estevancarlos
Active Member
I started off on Cakewalk Pro Audio in 1997. Eventually moved on to Ableton Live and MaxMSP. Then recently to Studio One and Cubase. Through that evolution I could understand that a DAW can be biased. It's baked into intentional an unintentional design. As a visual designer I came to see their bias as more complex that just a set of features.
As a musician I implicitly recognized, and accepted, that these DAWs are also biased towards Western theory as well. Why might some of us care? If we want to explore more music and more opportunities then we need to be aware of the bias. We use Ableton Live for certain tasks. We use Cubase for others. We often recognize how the technology influences us. So we should also consider the Western music theory biases.
I won't dive into many details at the moment. I sort think many people here are aware of this already. I want share a bibliography created elsewhere that contains many articles about the subject.
https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/bibliography/daw-colonialism/
What are your thoughts on how your music software influences or limits your creative options? Do you restrict yourself to western theory and if so, why?
As a musician I implicitly recognized, and accepted, that these DAWs are also biased towards Western theory as well. Why might some of us care? If we want to explore more music and more opportunities then we need to be aware of the bias. We use Ableton Live for certain tasks. We use Cubase for others. We often recognize how the technology influences us. So we should also consider the Western music theory biases.
I won't dive into many details at the moment. I sort think many people here are aware of this already. I want share a bibliography created elsewhere that contains many articles about the subject.
https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/bibliography/daw-colonialism/
“Unassuming as they may seem, these technologies are far from neutral. Like social media platforms, dating apps, and all data-driven algorithms, music production tools have the unconscious biases of their creators baked into their architecture. If a musician opens a new composition and they are given a 4/4 beat and equal tempered tuning by default, it is implied that other musical systems do not exist, or at least that they are of less value.” - Faber, 2021
What are your thoughts on how your music software influences or limits your creative options? Do you restrict yourself to western theory and if so, why?