Grass Grows Between the Cracks

Working with electroacoustic music requires that I adopt a completely different approach to working with the acoustic guitar in terms of research and formulating a theoretical background to how and even why I work (an amplified electric guitar with pedals offers something else entirely, maybe something in-between, and I’ll come to that in due course). Although the electroacoustic music that I compose is non-academic, meaning it probably wouldn’t get played at an academic concert, it requires and benefits from the same depth of research that underpins the more academic music. I’m fortunate in having a PhD in electroacoustic composition because I can apply the same depth of research to my work, as appropriate, and enrich it as a result.

For those new to electroacoustic music I work at a very basic level with microphones and loudspeakers. Recorded sounds from different sources are processed, in my case using only basic editing along with equalisation/ filtering and time stretching/pitch-shifting. It's much more compoluacted than that as I'm sure you appreciate but that's it in a nutshell. Then I take a long time (often more than necessary) working with the sounds I’ve selected to create music, typically works of between thirty minutes and one hour.