Electroacoustic Music

This thesis tries to elucidate and exemplify possible intersections between experimental rock of the late 60s and early 70s and the field of electroacoustic music, focusing mostly on production/compositional techniques and aesthetic approaches. A historical overview of the context which experimental rock emerged from is attempted, exploring why and how certain production techniques were used at that period in rock music and investigating into whether the aesthetic outcome of these techniques relates to experiments in the field of electroacoustic music. Musical examples from the field of classical, jazz and rock styles (including artists like Glenn Gould, Lennie Tristano, Miles Davis, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and Frank Zappa) are addressed for the sake of exploring different experimental studio practices. Moreover, a part of this research deals with the creative exploration of the production techniques discussed in order to develop my personal compositional work and eventually to create a framework where a discussion about composing electroacoustic music from the perspective of rock production (and vice-versa!) could emerge.

More than 500 pages, interactive examples, hundreds of patches, online support, theory and Pure Data glossary, test, reverse engineering exercises, analyses, completion and correction of patches, etc.

ISBN-13: 978-8899212216

Chapter I – Introduction to Sound Synthesis and Signal Processing
Chapter II – Additive Synthesis
Chapter III – Subtractive Synthesis
Chapter IV – Controls and LFO

This book is an overview of the theory and practice of Pure Data, with a glossary of terms and suggested tests that allow students to evaluate their progress. Comprehensive online support, running parallel to the explanations in the book, includes hundreds of sample patches, analyses, interactive sound-building exercises, and reverse engineering exercises. This book will provide a reader with skill and understanding in using Pure Data for sound design and musical composition.

Exploration of issues related to music composed for diffusion over loudspeakers, beginning with a historical overview. Subsequent chapters discuss terminology for the classification of such music, theories of listening, approaches to ear-training, the aesthetics of mimesis in music, and methods of analysis.

The field of electroacoustic presents a number of potential challenges to assumptions about what Western art music is: as John Cage noted as early as 1937, it opens up the entire field of sound as musical sources. Barry Truax states that "the serious use of environmental sound in music is potentially disruptive and even subversive to the established norms of the artistic field" (1995: 1). Electroacoustic music can shift attention from pitch relationships to timbral possibilities of sounds. As a result, much electroacoustic music confounds traditional forms of musical analysis (Tenney 1986: 4). Soundscape composition, with its focus on environmental sound, could be considered a type of electroacoustic music that is particularly resistant to traditional analysis and categorization. I will limit my discussion here to the place of the serious use of environmental sound (which I will refer to as soundscape composition) within the field of electroacoustic music, since this will give me a manageable field to consider. Electroacoustic music is a specific genre of Western Art music which has developed only in the last hundred years or so, requiring extensive financial expenditure for equipment and therefore practised — at least until recently — mostly by people in industrialized nations, in large publicly or commercially funded studios. My discussion of the place of soundscape composition within the field of electroacoustic music will raise issues that also apply to the larger field of Western art music, while retaining a focus on the norms of electroacoustic music. The discussion will be in three parts: (1) what is meant by the phrase "the serious use of environmental sound," (2) what are the established norms of electroacoustic music, and (3) To what extent does soundscape composition in itself disrupt or subvert these norms? 1. The serious use of environmental sound The concept of an environment of sound is the basis of the word "soundscape," a term credited to composer R. Murray Schafer. He defines it as: The sonic environment. Technically, any portion of the sonic environment regarded as a field for study. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an environment. (1977: 275) By sonic environment, Schafer is referring to "the ever-present array of noises, pleasant and unpleasant, loud and soft, heard or ignored, that we all live with" (1977: jacket notes). This acceptance of all sounds is similar to that of John Cage, who said that the use of electrical instruments "will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard" (1961: 4). Recording equipment makes any sound in the world available: it can be isolated from its context and treated as a sound object, or the interplay of sounds within a specific environmental context can be the focus of attention. Schafer's statement in his definition that abstract constructions such as musical compositions are soundscapes particularly when considered as an environment refers to the importance of context in soundscape composition. Barry Truax clarifies what the importance of context means: In the soundscape composition ... it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer. The listener's past experience, associations, and patterns of soundscape perception are called upon by the composer and thereby integrated within the compositional strategy. Part of the composer's intent may also be to enhance the listener's awareness of environmental sound. (1984: 207) Truax concentrates on the importance to the composer of the experiences, awareness and perceptions of listeners, and their relationships to the sound environment. These become an integral part of the compositional strategy. Hildegard Westerkamp also defines soundscape composition as a form that insists on contact between the composer, listener and sound environment: "The word soundscape always implies interaction between environment and individual, and between environment and community" (1988: 3). Thus the serious use of environmental sound, according to these composers, is to work with the environment of the sounds, their context and interrelationships with listeners and with the composer.

