The emergence of electroacoustic music in China began much more recently than in Europe, the United States, North America, and Japan. Scholars have located the mid-1980s as the turning point in this development. Although consensus is lacking about the exact events and influences that initiated this field of musical production, a pervasive issue confronting historiographical scholarship has been the belatedness of this production. Linked to the trope of belatedness is an acknowledgement of the extremely rapid development of Chinese electroacoustic music, which both assimilated Western technologies and asserted distinctive national characteristics. Furthermore, one of the pioneers in the field, Zhang Xiaofu, has argued that a distinctive ‘Chinese model’ of electroacoustic music marked by stylistic hybridity and integration quickly emerged after this inception. The resulting ‘syncretism’ of practices has generated extensive reflection among Chinese composers and critics.

This article discusses the use of an accessible visual notation system that represents the melodic component of an electronic music composition in acid house music, based on programming the Roland TB-303 bassline synthesiser’s sequencer. This notation system can be used for sharing, composition, collaboration and archival purposes. This system is called an acid pattern. The article analyses a variety of different approaches to communicate acid patterns. It examines the requirements and visual elements used and how they relate directly to the functionality of the Roland TB-303’s sequencer. Through content analysis of images, text and audio data gathered from various music community websites this article furthers the understanding of how the practices and cultures of acid house music composition, notation and archiving are shared online and how they, enabled by web-based technologies, can build communities. This article suggests important possibilities for communities of practice-based around a shared cultural identity, accessible notation systems, and the creation and recreation of music in both online and offline contexts.

This article proposes four paradigms of group performance in free improvisation: 1) sound composition; 2) social communication; 3) ‘parallel play’; and 4) ‘one beast with many heads’. While these paradigms are identifiably different, they are often engaged flexibly and/or in combination; and, importantly, it is very possible for the same performance to be experienced or interpreted by different performers or listeners according to different paradigm perspectives. After providing some background and defining key terms, the four paradigms are introduced and discussed; connections with, and departures from, the existing literature are considered, followed by analysis of illustrative examples of each of the four paradigms drawn from the broader field of sonic and electroacoustic improvisation. To conclude, further larger-scale research potential for furthering this investigation is identified.

This article introduces a framework for musical analysis applied to electroacoustic improvisation. After an introduction about the benefits of interdisciplinary research and research-creation practice there is a description of the different domains of the framework: acoustic analysis, music analysis itself and the design of graphic representations. The framework is based on the extraction of information from the audio signal (music information retrieval) to create data representations, some of which are very efficient for music analysis, such as the brightness standard deviation or the self-similarity matrix. The last part of the article demonstrates the use of the framework on extracts of electroacoustic improvisations performed by the Paris-based group Les Phonogénistes, of which the author is a member.

For slightly more than 30 years I have been developing audio software and hardware under the moniker soundhack. Through these years I have programmed applications, plugins, externals, hardware and Eurorack modules – usually focusing on signal processing techniques and applications that are not easily available or offered by mainstream software companies. In this article, I would like to share my point of view and relate the rationale behind the development of these tools, my evolving sonic and design aesthetic, and some of the advantages, disadvantages and other differences between the the various hardware and software contexts.

In this article, I discuss the case of Chinese electroacoustic music with a focus on contemporary music, Asian instruments and mixed music. I pay particular attention to mixed music, without however limiting myself to it, also dealing with contemporary Western-style instrumental music. Several authors have discussed the question of the relationship between contemporary creation and certain stylistic factors of Asian cultures. They questioned what might constitute identifiable traits unique to Asia that could be observed in contemporary creations and they sought to determine whether systems of relationships can be established. Some, such as Chou Wen-Chung (周文中 Zhou Wenzhong), emphasised syncretism, thus establishing a link with the works of anthropology and cultural studies. In his 1971 article, ‘Asian Concepts and Twentieth-Century Western Composers’, Chou cites many examples that tend to emphasise notions of integration and syncretism across various stylistic gradients found in many composers, mostly Western. More recently, musicologist Yayoi Uno Everett described distinct categories in these relationships, on the part of both Asian and Western composers. This article attempts to find which cultural gradients can be observed in the electroacoustic music production of Chinese composers. For instance, the specific case of mixed music creates an unprecedented situation of contact between instrument and sound material in the context of renewed intercultural relations.

