- 202 -Enders, Bernd / Stange-Elbe, Joachim (Hrsg.): Global Village - Global Brain - Global Music 
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ventional process. This continued the mixing of the traditional roles of composer, performer, orchestrator and producer. A score could be composed using standard methods, created in step-time, improvised or performed in real-time, or improvised against a rhythm track (Karlin & Wright 1990, Lehrman & Tully 1993). Yet these approaches still largely took place within the linear approach of analogue and acoustic music, and traditional performance/orchestration embedded in tonal language remained central.

Despite increasing expedience of production and control by the composer, liberation often led to impoverishment aesthetically of the older practices on which it was based. Gone was the collective input of the many ‘artists’ that added unique contributions at each stage of the production chain, and in some cases the vitality of the music as a result. Gone were the performance mannerisms of many individual instrumentalists with their unique instruments. Apart from physical modelling synthesis, multi-sampling and wave-table synthesis triggered through MIDI keyboards were poor substitutes for actual instruments in the hands of experienced musicians. Increasing MIDI editability did not result in equivalent intuitive real-time control of instrumental playability. A consequence was that melodic parts were often played on instruments that negated timbral subtlety and/or the musical control of sustain. Variations on flute sounds (O’Connor CD 1996, Deep Forest CD 1992) and percussive sounds (Vangelis CD 1987) serve as examples.

Given its basis, successful replication was often the result of the development of extensive traditional musicianship apart from the new technology. The unforgiving nature of digital sound and lack of timbral subtlety required significant performance, instrumentation and arranging skill to bring out a sense of musicality with the equipment. It also required production skills to compensate for the clinical nature of digital sound.

The dialectic in replication between technology and artistic decision, in contrast to craft, came from two sources. First was the continuation of the use of new sounds as a metaphor for individuality and modernity. Composers could mix effects, noise, samples and digital instruments to create distinct sounds, extending timbral possibilities within the pitch/duration paradigm. In addition, digital recording and production allowed cleaner and brighter sound and a greater sense of presence, which was under the composers’ control. This clarity was exploited as an extended dimension of production space. Greater bass presence as the basis of physical rather than emotional discourse was partly a consequence of this. Second, the precision and control that new digital technology brought allowed faster and more accurate sequences. In popular music replication this saw the use of arpeggiation in sequences often difficult to replicate physically, and the use of effects such as delay to create melody, such as in Miles’ CD For Children (1997).

Yet, as in analogue popular music, the comparative change through the application of digital technology was not in language, form or gesture. It was in the expediency and methods of production, and the continued mixing of the traditional roles of composer, performer, orchestrator and producer. Assuming the old adage that art is about what to do and science how this is to be achieved, replication then poses mainly technical and craft rather than artistic problems.


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- 202 -Enders, Bernd / Stange-Elbe, Joachim (Hrsg.): Global Village - Global Brain - Global Music