Abstract

Electronic music is advancing not only in the way it is being used in performance but also in the technological sense, due to software developers advancing the ability of the synthesizer to enable the composer to create newer sounds. The introduction of the amino acid and protein synthesizers from MIT is one such example, along with sampling sounds from interstellar bodies through the process of sonification in order to create presets as additional source material for the composer’s palette. The creative process used in creating electronic music on a tablet computer introduces a new musical instrument to be used in live music performances. The fluidity and immediacy of how electronic sounds can be created with tablet computer synthesizers affords the composer to have a new behavioural sense of using them as a musical instrument that can be played intuitively. Exploring this new interface of musical composition is a subject this article will address as well as the psychological aspects pertaining to how an audience can relate to electronic music as an emerging art form removed from the classical music tradition. It will also discuss how the composer of electronic music can affect the listener’s ability to envision new conceptual landscapes, leading to experiencing new ideas and subjective fields of visionary understandings. The composer’s ability to use conceptual models, which influence the way sounds are made and how those sounds influence the listener’s experience, is an important focus of this article.