2.1. Instruments and the musicians

In total, 27 Indian classical instruments currently feature on the Instruments INDIA online archive (Table 1).

Table 1 Instruments and vocal styles featuring on the Instrument INDIA website

The archive features instruments and vocals predominantly found within the Indian classical tradition which are typically seen within solo, duo or ensemble performances. A number of folk instruments of a less common nature also appear in the archive (for example, uddukai, shankha and swarmandal). Performers of these instruments were more difficult to find, but it was deemed even more essential to profile these instruments to promote and publicise their lesser-known status. Accessing musicians via Milapfest ensured sonic contributions would be of a consistently high quality. Each musician was carefully selected and sourced from a variety of backgrounds including established artists, up-and-coming performers from Tarang (the UK's National Ensemble for Indian Music) and a number of film music session stars (Satish Kumar Patri and H. N. Baskar – session musicians to Academy Award nominated music composer Bombay Jayshree). Accessing musicians through Milapfest as Indian music ‘agents’ strengthened the project's credibility, since the project was officially endorsed and promoted by an Indian arts organisation with a high international profile and reputable standing within this niche creative sector. A network of contributors began to emerge, as word spread of the educational value the project was promising. The participating musicians brought a diversity of cultural backgrounds (some were British-born and trained, others were shorter-term visitors from the breadth of regions and traditions within India). It was anticipated that such diversity would provide ample terrain for exploring ‘new signs of identity and innovative sights of collaboration’ (Bhabha Reference Bhabha1994: 2). On reflection, early hindsight regarding the implications of such diversity proved to be of great significance, especially so in relation to the data collected in the recording sessions, where the variety of responses the musicians gave to my requests for sound appeared reducible to key criteria including regional playing traditions (Hindustani or Carnatic) as well as the musician's role within their usual performance tradition context (accompanist or soloist) (Blackburn and Nayak Reference Blackburn and Nayak2013).

2.2. Collecting sounds

The process of recording the musicans revealed numerous points of interest. A somewhat unexpected focus within the research emerged as capturing appropriate sound material proved more challenging than initially imagined. Two categories of sound material were required from each musician: (i) sound for the online sound archive featuring excerpts of representational, typical playing styles and (ii) sounds appropriate for electroacoustic music (e.g. samples, short sounds, long sounds, ideas, motifs, bumps, attacks, unusual sounds). Most of the musicians had not previously encountered electroacoustic music and many had not strayed far from their performance practice within the Indian classical music tradition. Thus, soliciting unconventional, unidiomatic sound was not always a straightforward process. Some musicians responded with uncertainty, unsure about what to play. Some required precise instructions on how to explore their instrument to generate this desired material and many quickly turned to large-scale improvisations from their repertoire. Requesting smaller units of sound was often met with the explanation that the essence of Indian music could not be reduced to individual components, where it was felt that the sum or totality of their art form does not have meaning in singular form.

2.3. Recording work anecdotes

Observations and anecdotes from the collaboration demonstrated the steep learning curve both parties (composer and performers) undertook in the recording environment. From my perspective, two experiences of particular note are included here:

• • Recording the swarmandal (hand-held harp-like instrument). Manuella: ‘can you play something representative of your playing style?’ Musician: (musician stops his light stroking of the strings and hesistently looks up) ‘this is all the instrument does, the strings are stroked back and forth as accompaniment’ … uncomfortable silence fills the recording studio. Contact with many unfamiliar instruments demanded ‘on-the-fly’ learning and discovery.

• • Microphone placement for unfamiliar instruments was supported by the musicians. Best practice in setting up for recording sessions was unknown so advice was sought directly from the musicians. Many of the stringed instruments and their soundboards were structured differently from Western instruments. My reliance on each musican for their knowledge appeared to be respected since their input in dealing with microphone technique was valued.

