Economy of selection in electronic music, after Roads

In the opening of Chapter two in Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic [^1], Roads points to “economy of selection” as the defining skill of the composer of electronic music. It is the ability of the composer to choose the few options that serve the work out of “infinite possibilities”, a common refrain in electronic music discourse and the book.

The quote that follows [^2] from Stuckenschmidt on Bach makes the point that Bach knew well to compose with three voices, but refrained from it, and settled on the two-voice form, deliberately limiting himself.

Bach was as well versed in the possible uses of the three mirror forms of a melody as any Netherlands polyphonist of the fifteenth or sixteenth cen-tury. He did not omit to use one or another of them out of forgetfulness or a defective grasp of the full range of possibilities. He knew that a two-part invention can occupy only a limited amount of space. The ability to make the right choice from the million or more possible forms is a creative secret that cannot be uncovered by science or technology. Here, too, is where the astonishing capabilities of computers prove to have limitations.

This figures well into Succintness in sound, after Utley, in terms of deliberate limitation of the sound world.

Satisficing, after Simon is also relevant, as it is invoked in a passage that follows.

[…] it would be hard to prove by scientific argument that a specific solution to a musical problem is inspired, satisfying or optimal. It may simply “satisfice”, to use Herbert Simon’s (1969) term for “sufficiently satisfactory. Indeed, in many compositional decisions, more than one choice would be equally effective, but the composer simply had to pick one. Caprice is integral to the composition process.

References:

[^1]: Roads, Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic (2015) p. 14

[^2]: ^ p. 15