This dissertation addresses the convergence of ethics, labor, aesthetics, cultural citizenship, and the circulation of knowledge among experimental electronic instrument builders in New York City and Berlin. This loosely connected group of musician-inventors engages in what I call “DIY music technology” due to their shared do-it-yourself ethos and their use of emerging and repurposed technologies, which allow for new understandings of musical invention. My ethnography follows a constellation of self-described hackers, “makers,” sound and noise artists, circuit benders, avant-garde/experimental musicians, and underground rock bands through these two cities, exploring how they push the limits of what “music” and “instruments” can encompass, while forming local, transnational, and virtual networks based on shared interests in electronics tinkering and independent sound production. This fieldwork is supplemented with inquiries into the construction of “DIY” as a category of invention, labor, and citizenship, through which I trace the term’s creative and commercial tensions from the emergence of hobbyism as a form of productive leisure to the prevailing discourse of punk rock to its adoption by the recent Maker Movement. I argue that the cultivation of the self as a “productive” cultural citizen—which I liken to a state of “permanent prototyping”—is central to my interlocutors’ activities, through which sound, self, and instrument are continually remade. I build upon the idea of “technoaesthetics” (Masco 2006) to connect the inner workings of musical machines with the personal transformations of DIY music technologists as inventors fuse their aural imaginaries with industrial, biological, environmental, and sometimes even magical imagery. Integral to these personal transformations is a challenge to corporate approaches to musical instrument making and selling, though this stance is often strained when commercial success is achieved. Synthesizing interdisciplinary perspectives from ethno/musicology, anthropology, and science and technology studies, I demonstrate that DIY music technologists forge a distinctive sense of self and citizenship that critiques, yet remains a cornerstone of, artistic production and experience in a post-digital “Maker Age.”

This dissertation consists of two parts: Convergence Lines, my twenty-four-minute composition for ten instruments and electronics, and this subsidiary essay. Convergence Lines was written in 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Pynchon’s V. At the center of this discussion is my creative process in imagining a musical corollary to Pynchon’s fictional world: his large cast of vivid characters, far-flung settings, and disjointed sense of time. I also detail my attempt to fashion a formal parallel to the novel’s unorthodox structure of two independent strands of narrative that converge towards the end. I discuss the role of allusion in Pynchon’s work and in my own, and the various points of reference the music is meant to invoke. A second important topic is the role of electronics in the composition, presenting both a technical analysis of the tools employed and an aesthetic perspective, considering how the intrusion of non-acoustic sounds mirrors a central theme of V.: the gradual replacement of the animate by the inanimate. The thesis endeavors to explain from a composer’s perspective, and in an integrated, organic manner, the poetic, musical, and technical aspects behind my work.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-95). Also available in electronic version.

This thesis describes the design and use of two novel digital musical instruments (DMIs) based on moving mechanical systems. The motivation behind using mechanical devices was threefold: to explore the effect of physical effort on DMIs, to make use of the device's inherent haptic and visual feedback, and to serve as a starting point for sound mappings. It was hoped that their mechanical nature would give the instruments a character that could emerge through each of the mappings. The first DMI built was the Gyrotyre, a hand-held DMI based around a small bicycle wheel outfitted with sensors that measure its speed of rotation and as well as its angle of orientation. The second DMI built was the Springwave, which consists of a loose metal spring stretched to one meter and fixed at both ends to a metal frame. The frame is in turn mounted horizontally on a hi-hat stand so that it can be raised and lowered with the pedal, thus inducing oscillation in the spring. Various mappings were designed to reflect and make use of the physical nature of both instruments. It was found that the nature of interaction with each instrument was very different depending on the mapping used. The use of mechanical devices was found to be a useful starting point for the development of mappings, and made playing the instruments engaging for the performer by the relationship between DMIs and musical contexts, a framework for characterizing DMIs that takes musical context into account is presented.

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My dissertation is an investigation of the rhythm and fills presets on the Mellotron MKII (1964) through a series of compositions. All the sounds used in these compositions are Mellotron sounds from the MKII, which were edited and arranged using a digital audio workstation (DAW). In this study I dissect the instrument, and outline every aspect of the rhythms and fills presets. In the process, I develop an expanded model of performance practice on the instrument, presenting new playing and compositional possibilities. These are made possible through comprehensively documented analysis of the instrument’s sample set and the tempo, key and pitch permutations achievable through its on-board modulation controls. The Mellotron is significant because it was among the first samplers in history, and quickly became an iconic sound, woven into the cultural fabric of 1960s British pop. The Mellotron was used on The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, and The Rolling Stones’ ‘2000 Light Years From Home’, to name a few. While the Mellotron is featured on these famous songs, it has never been used as a solo instrument for a long form composition, nor have its samples ever been transcribed. The study takes a reflexive approach, using journals compiled through the composition process to support the development of new Mellotron techniques and compositions. The compositions presented in this study establish and demonstrate the Mellotron’s capability for extended solo work. The new techniques presented here make the Mellotron more practical for improvisation, composition and performance in new musical contexts. Additionally, the research expands scholarly/educational literature on electromechanical keyboards, providing in-depth technical, historical and musical data on the Mellotron. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M. Mus. (Music)