3.1. Case study 1: acousmatic work

My first musical output from the Instruments INDIA project, Javaari (acousmatic, stereo work, 2013) developed out of recording sessions with sitar player Roopa Panesar and tabla maestro Kousic Sen. Compositionally, the aim was to use these instrumental sources in the same manner in which I typically used sound in my previous practice, irrespective of their cultural associations. I requested short interjections, sounds with directional qualities, pitch bends, attacks, mistakesFootnote ¹ and impacting gestures from the musicians. Transforming the beautifully rich timbres of both these instruments intended to take them away from their usual context – requesting unconventional sound materials was one method of achieving this goal. Heavy transformation processes occasionally disguised both the cultural and instrumental origin (Sound example 1). The integration of isolated single sitar plucks (Sound example 2), neck scrapes (Sound example 3) tabla knocks and attacks through studio techniques also contributed to cultural detachment. Instrument recordings made without the traditional tanpura drone accompaniment further removed typical sonorities and interval patterns associated with the musician's playing styles. Overhauling a sound's identity from the way it is traditionally experienced questioned the rationale behind using culturally tied sound in the first place, especially if a sound's use was only destined for obscurity in the end. The answer can only be found in my initial attraction to the timbres I recorded. I saw potential for these sounds to lend themselves to the creative process, while the new and unchartered territory on offer through the use of these sounds was hugely tempting within an acousmatic context. Snippets of highly referential sound were intentionally left recognisable within the mix to examine the functional role of these emblematic units of sound when placed amidst more abstract materials (Sound example 4).

3.2. Case study 2 – mixed music

New Shruti (2013) for sarod and fixed media involved a live instrumentalist on stage, which immediately posed the challenge of scoring the music for performance purposes. This piece evolved in the studio, as one might create an acousmatic work, where sound materials from the sarod (stringed instrument from the north, Hindustani tradition), captured beforehand in the recording studio, were edited and reconfigured into phrases around which further sonic material was arranged. Due to this approach, no formal notation was created within the compositional process. Western notation was not a requirement for my performer, so an alternative method for performance was sought. The sarod part was memorised through aural means (repetition and rehearsals) while a waveform (of the pre-recorded sarod part only), visible on stage to the performer, prompted the entry of sarod phrases as a means of synchronising both live and fixed parts in performance using a real-time scroll bar within the waveform display. In places, the accompanying electroacoustic material aimed to form a supportive backdrop to the activity of the sarod (Sound example 5) and at other times the sound material would synchronise rhythmically to mirror the sarod line precisely (Sound example 6). New Shruti intentionally adopted a number of key traditional Indian classical music features (tanpura drone, traditional sarod tuning, melodic ideas, tihai rhythmic cadences and typical gamakas) to both reference and honour the Indian classical music origins of the recorded sound material.

4.1. Affordances

Tracing lines of ownership is a natural part of the enquiry process for audience members, composers and academics who recognise referential sounds within the music. ‘Borrowing affordance’ cases (e.g. a British-born composer sourcing the sound of Big Ben or an Argentine composer integrating the bandoneon) go hand-in-hand with a form of sonic patriotism demonstrating fondness of one's homeland soundscapes. In other words, looking back to one's own past cultural heritage for sound material is afforded through the right the composer has within his or her home culture. Without this affordance composers can sometimes (but not always) face an upward struggle justifying their actions. For this very reason, it is easy to feel cut off from sounds of other nations, cultures and communities. Controversial as it may seem, this argument appears to suggest that some cultural sound palettes still remain reserved for only those who outwardly demonstrate a native connection, as stakeholders in the said culture, community or country. At this point it worth considering ‘the liberation of cultures from geographical enclaves’ (Fischman Reference Fischman1999: 53) and the widening gateway to cultures and communities observed through more immediate, cheaper and direct access to cultural sound material. Despite such catalysts for intercultural endeavours, cross-cultural exchange and creativity, the underlying issues and struggles still remain the same. It is unfortunate, but compositional work using culturally significant sound (other than by those with a genuine claim of entitlement) can lead to a problematic and tangled web of contentious issues, confrontation, concerns and possible accusations of cultural appropriation or exoticism. The imperative and reasoning behind these compositions certainly become subjects of greater scrutiny.