This paper provides a brief survey of composition in which field recordings or other referential sounds are transcribed for acoustic instruments. Through a discussion of how electroacoustic music and scholarship has conceptualised the notion of mimesis, and how various forms of contemporary acoustic music have adopted electroacoustic techniques, it identifies a recent musical practice in which these concerns are brought together. The paper proposes the term mimetic instrumental resynthesis as a way of describing the common threads behind works that employ electronic-assisted or computer-assisted techniques toward instrumental imitations of environmental and extra-musical sounds. The paper also highlights some of the conceptual and aesthetic questions emerging from such a practice, including the idea of transformation, issues of referentiality, listening, the influence of different technologies and their aesthetic implications, and the tension between abstract and concrete conceptions of the works discussed. Finally, the paper raises concerns surrounding the language of discussing what is necessarily an interdisciplinary venture.


This commentary accompanies the portfolio of electroacoustic works realised at the NOVARS Research Centre, and intends to provide insight into methodologies for acousmatic composition as researched at the University of Manchester between 2013 and 2016. Six compositions are presented in order of realisation, as follows: Frictions/Storms, Rise, Glitches/Trajectories, Transmissions/Intercepts, Reductions/Expanses, and Iteration/Banger. An analysis of each work in relation to research-specific topics is provided, adopting Denis Smalley's concepts of spectromorphology and space-form as appropriate syntax in the elaboration of compositional methodologies and overall outcomes.

The research focuses primarily on the appropriation of transformed and synthesised sound materials in acousmatic spatial composition. Resulting works are intended for presentation in concert via the practice of live sound diffusion performance. The portfolio documents an arc of development working in fixed media formats incorporating live electronics processes into the realisation of multi- channel compositions, to finally arrive at a methodological merging of fixed media studio composition and live electronics performance practices.

Additional supplementary materials in support of the portfolio and commentary are provided including Max coding patches, video tutorials, technical information and related audio materials.

O presente ensaio propõe uma análise estética e formal da obra Opus 11/3 (1914) de Anton Webern (1883-1945) sob a ótica da Momentform encontrada em obras como Kontakte (1958-60) de Karlheinz Stockhausen – conceito e peça elaborados na década de 1950 pelo mesmo.

This article refers to ongoing research related to the Postdoctoral project " multichannel audio devices applied to music, sound art and bioacoustics " developed by the author for UFF (2016-2018) with support from CAPES and in collaboration with the Laboratory of Acoustics and Sound Arts – LASom/DM/IA/UNICAMP. This work aims to (1) consolidate a spatial sound projection device involving signal processing; and (2) its application in the arts (music) and science (biology and ecology) domains.

A partir del libre juego de la imaginación, y utilizando algunos conceptos de acústica de manera totalmente libre, en este texto he querido reflexionar sobre la naturaleza de la música electrónica y electroacústica, y en particular, en torno al "problema" de la relación entre dichas prácticas y la ejecución musical instrumental.
El texto consiste en una serie de ecuaciones especulativas y totalmente imaginarias, que resumen aficientemente los conceptos que quiero abordar y sus relaciones.
La parte final es un libre juego sobre las implicaciones "físicas" de la reflexión, que, como advierto en la introducción, son pura ficción e impostura. Es decir, éste texto NO es científico.

