36 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
On the Freedom of Digital Recording:
“One of the traditions in classical is replicating the
perfect listening environment in a hall with a lot
of natural reverb, on a grand piano. With portable
digital technology, we can re-think recording and
capture so much outside of the studio or concert
hall. For my last album, The Eviction Sessions, I
hosted a show at my apartment a few days before
getting evicted and decided to record it. You hear
people and you hear them moving around, the
floor cracking... It was about recognizing the beauty of those sounds. At one point I
would’ve been annoyed by them, but I think that by being able to capture music any-
where, you’re much more open to happy creative accidents.”
books, I’m trying to kill aliens.”
He has thought about it, however. “If you
create soundscapes in your brain and trans-
fer them to others with no loss of fidelity…
you end up creating an entirely new type
of music. How would music sound when it
doesn’t rely on acoustics at all? When all it
relies on is how your brain processes this
particular signal? The quality of the actual
musical instrument, the age of the wood,
the glue that holds it together – all those
elements are no longer relevant if you have
this pure signal. How would music be differ-
ent if you didn’t have to deal with your ears, if
your brain instead processed it as music, but
the signal came in an entirely different way?”
In book two, The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi
introduces a breed of soldiers who function
on an even more advanced level – surpass-
ing the CDF regulars by a similar degree
to which those grunts surpass unmodified
humans. “So imagine what their songs
would be like. For anybody who’s listening
who’s unmodified, it would sound like a blip,
yet for them, it could be this full, rich, com-
plex piece.”
Beyond that, the ability to transfer
consciousness and use the BrainPal, in tan-
dem with nanotech-enhanced body fluids,
clothing, and devices, would blow our col-
lective doors off and alter our lives in every
conceivable manner – never mind the pos-
Going forward, he believes such tools
– including powerful AI-driven generative
solutions – will offer new options we didn’t
know we wanted until we heard them,
rather than exactly what we envisioned.
“That makes for an interesting question for
the next 10, 20 years,” he notes, “because
if we’re going to use generative music, as I
think many people will… then what does it
mean to compose?”
New technologies rarely replace what
came before completely, he continues.
“They carve out a space that’s partly the old
space and partly a new space.” E-books, for
example, didn’t replace hard copy. “It turns
out people actually really like print books.
They make great gifts.”
Fair enough, but will generative music
tools make great art?
“Probably,” he says. “They’ll also create
a ton of mediocre art and an immense
shitload of bad art because that’s the way
it works.”
That’s generally what happens when
any technology provides more democratic
access to increasingly user-friendly gad-
gets. But the potential for greatness rests
on “the human behind the wheel,” Scalzi
notes – the person who has the drive to
make that music mean something.
“Are we going to be listening to stuff that
began as curated, generative music 40, 50
years from now? Probably,” Scalzi predicts.
“And when that happens, we won’t think
about whether or not it’s music; it will just
be part of the landscape.”
What landscape we’ll inhabit (or rest
beneath as a forgotten collection of bones)
obviously remains a mystery. In the future
Scalzi envisions in the Old Man’s War series,
humanity is battling for its existence against
hosts of nasty, generally more resilient
aliens. To combat them, humanity’s protec-
tors (the Colonial Defense Forces) employ
elderly humans whose minds have been
transferred into genetically similar but far
superior bodies with green skin and cat-like
eyes, equipped with artificial nanobot-en-
hanced blood, and a “BrainPal” – a neural
interface that enhances and accelerates
learning and enables telepathic interaction
between soldiers.
When applied to music creation and
performance, the possibilities are exciting,
though as Scalzi says, “I don’t address that
too much in the books because, in the
Jean-Michel Blais
sibilities for sound creation. It could allow
people to “share” the physical and cognitive
experience of another person, which, to put
it mildly, would make for one hell of a VIP
concert package.
Science fiction? Sure. But it’s no secret
that the people who brought us the smart
phone thought that Starfleet communica-
tors and tricorders were a real possibility.
Science fiction drives a lot of technology,
Scalzi says. “People think, ‘That’s cool. I wish
I had that,’ and then engineers, inventors, and
musicians start working towards that goal.”
Now, as great as all that sounds, given
how often we upgrade our current devices
and the sometimes negative, if temporary,
consequences thereof, Scalzi cautions that
having a BrainPal might not be as cool as
you think.
I’m inclined to think Montreal-based engi-
neer/producer Paul Northfield would agree.
Since starting out in 1973 in the U.K. and
relocating to Canada in 1978, Northfield
has wrestled numerous iterations of digital
recording devices to the ground. Embrac-
ing new technology has always been his
strength, he says – one that helped land
him in front of the console to engineer acts
like Rush and Dream Theater.
“I spent a lot of time with people who
did the maintenance, so when automated
Sleepy Tom
On Remote Collaboration:
“In my world, the DJ world, making connections
is a huge thing. I personally like working with
people in the studio, but there is a huge benefit
to remote collaboration and having the ability to
send out instrumentals and get great songs back.
And some people aren’t comfortable – music is
so personal and sometimes people get anxious
in the studio. This breaks down those kinds of
barriers, too.”