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Anthony Meynell (Independent Scholar)

Echoes of the Future: The Semiotics of Sound in Vintage CEMIs and Their Role in Modern Composition

This study investigates how composers use vintage Commercial Electronic Music Instruments (CEMIs) not merely as tools for sound generation but as mediums to infuse specific cultural and sonic meanings into music, drawing on Tagg’s semiotics of music to investigate how these sounds transcend musicality to convey cultural narratives. 

My research employs a practice-as-research methodology, demonstrating through historical analysis and sound recreation how vintage CEMIs have been pivotal in defining musical eras. The study examines Joe Meek’s use of the Clavioline in “Telstar” by The Tornados (1962) to evoke the sound of the space age; Chicory Tip’s rendition of Giorgio Moroder’s “Son of My Father,” (1972) which marked Moroder’s initial explorations with the Moog synthesizer in creating dance rhythms and electronic soundscapes; and Trio’s employment of the Casio VL-Tone in “Da Da Da,” (1982) using basic rhythms and minimalist digital sounds to convey a nonchalant and robotic digital narrative.

By using the same historic equipment, I will demonstrate how interaction with the technology reveals performative techniques that uncover forgotten features in the equipment that provide clues to how the instruments were performed on the recordings.

Each discussed track became a UK number one single, introducing and popularising the concept of electronically generated sounds to the general public. These compositions, all one-hit wonders, relied on the distinct sonic character of their respective CEMI’s, thereby becoming iconic in the history of popular music. Trevor Pinch’s “Analog Days” further underscores their significance, noting the unprecedented creative freedoms these instruments provided, aligning technological innovation with musical creativity.

By integrating practical demonstrations with theoretical frameworks from Tagg, Bijker, and Pinch, this presentation illustrates the impact of vintage CEMIs on musical innovation and cultural discourse, emphasising how technological constraints, tacit manipulation and specific sonic characteristics continue to influence contemporary music composition.

Anna McCready (independent musician), Charlie Norton, Justin Paterson & Robert Sholl (UWL)

Switched on Messiaen: what affordances might CEMIs offer to deliver an alternative sonic manifestation of the stymied aspirations of the proto-spectralist movement?

Messiaen noted that “in my opinion, one does not fully understand music if one has not often experienced these two phenomena: complementary colours [and the] natural resonance of sounding bodies.” For him, “complexes of sound” were more important than musical genre. Further, his student Florentz indicated the range of harmonics available on organs, his ideal future ‘harmonic’ organ and the way birds communicated.Both created birdsong-like music from harmonics and complexes of timbres.

This submission presents a short, initially-improvised composition using birdsong from Messiaen’s sketchesand material from works including Sept haïkaï. Here, the lyrebird will mimic it; manifested by human soprano and synthesiser respectively.

Comprising a typical post-1960s Messiaen form (chorales, monodies, complex superimposed counterpoint) and other aspects of his musical language, layers of synthesised timbres from the Townshend collection will bring harmonics and ‘complexes of sound’ – unavailable to Messiaen – to create a musical narrative that extends the ecology of his music.

During synthesiser performance, multiple human operators will respond to sonograms of real birdsong presented as a graphical score for the adjustment of front-panel parameters. The keyboardist will have no prior knowledge of the likely timbres and must improvise in response to them, embodying Ascott’s (Groundcourse)“unlearning through disorientation”. Synth-triggers will be mapped via a custom-designed controller array, facilitating a unique performative hybridisation of multiple instruments. The piece will be further (re)composed/produced and binaurally mixed in Dolby Atmos® to bring perceived elevation to the birdsong.

The video will present both the final artefact as provocateur and some of its seminal precursors, creating new knowledge by examining trajectories in between, and the implications of synthesiser-spectralism, reimagined. The presenters bring expertise in multiple areas of this concept – each able to direct the ensuing discussion in different ways to offer wide-ranging and meaningful incisiveness.

Kristian Skårbrevik (City University London)

Performer Interrelationships with Commercial Electronic Musical Instruments as Tools for Dialogue and Negotiation in Creative Sound Practices

In addition to this video, Kristian will be performing at 17:00 on the Monday evening

Music technology is the theme, and my context is working as a composer and performer using Commercial Electronic Musical Instruments in my practice. I work with interdisciplinary collaborations with dance and film artists, solo concerts, and site-specific compositions.

Research question: How can performer knowledge and sites be used as tools to create dialogues and negotiations in creative sound practices?

The project aims to investigate and extract artistic potential from the energy being triggered when habitual behaviors are confronted with unknown work methods and/or unfamiliar assemblies of elements both on interfaces and instruments. Through using sampling and synthesis the research explores new ways to createnew instruments and integrate them with existing ones. The research also explores alternative ways of signal flow with speaker-based electronic instruments.

The working method has been an iterative artistic developmental process, including music technological developments, instrument developments, compositional work, performance, film and audio recordings of sites,and rehearsals with artists both from music and other fields of practice.The outcome will provide documentation of new knowledge and understanding through a series of film documentation with excerpts from the short film “On the Other Side” (2023), a site-specific interdisciplinary collaboration and commission for Parken Cultural Center in Aalesund, Norway. In the short film, Limonas (2023) I conducted field recordings and captured electromagnetic fields at locations at the Limonas monasteryin Lesvos, Greece where I was composing, performing, and capturing how technology and its networks impact these historic sites. In the last example, I will demonstrate as a solo performer working with CEMIs and site-specific performance working with sampling and synthesis.