Placeholders for [ failure? ] — A music creation and technology research

Abstract

This dissertation describes how I developed my practice as a composer between 2017 and 2024. I will first discuss my background and value system, then elaborate on several ideas and techniques for composition, interleaved with more specific examples of works, finished and unfinished. In the last years, my practice took different shapes and turns between mixed music composition (i.e. instrumental music with live computer), acousmatic music (or fixed media), improvised performances, audiovisual generative or interactive installations, and hybrid projects with generative scores. Those different categories of work, in which I aspire to keep expressing myself, reflect my ever-changing interests, and I hope they make obvious the necessity to keep extending the scope of what we call « composition ». My research process has been strongly influenced by the development of dedicated software for computer-aided composition (CAC), in particular the MOZ’Lib package (a satellite of the bach ecosystem for MaxMSP) which I actively maintain since 2015. I will discuss it partially in the middle of this text, trying to address its most salient features and hoping to trigger the curiosity of fellow composers, musicians and musicologists to explore it by themselves. Finally, a modest collection of scores will end this portfolio of artistic and research projects. During the time of this research, my interest has switched from “ordinary scores” to fully software-based generative scores, and it would hardly make sense to reduce my latest projects to a series of pages. Some of these projects were initially intended as live mixed music, before solidifying into fixed media. When available, I will provide images of excerpts or screen recording videos for reference. I will provide a recording (live, studio or a simulation) of some of the projects discussed, when available, as well as a couple of pieces of mixed music predating my time at Harvard, to give more context on my personal trajectory in the last ten years.