The Studio As Instrument

How has the merging of composing, recording, and
production afforded by developments in studio
technology--from the multitrack analog studios of
the 1960's to the DAW-based home studios of
today--opened up new ways of creating music and
new musical forms and shifted the medium of
composition from pitch progressions to sound
fields? Or, as Keith Richards would say, "It's not
the notes, it's the sounds."

In Brian Eno's essay, The Studio As A
Compositional Tool, he argues that recorded music
is an entirely different artform from traditional
music, and that the contemporary composer in a
multitrack studio becomes empirical in a way that
the traditional composer never could be, working
directly with sound to shape the final result with
no transmission lost along the way, much like a
painter works directly and responsively with their
own medium.

In this class, we will envision ourselves as
painters and sculptors of sound--composing,
recording and enhancing (or degrading) our sounds
correspondingly to create original works. Using
the recording studio as our instrument, we will
explore various strategies for creating sound
colors and shapes; sculpting sound timbres and
textures with feedback and distortion; composing
with loops and randomizing games; (de)constructing
form with subtractive arranging; and expanding
into space by fabricating imaginary sonic worlds.