Shared musical creativity: teaching composer-performer collaboration

Abstract

This paper focuses on teaching composerperformer collaboration as a path to new paradigms of 21st century art-making. First, we discuss the interplay between theory and practice in creative musical processes, with special attention to the performative modality of composition.Then, we approach collaboration itself, considering how the term has been both overused and misunderstood for decades.Finally, we present a case study of teaching composerperformer collaboration at the graduate level, in the "Atelier for Composition and Performance" (Ateliê de Composição e Performance Contemporânea), at the Federal University of Bahia.

Binaural Headphone Monitoring to Enhance Musicians’ Immersion in Performance

“…Therefore, long exposures to high levels of click tracks contribute to the risks of musicians' hearing loss [13]. Although click samples can be changed in digital audio workstations to accommodate musicians' preferences, the mechanical nature of the click implies that "overall, playing with a click track means playing with the metronome" [14]. According to Cardassi [15], "a click track is likely the most dreaded synchronization tool in music," and it generates performers' "angst and unpleasantness."…”

“…Moreover, Éliézer Oubda, a music producer and sound engineer who owns Hope Muziks Studio in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, trains his assistants in explaining to Western African musicians how to perceive the downbeat in the click track in the same way Europeans and North Americans do. 1,2 To minimize "the straightjacket feeling" [14] induced by click tracks, composers, performers, and studio professionals can collaborate on developing alternative cue tracks and monitoring systems. For instance, customized tracks may combine pre-recorded fragments from the parts to be performed with vocal instructions or relevant pitches.…”

“…Both Bipan and KLANG used anechoic HRTFs, and so enabled us as sound engineers to generate spatial images with re-created acoustics that fit the acoustics of the performance space. 14 These HRTFs were also non-individualized and thus required performers' listening training [31] and/or dynamic binaural rendering [29] to optimize source externalization and mitigate timbre artifacts. Therefore, one week before conducting the case studies that assessed the BMR setup, which is static, the improviser participants were instructed to listen to three-to-five binaural audio productions over headphones that were selected from Hyperradio podcasts by Bauer (total duration of around 25 mn), to get used to the binaural rendering.…”

Estado de prontidão: pesquisa performativa e colaboração nos processos de criação interartística em "Converse"

“…Como já referimos em textos anteriores (CARDASSI;BERTISSOLO, 2020, p. 8), trabalhos recentes sobre colaboração têm enfocado relatos pessoais e/ou autoetnográficos. Acreditamos que, dado o caráter único de cada processo artístico, em especial no contexto da colaboração interartística, esse tipo de depoimento é benfazejo.…”

“…Nesse caso, a (tradicional) escrita sobre a pesquisa é o modo de operar dos fazeres. Essa demanda vem sendo resolvida por artistas/pesquisadores na comunidade criativa sob denominações diversas, no entanto, o que emerge como unanimidade nos discursos é o fato da Entendemos esse modelo como uma abordagem mais dinâmica para o fazer colaborativo, como já discutimos em outro texto recente(CARDASSI; BERTISSOLO, 2020, p. 7). Essa perspectiva considera a necessidade de aceitar a natureza flexível do processo criativo colaborativo no contexto da pesquisa performativa.É importante esclarecer que adotamos a definiçãode HAYDEN e WINDSOR (2007, p. 33) para a interação entre compositores e performers (aqui estendida aos processos de criação interartes), como diretivos, interativos ou colaborativos.As colocações de Styles reforçam o caráter dinâmico e flexível de um processo criativo colaborativo, especialmente aqueles de natureza interartística.…”