!

!
!
!

Today Im going to be discussing my approach and process to my Composition Mutations and the
issues that arose. !

!
(Play Piece) !
!

The piece was entered for the Joyce Dixie competition which the rules stipulated that there needed
to be a significant live element to the piece and as a more traditionally electronic style composer
this posed some unique challenges for me!

My knowledge of idiomatic writing and what is possible on traditional instruments. Additionally I

wished the recording of the piece to stand on its own two feet as well as being able to be
performed. !

So my idea was to write a piece of music that utilised traditional instruments (as well as some
analogue synths) !

After researching through articles in Future Music and Computer Music magazines I complied a
table of the 3 different methods suggested with the positives and negatives of each as shown here. !

Using samples appeared to tick the majority of the boxes for the instruments I needed to write for.
This particular approach is quite commonly used by artists from the Ninja Tune record label such
as The Cinematic Orchestra and Bonobo. (Play Cinematic Orchestra) !

!
!
So sample choices. My first point of inspirational contact was Amon Tobins album SuperModified !
!
I used the WhoSampled.com (A resource for sampling credit information) searching Amon Tobin
and Cinematic Orchestra and try to see if there were any similarities in genre. !

As you can see from this table there a number of similarities. especially in terms of the selection of
Jazz and Easily and Fusion and film soundtracks pieces. Indeed the piece my piece is built around
the chromatic jazz riff, which is taken from a The Miles Davis. !

!
Blade runner example. !
!

In terms of Choosing Harmony Samples I was careful to find samples that were Harmonically
whilst this is not something necessarily of a compositional aesthetic associated with the
Aforementioned artists, this allowed me too use some chromaticism and otherwise questionable
notes and get away with it some questionable notes and get away it. !

In post analysis, I put this up to other pieces that Ive written and Ive noticed I always write in the
same structure, I think this is down to the amount of dance music Ive been listening too over the
years and I aim for my next composition to challenge this. !

!
!

Once Id assembled samples I felt corresponded well with each I adopted the Pierre Shafer
principal of Sound Objects, which is something that Ive been using throughout the year. The idea
being that the Sound Object (or sample in this case) is a compositional unit. Doing dynamic
changes pre- Arrangement phase avoided need for automation for which I have an extreme
distaste for. Additionally this is possibly the least amount tracks Ive ever used in a composition
which made it more manageable and easier to mix. !

When dealing with samples there can be a horrific amount of unwanted content (additional
instruments and hiss and vinyl etc) and other things in the samples you may wish to highlight or
suppress. Hence why characteristically this approach uses extreme uses of eq. !

!
And heres a quote from Amon Tobin backing me up on this. !
!

Layering is another technique - I used some extra samples to strengthen others where eq would
not suffice !

Your partially trying to replicate a live performance with sources that are independent in terms of
the origin and the space they occupy in. Using Reverb - in this case a lot of reverb puts the
samples in the same space. !

!
!

With this approach arises many issues least of all copyright infringement, but sticking with the
creative issues. I would like to raise the issue of if this is considered my own work. Personally I
believe this an advanced version of tacking your favourite Beatles track and and rearranging the
notes and chords until its sounds different, A form of intertexuality !

!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!

"Samples won't replace all pianos; but they will !

continue to evoke pianos. Likewise a sample or a !
quote from existing music refers to the original in !
a positive sense, more than it steals from it. It's not !
necessary to tear down the fences of copyright !
when you can enter by the gate. If you sample, give !
the credit due. And if you have been sampled, con- !
sider the credit you have been given." Oswald, !
"Creatigality" (unpublished essay, 1987). !