Array, the journal of the International Computer Music Association

Hoffman, Elizabeth

47 48
Featured Article
What is at Stake in the 
Politics of  Digital Music 
Archive Access Policies? A 
Brief  Look at Some Evolving 
Issues.
by Elizabeth Hoffman
If  Jorge Luis Borges were brought back 
to life today, in the second decade of  
the 21st century, he would no doubt 
believe that his speculative proposition 
of  a universal library – a library 
containing every work that had been, 
or could ever be written – was close 
to being accomplished in the form of  
crowd-sourced online libraries that 
purport to store and catalogue all of  
the world’s knowledge. The cultural 
implications of  these newly evolving 
structures are clearly vast, but this 
article seeks to understand them 
in terms of  our collective concepts 
of  Music History – particularly 
electroacoustic music history. How 
have crowd-sourced online libraries 
impacted on electroacoustic music 
curricula so far, and how in what new 
ways will they do so in the future? Most 
importantly, who gets access to these 
libraries, and how? The politics of  
access management is of  vital relevance 
to all computer music composers working 
with music in recorded form, and to all 
composers and musicologists working with 
notated scores - including of  experimental 
contemporary music. It is thus issues of  
access that I seek to analyze in this brief  
essay.
Crowd (or group) created libraries (often 
called “public repositories”) stand in stark 
contrast to the many single-entity curated 
digital music collections that exist online, 
such as Ubuweb. The large number 
of  users who upload materials do so in 
response to a one-time request, as per 
a temporally delimited archive creation 
process; or in response to an ongoing 
invite, much like Wikipedia’s model. 
In a classic expression of  the Web 2.0 
paradigm, users are the content providers 
– albeit working in tandem with the site 
managers and creators. Such crowd 
created repositories may be conceived of  
as digital assemblages with historical or 
cultural preservation goals, or they may 
be community clearinghouses for sharing 
and exchange. Their management and 
access strategies therefore vary in relation 
to their goals. 
1. Selected comparisons of  
curatorial strategy and maintenance
What follows is a description of  three 
public repositories for music that each 
implement different access models: the 
Free Music Archive, the Open Music 
Archive, and the International Music 
Score Library Project.
1) The Free Music Archive (http://
freemusicarchive.org/about) is a legal 
charity and it accepts monetary donations 
in that context. A curated site, its purpose 
is to foster public access to high quality 
digital files of  legally downloadable 
new music of  all genres, but especially 
“experimental” music. The FMA does 
not, therefore, accept all submissions. 
Its curators include more than a dozen 
international open-source sound 
collection and distribution entities. The 
FMA’s principles flow from those that 
guide its parent, a listener-supported radio 
station called WFMU (Jersey City, NJ) in 
2009. WFMU’s Board meetings are open 
to the public. WFMU is run by a team of  
publicly acknowledged individuals. FMA’s 
download numbers for particular postings 
are public.
2) The Open Music Archive (http://www.
openmusicarchive.org/) embodies a 
radically different concept.  It was 
created by UK sound artists Eileen 
Simpson and Ben White in 2003 as 
an ongoing research project to locate, 
digitize and distribute out-of-copyright 
recordings. They specialize in archiving 
other contemporary archives, including 
installations with historic materials, or 
sound documentary efforts. Differently to 
FMA and IMSLP, the site is fascinating as 
a musicological resource, offering critical 
meta-commentary about the nature of  
recording, preservation, and ownership. 
This site does not publicly reveal its user 
base; it promotes its files as knowledge and 
materiality for further artistic use, which 
typically manifests in compositional use 
by its user base. This archive seeks neither 
membership fees nor donations.
3) The International Music Score Library 
Project (https://imslp.org/) is a repository 
created in 2006 which focuses on digitized 
scores, although recordings and videos 
are meaningful components, too. In 
contrast to the FMA, the IMSLP is 
arguably more attuned to the past than 
the present, since it specializes in scores 
that are in the public domain. Yet it 
valuably includes 20th and 21st Century 
composers; Frederic Rzewski, with over 
a hundred self-uploaded items, is one 
important example. Scores for mixed 
music by early tape composers, including 
Varèse, are also present. It is thus an 
invaluable educational and scholarly 
aid – particularly for those whose school 
libraries may not have a physical score, or 
for whom properly scanning an oversized 
score would be a practical inconvenience.
It is worth noting that the owner of  the 
IMSLP decided in 2015 to transform the 
free access forum into a two-tiered access 
Featured Article                                                                                                                             Elizabeth Hoffmanarray 2016/2017
49 50
system. IMSLP thus now invites members 
for $22.-/year; non-members can still 
access content, but the trade-off is banner 
advertisements and a 15-second per item 
download or viewing wait-time.  As of  
this writing, IMSLP has at least one “non-
affiliated” portal that does not impose 
the download wait for non-members – 
Canada (PML-CA). The IMSLP is now 
run by a company called Project Petrucci 
LLC, of  Delaware, NJ, USA; and this 
corporation does encourage monetary 
donations.
2. A focused look at music access’ 
political questions 
The experience of  using an online 
platform or service for free, only to have 
this use subject to restrictions or controlled 
via managed access, is a familiar one with 
contemporary digital media. Such ‘bait 
and switch’ business models succeed on 
the basis that users have already invested 
time and resources into a particular 
database, and so will grudgingly accept 
the shift in access model – but what are 
the politics of  this shift when the content 
is created by users themselves? The 
