When the earth becomes a star: a songwriter’s arts practice investigation into the influence of modern digital technology on the conventions of popular music-making, with an emphasis on musical temperament and tuning.

As a songwriter, I grew up listening to and creating music that had been largely influenced by technology. More recently, however, I have begun to feel alienated by the growing influence of technology on the world of contemporary songwriting. This arts practice research project attempts to reconcile my feeling of alienation by interrogating tonal systems, particularly 12 Tone Equal Temperament (12-ET) and by exploring and adapting a variety of alternative musical temperament to my personal practice as a songwriter.

With the aid of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical phenomenology, as well as autoethnography and auto-ethno-drama, I attempted to find ‘new’ expressions of the tonal system, which could challenge the dominance of 12-ET in my songwriting, and which allowed me the possibility to find ‘new’ avenues of musical exploration for me as a songwriter.

These alternative tunings were explored in two performance pieces entitled That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star (parts 1 and 2). The first of these was a recording of several original songs which employed musical temperaments that had their origins in the overtone series. The second performance piece mixed a variety of temperaments devised from both the overtone and undertone series, as well as other means of expanding my tonal awareness, such as ‘free tone’ singing. This took the form of a film which documented the various stages of my own musical journey through the research process.

This research opens up ‘new’ possibilities for me as a songwriter; the expansion of my personal musical consciousness and a more holistic approach to music making has offered possibilities for alternative perspectives on my relationship between music and technology.