Alias States: Composing (for) Electronically Enhanced Set-ups

The forces used in the realisation of a musical work have typically been conceived of as independent to the compositional process. For example, composing a piece for a wind quintet historically has meant writing for the five instruments that make up that culturally defined ensemble configuration, and writing for the standard way in which those instruments are constructed and presented. This has changed within recent New Music. It has become commonplace for works to involve the adaptation of the physical properties of the instruments, and the application of electronic technology to acoustic instruments. This change marks an expansion of where the creative act of composition is located to include the construction of the set-up. A particular focus of engaging with the composition of the set-up is the creation of uncanny experiences of conventional musical instruments. This approach opens up possibilities to engage and transform established relationships between instruments, performers, and audiences. This project investigates the creation of hybrid set-ups that combine acoustic instruments with electronic technology and investigates how musical works can be composed for these bespoke set-ups. The submitted compositions engage this two-fold act of composition to focus on instrumental construction; instrumental techniques; and the cultural ground instruments occupy. Chapters one and two present frameworks to open up ways of theorising such works, the possibilities afforded by such works, and their effects. These ideas are developed in the two case studies that follow: Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I (chapter three) and Nemtsov’s Drummed Variation (chapter four). Chapter five provides commentary on how these issues relate to each of the submitted works, and chapters six and seven draw out larger thematic concerns across the works.