evolution of  the IMSLP’s access policies 
prompt such consideration.
The IMSLP’s maintainance itself  is 
communally based, or ‘bottom up’. 
Since there is no centralized curation it is 
arguably the most democratic repository 
of  these three archives. Anyone may 
contribute virtually anything so long as the 
site maintainance specialists do not object 
on the grounds of  intellectual property 
transgressions, and so long as the item is 
Music. However, the IMSLP is also the 
least transparent: no statistics regarding 
number of  item-by-item downloads are 
available from its undeniably massive 
archive. In other words, balanced atop 
the bottom-up processes of  curation is an 
evolving top-down political philosophy 
and practice. Despite being wholly 
dependent upon its user base, the site does 
not advertise its board meetings externally, 
nor does it reveal any other information 
about its long term (and recently devised) 
financial plan to which the IMSLP ties 
the membership implementation (and, 
implicitly perhaps, the incorporation). 
Looking into the future, a researcher of  
models for community repositories might 
reasonably ask the following: Does a 
Digital Music site initiator or manager 
have an obligation to the user community 
to ensure perpetuation of  the site beyond 
some theoretical point of  the initiator’s 
personal interest or capacity? And is such 
an obligation based on: the length of  
time that the site has been in operation? 
The size of  the user base? The nature 
of  the content in relation to cultural or 
scientific knowledge? Finally, what are 
the implications of  a public respository 
becoming privatized?
In December 2015, a comment piece 
by Norman Lebrecht initiated a long 
discussion concerning this issue.  Two 
recurring discussion criticisms seem 
particularly significant to me in relation 
to the questions posed in this article. The 
first is the assertion that a co-op has been 
monetized after the fact, and without 
offering compensation to those who 
played a role in the database creation. 
The second is that the monetization 
makes use not only of  others’ manual 
labor, but also of  their intellectual and 
private property – in the latter case this 
was done without their authorization for it 
to be sold. 
Consider a fuller explanation of  the 
second point. While for public domain 
components the contributions by 
volunteers are 1) their time and 2) 
their property, i.e., their digital files; 
for new music, the contributions are 
intellectual property that has been ceded 
to IMSLP  “to use … in a manner 
similar to a work in the public domain.” 
(This is the IMSLP’s stipulation for any 
contributions.) 
New music on IMSLP, including the 
category of  arrangements, is often tagged 
with greater license specificity than is the 
public domain repertoire. For instance, 
a “Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0” 
provision is common. Monetizing these 
uploads after the fact would thus seem to 
disregard original wishes, the license still 
applying after the download but not to the 
download itself. 
As a reader of  the blogpost will note, 
there are also numerous comments that 
are not critical at all. Two focus points 
are a defense of  the “reasonable” nature 
of  a mere 15-second wait time, and an 
interpretation of  the monetization itself  
as a creative idea. “Let [the initiator] reap 
the benefit of  it.” In sum, a more fine 
grained analysis of  feedback would be 
required to analyze the demographics of  
negative, neutral, and positive responders 
regarding IMSLP’s new access policies.
3. Conclusion
This article has sought to ponder the 
politics and philosophy of  preservation 
goals and access in public repositories, 
beyond the explicit or implicit social and 
economic choices that regulate them. 
These choices contribute to the shaping 
of  our contemporary digital life – they 
impact us as a professional community, 
as individual composers, and as non-
specialist users. Through the mediation 
of  public repositores, new notions of  
authorship, ownership, authenticity, 
access, canonisation, and value systems 
are being imagined and implemented. 
Can privatized sites retain their 
commitment to the ideologies of  openness 
Featured Article                                                                                                                             Elizabeth Hoffmanarray 2016/2017
51 52
and knowledge sharing that characterised 
the sites when they were public, or are 
they being fundamentally transformed?
Digital music archives now reach millions 
of  diverse users across the globe. How 
users respond to particular digital archive 
models will have profound impacts on how 
the archives persist and evolve. This in 
turn will impact on how we teach music 
courses, how we program concerts, and 
how we define and tell our histories (as 
well as Herstories!) Music repositories can 
contribute to the redefinition of  expertise, 
as less advantaged individuals are granted 
access to resources that were previously 
reserved for the wealthy or those with 
institutional affiliations. Do private access 
models undo some of  the good work 
achieved by peer-produced models like 
Wikipedia, or do they improve these 
services?
Communal archives offer remarkable 
opportunities for musicians. They 
have the potential both to educate and 
to encourage independent thought, 
cultivating users as cultural participants, 
social activists, and consumers. What 
better way to reactivate concert audiences 
than to encourage online outreach, 
participation, and cultural engagement?
Footnotes
1. A discussion thread at this link 
appeared last year: http://imslpforums.
org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8187 [site 
accessed 2/6/16 - 6/7/16]. 
2. “Musicians are made to wait as free 
score site goes pay-for”, attracted a large 
number of  comments early on (the article 
and its discussion thread may be read in 
full, here: http://slippedisc.com/?s=music
ians+are+made+to+wait&submit=search
Featured Article                                                                                                                             Elizabeth Hoffman   array 2016/2017


English

What is at Stake in the Politics of Digital Music Archive Access Policies?

