Playing with Something That Runs : Technology, Improvisation, and Composition in DJ and Laptop Performance

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Butler, Mark J.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Underground dance music--History and criticism.

Underground dance music--Production and direction.

Local Subjects:

Underground dance music--History and criticism.

Underground dance music--Production and direction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (279 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, USA, 2014.

Summary:

Winner of the 2015 PMIG Outstanding Publication Award from the Society of Music TheoryThe DJs and laptop performers of electronic dance music use preexistent elements such as vinyl records and digital samples to create fluid, dynamic performances. These performances are also largely improvised, evolving in response to the demands of a particular situation through interaction with a dancing audience. Within performance, musicians make numerous spontaneous decisions about variables such as which sounds they will play, when they will play them, and how they will be combined with other sounds. Yet the elements that constitute these improvisations are also fixed in certain fundamental ways: performances are fashioned from patterns or tracks recorded beforehand, and in the case of DJ sets, these elements are also physical objects (vinyl records).In Playing with Something That Runs, author Mark J. Butler explores these improvised performances, revealing the ways in which musicians utilize seemingly invariable prerecorded elements to create novel improvisations. Based on extensive interviews with musicians in their studios, as well as in-depth studies of particular mediums of performance, including both DJ and laptop sets, Butler illustrates the ways in which technologies, both material and musical, are used in performance and improvisation in order to make these transformations possible. An illuminating look at the world of popular electronic-music performance, Playing with Something that Runs is an indispensable resource for electronic dance musicians and fans as well as scholars and students of popular music.

Contents:

""Playing with Something That Runs: TECHNOLOGY, IMPROVISATION, AND COMPOSITION IN DJ AND LAPTOP PERFORMANCE""; ""Copyright""; ""Dedication""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""About the Companion Website""; ""Introduction""; ""Methodology and Disciplinary Orientations""; ""Contexts""; ""1: Remixing One�s Self: ONTOLOGIES OF THE PROVISIONAL WORK""; ""Works, Texts, and Performances""; ""Creating the “Third Record�: Works and Texts in DJ Performances""; ""Composing Performance in the Laptop Set""; ""Presets""; ""Samples""; ""From Loops to Tracks""; ""“Reduced� Tracks""; ""Versions""

""Reflexivity and Reflectivity""""Conclusion: Mapping the Astronomy of the Provisional Work""; ""2: Performing Performance: INTERFACE DESIGN, LIVENESS, AND LISTENER ORIENTATION""; ""Introduction: When Recording Meets Performance""; ""Interface Design and Interactivity""; ""Conveying Liveness in Performance (Or, “I Don�t Want to Look Like I�m Checking My Email�)""; ""Playing with “Something That Runs�: Listener Orientation Among EDM Musicians""; ""3: Making It Up and Breaking It Down: IMPROVISATION IN PERFORMANCE""; ""Studying Improvisation(s): Conceptual and Scholarly Bases""

""Composition, Improvisation, and Performance in DJ and Laptop Sets""""Analysis 1: “The original track, it�s every time in the back of the mind� (Sender Berlin, Live Performances, 2006 and 2007)""; ""Analysis 2: Preexistent Elements in DJ Performances ( Jeff Mills, “The Bells�)""; ""In Retrospect""; ""4: Looking for the Perfect Loop: MUSICAL TECHNOLOGIES OF MEDIATED IMPROVISATION""; ""Repeating in Context, I: The Scholarly Field""; ""Repeating in Context, II: Electronic Dance Music as Repetitive Practice""; ""Repeating in Time""; ""Cycling; Going""; ""Grooving""; ""Riding""

""Transitioning Flowing""; ""Afterword""; ""Looking Back""; ""Looking Forward (and Outward)""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

0-19-991226-2

0-19-987516-2

OCLC:

879202843