CSM 04: Electroacoustic Music
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Item Open Access David Worrall: ...With Fish Scales Scattered... (1982)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1982) Composer: David Worrall; Stines, Niven"... with fish scales scattered... for two channel tape was composed in January and February 1982 on the digital computer in the computer music research project studio at Melbourne University. The work was inspired by a visit I made to the Aboriginal island community at Milingimbi in north-east Amhem Land in 1973. Milingimbi Milingimbi is the home of many extraordinary painters and it is on the beach there that many of the commuhity' s artists work. Although the title is more an indication of a state of mind than a literal image, it was the kaleidoscopic effect of the continual random scattering of fish scales by the gentle wash of the water at the ocean's edge, the way the light reflected and refracted their oily colours and textures, that left a permanent impression on my mind. Technically the piece is concerned with gradual transformation through inexact repetition and the control of musical elements in a fashion not possible in human performance (ritardando,portamento, articulation etc.). The musical material of the work easily divides into foreground and background. The foreground material consists of a repeated rippling arpeggiated figure which begins in both channels. The background material makes subtle use of glissandi. The sounds are more vocal in nature and are evocative of the calling of animals, especially water animals. At each repetition of the arpeggiated figure it changes in the following ways: 1. The duration of the arpeggio is determined by choosing from a table of durations which are golden section related. 2. Although the same set of pitches is used throughout (one channel is a transposition of the other) these pitches are randomly reordered. 3. The duration of each note of the arpeggio is randomly chosen from a table of possible durations which are also golden section related. This process results in different sonorities being ustained after each arpeggiation. The two channels have different tempo schemes: one channel remains at a fixed tempo whilst the other is gradually decreasing. This creates a slow and very controlled phasing effect between the two channels. The two channels begin at the same tempo. Towards the end of the work the tempi differ enough to cause an overlap between the ending of the slowed arpeggio in one channel and the beginning of the next fixed tempo. arpeggio in the other. All the timbres were created using simple additive synthesis, the background sounds being composed mainly of odd numbered partials (fundamental, 11th, 17th etc.). An interesting tension is created by bringing sounds usually associated with the background (ostinato, arpeggiation) into the foreground and vice versa. This partly accounts for the hypnotic quality of the work." -- David WorrallItem Open Access Claudio Pompili: Medieval Purity In A Bed Of Thorns (1981)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1981) Composer: Claudio Pompili; Stines, Niven"Medieval Purity in a Bed of Thorns was realised on a New England Digital Computer Music System situated at the Elder Conservatorium Electronic Music Studio in Adelaide. It was first performed during the 1982 Adelaide Festival. The 'instrumentation, of the work can be considered akin to the concerto grosso style, having both concertina and ripieno divisions. There are eight solo voices supported by four textural voices. A clear delineation is made between the static background and the contrapuntal foreground sounds. The piece is in three sections. The first is an exposition of material leading to an increase in tension which is subsequently resolved. The middle section is an expose of the concertina voices, but in a new timbral guise and with a degradation of the previously established rhythmic relationships. The last section begins with a sudden introduction of the background sounds, and proceeds to the climax of the piece. Strict rhythmic relationships in the concertino voices are once again enforced and there is a return to the original sound or colour. The rhythmic structure is of primary compositional importance; it is both structurally and stylistically significant. The underlying concept is based on the ideas set forth by Pierre Boulez in Boulez on Music Today. In referring to a particular polyphonic rhythmic distribution, he uses the term 'a block of duration', with graphic illustrations. A number of these 'durational blocks, comprise the raw material�ofthis composition. The primary compositional idea is the successive exposition of various 'durational blocks'. The difference between 'blocks', or events as they occur in succession, is the time base which is selected from a range of twelve values, beginning at 10 centiseconds and increasing by the ratio of the golden mean to 1987 centiseconds. Therefore, with long time values, the 'durational blocks', will display perceivable rhythmic complexity (based on the medieval rhythmic modes), whilst with short time values, rhythm will be aurally imperceptible as separate attacks and thus cross into the region of timbre. The systematisation of nearly every aspect of compositional procedure is reminiscent of the 1950s avant-garde, yet imbued with the electronic colour of the 1970s." -- Claudio PompiliItem Open Access Alistair Riddell: Atlantic Fears (1983)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1983) Composer: Alistair Riddell; Stines, Niven"Atlantic Fears was written for a specially prepared modified piano. The instrument has wooden hammers and an unusual dampening method for the strings. It was constructed in order to take advantage of operation under computer control which meant extended performance capabilities and a greater degree of control over acoustic events. Atlantic Fears has three main sections. The first is made up of an opening thematic group followed by bridging material. The second thematic group is followed by the return of earlier bridging material with some variation. In the final phase the earlier two groups of thematic material are overlaid. A process of compression begins in vhich the tempo is increased and the ttack characteristics are changed. In this type of stretto the motives are presented in free major functions. First, it translates a higher level repentation of the work into a data type that the computer sends to the instrument. Second, it performs this machine level form of the score, by interpreting the score timings inherent in it and sending data to the instrument. These operations are quite separate, although they belong to the same software system which, incidentally, is no longer used. Atlantic Fears is the result of a fusion of technology with a traditional instrumental medium, and is thus an expression of the application of the new to the old. In this respect it simply reflects the invisible and omnipresent use of technology in contemporary society." -- Alistair RiddellItem Open Access Graeme Gerrard: Strings Of Token Strings (1984)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1984) Composer: Graeme Gerrard; Stines, Niven"This piece was composed using COMPOST, a computer programming language for music composition, written by the composer. The piece was synthesised on a Vax 11nso computer using the MUSIC4BF sound synthesis program, and mixed at the La Trobe University music department studio. Several months were spent in developing the palette of sounds employed in the piece. As the title may suggest, a primary goal was the simulation of various timbres and textures that might be heard from a string orchestra. The starting point for the development of these sounds was a frequency modulation algorithm which uses a complex modulating wave, consisting of three component sine waves to modulate a single sine carrier wave. Various 'micro-modulations' were added to the amphtude and frequency components of each wave, and data from measurements were used accurately to simulate such elements as amplitude envelopes, ensemble timing, plzzicaw durations and trill rates. The result' ng signal was then fed thro 1gh other programs for choru fog, spatial n.anipulation and reverberation. The various parts of the score were genera ea and processed by the COMPOST language. A feature of this language is that the elements of a piece are repreented symbolically as 'tokens'. The composer can specify how a score element is to be generated, transformed and finally arranged in relation to other score elements. In Strings of Token Strings a random pitch series with a prescribed contour (see Figure 21) was generated and this became the source material for a considerable part of the piece. A number of transformations was applied to this series, for example the intervals were expanded by multiplication, inverted and retrograded; the pitches were re-ordered and 'verticalised' to create harmonies. In this way several sub-scores were generated and some of these were synthesised separately. In some cases these scores were further processed and combined to generate new variants. For example, from one such score a series of seven harmonies was generated, each being a variant of the original pitch series. This series of seven han'noniesoccursfourtimesirtStrirtgsofTokenStrings, using different timbral characteristics each time. As each section of the piece was synthesised, it was transferred from digital tape to multi-track analog tape for later final mixdown." -- Graeme GerrardItem Open Access Tristram Cary: Nonet: Computer Music In Four Tracks (1979)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1979) Composer: Tristram Cary; Stines, Niven"Nonet 14 was composed early in 1979 at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, using the large system at that time shared by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the musicians. The sound output came from the 256-voice synthesiser, built by Peter Samson of Systems Concepts, San Francisco, and known as the Samson Box. Because of the large resources available, the entire score runs from the computer in real time, needing no further processing. Although I was aiming at an expressive, almost romantic sound, in the final result the music is tightly structured around the numbers 6, 9 and 18. There are nine 'instruments', the piece is exactly nine minutes long, and it is based on an octave divided into eighteen equal steps (giving 18-term series regarded as three hexachords ). The time structure is also controlled by the same 18-term series. The nine voices each have nine entries at nine different speeds, and all voices run for most of the time, producing a continuously changing texture. The score for Nonet is in two parts. One contains text and graphics, giving the material, manipulation details and all information needed for the piece program. The other is the piece program itself, the input to the computer, which is written in SCORE, a Fortran based music language by Leland Smith of Stanford. Figure 18 (on p.24) shows the graphic score from which pitch and time manipulations are derived. Two invertible 18-term rows, each divided into three 6-term motives, apply to both an 18-step pitch series (250 to 481 hertz in the middle octave), and an 18-step exponential time series (from 0.1 to 5 seconds). Multipliers are applied to these series to give nine time and pitch ranges (each of the eighty-one voice entries is unique in both respects). Figure 19 shows the pitch multiplier score (there is also a time multiplier score and a levels score). All these data were brought together into a final hand drawn input score, then typed into the program which runs the piece, a typical page of which I give in Figure 20. Parameters (P)2 and 3 are time and pitch data respectively, the@ symbol telling the computer to look for motivic data given at the head of the program, for example /@-W 3.28/ means: multiply the frequencies in motive W by 3.28 and retrograde the motive. The idea is to exploit the rich harmonic possibilities offered by an 18-step octave (further enriched by nonoctave multipliers), and the ever changing counterpoint of the nine voices (with time multipliers individual event durations vary from .04 to 12.6 seconds). Levels were originally serialised, but because subjective loudness is so dependent on timbre it is virtually impossible to predict the internal balance of nine voices, and in the end levels were fine tuned by listening and editing the program. In spite of the very controlled structural features None t is, I hope, anything but rigid in sound." -- Tristram CaryItem Open Access Brian Parrish: Contours, Clowns And Shadows (1982)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1982) Composer: Brian Parrish; Stines, Niven"Contours, Clowns and Shadows was made as part of the research work for my master's thesis, 'A graphics based scoring system for computer music synthesis'. The work was produced using the MUSIC4BF synthesis program on a VAX 11/780 computer. This system provides a means of producing sound using a general purpose computer; it is a very slow and somewhat tedious process. The sheer quantity of data required to produce such a piece, and the difficulties experienced by composers in using such resources, have prompted the development of a number of tools to ease, or at least modify, the task. GRABS - graphics based scoring- is a program running on the same VAX computer and Contours, Clowns and Shadows is one of its products. This is not to say that the piece was written by the computer; GRABS merely provides a means of specifying musical events in graphic form and does not involve any stochastic or random processes. It is not narrative, despite the title, and makes no overt attempt at political or artistic statement. The title refers to the three mam textural ideas on which the piece is based. The complex. evolving textures, particularly at the opening, were constructed from more simple timbres by using high note rates and relatively long durations. All synthesis used a single frequency modulation algorithm. Timbral variety stems solely from the manipulation of the parameters used in this algorithm." -- Brian Parish