Two improvisation scenes emerged in the late 1990s – Echtzeitmusik in Berlin, and in London the New London Silence – with similarities in aesthetic and approach. Among these is a tendency towards a more silent and less responsive style of improvising often referred to as reductionism, and the inclusion of electronic resources, with a complex interaction between the two. This article introduces these two scenes and their respective approaches, and uses interviews with key improvisors in each to interrogate the performers’ approaches to electronics, and whether this plays a role in determining and developing their aesthetic and performance style.

To create a bridge between young students and senior scholars, the Shanghai Conservatory invited musicians who studied abroad to teach at the Conservatory beginning in the early 2000s. The result was the return to Shanghai of prominent composers. This article examines the impact of this project on electronic music composition and teaching and suggests how these developments relate to the broader historical context of Chinese electronic music. Through an analysis of representative works, it surveys compositional techniques and approaches to sound diffusion and spatialisation among composers associated with the Shanghai Conservatory. It demonstrates how these techniques, which reflect the international training of these composers, are used to express a range of subjects from abstract and philosophical concepts to concrete aspects of nature and human action.

In this interview, Tom Erbe reflects on his three decades as a developer of computer music software and hardware, both freeware and commercial. Tom met with Theodore Gordon on 8 December 2021 and discussed the beginnings of SoundHack and its roots in experimental music studio practice and hacker culture, ideas behind the design of sound processor interface and the shift from experimental software development to Eurorack modular hardware design.

Current trends in the works of Chinese composers and their electroacoustic music today embrace increased abstraction and individual self-expression, while others celebrate the importance of clear communication and a unified ‘Chinese model’. How is one to derive the current state of a Western art form imported by China, in the context of unparalleled sharing and convergence of ideas made possible by the internet and extensive intercultural exchange in today’s globalised world? And how important is it to identify and measure the level of Chineseness in the artistic output of today’s electroacoustic music composers that embrace Chinese elements – whether born inside or outside of China? This article seeks to unpack some of the current thinking shared by institutional leaders, such as Yu Feng, president of the Central Conservatory of Music; scholars of Chinese electroacoustic music, such as Marc Battier, Ken Fields, Leigh Landy, Yang Yinuo and Annie Yen-Ling Liu; and several composers and thought leaders in the most recent generations of Chinese electroacoustic music.

This article investigates two current incarnations of ‘lo-fi’ music and questions the extent to which these subgenres are actually low in fidelity. In essence, mainstream ‘hi-fi’ productions use similar effects, such as filtering to sound like a radio or adding noise to sound like a vinyl record. To understand lo-fi today, this article explores music by a lo-fi hip-hop producer and a lo-fi ambient producer, drawing upon the analytical methods of Alan Moore and Dennis Smalley. First to be discussed is Glimlip, one of the many anonymous producers behind the popular Lofi Girl YouTube streams. The next discussed is Amulets, an ambient musician known for using hacked and looped cassette tapes. Analyses of their music demonstrate a level of care in production that goes against the idea that lo-fi is primitive or naive.

This article builds on Richards’s work to formulate an understanding of the emerging practice of performance-installation, which embraces sound art, DIY electronic music and maker culture. A number of key points are addressed in this formulation: making/unmaking and ‘public making’; the assembling/disassembling of sonic devices and artefacts in the performance space; sound ‘through’ materials and materials at hand; and site and architectural features as material. In addition, readymade actions, illustrated by George Brecht’s The Cabinet, and the relationship between audience and performer are also presented. The article continues by outlining practice undertaken by the authors comprising two UK tours: ‘Sacrificial Floors’, 2018 with Tetsuya Umeda; and ‘Points of Failure’, 2020. Derek Bailey’s idea of ‘instrumental impulse’ is extended to include the concepts of expanded and reduced instruments that encompass ‘instrument as object’ and ‘raw material as instrument’. ‘Instrument’ is also viewed as a distributed mesh-like structure in which collective improvisation may occur. Borrowing from Ingold, ‘wayfaring’ is used to describe improvising with materials found ‘along the way’. Silent actions, uncontrollable instruments, unstable systems, performative failures, reimagined affordance of objects, ‘playing with resource’ and ‘improvising inside electronics’ are all addressed in relation to performance-installation. Finally, the authors explore the idea of ‘virtuosity in listening’, and question sonic autonomy and self-expression in improvisation and how ‘attending to sound’ can be an active part of improvised performance.