Yang, Wanjun

Review Concert 19

Peiying, Yuan

15 16
High-Quality Music Synthesis,'' Journal of  
New Music Research, 27(3), (September 
1998), pp. 211-238.
I have written about systems aspects of  
working with animation and music in Dan-
nenberg, "Real Time Control For Interac-
tive Computer Music and Animation," in 
Proceedings of  The Arts and Technology II: A 
Symposium, Connecticut College, (Febru-
ary 1989), pp. 85-94,  and Dannenberg 
and Rubine, "Toward Modular, Portable, 
Real-Time Software," in Proceedings of  the 
1995 ICMC, ICMA, (September 1995), 
pp. 65-72, and Fred Collopy has an inter-
esting web site devoted to this topic. In the 
computer music languages and systems 
area, see Dannenberg, "The Canon Score 
Language," Computer Music Journal, 13(1), 
(Spring 1989), pp. 47-56 for an introduc-
tion to the idea of  scores as programs and 
how temporal semantics can be added 
to a programming language to create a 
music language. This work was extended 
in Nyquist as described in Dannenberg, 
"Machine Tongues XIX: Nyquist, a Lan-
guage for Composition and Sound Syn-
thesis," Computer Music Journal, 21(3), 
(Fall 1997), pp. 50-60. More recently, I 
have turned to language support for real-
time systems, and some of  the most recent 
ideas are in Dannenberg, "A Language for 
Interactive Audio Applications," in Proceed-
ings of  the 2002 ICMC, ICMA, (2002), pp. 
509-515.
 I gave some examples of  what I consider 
to be good examples of  research-oriented 
software tools. More information can be 
found in Bencina and Burk, "PortAudio 
-- an Open Source Cross Platform Au-
dio API," in Proceedings of  the 2001 ICMC, 
ICMA, (2001), the PortMusic web site, 
Mazzoni and Dannenberg, "A Fast Data 
Structure for Disk-Based Audio Editing," 
in Proceedings of  the 2001 ICMC, ICMA, 
(2001), pp. 107-110, James McCartney, 
"Rethinking the Computer Music Lan-
guage: SuperCollider," Computer Music 
Journal, 26(4), (Winter 2002), pp. 61-68, 
the csounds.com web site, the Nyquist web 
site, Déchelle, Borghesi, De Cecco, Maggi, 
Rovan, and Schnell, "jMax: An Environ-
ment for Real Time Musical Applica-
tions," Computer Music Journal, 23(3), (Fall 
1999), pp. 50-58, Burk, "JSyn -- A Real-
time Synthesis API for JAVA," in Proceedings 
of  the ICMC, ICMA (1998), Cook and Sca-
vone, "The Synthesis ToolKit (STK)," in 
Proceedings of  the 1999 ICMC, ICMA, (1999) 
and the STK website, Wright and Freed 
(1997), "Open Sound Control: A New Pro-
tocol for Communicating with Sound Syn-
thesizers," in Proceedings of  the 1997 ICMC, 
ICMA, pp. 101-104 and the OSC web site, 
Lopez-Lezcano, "The Planet CCRMA 
Software Collection," in Proceedings of  the 
2002 ICMC, ICMA, pp. 138-141 and the 
PlanetCCRMA website. 
  