Does a city project a certain inner character within the subjective auditory perception of the listener’s experience of its complex sound environment? This paper examines the artistic processes involved in the author’s recent composition elegy for Bangalore, which sheds light on the methodologies of listening to and field recording in an emerging and transfiguring Indian city toward composing its urban character.

Electronic beeps, synthesizer melodies, and theremin portamento conjure up images of robots, aliens, space, and a dystopian technological future. This association with science fiction has a significant legacy (Hayward 2004; Laudadio 2011), including theremin in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), the first all-electronic soundtrack for The Forbidden Planet (1956), and synthesizer in Solaris (1972). This association also has ideological precedence in the link of technology with the “mystical and visionary” (Collins and d’Escrivan 2007, 13) in both early electronic music and science fiction, and in “electronic sound’s indexical relationship to intangible spaces, both cosmic and psychological” because they are “necessarily concealed, remote, detached” (Leydon 2004, 63). By 2015, given the abundance of non-electronic science fiction soundtracks—such as A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Prometheus (2012), and Interstellar (2014)—we should be transcending these automatic connections. Not so, it seems, in the ears of my undergraduate general education students. Exposure to electroacoustic music recently in class and at a faculty composers concert resulted in characterizations of the music by these students as “creepy” and “like a science fiction soundtrack,” when, to my ears, the sounds had warmth and beauty, with many musical aspects we had been discussing in acoustic examples.

Following a brief history of electronic music in science fiction, and a synthesis of perception and agency in electroacoustic music (d’Escrivan 2006; Emmerson 2007; Smalley 1996 and 1997), this paper outlines pedagogical strategies for removing students’ aural and conceptual barriers to electroacoustic music, providing a vocabulary, and facilitating critical listening through activities and assignments based primarily on Elizabeth Barkley’s Classroom Engagement Techniques (2009) and Judy Lochhead’s principles of phenomenological listening (1995). The paper will demonstrate this pedagogical approach to listening using Hugh Le Caine’s Dripsody (1955) and three remixes released on the Canadian Music Centre’s Centretracks.

This article explores timescales within absolute and psychological times, and identifies the many factors that affect our perception of time passing and estimation of durations, which inevitably influence our perception of musical structures; in particular, it discusses listening experiences, and theoretical approaches to psychological states and emotional responses. It proposes a process according to which the time-influencing factors operate between listener and music. The discussion is approached through the lens of the electroacoustic composer and makes references to short excerpts from the author’s work and related repertoire. However, as the article discusses time in relation to sound structures, it is also relevant to other time-based sound art and music.

This study examines the ways in which a relationship is created between the piano and electronic sound in order to clarify the prismatic structure of the piece. The analysis will both isolate the acousmatic material and consider it together with the piano part, using the listening experience, rather than analysis software, as its basis. The features of the piece will be defined employing the concepts and terminology of Denis Smalley's spectromorphology, cross referencing his definition of electroacoustic score. The analysis will explore, on the one hand, the relationship between the piano part and the notation employed for the acousmatic material, and on the other hand the piano-specific writing.
The dialectic interaction between the two sound spectra will lead to observations on how various declensions of the concept of mimesis, as expressed by Simon Emmerson, are realised. The concept of mimesis in this case also informs the syntactic aspect of the piece, in terms of both its writing and its micro-structure, which is largely contrapuntal, as well as presenting canonical-imitative situations.
Taking into account that the use of typo-morphological aspects would be more appropriate, particularly when considering the intertextual nature of the context, the study will define the functions of the segments of the piece in the light of their antecedent-consequent relationships and their function within the macroform, and will go on to propose further levels of formal synthesis. This methodology will identify a relationship with the figure of Messiaen and demonstrate the necessity for semantic listening.
The study will conclude by demonstrating how, in a mixed context with an objective bonding linked to concrete data, electroacoustic material might form part of the formal definition of the piece, re-contextualizing concepts of archetypically acoustic form.

