13.6 Live electronics

composers who work primarily from the studio. The process of composing has becomes more conceptual: composers work from a clearly preconceived plan in which certain algorithms play a key role. This working method is the very opposite of the more traditional narrative form, which is a more natural fit for a time-based art like music when it is presented as a performing art.

A second consequence of the great influence of the studio is a radical reorientation on sound colour. Colour is perhaps the most important component of electronically generated sound and can be controlled in ways that are unimaginable in music produced by instruments. No matter how many registers a flute may have and can be varied with embouchure, the sound will always be that of the flute and, also the sound of an individual, the player. Composers who work a lot with electronic means may easily become addicted to the extended techniques that have increasingly become a, sometimes theoretical, part of the possibilities of an instrument. This may lead to scores in which the extended technique becomes the norm and the traditional tone the exception. This is especially frustrating for instrumentalists, as the aesthetics of the sounds prescribed by the composer is far beyond the field for which they have trained themselves and from which they derive confidence on stage.

A third effect is that a number of composers have withdrawn completely from the traditional stages and now only communicate with their listeners through the Internet, on YouTube or via Facebook, or at very specialised niche festivals for electronic music.

And, finally, there is the possibility of linking (digital) sound files to visual, graphic adaptations. This creates an artistic pendant to the video clip, of a usually high level of abstraction (see chapter VI, 10).

13.6 LIVE ELECTRONICS Laptops facilitate a second application in addition to the autonomous electronic music described above, namely live electronics. Initially, electronic music recorded on tape was quite an obstacle during live performances, as one could not do much more than switch the tape machine on and off. The performer or conductor followed the tape, often with headphones on which a click track played. Later applications were initiated by IRCAM, where they felt they had to do something useful with all that expensive equipment.

Live electronics comes in two forms: a. distorting sound live and b. record live and then playing the processed sounds, with a time delay. The first option is not hard and was already done in the 1960s by relatively simple means, although the sound result was often uniform and rather coarse. The second option was a lot more difficult and required