Impressions of  ICMC 2003
Yuan Peiying
As the final notes of  Steve Everett’s 
Gamelan Asmaranda lingered in 
the air, signaling the end of  the 
International Music Conference 2003, 
I was overwhelmed with a cascade 
of  thoughts. What came to mind 
immediately was most definitely regret 
and remorse that there would possibly 
never be another chance to participate 
in such a conference in Singapore 
ever again. Thankfully, however, I had 
managed to learn many things from the 
conference and I am glad that I have 
been given this invaluable learning 
opportunity. 
There were several memorable events 
that had taken place throughout the 
five eventful days of  the conference. 
When attending concerts, what amazed 
me most was the realization that 
computer music is actually a very ‘real’ 
form of  music. The sounds, although 
digitally enhanced and altered, are 
most realistic and are a reflection of  
the everyday sounds we come across. 
There is no shortage of  compositions by 
various composers to prove this point. 
Rikhardur H. Fridriksson’s Lidan II, 
showcased during the last day’s evening 
concert, is one example. The sounds 
used had real-life origins, which were the 
coughs and gasps produced by the human 
vocal cords. Moreover, the piece was 
inspired from and a direct consequence 
of  a period of  bad health and respiratory 
disorder of  the composer himself, thus 
highlighting the reality attached to the 
sounds of  computer music. 
I sat on the bus the other day and was 
perturbed by the screeching noises of  
the brakes. I walked past a construction 
site this afternoon and for the first time, 
I wasn’t irritated by the blast of  sounds. 
Instead, my mind was imagining how I 
would be able to use these sounds in my 
compositions. These are but two examples 
of  how my participation in the conference 
has broadened my perception of  music 
and triggered off  much creativity and 
imagination.
The range of  compositions presented 
was wide and a definite eye-opener. 
Besides more ‘traditionally’ computer 
music sounding works, like Apostolos 
Loufopoulos’ Night Pulses, whose night 
sounds were quite distinctly simulated 
through computer mediums, there were 
slightly more avant-garde sounding works, 
as well as works that challenged the norm 
and brought in other influences. Works 
like Naotoshi Osaka’s Mirrors for hichiriki 
(a traditional Japanese wind instrument), 
array summer 2004ICMC Keynote Address
17 18
Paul Rudy’s Fantasie for erhu and Pierre 
Alain Jaffrennou’s Study for pipa drew 
distinct inspiration from traditional 
instruments of  the Chinese and Japanese 
civilizations. However to a certain extent, 
one can say that exploration into these 
instruments have been made before and 
there is relatively little that composers can 
offer in writing new music and exploiting 
new sounds from these instruments. On 
the other hand, there were composers who 
dared to divulge into the less explored. Of  
particular mention is Shahrokh Yadegari’s 
Traditionally Electronic. The title itself  
suggests a juxtaposition of  traditional 
and electronic elements, which is what 
takes place between the Indian/Persian 
violin and vocals, and the computer. The 
result of  this unusual marriage of  Indian 
performance technique (with its Persian 
origins) with the ‘Western’ computer is 
a delightful creation of  new sounds and 
spiritual awareness. Combined with the 
intricate setup of  lush, rich-coloured rugs 
and a drone-box to boot, the spiritual 
realm created by electronically processed 
traditional violin and female vocals was 
unforgettable. It was as if  the audience 
was being transported into a different 
world and experiencing a certain degree 
if  soul-enlightenment. Such is the power 
of  the combination of  elements.
Another piece which struck me was Mark 
Applebaum’s Pre-composition, a hilarious 
work that is in actual fact an ironic and 
sarcastic exorcism of  the often irrational 
‘council of  elders’ in the composer’s head. 
This work for 8-channel tape tickled so 
many bones that I was still laughing to 
myself  about it back on my way home. 
But what made it so successfully sarcastic 
was that it highlighted exactly the way 
computer music sounds when clichéd and 
simplified. The twist at the end involving a 
‘radical’ method of  ending that particular 
‘composition’ was, in itself, refreshing, 
one of  those things that just make you 
go ‘wow, why didn’t I think of  that?’ This 
piece earns points for being original in 
concept.
Although all the pieces showcased are 
masterpieces themselves and deserve 
much credit and recognition, there is 
this biasness on my side as an audience 
to particularly remember pieces that, 
besides providing audio pleasure, are 
accompanied by visual images too. 
Several pieces had live performers on 
stage or were in the form of  videos, but 
by far the most successful combination 
of  audio and visual mediums must have 
been the silent movie screened on Italian 
night, with live music provided by the 
Edison studio. The music was well-paced, 
suited to complement the film, and was 
also effective in creating suspense in this 
horror film. The drama created would not 
have been possible without the excellent 
live music provided that night. Although 
it is true to say that when watching a film, 
the visual impact always hits hardest, it 
is the music and sounds that complete 
the whole experience and help paint a 
certain, complete atmosphere. As much 
as the conscious mind refuses to listen to 
it carefully when it is being pre-occupied 
with processing what showing on screen, 
the sub-conscious is actually processing it. 
So even if  the audience walks away not 
distinctly remembering any of  the music, 
credit must still go to the musicians who 
worked hard in letting audiences enjoy the 
movie tremendously.
It is weird to mention in this essay that 
it is almost always hard for audiences to 
know when a piece of  music has properly 
ended. Applause at the end of  the song 
often comes hesitant and half-hearted, 
because audiences are often in doubt as to 
whether the piece has formally come to an 
end. An analysis into this ‘problem’ shows 
that it is not so much that people have 
been bored by the music or do not like it. 
Very often this is not the case. People may 
be very willing to show their appreciation 
of  the work through thunderous applause, 
but are not sure of  when to show their 
appreciation. Perhaps it is the use of  
silence and space in computer music that 
makes the ending so ambiguous. The 
three dimensional concept of  space, when 
used in an audio medium, is effective to 
create musical tension and anticipation, 
but it evolves into a problem for audiences 
at the end. The simple question of  ‘has 
the music ended?’ becomes a problem 
then. This is non-existent for traditional 
Western works because of  certain ‘often-
used’, stylistic methods of  ending a 
piece, but computer music is different 
because it is so divergent in styles and 
concepts. Furthermore, the lack of  a 
person to cue the audience to applause, 
a common practice for Western classical 
performances, adds on to the ambiguity 
of  the end of  the composition.
On the whole, my participation in this 
conference has been a definite eye-opener. 
From a person who knew relatively little 
about computer music, or to stretch it a 
little, never really liked electronic sounds, 
to a person who can now hear a sound 
and imagine how control of  the sound 
could turn it into music, I am extremely 
glad that I have been exposed to computer 
music through this conference. The wealth 
of  creativity that comes from immersing 
myself  and soaking up as much music as 
possible from five consecutive days may 
be straining but definitely worth it. Now, 
to stretch my imagination further, maybe, 
if  I work hard enough, I might have the 
chance to travel overseas and participate 
in such a conference again in the next few 
years!
array summer 2004ICMC Impressions Yuan Peiying


