Modernising musical works involving Yamaha DX-based synthesis: a case study

Abstract

In this article we describe a new approach to performing musical works that use Yamaha DX7-based synthesis. We also present an implementation of this approach in a performance system for Madonna of Winter and Spring by Jonathan Harvey. The Integra Project, ‘A European Composition and Performance Environment for Sharing Live Music Technologies’ (a three year co-operation agreement part financed by the European Commission, ref. 2005-849), is introduced as framework for reducing the difficulties with modernising and preserving works that use live electronics.

Time to re-wire? Problems and strategies for the maintenance of live electronics

“…Integra represents a significant collaboration between several international partners and which we hope will contribute significantly to migration research. Researchers taking part in the project are currently working on Madonna of Winter and Spring and Wheel of Emptiness and have identified a number of problems with the transfer of information from the original formats to contemporary systems (Bullock and Coccioli 2005).…”

ArtDoc - An Experimental Archive and a Tool for Artistic Research

“…Integra was a project hosted by Birmingham Conservatoire and funded by the EU, and its initial ambition was to document electronic musical works in a sustainable manner addressing the question of how to avoid that obsolete technology used in these works render them unplayable. [5,3,2] The method employed in Integra was to collect works from several of the project partner countries and render generic and technology agnostic descriptions of these pieces. In addition, documented software that could be used in order to perform them would also be developed.…”

“…The work's authenticity lies no longer in the intentions of the originator, but rather in the ears of the listener, or in the hands of the interpreter. 2 How is such a work best documented?…”

Editorial: Alternative histories of electroacoustic music

“…Issue 9.1, marking 'a century of innovation involving sound and technology' (and roughly coinciding with the establishment of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network), included several articles that directly addressed an important historiographic issue, namely, developing and maintaining source materials for musicologists (Atkinson and Landy 2004;Battier 2004;Ramel 2004;Teruggi 2004). This theme was taken further in volume 11, which foregrounded such issues as archiving (Chasalow 2006;Dal Farra 2006;Waters 2006), preservation (Emmerson 2006), approaches to technological obsolescence (Bullock and Coccioli 2006;Polfreman, Sheppard, and Dearden 2006;Wetzel 2006;Yong 2006) and the study of tools and techniques as a method in historical musicology (Manning 2006). Issue 18.3 -'Re-wiring Electronic Music' -included a few articles documenting recent creative practice that implicitly adopts a historiographic or media archaeological perspective (Paiuk 2013;Parker 2013;Riis 2013).…”

“…Focused studies have spotlighted individuals, institutions, and locales that had been omitted or scantily treated in earlier accounts (Kuljuntausta 2008; Niebur 2010; Adkins and Russ 2013; Tazelaar 2013; Helliwell 2016). Reprints and new editions of iconic primary sources ensure that these texts remain important also (Cage 2011; Austin and Kahn 2011; Schaeffer 2012). Any brief survey must necessarily be partial, of course.…”