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Of Epistemic Tools: musical instruments as cognitive extensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2009

Thor Magnusson
Thor Magnusson*
Affiliation:
ixi audio, Music Informatics Research Lab, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, BN1 9RH Brighton
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper explores the differences in the design and performance of acoustic and new digital musical instruments, arguing that with the latter there is an increased encapsulation of musical theory. The point of departure is the phenomenology of musical instruments, which leads to the exploration of designed artefacts as extensions of human cognition – as scaffolding onto which we delegate parts of our cognitive processes. The paper succinctly emphasises the pronounced epistemic dimension of digital instruments when compared to acoustic instruments. Through the analysis of material epistemologies it is possible to describe the digital instrument as an epistemic tool: a designed tool with such a high degree of symbolic pertinence that it becomes a system of knowledge and thinking in its own terms. In conclusion, the paper rounds up the phenomenological and epistemological arguments, and points at issues in the design of digital musical instruments that are germane due to their strong aesthetic implications for musical culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , August 2009 , pp. 168 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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