Carla Scaletti
Interview by Giorgos Frangiskos
Composer and software engineer Carla Scaletti is the designer of the Kyma language and one of the pioneers of data sonification (mapping data to sound for purposes of understanding the data). She is the president of Symbolic Sound and was for many years a regular guest professor at the CCMIX (Centre de Creation Musicale Iannis Xenakis) in Paris.
Scaletti has a doctorate in music and a masters in computer science from the University of Illinois, a masters of music from Texas Tech University (Distinguished Alumunae Award), and a bachelor's of music from the University of New Mexico (Magna cum laude).
In what ways do you use technology in your music? How did your relation with technology begin and how has it evolved since?
For me technology and music are inseparable. I don’t think in terms of “using technology” in my music; I just think of making sound and music and writing software as one continuous activity.
My relationship to technology began with a childhood interest in science fiction—so technology has always held a kind of romantic or magical allure for me. I’m happy to say that I still feel the same way today except that, whereas back then I was just experiencing the magic, now I am one of the ones creating the experience for others (at least I hope that is the case). So the evolution has been from something that was passive to something that is more active (and a lot more work!) but still endlessly fascinating.
Technology is no more the prerogative of the rich or the computer specialists; Does this make the music produced with the new means more uniform? How difficult is it to be different today?
If your music speaks from your experience, you cannot help but be different. Even people who are the same age and grew up in the same town have different genes, different families, different brains, and they experience and understand the universe with subtle but fascinating differences. The goal is not necessarily “to be different” but to create meaningful work; and yes I think that is difficult.
Access to more tools does not make it easy to create; the tools merely expand the range of possibility. In a sense, the better the tools become, the more ambitious composers become. Technology opens so many possibilities that the difficulty can become one of intentional self-restriction, of choosing to focus on one algorithm or one technology in order to make it possible to actually finish a piece.
Electroacoustic music appears to speak to the hearts of limited audiences in relation to other electronic music genres; do you think this is the case and why? Can listeners be "educated" to appreciate the less popular genres? Is this a good idea in your opinion?
Yes and yes, it’s a good idea! Although in place of the word “educated” I might prefer to use a word like “enticed” or “invited”. Humans are naturally curious and we enjoy discovering new ideas—especially if the idea is meaningful in the context of our own lives. So if we, as electro-acoustic composers, can meet people where they are right now and then invite them to discover something new, the experience is enjoyable and beneficial to all of us.
Why is some music more immediately accessible or understandable? People experience music in time as a metaphor for movement through an abstract space. Electronic music based on discrete-pitch scales and a regular emphatic beat creates a space with an XY grid drawn on it, making it easier to know where you are and where you are going in the space. Once the audience is oriented to the space, it’s possible to remove the grid, leaving them in free fall for an interval of time before drawing them back into the regular, discrete space again.
There are other kinds of anchors or guides that electro-acoustic music can provide to the listener. Words or concrete sounds can act as orienting anchors or starting points that an audience can hang onto before being enticed outward into more abstract and less familiar spaces. Even something as simple as a program note or speaking to the audience to explain the concept of a piece and what to listen for can indicate a composer’s respect for the audience and strong desire to communicate meaning. The human brain is constantly trying to fit new experiences into the existing framework in order to assign meaning to the universe; if the audience knows there is something meaningful to listen for, they will!
Physical movement in space is a strong metaphor for the way we experience the abstract movement of music through time, and electro-acoustic music that incorporates live performers (either on acoustic instruments or alternative controllers) creates an immediate link to the bodies of the audience. Every human can produce sound and when we listen to music we experience an unconscious tensing of muscles—a mirroring of the effort required to produce that sound. This physical identification with the performer (whether visible or invisible) is vital to meaning of music. As you say in your question, some kinds of electronic music “speak to the heart”. I agree with that and would take it a step further: music speaks to the heart and to every other muscle in the body (as well as to the brain) in a unique and powerful way that should not be underestimated.
