Page 63 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

52 The topography of composing work

opportunity to make decisions. Rather, the use and design of algorithms as in
a Max patch demands “adifferentiated approach, which ultimately remains
the artistic responsibility of the composer” (Nierhaus 2012: 2). It is possible
to write an algorithm to choose the sound that has the least interference, or
the highest or lowest level measurable on a scale of a certain sound feature.
An algorithm can certainly accomplish this with high precision and in never-
ending loops without any loss of quality. But artistic work includes activities
that algorithms can only carry out to a limited extent or not at all. They have
no sensory experience, because they only calculate. They also lack the possi-
bility of developing, confirming or discarding aesthetic preferences jointly
with other members of a practice community. Not least, they do not possess
the corporeality required to perceive and judge the sound material they have
generated on a sensory and emotional level.

1.4.4 Summary
In conclusion, we hold that immaterial objects have three functions. As tools
of cognitive practices, they possess a generative and a transformative function.
Different notation systems enable composers to represent sounds or ideas for
sounds using different symbolic shapes. Music-aesthetics discourses – to
mention a second example – help to develop or organise thoughts and thus to
generate new ideas and composition concepts. At the beginning of the com-
position process, especially when the first ideas are being generated and
notated, verbal means and musical notation signs act as vehicles for artistic
and creative processing. Writing down composition ideas or first concepts in
notebooks or sketchbooks not only works as a reminder, but also drives the
generation of ideas. When finalising and fixing musical ideas, notation systems
make possible detailed work, precision, revision and further development of
parts of the piece. Immaterial objects can vastly expand the possibilities of
human cognition by decisively widening imagination, processing power and
memory capacity. This in turn boosts the intramusical complexity of
achievements in composition. And finally, signs have a coordinating function.
Towards the end of the composition process, musical notation functions as a
structuring instance during rehearsals. Here, notation signs are catalysts for
social interactions.

Notes
1 Theodore Schatzki criticises Becker’s approach as a variant of methodological
individualism and argues that actions always take place in “constellations of practice-
material bundles” (Schatzki 2014: 17). The terms “constellations” and “bundles” here
refer to a level of aggregation that exceeds immediate micro-sociological interactions
and actions. “Practice-material bundles” structure the social setting for the actions
and interactions taking place before they take place. (For a development of the con-
cept of “joint action” from a practice-theory perspective, see also Barnes 2001:
17–28.) Pierre Bourdieu (1992/1996: 204f.) in turn accuses Becker’sgeneralised