Using traditional stringed instruments such as a guitar was previously my starting point for composing. Brief sound sampling experiments within the DAW and MIDI keyboard revealed exciting potential to create my own unique instruments. Ken Jordan and Paul Miller (2008, p. 103) comment on the dematerialisation effect of DAW software; each element of an instrument can now be assigned to individual controls to suit your own unique specifications.
Constructing music within the DAW deconstructs the musical instrument. Jordan argues that the music of the twentieth century resulted from technological manipulation of sounds extracted from their origins (Jordan 2008, p. 255). He also claims that constructing computer-based music allows the artist to bypass pre-existing technological barriers and mesh all available instrument elements and sounds (2008, p. 247). Synergistically Michael Nyman argued that the experimental musician goes beyond the conventional mechanisms to develop sounds disconnected from the instrument (Nyman 1999, p. 20). For example, the musician can now take a snippet of a bent trumpet note and combine it with the tail end of a cymbal crash. This can then be pushed, pulled, cut, warped and reversed to create a new unique sound. These readily available techniques for creating unique sounds help the artist develop the fundamental building blocks of their own individual sound palette.
Contemporary musician Beardyman’s passion lies in unleashing the potential for sounds created solely by his voice (TED Talks, 2013). In conjunction with software and hardware developers, he created a machine to help facilitate this process. In real-time he can create, layer, manipulate and loop every sound he produces (2013) (video media 1).[1] His piece is reminiscent of Cage’s Water Walk in that both pieces are experimenting with relationships formed by sounds bypassing traditional instrumentation and compositional arrangements (Cage et al. 1965) (video media 2).
