Defining and evaluating the performance of electronic music

This chapter presents suggestions for defining what constitutes a performance in electronic music. I propose the use of the term pseudo-direct causality to illustrate where a performer’s intended action results in the output of an intended sound and although the causality is indirect, it is felt to be direct. I suggest considerations for composers, including gesture and audio-visual syncresis, when composing an electronic work for performance. I present my own gestural mapping designs as examples of methods for creating syncresis and pseudo-direct causality in electronic music instrument design. Parallels are drawn from acoustic music performance and similar evaluative methods are presented in the aim of developing virtuosity in electronic music performance and evaluating performance separately to the composition and the tools.