Andreas Frostholm Røeboe
“One of the important things about the synthesiser was that it came without any baggage. A piano comes with a whole history of music. There are all sorts of cultural conventions built into traditional instruments that tell you where and when that instrument comes from. When you play an instrument that does not have any such historical background you are designing sound basically. You’re designing a new instrument.” - Brian Eno
My main focus is sound reception and cognition. How the listener reacts consciously and subconsciously to different sounds and music - and how to use that in commercial, entertaining or artistic ways. Understanding of cultural encoding and decoding to target and affect emotions and associations.
With these tools I aim to compose and do sound design for computer games, apps and industrial design.
A more “hands-on” creative focus is my big interest in modular synthesizers and synthesis in general.
This is closely related to a third main interest: interaction design. How people interact with abstract designs like music instruments, gadgets, software and electronic interfaces in general. This is a big and complex factor when performing electronic music in front of an audience.
Sound design and music by me.
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An old track, but it still represents me well as an electronic musician.
In late 2009 I did a small sound- and interaction experiment with a class of 12-year old schoolchildren. I recorded the class having a normal music lecture and made a bunch of loops and melodies exclusively from the recording. Using Ableton Live I made a setup, mapped all controls of playback of loops and effects to two Nintendo Wii controllers and went back to the same children. Without giving them any instructions I handed them the two controllers and watched the kids have fun! Since most of them already knew the controller from playing Nintendo games, they were surprisingly fast in decoding/learning the system I’d made and enjoyed hearing their own voices all mangled up and weird.
After one play-through I demonstrated all the controls in detail and gave the kids another go. This time they didn’t have so much fun - they seemed totally focused on mastering the technique. It sounded better, but they were definitely more serious and in a competitive mode.
I found the different “modes” very interesting and it was obvious how the social expectations towards their classmates as well as me changed their mental state. These sociological aspects of interaction- and sound design is a constant everyday focus.
