Moving Sounds for a Hybrid World
Towards a respectful integration of electronic modulation and acoustic instruments.
It is my passion for sound that made me the musician I am. It is also the motivation for my return to school, 20 years after my first Master Degree in jazz saxophone, and for choosing to research the expressive possibilities of hybrid electroacoustic sounds.
Why would someone in love with acoustic sounds research electronic modulation? Someone convinced that every subtle variation the instrumentalist performs, every parasite vibration is actually what turns sound into Music?
I believe in hybridity over purity, and I believe humans and their feelings are hybrid by nature. I also believe electronic modulation opens new possibilities to reflect our increasingly electrified lives. The digital solitude of a vocoder, the introspective uncertainty of a stuttering granular delay have something to offer to my saxophone…
The goal of my research is to create my own modulation schemes which will expand the expressive possibilities of acoustic instruments without betraying their specificities, exploring the grey area between acoustic and electronic.
Preface - map to this website and my research
In order to explore the expressive possibilities of electronic modulation applied to acoustic instruments and its respectful integration, I had to refine my skills and knowledge of the 2 worlds. My impulse was an instinctive one, fed on my passion for acoustic sound and a constantly increasing interest for electronic music. I was feeling that electronic modulation responded to a personal need to express other emotions, to portray other states and that combining the 2 worlds and their idioms could open new doors for my music and constituted a relevant challenge for today’s musician and composer.
This website can be seen as a reflection on my journey during these 2 years of research, a prelude to my Final Performance on 19/06/23 in Arnhem and a guide to the portfolio examples you can find throughout the website.
It is also for me the prelude to a future more extended research on the subject, whether it will take an academic or a purely artistic form. I can’t say that I really wrapped up any of my questions on this profound reflection I embarked on, but I definitely learned a lot and have many personal ‘discoveries’ to share with you and the musical world. My use of electronic modulation evolved drastically during this process, and my music with it.
Context describes where my research came from and what it tends to and explains how my research on the expressive capacities of hybrid sounds was the starting point of this whole project.
Instruments is a presentation of my researches and reflections on the acoustic and electronic instruments I used. After exploring different acoustic sources and digital modulation tools (mostly during the 1st year of study) I focused on the saxophone and Ableton Live and I will explain why. This also includes a description of my ‘signal path’, the path the sound follows between me and the listener and a demonstration video of how I process the saxophone sound and keep a hand on the program with various controllers while performing live.
Live electronics focuses on my research on developing a live performance template. It is divided into 3 subchapters.
Saxelton Live presents the EP showcasing my hybrid combination of the saxophone and my Ableton Live based processing setup.
Duets presents my work as a computer artist in duet with an instrumentalist. It is another part of my project I’m very enthusiastic about and it explores being a musician playing the computer. Conversations with a Prepared Piano presents my work in duet with fellow Master student Alex Pielsticker on prepared piano and why I want to develop this practice. Le mot n’est pas la chose (for Saxelton Live) describes my collaboration with saxophonist Andy Dhont and the composition I wrote for saxophone and Ableton Live.
Multidisciplinary reflects on the compositional aspects of my research dedicated to other disciplines such as films, performance or dance.
Finally, The door is open is an attempt at summing up my process and findings, describing my state of mind at the end of this journey and sharing my enthusiasm for the next one.