Unreleased music by Tom Mudd
October 2023
Tom Mudd. Photo: Claire Bullen
Listen to previously unheard experiments by the composer who uses synthesized physics engines and algorithmic models to extend the possibilities of guitar music
| “Pile Up Part 1” | 0:01:20 |
| “Expander Harmonics” | 0:03:00 |
| “Vibrato Three String” | 0:01:32 |
| “Earth 1” | 0:01:04 |
| “Bass Solo” | 0:02:39 |
| “Earth 19” | 0:02:17 |
On his new album Guitar Cultures, composer Tom Mudd uses physical modelling and algorithmic composition to synthesize and explore various guitar sounds and techniques. “It’s really old school computer music,” Mudd tells Stewart Smith in The Wire 477. “You define a synthesizer and then you define a set of playing parameters for that synthesizer. But the results didn’t always feel like they were computer music, because these instrumental algorithms, which I didn’t create, were good enough that it would make you think of music that surrounds the culture of brass instruments or surrounds the guitar, even though the process was totally separated from those cultures.”
These previously unheard tracks are a mixture of outtakes from Guitar Cultures and others from forthcoming releases. “Working algorithmically often means that you generate a lot of material and are then selective about what you decide to put forward,” Mudd adds via email. “One of the real pleasures of algorithmic work is that you don’t have to hear your own actions in every detail of the music; you can hear it fresh, as though some one else is playing it. That’s particularly true with the kind of non-real time synthesis used in these pieces, where you tell the computer what to do and then have to wait a while – sometimes hours – while the computer generates the audio. It feels like cooking or perhaps baking: you have a particular idea of how the ingredients might come together, but you have to wait and see. Then while you enjoy your freshly baked audio, you can ruminate on how you might tweak the recipe for the next batch.
“The guitar synthesis model is fun to work with,” he continues, “as it’s almost impossible not to imagine real fingers, real strings, real wood being involved in the process when listening to the output. The process might be closer to 1980s computer music, but the music pulls almost inevitably towards folk, improv, blues, rock, or other guitar or zither based musics.”
Read Stewart Smith’s interview with Tom Mudd in full in The Wire 477. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital library.
These previously unheard tracks are a mixture of outtakes from Guitar Cultures and others from forthcoming releases. “Working algorithmically often means that you generate a lot of material and are then selective about what you decide to put forward,” Mudd adds via email. “One of the real pleasures of algorithmic work is that you don’t have to hear your own actions in every detail of the music; you can hear it fresh, as though some one else is playing it. That’s particularly true with the kind of non-real time synthesis used in these pieces, where you tell the computer what to do and then have to wait a while – sometimes hours – while the computer generates the audio. It feels like cooking or perhaps baking: you have a particular idea of how the ingredients might come together, but you have to wait and see. Then while you enjoy your freshly baked audio, you can ruminate on how you might tweak the recipe for the next batch.
“The guitar synthesis model is fun to work with,” he continues, “as it’s almost impossible not to imagine real fingers, real strings, real wood being involved in the process when listening to the output. The process might be closer to 1980s computer music, but the music pulls almost inevitably towards folk, improv, blues, rock, or other guitar or zither based musics.”
Read Stewart Smith’s interview with Tom Mudd in full in The Wire 477. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital library.
Leave a comment