New forms of hybrid musical discourse; an exploration of stylistic and procedural cross-fertilisation between contemporary art music and electronic dance music

Abstract

This portfolio explores stylistic and procedural cross-fertilisation between contemporary art music and electronic dance music through musicological investigation and creative practice. Comprised of six compositional 'projects', the creative work examines the hybridisation of the two main genres under consideration, involving both a formalisation of hybrid compositional procedures and an exploration of established and newly developed forms of musical borrowing, which function as tools of negotiation in the transference of materials within my own creative practice. The musicological component includes an overview of musical borrowing as manifested in electronic dance music in the form of digital sampling, considering the practice as a contemporary form of transformative imitation and offering a proposed typology of sampled material within the genre. It traces the links between early and modem forms of musical borrowing, from the pre-digital sampler in hip hop and the evolution of early sample-based compositional procedures through to the role of the digital sampler and the impact of technological innovation on the evolution of genre. An important part of the research has comprised of looking in detail at the tools of production used in the creation of electronic dance music by various artists. The output of this research into the functionality of the equipment and deliberate 'creative subversion' of its intended normative use has been used to develop a vocabulary of compositional techniques for use within my own work. A series of case studies (acid house, big beat, the 'remix') have been used to trace the relationship between genres, specific hardware and software, its idiomatic use, and the characteristics of the creative outputs associated with each genre. These case studies have significantly influenced the nature of the techniques evolved for use within my own compositional work.

Citation

(2012). New forms of hybrid musical discourse; an exploration of stylistic and procedural cross-fertilisation between contemporary art music and electronic dance music