4.2. Signalling allegiance and cultural identity

Understanding the concern amongst ‘insiders’ over the use of culturally tied sound by those who have ‘outsider’ status is an important side note within my discussion. To illustrate this point I would like to go back to an earlier case study from 2006 examining the views of Latin American composers displaced from their cultural origin who have now settled in the UK (Blackburn Reference Blackburn2010). Commenting on the situation of others (outsiders) sourcing sounds from his home culture, Bolivian-born composer Augustin Fernandez experienced that there is ‘no spirit behind it’ as the borrowings involve only that of ‘gestural surface’, while composer Michael Rosas Cobian's disappointment in these types of works stems from the incorporation of stereotypical material ‘for export’. These reactions present a dissuasive enough argument to fend off composers from jumping head first into cultural borrowing. Such apprehension around entering the realm of intercultural composition is understandable considering these perspectives. An equally important finding from this earlier research, and one which is relevant within the context of this article includes the communicative ability of the cultural sound material used by all eight composers involved in the study. Fernandez described his tape work Silent Towers (1990) incorporating recordings of the charango (a Bolivian instrument he was trained in, in his youth) as a work that ‘takes on a hybrid character somewhere between that of synthesis and the traditional instrument itself’. Incorporations are explained as creating a habitat for one's own creativity and a means of ‘signalling allegiance to where one belongs culturally’ (Blackburn Reference Blackburn2010). As an outsider to Indian classical music and culture, I became heightened to this type of ‘signalling’ and its operation in both Javaari and New Shruti, due to the appearance of referential sound material. The main difference was that I was not seeking to communicate cultural identity, just simply to showcase and explore newly discovered sound material within the context of my compositional practice. Since the electroacoustic music medium (including acousmatic and mixed formats) allows for a more immediate and apparent suggestion of culture (not simply implying or imitating cultural flavours as commonly found in Western classical music) there will always be a signalling dilemma for the composer.

4.3. Finding your compositional voice

Composing intercultural electroacoustic works as part of the Instruments INDIA project created a challenge regarding how much of the culture being borrowed from should be reflected within the new works and whether this should be at the expense of my own compositional voice and creative intentions. This push–pull struggle between acknowledging and/or honouring the cultural source, while exerting compositional voice appeared to call for compromise. Simon Emmerson has previously encouraged composers who engage in cross-cultural exchanges to be ‘aware of what is lost in an intercultural transaction’ (Emmerson Reference Emmerson2006: 8). This aspect of loss is something Javaari has already come under fire for, as some audience members have commented on the absence of typical aspects associated with Indian musical instrument sounds. As one critic stated, ‘The drone or the meter/tala, and impact is lost, so their inclusion begins to seem like a necessary exoticization rather than teasing out something new’ (Sannicandro Reference Sannicandro2012). Swinging too far one way, for example, through the determined exertion of your compositional voice via a backlog of tried and tested sculpting, processing, and shaping methods risks ‘the pursuit of the exotic and diverse end[ing] in uniformity’ (Urry and Larson Reference Urry and Larson2011: 8). This uniformity may refer to a composer's typical trademark gestures or signature sound, or the effect of abstraction in general. The extreme opposite is equally questionable, where one's compositional sensibilities and aesthetics are entirely abandoned over new forms, styles and structural devices belonging to the other genre's cultural makeup. At this point the composer may ask ‘where am I within this work and is my identity reflected in this piece?’Footnote ³ To demonstrate these considerations, a scale of borrowing is plotted in Figure 1, outlining the range of options in intercultural compositions.

Figure 1 Scale of borrowing.

