In glitch/post-digital music the tool becomes the instrument — its unintended uses constitute the compositional method

Cascone argues that in post-digital music, ‘the tools themselves have become the instruments, and the resulting sound is born of their use in ways unintended by their designers.’ Glitch composers learn through self-study and experimentation rather than formal training; they exploit the gap between a software tool’s designed function and what it actually does when misused. This is described as ‘the second permission granted’ — the first being normal use, the second being unintended use. The implication is that musical creativity in this domain is inseparable from technical exploration: discovering what a system does when pushed beyond its specifications is the compositional act.

Examples

Using noise-reduction software to process audio in ways the designer never intended; trawling word processing documents for coherent bytes of sound; interfacing any algorithms to pass data between dimensions. Tools like Reaktor, Max/MSP, MetaSynth used as aesthetic explorers rather than production tools.

Assessment

Give a concrete example of using a digital audio tool ‘unintentionally’ in a way that produces interesting musical results. Why does Cascone argue that NOT knowing the theoretical operation of a tool can produce more interesting results?