‘Music of the People’: Music From Data as Social Commentary
Rob King · 2019
Data-music reflects the ubiquity of data in modern society. Composers have not engaged widely with the opportunities opened up by this, despite the chance to overcome a gulf between academic art music and social engagement. Their reluctance might be traced to the challenge of reconciling abstract data and concrete sound, in political implications, and in technological barriers in computer music. The present paper argues that socially relevant music composition for the 21st century can adopt a programme of sonification grounded in politically acute data. As examples of such practice, two compositions are discussed founded upon US and UK social data sets, and realised via the SuperCollider programming language. The consequences for the composer of new music are further discussed from political and musicological angles, with the ‘purpose’ of writing such music analysed from the perspective of various commentators.