Laptop Improvisation in a Multi-Dimensional Space
By: Samuel Francis Pluta
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [New York, N.Y.?]
Language: eng
Description: Using information theory as a foundation, this paper defines virtuosity in the context of laptop performance, outlines a number of challenges that face laptop performers and software designers, and provides solutions that have been implemented in the author's own software environment. A summary of the argument is that by creating a multi-dimensional environment of Sonic Vector Spaces (see page 17) and implementing a method for quickly traversing that environment, a performer is able to create enough information flow to achieve laptop virtuosity. At the same time, traversing this multi-dimensional environment produces a perceptible sonic language that can add structural signposts for the listener to latch on to in performance. Specifics of the author's personal approach to this problem, a software environment coded in SuperCollider, are then shared. Lastly, Mihà¡ly Csà­kszentmihà¡lyi's concept of flow psychology is applied to the three stages of creation in the laptop performance process - software design, patch design, and performance.
Notes: Department: Music.

Thesis advisor: Bradford Garton.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Columbia University, 2012.