The compositional method employed in the creation of acousmatic music may seem relatively straightforward, involving three primary stages which may be loosely described as follows: (1) composers choose a range of sounds to record (2) they manipulate and transform those recordings in the studio, and (3) they allow form to develop gradually, and somewhat organically, as the process of manipulation and transformation unfolds. Such a method has been articulated in the writings of contemporary acousmatic composers, such as Smalley (2010) and Harrison (2013), yet it goes back all the way to the pioneering work of Pierre Schaeffer, who employed a similar approach almost seventy years ago (1952). In Schaeffer's day, the articulation of such a method may be justified; his search for a concrete music clearly involved a painstaking, and emotionally draining, search for a compositional approach that lacked precedents, systems, models or established approaches to composition. Today, the situation is somewhat different; the development of an acousmatic community, supported and maintained through the academy, has served to establish and perpetuate such a method as a significant and meaningful form of creative practice. The method itself, however, may be questioned: the process of selecting sound materials, the choice of established technologies employed to develop sounds, the aesthetic preoccupations of individuals and broader communities of practice, the evolution of a performance practice relative to such music, and the concerns and expectations of the listening public, are but some of the manifold factors that radically impinge upon and inform compositional practice. This paper offers an account of these various factors, ultimately suggesting that contemporary writings offer a mythological, rather than methodological, account of the compositional process. To demonstrate this point, it presents a brief discussion of the author's own work (Twin Cities), in which the methodological approach is outlined and discussed in the light of contemporary acousmatic practice.

Iverson's groundbreaking analysis is based on the idea that there is a pressing need to revise several persistent narratives surrounding the WDR studio, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, and the role of Karlheinz Stockhausen. This book invites us to turn our attention to a larger network of persons and institutions that fostered new music and electronic music in the postwar era.

Le développement du logiciel EAnalysis au sein du projet New multimedia tools for electroacoustic music analysis a duré trois années d’octobre 2010 à septembre 2013. Toutefois, l’idée d’un logiciel d’aide à l’analyse de la musique électroacoustique remonte au début des années 2000 durant l’écriture de notre thèse de doctorat. Nous souhaitions accompagner notre travail de recherche sur l’analyse et la représentation de la musique électroacoustique d’un logiciel permettant de faciliter le travail du musicologue. Ce premier projet n’a finalement pas été réalisé. Entre temps, nos activités pédagogiques nous ont amené à développer un autre logiciel pour l’aide à la présentation d’analyses d’œuvres instrumentales : iAnalyse. Celui-ci était conçu comme un diaporama dans lequel l’ensemble des éléments graphiques – des diapositives aux dessins d’annotations – était synchronisé sur le déroulement temporel d’un média audiovisuel. À la fin 2009, avec Leigh Landy, nous avons réfléchi à la possibilité d’adapter iAnalyse pour la musique électroacoustique – nous avions déjà commencé à expérimenter l’ajout de fonctions spécifiques pour les musiques de support sous la forme d’une maquette. Avec Leigh Landy, nous avons alors imaginé un logiciel couvrant un champ d’applications assez vaste allant de l’analyse des musiques de studio à l’étude de l’interprétation électroacoustique, intégrant plusieurs profils utilisateurs ainsi que des fonctions assez élaborées jusqu’à l’automatisation de certaines actions du musicologue. Une des hypothèses de travail était de faire un développement sous la forme de plugins pour le logiciel Acousmographe. Toutefois, la différence de conception entre iAnalyse et l’Acousmographe ainsi que le cadre réducteur de la réalisation d’un plugin nous a fait préférer ledéveloppement d’un logiciel autonome. Cette idée convenait parfaitement au cadre du projet New multimedia tools for electroacoustic music analysis et nous permettait de tester un certain nombre d’hypothèses sans se préoccuper des limites musicologiques et technologiques.