The conceptual sound artist, turntablist, and curator Maria Chavez muses about storing and accessing sounds. Building on Ursula Le Guin’s concept of the carrier bag, she describes four eras of sound recording and containment.

This article will examine the music of two improvisation scenes – Seoul’s ‘Dotolim’ and Tokyo’s onkyô – with a particular focus on their use of gesture and texture. The article centres on an analysis of a trio performance by Jin Sangtae, Hong Chulki and Tetuzi Akiyama, which effectively brings these two musical communities together in a collaborative performance. This analysis demonstrates that focusing on gesture and texture can help in perceiving essential aspects of an improvised performance, including understanding strategic modes of listening and interplay, musical structural developments (both micro and macro) as well as identifying applied roles of instrumental technique and approach.

Traditional Chinese music highlights the linear beauty, or the melody. In addition to the presentation of melody, traditional Chinese music tends to create rhythmic beauty with a broad sound language of different attributes, which is realised by controlling the sound variation with its rich playing fingerings and techniques. Instead of evading noises, traditional Chinese music even applies noises intentionally to meet certain demands, as is very commonly found in plucked string instruments. Many typical noise languages used in plucked string instruments, while in the context of electroacoustic music, demonstrate their features in multiple dimensions of sound, such as the basic form, colour, dynamics and longitudinal gradation structure, which are gained by changes in parameters such as sound pitch, frequency, time and space information. Therefore, they imply both the basic timbre characteristics of the musical instrument and the technical characteristics of the electroacoustic music.

This article draws on a practice theory perspective to investigate instances of sound practice in a particular community of technology use by focusing on the community and product offerings in and around contemporary modular synthesisers and their growing popularity in the ‘Eurorack’ format in order to investigate the attraction and allure of analogue things in a digital age. This article identifies issues of authenticity, legitimacy and creativity as key drivers of the way we project our identities onto objects and the intimate technologies we own, and the search for meaningful technological encounters. In the realm of sound practice, the follow-up questions are similar: why when there is software and affordable digital alternatives, do some musicians swear by modular synthesis given the commitment this practice requires in terms of money, time, self-education and exploration (and for a lack of a better term) tinkering? With Eurorack as a case study, this article investigates the attraction and allure of analogue things in a digital age by investigating meaningful sound practice as emerging out of the discourses of online communities around the modular synth phenomenon.

The composer Pauline Oliveros emphasised that her music was a by-product of a larger humanistic project aimed at raising awareness and sensitivity through social interaction and community-building. In this article, I highlight the role of technology in facilitating social interaction in improvisatory contexts by considering three examples that span Oliveros’s career: the composition In Memoriam: Nikola Tesla, Cosmic Engineer; her telematic performances; and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) project. In each of these examples, technological mediation transforms musical and social interaction in unpredictable ways, presenting obstacles that require participants to work cooperatively to resolve them. This intensification of Oliveros’s larger project is considered through several complementary theoretical frameworks, including Don Ihde’s theory of technological mediation, Daniel Belgrad’s concept of deutero-learning in improvisation and Georgina Born’s orders of social mediation in music. By deploying technology in visible – rather than invisible – ways, and by inviting participants to adapt to and even embrace unexpected elements that might otherwise be regarded as limitations, Oliveros’s work reveals how technology can simultaneously be understood as an affordance for music-making and an extension of a deeply social and community-oriented endeavour.