Matt Burdynowski (they/them)

Take a look at this solarpunk image by Ole Kristian Halstensen — “Solarpunk-Inspired Off-Grid Homestead.” You can see that the homestead is not new — exposed brick, clearly built a long time ago, and yet it has solar panels on the roof, a dome, some energy generators. It made me think about how our relationship with technology can be — one where tech only steps in where necessary, and facilitates and preserves what we’ve already built.

The image to me is a perfect metaphor of how I see the role of tech in music-making. My training is both deeply embodied and close to technology, and I perceive the two as complementary forces: the diverse, unpredictable, poetic world of living beings; and the more abstract, synthetic, diffuse world of technology. In practice, I’m an interpreter of sorts. It gives me great pleasure to translate between domains — spoken languages (I speak English, Polish and Portuguese), movement-based practices, physical theatre, dance, music — and, here, between the languages of electronic music-makers and acoustic musicians.

The collaborative side of music-making is a deep interest of mine; my musical training (choirs, samba, jazz) has been about live interactions, and about creativity unmediated by digital interfaces. The question I keep asking is, how can music tech be in service to the already-existing musical practices? How can it combat social isolation and bring people together through play and collaboration?

Ethan Hein, a music educator from NYU, contrasts “participatory music” and “presentational music” in this article. Without discrediting tightly-rehearsed, “closed” music, I feel there is a deep lack of opportunities for music-makers of various levels to participate in creative processes together, to the benefit of everyone. The band, the improvising circle, the samba school are all spaces where learning happens by osmosis. The shy beginner gets supported and motivated by experienced players, and the expert gets an opportunity to share and inspire the community. Everyone has a specific role, and everyone is working on a shared musical vocabulary, with opportunities for their individualities, stories and interests to shine through. To me, this — knowledge passing equally between people — is what education really is.

Circle dances of various cultures, such as a roda de ciranda from the north-east of Brazil, are a perfect example of this, since they can include anyone and the collective movement gives newcomers physical, kinaesthetic feedback.

The expert’s role is to share, not to be admired. The newcomer’s role is to learn and let themself be carried, not to be intimidated.

I keep wondering how this kind of ethos can be reflected and supported by digital technologies.

So far, two things I made have felt like attempts at this, both in different ways. Firstly, I ran a harmony workshop, where I opened a spectrograph on my laptop and let a roomful of people make sounds into a microphone, watching the sound become a picture — collective painting with sound. No assessment or prompting, just open-ended, collective play in a visual/auditory feedback loop. Secondly, Tonebank, an audio plugin I was the founding developer of. The goal was to give centre-stage to harmonic systems found in various musical traditions of Africa. The plugin is based on practical musicianship knowledge, in the sense that its harmono-rhythmic structures, claves, tunings and swings are drawn from the ways people actually play.

My dreams are of tech in service of preservation — leaving space for the vines and the raw brick, against over-designing, with plenty of room to play. What I truly want to make is technology that facilitates participatory music: strengthening bonds between people, motivating them to develop their musicianship, honouring the role of the body with all of its expressivity, giving experienced players a chance to help the inexperienced ones, and giving beginners a nourishing, kind and stimulating learning environment. Because regardless of the technologies we use — be it a drum stick or AI — the real power of music is in the heart, in the human connection, in community.