La musique de François Bayle est propice au voyage. Le compositeur place l’auditeur dans une machine, tel un explorateur de l’ouïe survolant un paysage sonore onirique. Mais, loin d’être uniforme, ce paysage morphogénétique, cette ample respiration musicale, fourmille de détails qui renouvellent l’expérience à chaque écoute. Le mouvement se caractérise par l’évolution continue d’un matériau limpide à la perception mais complexe dans ses détails. La demi-heure qui le compose se perçoit comme le survol d’un flux sans cesse renouvelé, parfois dense, parfois ne tenant plus qu’à un fil, transportant l’auditeur découvrant un paysage acousmatique. Les notions de flux et de singularité, notions centrales en physique et en mathématiques, nous ont semblé les plus fertiles pour étudier le fonctionnement de cette ample respiration. Du flux, nous avons retenu la manière dont le matériau est en permanente évolution, les textures se transforment, se métamorphosent afin de guider l’auditeur dans le paysage musical. De leur côté, les singularités sous la forme de moments de transition ou de gestes morphologiques, proposent des saillances guidant le parcours de l’oreille. Le sonagramme de « Grandeur nature » surprend dès le premier regard. Il se présente avec une lisibilité parfaite de l’intégralité des évènements sonores et une très grande beauté esthétique. Pour l’auditeur, il possède un double statut : celui d’un outil d’aide à l’écoute et celui d’un objet se détachant de l’œuvre, comme un commentaire esthétique. Mais à côté de ce sonagramme, nous avons aussi utilisé d’autres types de représentations du son comme celles réalisées à partir de descripteurs audio ou celles recomposant l’image du sonagramme en matrices de similarités. Ces représentations complètent le tracé du spectre en éclairant certains de ces aspects ou en révélant des transformations spectrales qui paraissent masquées.

A paper delivered at the “Architect of the Jewish Future: A Conference on the Life, Work, and Legacy of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan.” At Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., March 2014.

Mordecai Kaplan's understanding of Art was communal in focus, and thus from the from the perspective of artists, limited. The legacy regarding the Arts, however, continues to be visionary. "On one hand, Jews as individuals continue to be in the forefront of the farthest reaches of the worlds of Art, music, dance, film, and multimedia. On the other hand, Jews appear to collectively and institutionally support work that is generally the most comfortable and familiar, and thus often the most conservative... Truly, Kaplan’s optimism continues to inspire, challenge, and maybe rebuke, when we recall his observation, more than 65 years ago, that “we are only at the very beginning in the process of creating a modern Jewish art.”

En 2003, le réalisateur Gus Van Sant présente son film Elephant au Festival de Cannes. Il obtiendra la Palme d'or et le Prix de la mise en scène. Depuis, de nombreuses analyses ont tenté de comprendre comment le réalisateur avait réussi un équilibre aussi parfait entre la liberté du cinéma-vérité et la rigueur formelle de la construction du film. Toutefois, la bande-son a très peu été analysée et sa dimension électroacoustique a souvent été occultée. Dans cet article, nous avons souhaité mettre en avant le travail sur le bruitage et le paysage sonore comme principe de création d'une bande-son qui nous semble avant tout électroacoustique. Ces éléments sonores et musicaux jouent un rôle essentiel dans la narration et la perception de la structure du film. Ils rendent aussi encore plus remarquable le travail de création réalisé par le réalisateur Mots clés : acoustique, analyse musicale, relation musique-image

Cipriani A., (vers. 2016) "Verso una tradizione elettroacustica? Appunti per una ricerca" in Musica/Realtà N°49 Marzo 1996 LIM Lucca  - Versione riveduta e aggiornata, 2016