Electroacoustic music is often used within other art forms, such as video or theatre. Do you feel that this is maybe where its future lies? Is this a way to attract more people to it or will this be to its detriment?
I agree; the most abstract and unfamiliar sounds are more readily accepted by people when they occur in conjunction with video, theatre, film, or interactive immersive environments like computer games. But at the same time, the solo experience of pure audio (through iPod earbuds for example) has never been as widespread as it is right now. So yes, the future lies in fully immersive multi-sensory experiences AND the future lies in purely auditory experiences too!
Most of the artistic creations we'll be seeing and hearing in Electromedia works '08 will be made with the help of modern technology. Has technology opened up the doors of Art to more people, creators and audience?
We are entering a kind of golden age for computer-mediated art, one in which artists and the larger public speak the same language of time-based media. Too much of traditional art education teaches veneration for artists as ethereal beings who are different from ordinary people. We are returning to an earlier concept of art as an activity practiced and enjoyed by all people to varying degrees. Yes, there will continue to be specialists and there will be people who excel at their art and inspire the admiration of the public. But this will be an admiration based on a deep understanding and familiarity with the common language and tools, not a mindless idolatry based on celebrity and marketing.
Live electronics, live improvisation or jamming between electronic musicians, performers and even “laptop orchestras” seem to be becoming more and more popular. Could this approach of electronic music, incorporating the 'band feeling' bring more people into the this scene (in contrast to the more introverted 'acousmatic' music?
Group music-making follows as a natural consequence of the public’s return to active participation in music creation. I confess to being one of those introverted composers whose only experience with group music was playing harp in a symphony orchestra (no room for improvisation there!) and I secretly envy my colleagues who grew up playing in bands and creating music with their friends. Laptop orchestras are appealing but more so when people are using physical controllers (something like a Nintendo Wiimote or a Wacom pen/tablet) to perform the sounds. To me, laptop keyboards are uninspiring as musical instrument interfaces—they are too discrete and don’t require enough movement or muscle!
Electroacoustic music is in a sense more democratic than pop music: You don't need a tremendously expensive studio to compose your music and no huge international record companies are likely to promote your works, so composers from around the world have more equal chances of being heard. Do you find interesting differences in the electroacoustic music composed in different parts of the world?
There are different ‘schools of thought’ producing different sounds, different approaches to time, and different philosophies of public performance. But these schools of thought extend across geographical boundaries. As you point out, we can hear music from all over the world on the Internet.
Ironically, now that more people have an equal chance at being heard, it can be harder to actually get noticed; people are so overloaded with distractions it’s difficult to get anyone’s attention, much less hold their attention for the period of time necessary to discuss and to build upon what has been said and done previously.
During the middle ages, an educated person might have owned one book and they really studied and memorized that book; now we have so many books that we might not even read all of them completely, much less memorize them; we might prefer to get the ideas from the author’s blog or online video instead. A similar thing is happening in music; it is easier to find breadth than depth. This is the perfect scenario for accelerated evolution during a period of rapid change in the environment.
Have you worked with any Greek composers of contemporary or electroacoustic music? Are you interested in such a cooperation?
Yes, I’m open to the idea! The interesting part is defining the structure of the collaboration; composers are generally solitary individuals so collaboration can be a creatively stimulating exercise. (Yes, we have already been working with several Greek composers within the context of Kyma but this is primarily technical discussions and support).
What are your current interests and your future plans? Are you planning any cooperation with electroacoustic composers?
We work with the Kyma community as collaborators; we learn from them and I think they learn from Kyma as well. Kyma evolves in large part according to the way people are using it and the ‘evolutionary pressures’ put on the language by what people are trying to do with it. As some of these ideas become part of Kyma, they are disseminated to everyone else who is using Kyma. In this way, the language acts as a nexus or a hub, quickly distributing knowledge and ideas from composers, researchers, and sound designers from different schools of thought and from all over the world.