Impressions of ICMC 2003

Park, Tae Hong

The Electro-Acoustic Music Mine Project (EAMM): Collecting, Archiving, Sharing, and Exploring

Concert No. 16.&nbsp;Thursday, June 20, 2019, 8.00 p.m.,&nbsp;Sheen Center, Loreto TheaterReviewed by Jonathan Pitki

Pitkin, Jonathan

Review Concert 16

--, -

ICMC2019 Awards

3
Letter from the President
by Tae Hong Park
July 9, 2010
Dear ICMA Members,
It is a great honor to be able to serve 
as President of  the International 
Computer Music Association. My 
first encounter with the ICMA was 
at the 1998 ICMC in Michigan. It 
was without a doubt a memorable 
and “ear” opening experience on so 
many levels, ultimately leading me to 
regularly attend the annual conferences, 
organize the “Katrina” ICMC in 2006, 
and recently serve as the ICMA’s Vice 
President for Conferences from 2008 
to 2009 under the leadership of  Mara 
Helmuth. As ICMA’s recent President, 
Mara Helmuth contributed greatly 
to the continuing development of  the 
ICMA. I am certain that I speak for 
everyone on the board when I say it 
was wonderful working with her during 
those two years. And although she 
will very much be missed at the board 
meetings, I am sure we will see her 
regularly at future ICMCs.
It is with confidence that I can tell you 
the ICMA board members are working 
very hard to improve the organization 
by serving not only its membership but 
also the computer/electronic/electro-
acoustic music community at large. At 
the 2010 board meeting in New York, we 
decided to make the conference papers 
freely accessible from the ICMA website. 
The process leading to the consensus to 
offer free access to the conference papers 
was not trivial. In the end, however, the 
agreement seemed to point towards the 
important idea that ICMA should actively 
engage in the promotion of  computer 
music, which includes facilitating access 
to research results not only by ICMA 
members but also by anyone interested in 
our field.
We are currently engaged in a number 
of  activities to promote computer music, 
including exploiting social networking 
paradigms such as the ICMA Facebook 
page, providing ICMC conference 
organizers with more significant interest-
free loans than previously available, and 
much more. We are also very actively 
researching the feasibility of  creating 
an archive for computer music works 
that are presented at the conferences, as 
well as helping to create a professional 
and functional ICMC media submission 
system that can be used by future 
conference hosts. In short, there is much 
exciting activity currently at the ICMA, 
and we hope that you will stay tuned and 
offer us feedback so that we can better 
serve you.
Letter from the Presidentarray
4
As Mara Helmuth wrote in the Array 
newsletter in 2008, we are always 
interested in hearing from potential 
ICMC conference hosts. If  you would 
like information, have any questions 
regarding what hosting an ICMC entails, 
or are considering organizing an ICMC 
conference please contact the VP for 
Conferences Meg Schedel and me (the 
most up-to-date email addresses can be 
found on the ICMA website).  
If  you have any other questions, 
suggestions, comments, or concerns 
regarding the ICMA or the ICMC, please 
do not hesitate to contact me or the 
appropriate ICMA directors or officers. 
We hope to see y’all at the 2011 ICMC in 
Huddersfield! 
Sincerely,
Tae Hong Park
Associate Professor, Composition Program 
Head, Music Science and Technology  
 Programs
Tulane University Music Department
Letter from the Editor
Since our last issue, Array has undergone 
some changes.  The first relates to the 
editorship: as of  January 2010, Margaret 
Schedel has taken on the position of  Vice 
President for Conferences on the ICMA 
board and will no longer be a co-editor 
of  Array.  We thank Meg for her years of  
service to Array, and also for her leadership 
with ICMC 2010.
The second change has to do with the 
format of  Array.  In the past few years, we 
have released issues electronically as PDF 
files.  While that will still occur, Array has 
created a blog to enable a more frequent 
release of  content with an opportunity 
for member feedback.  Please point your 
browsers and RSS readers to http://
arrayblog.wordpress.com.
If  you would be willing to write something 
for Array, have feedback about this issue or 
ideas for future issues or blog posts, please 
send email to array@computermusic.org. 
Those interested in writing a review should 
also include a mailing address and any 
particular areas of  interest, so that I can 
send you any appropriate materials. CD/
DVD and book reviewers will be able to 
keep review copies free of  charge.  If  you 
have materials you would like reviewed, 
please send to:
Tae Hong Park 2009/2010


