Several years ago around the time she released “Vespertine”, Bjork mentioned in interviews how she had become bored with how new digital electronic devices work so precisely without wavering. Using the example of a CD player, she explained how it produces the exact same sound each time whereas vinyl is riddled with slight imperfections. When a CD however is scratched and damaged, she continued, the sound it can produce is wild and unpredictable.
I was recently reminded of these comments when my girlfriend Natasha took a Casio digital guitar that she found in the trash, and I tried playing it. Perhaps the strings weren’t tight enough because they wouldn’t always respond. While trying to play some fairly simple songs, I would have to ignore how sometimes notes just wouldn’t sound and just continue playing. Like the damaged CD in Bjork’s example, this digital guitar produced music that was unpredictable, or at the very least somewhat difficult to predict.
Taking this very idea of faulty machinery to yet another level, I want to pose this question: Can the music created with the use of faulty electronics be considered chance or aleatoric music much like that of John Cage? This would of course take the idea of a prepared piano to the electronic world, but one with similar results nonetheless.
But then I had some other ideas too. For example, is it also aleatoric music if you have a faulty (i.e. un/under-skilled or a drunken) musician playing a piece? Or does this border on trying to legitimize shitty music?
