I believe that a sort of cognitive dissonance occurs when we witness a musician gently tap a button in order to produce a crunchy burst of distortion. Perhaps the sound is percieved as less brutal when paired with such a gentle gesture. I believe that the gestures used while performing are vital to sonic perceptions. These gestures can psychologically amplify sounds or subjectively dramatize them. Imagine how much more intense live music would be if the performer incorporated action. By “action” I simply mean gestures. Instead of pressing buttons or turning knobs we could easily produce those same sounds using interesting gestures. Instead of pushing a button I want to run face first into a midi controller wall. I want to pull giant levers and kick things. I don’t believe that all “action” should be reserved for acoustic instruments and even though the laptop can be considered an instrument, the interaction isn’t aesthetically pleasing. I think the laptop should just be used as a brain, and we should focus on building interesting controllers. I’m sick of seeing the same knobs and buttons. I want to see levers and wheels. I want to see a giant button that requires an extreme amount of force in order to push and must be struck with a giant mallet. Controllerism should be more about interaction. It’s a performance tool. I don’t care about LED’s and arcade buttons. What’s the point of building your own midi controller if you’re simply just replicating the filth that already exists. We need to view midi controllers as extensions of ourselves. They’re our new arms and legs. People like seeing guitarists on stage, because of the amount of action involved in playing the instrument. You can shake it. You can bend the strings. You can tap on it. You can strangle the whammy bar. We should build midi controllers in this same respect. Below is a video of what I believe to be a quintessential example of action music.
Action Music
Posted byFahad BaseerPosted inart, controllerism, experimental music, performance, psychology, sound, sound artTags:action music, controllerism, dada, electro-acoustic, electronic music, experiment, experimental music, fluxus, futurism, modernism, noise music, performance, performance art, performance theory, psychology, sound art
Published by Fahad Baseer
Experimental Musician. Artist. Thinker. View more posts
fahad baseer 
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