Digital Musicianship meeting  – Orpheus Institute 2022

between Craig Vear with Jonathan Impett, Peter Dejans, Paulo de Assis, Luk Vaes, Juan Parra, Bruno Forment

Key Insights:

  1. affordance is a crucial element in the critical understanding of the digital score
  2. digital scores can support radical practices and social interventions beyond traditional forms of music-making
  3. creating with ubiquetous technologies (such as smart devices) must be supported with a critical understanding of the affect and impact of the technology beyond its role as a tool of creativity
  4. traditional and conventional topics of disucssion around the nature of a score are fruitful areas of exploration for digital scores e.g. notation, enscription, post-scripting, economic, publishing
  5. digital pluralism is a common theme in current student practice, with post-digital thinking at the centre of the notion of a ‘digital auteur’.

1. The signals that are emitted from digital media and technology are of critical importance in who they can be used and understood as creative materials. This needs to be at the forefront of any education involving digital tech and media.

2. Alessandro Ludovico outlines some radical practice and social interventions in his book “Post-Digital Print” that highlight concerns of contemporary creativity. The digital score can be a useful vehicle with which to framer these practices in digital music.

3. when using ubiquitous technology to create it is important that we look beyond it as a tool and understand what it is doing to us, or how it can shape and control our actions and creativity.

4. The word ‘score’ comes loaded with a range of preconceived meanings and terminology. It is a fact of musical life to so many cultures and musics. It is important that we look into this and explore further the political and social aspects of the broader issues surrounding the score.

5. It was acknowledged here and at the University of Ghent talk, that a new bread of digital musician is coming into HE, one that not only is interested in digital music but one that creates using many digital tools and media. in a sense, we are moving into an age of the ‘digital auteur’.