(Full Title: Jamming with Machines: collaborating on music with technology and through technology)

Abstract

Jamming refers to a collaborative musical act where two or more musicians get together to create, in real-time, an improvised musical work. Whilst the resulting jam may not always be a cohesive or even pleasing musical work from a listener’s perspective, the playful, improvised nature of the process allows for unexpected results and for happy accidents to occur.

Exponential advances in the processing power of personal computers and the increasing sophistication of software and software modeling have placed an incredible array of affordable music production tools into the hands of “bedroom” producers. Over the last decade or so, these software tools have made it possible to take a musical work from an initial idea to a final release quality product all within the PC.

Nothing is more frustrating than having access to all the tools to produce great music, but at the same time to be stuck for musical ideas to use them on – yet it’s surprisingly easy to become intimidated by the technology and to lose the initial spark of creativity. What one really wants to do is to approach the music production process in the home studio like a jam session, to reintroduce a measure of playfulness and improvisation, and to treat the technology like a jamming partner.

In tandem with the developments in personal computers has been the development of computer networking and the Internet. The Internet currently offers a myriad of ways for musicians to meet and collaborate, from humble e-mail to music uploading sites, social networking sites and virtual worlds. More recently, it has become possible for musicians to jam together in real-time from just about any location in the world, and to stream the jam-session to a live audience in a virtual world.

Media

Speaker

Photo by MoShang, 　

MoShang a.k.a. Jean Marais
Sound Jeweler
http://moshang.net/

MoShang is a sound jeweler living in Taiwan. He collects rough audio diamonds from the streets of Taiwan (be they overheard conversations, street-ads blared from the ubiquitous blue-trucks, street processions or funeral chants) and fuses them with traditional Chinese instruments and laid-back beats to create a unique blend of downtempo electronica he likes to call Chinese Chill.

Although he is slightly embarrassed to admit it, MoShang (aka Jean Marais) started his musical career as a choral singer in his native South Africa in the early 1980's. Around the same time, he received his first computer - a Commodore VIC-20. His passion for music and computers would eventually culminate in the release of his debut solo album Made In Taiwan in 2004.

Along the way, MoShang was the front man of Duusman (an Afrikaans language art rock band), played the saxophone for Tsunami (on the Gallo Jazz label), and produced 10 tracks on three award- winning music and poetry albums with the celebrated South African poet Breyten Breytenbach. He was half of the Afrikaans pop-duo 12Hz with Riku Lätti (their debut Nou has been described as the most progressive Afrikaans album ever) and he received a South African AVANTI award for his music to the short film Angels in a Cage.

MoShang's track Nun Other was a finalist in the 2005 / 2006 International Songwriting Competition.

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