The point here is not to deter composers from exploring the extremes of the scale or even to propose the supremacy of a balanced, middle-way model, or any other particular position. Instead, the scale's objective is to demonstrate the variety of approaches on offer when composing intercultural works. It is proposed that the x axis refers to contextual issues and can also take account of structure and form, while the z axis acknowledges source bonding, the sound material and overall outcome. The z axis also presents a practical expansion taking account of works that stay true to the compositional voice, but vary in context abstractness. Some pieces have sections classified at different points of the scale as in the case of Simon Emmerson's work Pathways for flute, cello, sitar, tablas, keyboard and live electronics, commissioned by the Shiva Nova Ensemble. Overall, this piece floats around the midpoint (hybridity of two cultures) but there are times where live electronics take a more foreground position (e.g. Movement 1, opening material) where the sound material clearly signals something other than Western or Indian classical music traditions (suggesting a move to the right of the scale). In a different example, Bret Battey's body of work involving Bézier spline modelling (Battey Reference Battey2004) of continuous expression data that uses Hindustani classical music, and more specifically Khyal vocal recordings, as templates for composition and video construction, suggests a position towards the right of the scale. When the cultural sounds themselves do not make it into the composition, but are fundamental to the construction, we may plot a more distant position on the z-axis indicating no trace of the cultural sound.

The scale creates a parallel with Emmerson's concept of ‘masking’:

It is here where I believe compromise can emerge as a by-product of hybridisation when striving to strike a balance between borrowed cultural material and personal composition intentions.

4.4. Cultural studies

I have found it useful to place my intercultural activity within the larger context of cultural studies and its exisiting discourse as a means of understanding and overcoming certain project-specific challenges encountered in this practice-based research:

• • A handful of recordings were made in India (shankha, uddukai and sarod), and this process of going into another's ‘territory’ did carry the unavoidable air of cultural tourism. This issue appeared to be more of a concern to me than to the contributing musicians. For practical reasons (e.g. access to a recording studio), the majority of the instrument recordings took place in the UK. Justifying one's actions when engaging in intercultural projects appears to be a more integral part of the process than embarking on a project using ‘everyday’ sound recordings, such as keys, pots and pan or cutlery. With these more common and abundantly found sounds, I would not feel it necessary to explain, justify or seek permission for integrating them into a new composition. Nor does it feel obligatory to educate oneself in the history or traditional use of these items.

• • The compositional activity leading to the recontextualisation of cultural sounds (my recordings of Indian musical instruments) can be ‘inserted into a new system of exchange … the original meaning is decoded or deterritorialied and quickly recoded as something else, according to a new system of meaning determined by outsiders with different values and agendas’ (Root Reference Root1996: 84). Observable #x2018;recoding’ of sitar figurings and tabla rhythms occurs in my acousmatic work Javaari, where a new system of meaning is attached to the newly isolated cultural object, which becomes subject to this system of meaning (Sound example 7). In this sound example, the repeating sitar loop at the start acts an onset for the sustained drone. The sitar note is reshaped creating a typical cause and effect gestural behaviour common to acousmatic music. The reverse sitar material at the end of the drone also functions in the same way as it builds to an event in a causal fashion.

• • John Urry's definition of the ‘Tourist Gaze’ (Urry and Larson Reference Urry and Larson2011) provided a helpful analogy to what we might call the ‘tourist ear’. Like our eyes upon unfamiliar, unencountered sights, our ears provide us with an insight and a way of hearing the world which subsequently forms what is heard and how we hear it. My intercultural works probably result from the ‘tourist ear’, where exposure to novel, previously unheard materials initially fuelling attraction to this cultural soundworld led to the production of new music. The way we hear these sounds for the first time is likely to be different from the way we hear more familiar, everyday sounds. At the start of the project I asked the question ‘Do relationships with cultural sound change over time; for example, at what point do sounds stop being unfamiliar and exotic?’ I am sure that, with time, perception does evolve so that we become accustomed to and more discerning of once unfamiliar sound.

5.1. The online sound collection

The profiling of 27 instruments on the website presents a snapshot of all the material recorded. A much larger store of full-quality, unedited audio remains behind the scenes within a central repository, carefully archived for future use. Plans are in the pipeline to commission new electroacoustic music works from this archive as a means of keeping the initial line of enquiry open over the use of cultural sound use, whilst propagating further interest in intercultural creativity. There is also the intention to expand the sound archive with an emphasis on capturing material from further folk and devotional instruments with a lesser-known presence outside of India.