The history of music in the twentieth century is viewed as a process of expanding the sonic material of music to include all sound. Technological barriers to the full exploitation of the domain of sound are suggested as causing the process to take more time than it would otherwise due to cultural or aesthetic factors alone. Important historical developments in music over the last century are reconsidered to be, at least in part, strategies for circumventing technological limitations to manipulating and accessing all sound. Support for this perspective is found in the words of artists and composers of the time and in comparisons between the technologies available for creation in the visual and the sonic arts. Sound modelling is examined as a post all-sound paradigm holding promise for normalising the relationship between sound and music.

As the techniques used in creating audio art and electronic music become more diversified and increasingly use some sort of computer-oriented notation, the question of analysis of this wide repertoire is revisited. While there are still many obstacles in its study, this topic attracts more attention today than in the recent past. In this article, I emphasise the need to consider that, when analysing audio art and electronic music, technology, technique and musical style are to be taken in account. To this end, I introduce concepts put forth by the Russian Constructivists as a basis for reflection.

This article suggests a framework for the articulation of ambiophonic and geometrical spaces in electroacoustic composition and performance. Space-ambiophony explores the global perception of space, which is derived from the archetypal perception of surrounding environments. The term applies to usually large-scale observation but it can also include shifts in the listener's attention from gestalt perception to micro-structural observation. A spatial analysis of Smalley's Base Metals demonstrates the methods by which space-ambiophony is integrated into the composition. In space-geometry, relations and analogies are established between composed sonic events and principles of geometry and stereometry. Three primordial geometrical elements, drawn from Wassily Kandinsky's theoretical work on painting, serve as metaphorical cells for the construction and projection of this type of space: the point, the line and the plane.

The interaction between the acoustic qualities of listening spaces, the configuration of loudspeakers, the composed space (sonic trajectories, background, foreground) and its projection by the interpreter in a concert, are all issues that occupy parts of the article.

This paper takes a systemic perspective on interactive signal processing and introduces the author's Audible Eco-Systemic Interface (AESI) project. It starts with a discussion of the paradigm of ‘interaction’ in existing computer music and live electronics approaches, and develops following bio-cybernetic principles such as ‘system/ambience coupling’, ‘noise’, and ‘self-organisation’. Central to the paper is an understanding of ‘interaction’ as a network of interdependencies among system components, and as a means for dynamical behaviour to emerge upon the contact of an autonomous system (e.g. a DSP unit) with the external environment (room or else hosting the performance). The author describes the design philosophy in his current work with the AESI (whose DSP component was implemented as a signal patch in KYMA5.2), touching on compositional implications (not only live electronics situations, but also sound installations).

Spiral Fiction is a piece of interactive performance staged by the authors in 2002. The paper provides detailed information about the technology used, the nature of the interactivity employed, the artists use of the Bodycoder System© and the aesthetic and theoretical issues arising out of the work. The paper addresses the problematic nature of the audience gaze, the seductive qualities of new technology, creative balance in the presence of new technologies and the problem of placing interactive performance along side analogue and single art form disciplines. The paper also explores the psychophysical nature of the interactivity associated with the Bodycoder System and will discuss cross-modal perception and sensation. The authors draw on aspects of postmodern theory to further expand their observations.

I have had a major interest in the performance practice issues in electronic and interactive systems over the years (see, for example, Kimura 1996). As a performer/composer often presenting pieces from the classical and other contemporary acoustic violin literature in traditional settings along with electronic works, and also as a teacher of interactive computer music performance at a conservatory where my students include highly trained performers, performance practice issues in computer music come up very frequently in association with the creative process. I tend to focus on creating MaxMSP patches that address a particular musical context or situation, rather than creating an elaborate versatile and reusable MaxMSP patch and then using that patch in a particular way to make music. This paper describes a few examples of my interest in this area: (i) System Aspects: Performance Practice Issues and Room Acoustics; (ii) ‘Pragmatic’ Programming and Performance of Interactive Music; and (iii) Creative Process and Interactive Computer Music.

For most electroacoustic composers, ‘interactivity’ refers to technology which responds to input from a performer. For performers, in contrast, performance may be described as ‘interactive’ on many levels: interacting with acoustic musical interfaces (their instruments), communicating with composers and audiences, mediating the data of a score, negotiating prosthetic devices (microphones, loudspeakers, pedals, sensors), and interacting with invisible chamber music partners (whether backing tracks or responsive computer programs). There has been little public discussion about these issues. This paper will therefore discuss various elements of interactivity in electroacoustic music from the performer's perspective, with the goal of promoting and facilitating satisfying collaborations for both composers and performers. Discussions of pieces for flute and electronics will demonstrate various issues in performing with electronics; describe ways in which works and systems have been designed to work effectively as chamber music; and offer insights into the process of collaboration between composers, technologists and performers.

Technology influences all art, and therefore all music, including composition, performance and listening. It always has, and it always will. For example, technical developments in materials, mechanics and manufacturing were important factors that permitted the piano to supersede the harpsichord as the primary concert Western keyboard instrument by about 1800. And with each new technical development new performance issues have been introduced. Piano performance technique is quite different from harpsichord technique, and composers responded to these differences with new music ideas and gestures. The multiple relationships between technology and composer and performer are dynamic and of paramount importance to each party. And a true consideration of any aspect of music requires that all three areas be examined. This has always been a part of music, and so these relationships are inherently important within computer music. The difference is that electronic technology has caused a fundamental change for all aspects of music, a difference that is as pivotal in the history of Western music as was the shift from oral to written preservation of music over a thousand years ago, and then also the accessibility provided by printed music five hundred years ago. In computer music, all parties are always acutely aware of the presence and influence of machine technology in both the visual and audible realms.

Most scholars writing on the use of samplers express anxiety over the dissolution of boundaries between human-generated and automated musical expression, and focus on the copyright infringement issues surrounding sampling practices without adequately exploring samplists' musical and political goals. Drawing on musical examples from various underground electronic music genres and on interviews with electronic musicians, this essay addresses such questions as: What is a sampler, and how does the sampling process resonate with or diverge from other traditions of instrument-playing? How do electronic musicians use the ‘automated’ mechanisms of digital instruments to achieve nuanced musical expression and cultural commentary? What are some political implications of presenting sampled and processed sounds in a reconfigured compositional environment? By exploring these issues, I hope to counter the over-simplified, uninformed critical claims that sampling is a process of ‘theft’ and ‘automation’, and instead offer insight into the myriad and complex musical and political dimensions of sampling in electronic music production.

Seeking new forms of expression in computer music, a small number of laptop composers are braving the challenges of coding music on the fly. Not content to submit meekly to the rigid interfaces of performance software like Ableton Live or Reason, they work with programming languages, building their own custom software, tweaking or writing the programs themselves as they perform. Often this activity takes place within some established language for computer music like SuperCollider, but there is no reason to stop errant minds pursuing their innovations in general scripting languages like Perl. This paper presents an introduction to the field of live coding, of real-time scripting during laptop music performance, and the improvisatory power and risks involved. We look at two test cases, the command-line music of slub utilising, amongst a grab-bag of technologies, Perl and REALbasic, and Julian Rohrhuber's Just In Time library for SuperCollider. We try to give a flavour of an exciting but hazardous world at the forefront of live laptop performance.