One of my great concerns in music, for electronic or acoustic instruments, is harmony and harmonic progression. I work very hard to create a harmonic palette and procedures that sound logical, possibly directional, that support formal structure, and yet are fresh, flexible, and compelling.
I see melodic material as flowing from and joining with the harmonic, which,
in turn is comprised of combined melodic movement – with constraints (context
and voice leading). For this reason there is a tendency for my electroacoustic
music to be strongly based on notes and sonorities (and spectral content –
which to me is also harmony). This is not, of course, to the total exclusion
of form based on timbral or textural-granularity evolution and juxtaposition,
but it is a strong emphasis.
Rhythm is another matter. I believe that clarity of metric time provides powerful
syncopated and poly-rhythmic possibilities. However, my rhythms are not straight
ahead four, or three, or 6/8, but tend to be modulated, offset, and flexible,
with snatches of this, and a little of that.
The combination of rhythm and harmony, my harmonic rhythm, is flexible, often
offset, sometimes contrapuntal or heterophonic, and, even in homophonic textures,
favors little movements in inner voices
This all makes me something of a conservative for mainstream electroacoustic
music, but I believe that we can learn some things from Brahms, Beirach, Ornette,
Scriabin, Coltrane, Hendrix, Reznor, Schoenberg, Zappa, Shorter, and Reich,
et al., as well as from Babbitt, Stockhausen, Varese, Berio, Eno, Cage. Xenakis,
and Davidovsky.
The instruments, practices, and aesthetics of music, and new media, or combined
media are being born now. Research and explorationin of timbre, spatialization,
analytical recognition, and interactive control are part of it, but not all
of it. I expect a congealing or coalescense of practice(s) into new "styles."