From information to inspiration, sensitivities mapped in a casus of Central-African music analysis and contemporary music composition
Olmo Cornelis · Critical Arts · 2013
The increased digitisation of cultural objects has resulted in a vast resource of accessible research data. For researchers (and artist-researchers) this abundance of information requires critical analysis and assessment of the available data, and calls for new kinds of scientific analysis. In the case of ethnic music, this analytical framework for digitised and digital-born audio objects is offered by computational ethnomusicology. This article focuses on the position of a composer-musicologist (the author) who works with digitised Central African music on a daily basis, which inevitably influences his musical idiom. First, a historical overview of ethnomusicology is drawn which confronts two strands of research within that field that can be related to elements from Hal Foster's article 'The artist as ethnographer?' (1995). Second, a brief outline is given of the artist's artistic and scientific research, and how they are related. Finally, the discussed aspects of ethnomusicology, the research and composition, are considered in light of Foster's thesis.