DIGITAL ORCHESTRATION VIS-À-VIS LIVE SYMPHONIC ACCOMPANIMENT: AN ETHNOGRAPHY WITH A CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE: EVERGREEN CHORALE, ONITSHA

Abstract

The tendency in the traditional world of classical music is to wish away the existence, importance and relevance of digital instrumentation. It is believed and even argued that genuine classical music must be played live, on real instruments like acoustic piano, wind-blown pipe organ, strings, wind and percussive instruments. Otherwise, it becomes a grossly unreal and inauthentic representation. At the 2006 colloquium of the International Association of Sacred Music, it was generally agreed by members during a musicological deliberation that the artificially contrived sound of an electronic organ is unworthy of the temple. The present essay, based on live and participant observation, is geared towards exploring the tenability, or otherwise, of such position, given the level of sophistication and verisimilitude that has been achieved in the contemporary manufacture of electronic instruments, especially the digital piano keyboard. The inquiry builds on the authors’ experience with the Evergreen Chorale, an elite choral ensemble operating in Omagba area of Onitsha. Fact is, the dexterous use of digital orchestration in the performances of the Evergreen Chorale is such that a blind person listening would fail to distinguish the digital sound of orchestration registered into the keyboard workstation from the sound of a real live orchestra. This brings forward the exigency of phenomenologically questioning previous assumptions and prejudices concerning digital instrumentation. Hence, if the essence of music—the intangible food of the soul—is to bring joy to the human soul, then, the argument that the sound of electronic keyboard or digital orchestration is inauthentic needs revision, given that the manipulation of such keyboards and the orchestration that comes with it also requires some digital skills that must be declared valid science in their own right.