Letter from the President

Lansky, Paul

ICMC 2009 Keynote Address

Shiota, Kazuaki

Otjes, Ysbrand

50
I was fascinated by the aesthetic 
performance of  The Color of  Waiting, 
composed by Margaret Schedel and 
choreographed by Alison Rootberg. The 
dancer was holding two light sensors to 
control the watery sound in real-time. The 
three blind curtains were hung from the
ceiling to be projected upon with the 
images of  eyes and waves. The dancer 
was not entirely seen in the performance. 
Most of  the time, she was moving across 
the domain of  shadow and light. Thus, 
the music was well integrated with 
the motion. Personally, I collaborate 
with a modern dancer, so the work 
enlightened me to the practical path to 
create collaborative works. I am looking 
forward to seeing further progress on 
the integrity between sound and motion 
at the upcoming ICMC 2009 at McGill 
University.
Kazuaki Shiota
DMA student at University of  Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of  Music
Lecturer at Shobi University in Japan
A Life-changing Experience: 
My Personal Account of  ICMC 
2008
by Ysbrand Otjes
This story begins with me trying to get 
back in to my field. After graduation, I 
fell into a black hole of  some sort. I got 
ICMC 2008 Reviews
Sonic Arts Research Centre, 
Queen’s University, Belfast, 
Northern Ireland
ICMC 2008 Review
by Kazuaki Shiota
I am a composer, and often create 
music with my algorithmic sound 
system, {TranSpell}. I have been 
continuously giving a demonstration 
of  {TranSpell} as well as performing 
my music at the ICMC since 2006. 
Recently, I started incorporating 
movement into {TranSpell}, so I 
became interested in how to integrate 
between sound and motion.
ICMC 2008 was the first time I saw 
the mobile phone orchestra composed 
by Georg Essl, Henri Penttinen and 
Ge Wang. The title was MoPhO: Suite 
for Mobile Phone Orchestra, and the 
performance assured the ability of  
mobile phones for live electronics 
and removed the borderline between 
computer music and mundane life. It 
was visually interesting and beautiful 
when the performers moved their hands 
up and down to transform data.
Kazuaki Shiota 2009/2010
50
51
in Ireland was that my cell phone didn’t 
work anymore. I could receive calls and 
texts, but when I tried making calls, I 
constantly heard, “This number is barred 
from your phone.” Luckily, I had written 
down the street my hostel was on. So 
after asking around and going on a slight 
detour, I arrived at my hostel. However, 
there was nobody to check me in. I 
dropped my bags in their laundry room 
and I decided to get registered at Queen’s 
University, which I had seen earlier when 
looking around for the hostel. It was a 
majestic looking castle, and the insides 
where beautifully groomed. I followed the 
signs and saw the registration desk. After 
telling them my name, I got a big bag full 
of  goodies and even the T-shirt that I paid 
for in advance. Later that week I noticed 
it even had my name on it—how cool!
I felt a little scared in this huge city in 
another country and I was proud that I 
had gotten this far, but I felt it was time to 
meet up with Toine. I got a text from him, 
but couldn’t text him back. It said that he 
was already at the university and couldn’t 
meet up with me. I had some unfinished 
business at the hostel, so after registration 
I headed back to the hostel.  There, I met 
up with some other students from the 
HKU and had some dinner.
After having eaten, we went to our first 
concert session. There I expected some 
electronic sound exploration, but instead 
a job at a call center and didn’t have any 
contact with anyone from my former 
college. I didn’t like my job and had no 
use for the knowledge I learned over 
the course of  4 years being a student 
at the HKU (Utrecht School of  Arts). I 
contacted a couple of  my former fellow 
students to no avail. Most of  them weren’t 
interested in getting back into contact 
with me, with the exception of  Toine. He 
told me there was a concert of  second-
year HKU students, and in an act of  
spontaneity I went. There I met up with 
him and a former teacher called Hans. 
They told me about the ICMC and 
invited me to come along. Toine told me 
it was going to be at least an experience 
that would keep me inspired for a year, 
and at most a life-changing experience. 
Time slipped by, and the plan nested 
itself  somewhere in the back of  my head 
while I got on with life. After a couple 
of  months I casually contacted Toine to 
poll if  the plan was still standing, only to 
find that he already planned the whole 
thing, and if  I wanted to come with them 
I should get on with it, so I did. In one 
week I got free from work, registered and 
paid for a ticket for the ICMC, reserved a 
bed at the same hostel Toine was staying, 
and booked myself  a flight. Two weeks 
later, I got on the plane, flew to Ireland 
and landed the same day the ICMC was 
set to begin.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived 
ICMC 2008 Reviewsarray
52
floating above you and all around you in 
this beautifully dimly lit room. But what 
I really loved was how these sounds were 
locked up through what I felt to be the 
sounds of  doors shutting above you. It 
took me on a very interesting ride, and 
because the room was pretty dark, none 
of  my other senses could get a hold of  my 
thought process and I got to really enjoy 
only the surround sounds.
This experience really helped to get my 