In questo articolo viene delineata, nei suoi aspetti principali, un'ipotesi di esistenza di una nuova tradizione basata sulle tecnologie elettroniche, la quale si sovrappone alla tradizione orale e a quella scritta e ne influenza gli sviluppi. Si cerca di dimostrare che questa nuova tradizione, definita elettroacustica, porta con sé modificazioni nella trasmissione del repertorio, nell'ascolto, nel contesto, nella composizione e nell'esecuzione che stanno determinando un mutamento nel pensiero e nell'espressione musicale pari a quello che ebbe luogo nella vita musicale europea con l'avvento della tradizione scritta. Alcuni anni dopo la prima pubblicazione di questo articolo per l’ICMC95, François Delalande ha espanso i concetti riguardanti la tradizione elettroacustica
nel libro Le son des musiques, entre technologie et esthétique (Delalande 2000) e nell’articolo ”Il Paradigma elettroacustico” (Delalande 2001), ma molti aspetti di questo tema vanno continuamente aggiornati. Questo articolo, la cui prima versione fu pubblicata negli atti dell’International Computer Music Conference nel 1995 (Cipriani 1995), è stato ora aggiornato a causa degli enormi mutamenti intervenuti in questi ultimi dieci anni.

This Bachelor Thesis in composition explores an alternative compositional process for creating
improvised music through the approach of sound design.

The questions addressed in the thesis are
concerned with how the soundscape can be controlled by the composer while still maintaining the
expressivity of an improvised performance. Thus, the composer’s role as both sound designer,
producer and performer is investigated using live electronics and score design.

The theoretical framework for the thesis is to be found in the intersection between Anglo-American
experimental music, electronic music, sound design and electroacoustic improvisation. Key influences
include indeterminacy as expressed in the music of John Cage, Deep Listening practices pioneered by
Pauline Oliveros as well as the aesthetical paradigms of electronic and electroacoustic music.

The artistic methods revolved around the following steps: studio workshops with musicians (Fredrik
Ekenvi and José Louis Relova Gallego) exploring timbres, playing techniques and music technology in
real-time followed by associative discussions about the soundscapes created; composing audio and
graphical drafts influenced by the workshops; designing diagrams for the electronics and compiling
these to a design document; workshopping and performing the final piece (Towards the Event
Horizon).
Towards the Event Horizon (for bass clarinet, electric guitar and live electronics) is the final result of
the work, comprising a score with accompanying design document as well as a recording of the original
performance at Studio Acusticum in Piteå 20th of March 2021. The artefacts and associated
documentation are presented in their entirety on the dedicated Research Catalogue exposition.

Conclusions include how composition and sound design are tied together and cannot be considered as
isolated processes, especially in the context of live electronics; the interrelationship between the
improviser, the acoustic soundscape and the artistic associations that inform the improvisation; the
importance of form as the defining element of a composition and lastly; how a score for improvised
music can be devised in the shape of a blueprint of form and texture, setting certain technical, sonic
and gestural conditions while leaving the performer to play freely within this frame.

The following is the text of a lecture entitled «Notturno» von Bruno Maderna und das «Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Milano», which was given at the Haus der Wissenschaft, Bremen on July 1, 2015 (Atelier Neue Musik, Serie: «Scanned. Elektroacustische Musik im Fokus»).

Approaches to the multichannel spatialisation of electroacoustic music are described here with reference to musical case studies which focus upon the expressive functions of space and the theatricality of sound diffusion in an acousmatic context. A site-specific approach to spatialisation is proposed to enhance theatrical aspects of musical performance. Case studies include proposals for novel layouts of the diffusion system within the performance space and compositional techniques that are designed to re-evaluate our understanding of individual listening spaces.

In the late 1960s, composer, architect and theoretician Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) began his research on stochastic synthesis: an approach to microsound synthesis that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital samples. He continued with this research for most of the 1970s and from the late 1980s until the end of his career. This article traces the aesthetic origins of this non-standard synthesis technique and gives a historical presentation of its development, including a discussion of the works in which Xenakis used it and a full description of the dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms. In addition, a new extension of these techniques is put forward: the stochastic concatenation of dynamic stochastic synthesis.