USAR02: Music and Technology

The Timega Theory, University Cultural Centre.

Ng Kok Hoe. USAR02 ["Music And Technology"], University Scholars Programme, National University Of Singapore.

The performance had been touted to be a "futuristic electronic opera," while the programme sheet was peppered with such terms as "Electric Muse" and "Extended Interactive Multimedia Performance." It was supposed to be a multimedia musical experience that followed a story-line. I had mixed feelings about The Timega Theory as I eagerly waited for it to begin. On the one hand, I was excited about what I expected to be an impressive concoction of music and technology like nothing I had seen before. But I was at the same time wary and slightly uncomfortable about being exposed, for two hours at a stretch, to unfamiliar music from a foreign musical terrain.

In the small theatrette situated in the University Cultural Centre, the layout on the stage was simple if a little cluttered. Instruments were distributed across the stage in front of a projection screen that would later come into play. As the performers took to the stage and performed the first song of the evening, they paved the way for what would turn out to be a dazzling display of technology, innovation and musical talent.

Technology was in every nook of the performance. In terms of instruments, the two performers skillfully juggled two synthesizers, an electronically hooked-up Gu Qin, a Theremin, several flutes, a MIDI Wind-Controller, a MidiWand, a Percussion Trigger System and a Didgeridoo. Interestingly, both the Percussion Trigger System and Didgeridoo were homemade and fashioned out of simple PVC tubes. Both performers also sang to certain portions of the music. The technological elements were in the reprogramming of the synthesizers to perform complex roles such as keyboard splits, the wiring up of the classical Chinese instrument Gu-Qin, the electronic distortion of the human voice and, in particular, the innovative improvisation of a simple household material such as PVC plumbing into musical instruments. In fact, their heavy reliance on electronic sounds and sample playbacks is itself a utilization of technology. The clever juxtaposition of electronic, acoustic and ethnic sounds made for a rich aural experience that was not discordant, but multi-textured and coherent.

The ease with which the two performers adroitly managed so many instruments could have led the audience to overlook this key difference between The Timega Theory and a conventional band performance. One of the key benefits of introducing technology into music is that it endows an individual musician with the power of a full band or even orchestra. In this case, prerecorded segments and sample playbacks allowed the musicians to move from one instrument to another without a break in the music. More importantly, it meant that even though the two musicians could only play two instruments at any one time, they could easily trigger prerecorded accompaniments with the touch of a button, giving the performance a full-bodied feel which two soloists alone cannot accomplish on acoustic instruments. At one point, one of the performers actually played the Didgeridoo with one hand while he manipulated keyboard toggles with the other. None of this would have been possible without electronic music technology.

Apart from the aural dimension, The Timega Theory was also a unique visual experience. Through the use of stage lighting and synthesizer-controlled computer animation, the audience's attention was riveted in more than one way. As the music changed in tone and tempo, the graphics projected onto the screen reacted accordingly and morphed into complex three-dimensional landscapes. The stage lighting also helped to create the appropriate atmosphere to match developments in the story-line.

Even the narrated story was not spared the influence of technology. The story was set in the era of androids, when machines took over the production of music. The plot traced the development of a new musical movement in the android society, and how the two disputing parties eventually came to an enlightened compromise. The wide array of sounds at the disposal of the performers as well as the visual tools helped them to bring the story to life when it would otherwise have been only a dour narration.

But despite the barrage of new musical elements spearheaded by technology throughout the performance, my initial apprehension about the inaccessibility of the music melted into a strange sense of familiarity long before the show concluded, to my own surprise. Upon retrospection, this can perhaps be explained by the fact that most of the technology utilized in the performance are, by today's standards, nothing entirely new. Keyboard splits can be considered a standard convention in most synthesizers today. Amplifying the sounds of acoustic instruments is common practice, while the Percussion Trigger System, though a unique innovation, is similar to other MIDI controllers that trigger sounds from the synthesizer. Familiarity was likewise echoed in the story narrated in the background, in the sense that androids and robot wars are common-fare in science fiction. The Timega Theory smacked of convention and was firmly bound to tradition even while it explored the use of technology in music.

To be fair to the performers, The Timega Theory was intended to be a showcase of existing technology in music, not an exhibitionist display of the latest and trendiest. In fact, the thread of tradition that ran through the performance might have been intended. The conflict between the two rival music-making factions in the story eventually found resolution through the realization that the new can never be completely severed from the old. In the concluding stages of the performance, the two rival parties engaged in a musical joust in which they each performed what they considered to be archetypal of their school of music. As it turned out, their musical themes were similar. The only difference was in the arrangement of the melody. Tradition, as the protagonist of the story explained, will inevitably echo down the generations, while the young do not need to dissociate themselves from their predecessors in order to walk out of the shadow of convention. There are important lessons to be drawn from this story.

What was touted to be a showcase of technology turned out to be a refresher course on what had already been known and done for some time. This reminds us that, like it or not, technology is here to stay in the musical world. In fact, it has already been around for ages. Even as I grappled with my initial discomfort with electronic music, I overlooked the fact that technology in the form of synthesizers and its panoply of MIDI controllers have survived and renewed themselves over several generations. Technology in music, it seems, is nothing new after all. And this may not be a bad thing. The Timega Theory showed the audience how technology gives the musician greater flexibility and power in music-making, which ultimately benefits the audience in the form of greater entertainment. All this, moreover, need not be achieved at the price of familiar conventions and established tradition which some listeners are still more comfortable with. As the musicians demonstrated, ethnic sounds can be renewed and old but important themes can be recast with the aid of technology. Tradition and technology therefore need not be antithetical. Ultimately, the point may not even be that technology is another way of upholding convention, but that in time, even technology itself becomes convention.