Abstract
The concept of affordances from ecological theory outlines how objects have potential uses that they ‘afford’ the organism confronting them (Gibson, 1977). In this talk, I will consider the theory of affordances in relation to the creative process of my electronic music project, Nightports and specific attention will be given to how it interacts with and sheds light on various issues pertaining to time, rhythm and groove.
As a project, Nightports is bound by a fundamental aesthetic of restriction: only sounds produced by the featured musician (or place) can be used – nothing else – though these can be transformed, distorted, translated, reworked, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered without limitation. The resulting music is a hybrid of the specific characteristics of the musician’s playing plus the interventions of the producers. Through practical examples, this presentation will discuss how the interactive relationship between the affordances of the musical object, available technology and the musical creativity of artists facilitate the specific rhythmic outcome of each creative process.
Bio
Dr Adam Martin is a Professor of Composition at Leeds Conservatoire, working predominantly on the BA Popular Music and BA Songwriting programmes. His specialisms include electronic composition, popular musicology and collaborative creativity.
Adam’s doctoral studies involved of interdisciplinary research employing phenomenological and musicological research methods to explore the role of music producers in the twenty-first century and has been presented at national and international conferences alongside studies exploring the nature of the music studio and collaborative creativity.
Adam is an active music producer, composer and performer. He is a founding member of the electronic ensemble, ‘Nightports’ who fuse aspects of electronic music, jazz and experimental music through their collaborations with featured artists and are signed to The Leaf Label. They have worked with renowned musicians including Matthew Bourne, Betamax (The Comet is Coming), Tom Herbert (The Invisible, Adele) and have been featured on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 6, BBC 1 and have also performed internationally.
Adam is also a founding member of the ‘Unusual Ingredients’ project which explores the relationships between taste and sound in a newly developing form of crossmodal composition. Outputs have included a multimodal vinyl boxset, international festival dates as well as bespoke commercial projects for a variety of clients.
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