Liliane Murdoch
BA English, Cultural Studies & Communications
BLUE Residency
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Winter
2024
Surveying tooling in music composition and its influence on translating abstract ideas into song
BLUE Residency
Winter
2024

Background

My project will focus on musical composition and its different forms. More specifically, I would like to look at different ways in which a song may be written & recorded, with in mind the specific tools that are being used in the process. This could include a physical guitar, a notebook, a digital audio interface such as Ableton or Logic Pro, rhyming dictionaries, Chat GPT & even Python coding.  I will be looking at all aspects of the writing & composing process, from initial contemplation to finalizing a recording. The "why" of my project lies in this desire I have as an artist to understand my craft, and sonically translate an image in the most accurate way possible. In other words, what digital or physical tools (or combination of both) provide the most accurate translation of a human generated and initially intangible idea?

The "why" involves exploring a process that usually seems so automatic that we don't consider what tangible tools are contributing to the final result, and what specific role those tools are playing in translating the initial idea, which may be a mental image, a feeling, or a thought. Tools may include digital tools but also include pen to paper.

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