Crossing cultural boundaries through technology?
Simon Emmerson
Abstract
In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the use
of instruments (and their performance traditions) from other –
usually non-western – cultures in contemporary western art music in
general and electroacoustic music in particular. This article examines
the possible bases for such inter-cultural interactions. Many such
instruments come from highly developed traditions, which may be little
understood by the western composer; many performance practices,
attitudes and aesthetics may likewise be misunderstood in both
directions. The problems and opportunities afforded by technology is
a major issue.
The article will examine critically these issues drawing particularly from the
author’s experiences working with Indian, Korean and West African
musicians (as well as ‘non-standard’ western instruments such as the
harpsichord) with ‘western’ electronics. It is divided into three
parts:
- Some key questions for the composer and educator
- The intervention of technology: the opportunities
- Music examples from works by the author
1. Some key questions for the composer and educator
Cultural exchange has always enriched western European music from the time of
crusades to more recent musical appropriations such as Mozart and Haydn’s ‘Turkish
Music’. But since the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and Debussy’s encounter with the music
of Indo-China – and, for that matter, other more indirectly ‘exotic’ influences from
Russia – this became increasingly more explicit. We see a self-conscious reappraisal of
western tradition apparently searching for the seeds of renewal both within and outside
its increasingly less defined boundaries.
I have been working with musicians of other backgrounds than those from standard
western academies since 1988. Firstly with a mixed Anglo-Indian ensemble (Shiva Nova
which at that time included flute, cello, sitar and tablas) for whom I wrote a piece
(Pathways) with the addition of sampler and live electronics in 1989; and now more
recently with the Korean kayagum player Inok Paek for whom I wrote a live
electronic work completed in 1998. In addition I have written another