I enjoyed the read, not sure whether it’s been shared here
http://symbioid.com/pdf/Tech/Collaborating%20with%20Machines%20-%20Jenkinson.pdf?view=FitH
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
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Great read, and I agree with him, and I bet most people here do. In essence he’s saying that the workflow imposed on us by machines heavily inform the creative process. And I think we all know this to be true. You could use a MIDI piano roll, Renoise, Digitone, or MC-4 to create sequences. But the way you interact with each one will lead to very different results. And it cannot really be helped. And the same thing applies to traditional instruments. The arrangement of a guitar and piano, and the physicality involved, leads to very different types of playing, which leads to very different musical results. You don’t just convert ideas from one tool to another.
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“The ‘modern’ composer, robbed of his constraints, finds himself in a wasteland of desolate freedom” - this really caught my attention.
If you suffer writer’s block, the blank sheet of paper you’re staring at has become incredibly big, nowadays.
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Nice find.
The use of machines has completed the abolition of anthopocentricity in a radical manner.
I guess that means it’s okay to call OT the “brain” of my setup, right?
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Great read, thanks!
Learning (or unlearning?) to get out of my own way in creative endeavours has brought an increasing sense of relief and enjoyment in more recent times.
As (I think) Tom alludes to in the essay, there’s a kind of resistance that comes out of the “efforting” of putting myself front and centre as some kind of master controller, which often leaves me coming out of the other side feeling somewhat thwarted.
The alternative has been to discover that the creative process is actually nothing to do with ME in any significant sense. Instead, things really start to flow when I allow myself to simply be part of a process, within which I have no ultimate control.
Such a role, as far as I can tell, is neither active nor passive, even though it might appear to bounce between the two from the mind’s point of view.
Without wishing to sound too “woo”, it has occurred to me that even the way in which machines come into our respective lives (GAS or no GAS) is itself a part of this creative process, and subject to an unfathomable web of conditions over which we have no ultimate governance. (Okay, that did sound a bit woo, but I don’t mind 
)
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English isn’t my native language so reading this feels like trying to play his drum breaks on a drum set.
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Tom Jenkinson, he’s like a music philosopher, and a wicked bassist/producer. I love Squarepusher and Shobaleader One.
His Music for Robots collaboration is as fun as it is pertinent to the concept of performance - we strive to play perfectly in time with one another, but why not replace performers with robots? Why does it seem odd to watch robots play music instead of humans? And I love how he pushed those robots to their extremes, creating pieces of music with sections played so fast that even the robots struggled to keep up and would make mistakes which in a way humanises the machines.
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Very interesting read. Thank you.
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awesome, thanks for sharing!
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I missed his gig at the roundhouse two weeks ago. thought I cancelled when it was rescheduled last year then was caught out of the country. couldn’t find any takers!
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That was… interesting. It’s also interesting that it was written in 2004, yet it seems like it could have been written yesterday. It’s like he predicted Instagram / YouTube gear porn posting at the end, when he mentions donning the gear as accessories as a way to appear to be a musician. Hmm.
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I hear he’s been working on an updated version for years, but just can’t decide which device to write it on.
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Or the devices have already teamed up against him.
When being forced to “purpose”, all the machine seems
to be capable of is resistance.
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Err, what? 
Thoughts stated as facts. Ok.
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The writing is very musicologyesque. Love from a musicologist
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I played a gig in Sydeny about 6 years ago on the same night Squarepusher played at the Opera House. I was having a chat with a mate about how the stuff you use to make music influences your choices, by nature of its design.
Now years later I read this. We should have a written a 3 page essay…
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“The jnconsequentiality of new classical music serves to illustrate this point.”
Hmmmm. Rather dismissive gloss here.
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“The Medium is the Message” from another angle?
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