negative feelings about being there in 
context. At first, I hadn’t understood 
that I was allowed to dislike stuff  here. 
I thought it was all supposed to be 
light-years ahead of  what I learned or 
experienced at my college. I thought I 
simply wasn’t tuned in to it, or maybe 
even too dumb to understand what I 
was hearing. But that simply wasn’t the 
case. They were exactly doing what I was 
doing at the HKU—research. This wasn’t 
school, it was a community of  computer 
music aficionados and sound/music 
scholars, and they were just presenting 
these papers so that others might benefit 
and build upon their work.
By the time we went to the Black Box 
that evening to watch an informal live 
coding event, the negative feelings were 
reduced to a distant memory. I felt I 
really connected with the Dutch group 
I was with, and I really enjoyed the 
live coding—all of  it, from the glitchy 
I got treated with some “electro-acoustic” 
music, which I didn’t really like that 
much. I thought Colin Johnson’s work 
called It’s All Out There on the Internet was 
a very funny and novel idea, but I left 
the hall with a distinct impression that 
maybe this wasn’t my thing and that it 
had been a bad idea to go to the ICMC 
after all. I overreacted, I know, but you 
have to remember that I was on a bit of  
an emotional roller coaster—the flying, 
the huge city, the new social group, the 
awesome beauty of  the university building 
and then the weird music to which I was 
not accustomed anymore. It was a bit too 
much for this poor boy.
The next morning, I went to my first 
of  lecture of  the week. It was about 
sound synthesis. The first topic was 
“split-sideband synthesis,” which was 
certainly a very interesting concept but 
wasn’t the life-changing lecture I thought 
it would be. This would continue on. I 
either didn’t understand what they were 
doing or I couldn’t understand the major 
revolution that their ideas and research 
would bring to their specific field. My 
streak of  insecurity ended when I visited 
the Sonic Lab, which is a beautiful room 
inside the SARC building. Siebe and I 
were a little bit late for the concert, but 
we were fortunate enough to sneak in 
after the second piece, and then I heard 
a very good piece: Friction by Jason Bolte. 
There were snippets of  real world sounds 
Ysbrand Otjes 2009/2010
53
discover that the audio/music community 
is also debating about what to do next and 
how they can benefit from the change to 
multi-core processing because of  the limit 
of  Moore’s law.
The evening again brought us a lot of  
performances. The one that stood out 
for me was by Juhani Räisänen and 
was called Cringle, which was an audio-
visual piece. Both audio and video were 
generated live: the sound was synthesized, 
and the visuals from a camera pointed 
in his direction were processed in real 
time. Both the synthesis and the video 
processing were controlled by this 
lightsaber-like wireless instrument in his 
hands, with which he was dancing in 
front of  the camera. It was awe-inspiring, 
although I have to admit that I liked the 
visuals better than the music.
Later that night we went to see the 
performances in Mandela Hall, where the 
most informal of  the performance sessions 
were held each day. There was music in 
one room, where you could casually walk 
in and out, and a bar on the other side, 
where you could chill. I sat down in the 
performance room, and noticed all of  
these radios above our heads. They were 
for a piece by Anna Friz entitled Radio is 
Everywhere in Their Dreams. It is quite a long 
piece—30 minutes—and I didn’t have 
the patience to sit down for that time. I 
have the distinct impression that it wasn’t 
nastiness of  Yee-King and the soothing 
automation of  Graham Coleman to the 
Max/MSP improvisation by our very own 
Luc van Weelden.
The next day, I looked around the 
university terrain and went with a couple 
of  the guys to the Sonic Lab. There I 
heard a wonderful piece. It had surprise, 
it was immediate, and it was precisely 
long enough for its intention. It was Exit 
Variation 2 by Roger Doyle. As with the 
all of  the concerts, we were handed the 
program, and one of  the pieces had a 
really interesting title: Radiant Telemetries: 
Musical Settings of  Celestial Images from the 
new General Catalog I: NGC2023 (Horse Head 
Nebula). Recently I’ve taken an interest in 
what kind of  sounds we can hear from 
space (it being a vacuum and all) and 
maybe data converted to a wave of  some 
sort. However, we were treated with very 
poorly executed video effects and a very 
uninspired piece of  music. Lamentation 
Alphabet: Aleph by Benjamin Broening, 
however, was a very good piece that really 
utilized the surround system. It sounded 
warm and organic while still maintaining 
that technological sub-layer in its sound.
After that, we went to the “Re-inventing 
audio and music computation for many-
core processors” panel, which was very 
interesting but not really up my alley, 
because I’m not much of  a programmer. 
However, it was very interesting to 
ICMC 2008 Reviewsarray
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develop, and it takes the Sormina out 
of  the realm of  controllers and into 
the realm of  a real instrument. That is 
evident in the choice to use wooden knobs 
on the potmeters and the decorative 
wooden neckpiece. I also spoke with 
Enda Bates about his paper “Adapting 
Polyphonic Pickup Technology For Spatial 
