Creating Pedagogical Etudes for Interactive Instruments

Jennifer Butler

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

In this paper I discuss the importance of and need forpedagogical materials to support the development of newinterfaces and new instruments for electronic music. I describemy method for creating a graduated series of pedagogicaletudes composed using Max/MSP. The etudes will helpperformers and instrument designers learn the most commonlyused basic skills necessary to perform with interactiveelectronic music instruments. My intention is that the finalseries will guide a beginner from these initial steps through agraduated method, eventually incorporating some of the moreadvanced techniques regularly used by electronic musiccomposers.I describe the order of the series, and discuss the benefits (bothto performers and to composers) of having a logical sequence ofskill-based etudes. I also connect the significance of skilledperformers to the development of two essential areas that Iperceive are still just emerging in this field: the creation of acomposed repertoire and an increase in musical expressionduring performance.

Citation:

Jennifer Butler. 2008. Creating Pedagogical Etudes for Interactive Instruments. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1179503

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{Butler2008,
 abstract = {In this paper I discuss the importance of and need forpedagogical materials to support the development of newinterfaces and new instruments for electronic music. I describemy method for creating a graduated series of pedagogicaletudes composed using Max/MSP. The etudes will helpperformers and instrument designers learn the most commonlyused basic skills necessary to perform with interactiveelectronic music instruments. My intention is that the finalseries will guide a beginner from these initial steps through agraduated method, eventually incorporating some of the moreadvanced techniques regularly used by electronic musiccomposers.I describe the order of the series, and discuss the benefits (bothto performers and to composers) of having a logical sequence ofskill-based etudes. I also connect the significance of skilledperformers to the development of two essential areas that Iperceive are still just emerging in this field: the creation of acomposed repertoire and an increase in musical expressionduring performance.},
 address = {Genoa, Italy},
 author = {Butler, Jennifer},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1179503},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 keywords = {composition,etudes,max,msp,musical controllers,musical expression,nime08,pedagogy,repertoire},
 pages = {77--80},
 title = {Creating Pedagogical Etudes for Interactive Instruments},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2008/nime2008_077.pdf},
 year = {2008}
}