Music 256a Reading Response 4, Fall 2021
Ray Gifford


Chapter 4: Programmability and Sound Design

I'll be responding to "Principle 4.5" from Artful Design chapter 4. The principle states that we should "design things with a computer that would not be possible without".

This is an interesting point, that we should use a computer to make computery things... because it allows for that. It makes sense, to try to capitalize on the advantages of the medium, to create something unique to that medium. There are always people trying new things in music, I feel, including those who make computer music. There is a spirit in experimental music to be innovative, with new technologies often, to take on unique approaches to music making. This spirit sometimes reads as avoiding conventions, at all cost. Conventions, that to me, don't exist. Whether or not that new approach equates to novel sounds, is a different thing altogether. So I guess, you could set out on a brand new approach, "designing" sound from this new approach, that only a computer allows for. In doing so you would be "designing something with a computer *in a manner* that can't be done without". However, the result may begin to sound like a known sound from a known genre... in effect "remaking what already exists." So, I don't know. I always tend to make things that I want to hear. If I want to hear something that would be impractical, or even impossible, with physical instruments... then I coincidentally make that thing... and the computer might be the tool for the job. I'm not one to make something unique, just for the sake of making something unique; but rather make something that I like, and it will inevitably be unique.