Music Performance.” He explains how 
to get 6 separated signals—one for each 
of  the strings—out of  an electric guitar, 
and shows his idea to use it in a surround 
sound performance. It really opens up 
possibilities, because of  the greater control 
you have over your signal path.
In the meantime, my group was buzzing 
with excitement for the performance of  
the Electronic Hammer later that evening. 
There were three performances, one 
composed by Henry Vega called Izumi, 
one by Rodrigo Sigal called Me(n)TAL 
and Music for Snare Drum and Computer 
by Cort Lippe. I did like the use of  the 
metallic stool, but the performance as a 
whole just didn’t work for me. The rest of  
the Dutch group, however, really liked it, 
and even found the 10 minutes of  finding 
every method of  beating on a snare drum 
fantastic. I can’t dispute the fact that the 
performer is really skilled, but 10 minutes 
of  snare drum is a bit too much for me.
Then some weird gray-haired man walked 
on stage, took a seat behind an array of  
bells and cymbals, crouched down, and 
made for sitting down. Whatever may be 
the case, I did like it. I enjoyed the use 
of  voices, and the text you hear them 
say. It projected a beautiful atmosphere 
of  calm and loneliness. Next Matthew 
Yee-King performed, without a beamer 
displaying his programming. Too bad—it 
made it that much more interesting when 
I saw it the day before, but it wasn’t a bad 
performance by any standard. 
On the 28th I attended the Sonic Lab 
concert, but nothing piqued my interest. 
The demo sessions were next. We went 
to the presentation of  “Two Network 
Installations: ‘1133’ & ‘Computer_
Voices’” by Vincent Akkermans and Than 
van Nispen tot Pannerden, two other guys 
from the Dutch delegation. There I got 
a chance to see what my old school is up 
to these days. I found the performances 
interesting and very interactive, because I 
really felt the urge to join in.
At the poster presentations, I got a 
chance to talk to Juhani Räisänen. I got 
to see, hold and even play his Sormina, 
the wireless object I described earlier as 
being like a lightsaber. The Sormina is 
a really interesting instrument, but the 
philosophy behind what Juhani is trying 
to accomplish is even more captivating. 
He wants his instrument to be devoid of  
radical changes. This gives performers a 
chance to really learn to be fluent with 
it. It gives pieces of  music a chance to 
Ysbrand Otjes 2009/2010
55
every concert. I finally got the info that 
they would be placed on the website in 
due time, and that I would be able to 
download them to listen to them on my 
MP3 Player.
I also attended my last lecture session of  
the ICMC, “Algorithmic Composition 
Tools 3.” Here I learned about “The 
Bigbang Rubette: Gestural Music 
Composition With Rubato Composer” by 
Florian Thalmann and Guerino Mazzola. 
It looked like a really nice method of  
composing music, and I asked them to 
contact me when it would be available so I 
could compose with it.
Then it was the last evening of  concerts. It 
included, of  course, the final Exit Variation. 
Also of  note was Oboe_prosthesis by Michael 
Young, where Chris Redgate, through his 
oboe, engaged a neural network, which 
in turn engaged the improviser. The 
piece was fascinating to listen to, and I 
noticed that I could understand what was 
happening here—something I knew I 
couldn’t have done at the beginning of  the 
ICMC. Georg Hajdu’s Ivresse ’84, with the 
European Bridges Ensemble and violin by 
János Négyesy, got an enormous response 
by the crowd there, including me. It tells 
the story of  an incident that happened 
in Ivrea in 1984, taken from an interview 
with the very same János Négyesy. The 
piece was accompanied by a beamer 
displaying the actual text and the parts 
fumbled with his hands in his suitcase, 
only to arise with a thimble on each 
finger. He started playing the bells as if  
they were sacred, and treated his daf  in a 
similar fashion, needing to stroke it before 
playing. The piece was complemented 
with tastefully placed, but more 
importantly, musically pleasing electronic 
sounds. The text really seemed to fit as 
well, finding the music, and the music 
finding it. I loved the whole performance; 
the build-up and the climax were 
beautiful. It was a piece by Alessandro 
Cipriani called Bi Ma (Devoid of  Self), 
performed majestically by Mahammad 
Ghavi Helm, who also performed Altri 
Passaggi by Fabio Cifariello Ciardi.
By this time I felt really at ease. I knew 
what I liked and what I didn’t like. In 
short, I got to know myself, but I got 
to know a lot of  people there as well. I 
noticed I could just go up to a person, 
introduce myself  and talk about stuff. 
Everybody earned instant respect from 
everybody else. I knew that this is where I 
belonged. I had new hope for my personal 
future and I vowed then and there that I 
would be at the next ICMC. 
The last day of  the ICMC, I went on a 
small mission to get my hands on all of  
the Exit Variations. They were perhaps the 
best things I heard at the ICMC, because 
of  their small durations, their innocence 
and the joy with which I anticipated them 
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played by the performers.
In conclusion, my good friend Toine 
was right. The ICMC was certainly an 
inspiration for me, and only time will 
tell if  it was a life-changing experience. 
Now I know where I belong, and I will do 
everything in my power to stay there.
2009/2010
56
