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AGENCY IN COMPOSITIONAL WORKFLOW: HOW YOU WRITE AFFECTS WHAT YOU WRITE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2021

Abstract

The organising of tools, whether real or virtual, is an essential part of composition that is often overlooked. This article aims to generate a discussion about how a composer's working environment can permeate the compositional process and contribute to or inform their ideations. Central to this understanding, in terms of agency, has been to consider workflow as a subset of Actor–Network Theory. Here, a musical composition is viewed as a multiplicity of relationships between workflow and ideations, and suggests an expanded practice of musical creation that explores the various agencies that shape a composition. Nevertheless, this article is not intended as a comprehensive account, but only, as Bruno Latour would put it, ‘to add in a messy way to a messy account of a messy world’.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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