] Synaptec

[4] Adorno, Theodor W.

1. Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. Mitchel and Blomster (New York; Seabury, 1973).

2. Intoduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York; The Continuum Publishing Company, 1976).

Both of these texts implement the critical technique developed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. It has struck me that Adorno’s work has remained un-availed by the music theory mainstream largely because this non-music work remains unread. His musical writings are hard to fathom without this ‘primer.’

3. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Herder and Herder, (Minneapolis; U. of Minnesota Press, 1989).

[5] Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis; U. of Minnesota Press, 1989).

[6] Giorgio Agamben, Language and Death: The Place of Negativity, Trans. Pinkus and Hardt , (Minneapolis; U. of Minnesota Press, 1991). I am relying on Agamben’s discussions of E. Benveniste in tracing the origins of this claim out of linguistics. Agamben updates the problematic with his discusses of the work of linguist R. Jakobson.

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Three ways of making instruments and a

problem.

Cilia Propositions 2.