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Improvisation, Technology, and Representation

Karl Coulthard

Published: 2010-05-18

TEXT: A mis-recorded live performance by Duke Ellington at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 is used as an entryway into a discussion of how technology mediates and creates representations of music. Detailed suggestions for further reading are also included at the end of the article. AUDIO: Two versions of the recording demonstrate the effects of technological mediation in sound recording.

Available Files

  • improvisation_technology_representation.pdf

    148 KB | application/pdf

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  • 01_Festival_Junction_-_Studio_Version.m4a

    1 MB | audio/mp4

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  • 02_Festival_Junction_-_Live_Version.m4a

    1 MB | audio/mp4

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So one of the things that improvisation has come to mean in the context of highly technological performance is that improvisation is the last claim to the legitimate presence of a human in the performance of music.

– Bob Ostertag