Recent Experiment and Emerging Works in Malaysia – The integration and an experiment of a traditional ‘Wayang Kulit’ performances and electroacoustic music +

Recent Experiment and Emerging Works in Malaysia – The integration and an experiment of a traditional ‘Wayang Kulit’ performances and electroacoustic music -

Communal, participative and lively performing qualities have always been amongst the prominent features of Malaysian folk tradition, such example can be seen in the Wayang Kulit performances where the integration of ‘picture recitation and performance’ as well as the ability to deploy a combination of a well-trained musical skill with sufficient creative improvisation and spontaneity. This paper will update readers about a multi-media project established since 1996 at the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, issues on terminology and practice related to the creative multi-media experiments.

awnizam@faca.unimas.my

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Schaeffer est mort! Long live Schaeffer! +

Schaeffer est mort! Long live Schaeffer! -

This paper examines two groups of composers and discusses the commonality in their approach to using concrete sound materials and rhythm in their works. As a result of this commonality an examination of the ways in which these composers have expanded the electroacoustic language through the hybridisation of electronica and musique concrete techniques is undertaken. It will then be demonstrated how these works, whilst pushing at the boundaries of electroacoustic music can nevertheless be discussed and analysed with reference to Emmerson’s language grid as originally proposed in The Relation of Language to Materials (1986: 17-39). It will be demonstrated how, with the advent of the sampler and proliferation of works utilizing concrete materials, Emmerson’s language grid can be used as the basis for a wider discussion of electronic works.

m.adkins@hud.ac.uk

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Reconstructing ‘Incontri di fasce sonore’ by Franco Evangelisti +

Reconstructing ‘Incontri di fasce sonore’ by Franco Evangelisti -

This paper is the outcome of a work focused on the recreation and reproduction (viamodern digital techniques) of the score and tape of “Incontri di fasce sonore” (1956-57), the most important electro-acoustic work realised by the italian composer Franco Evangelisti in the WDR Studio in Cologne, following the process described by the composer. The results are: a complete automatic process for score/tape creation, which was an Evangelisti’s idea (not realised for obvious technical problems at his time); a new version of themusic piece (not a restoration); a new digital score exactly generated from the musical events (another Evangelisti’s problem); a complete critical revision of the original score (individuation of mistakes, ambiguities and problems); a deeper explanation of the structures and materials of the piece, from the “inner” side of it. The score and the new tape version are accompanied by a detailed analysis which not only explores the composer idea about the “historical and aesthetic necessity of score of electronic music”, but furthermore underlines Evangelisti’s research of new compositional laws (i.e. his concept of ’linear counterpoint’) based on new divisions of the acoustic space. Last but not least with this work we implemented a new set of software functions which can be useful also for other electro-acoustic works.

adriana.anastasia@virgilio.it
nicgios@yahoo.it

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Materials, Meaning and Metaphor: Unveiling Spatio-temporal Pertinences in Acousmatic Music +

Materials, Meaning and Metaphor: Unveiling Spatio-temporal Pertinences in Acousmatic Music -

Initially, this paper will probe the reception behaviours devised by François Delalande. I will then discuss the four reception behaviours I conceived. François Delalande’s research comprises three reception strategies for electroacoustic music: Taxonomic listening, Empathic listening, Figurativism. I organised a listening experiment in order to test Delalande’s reception behaviours. The experiment was carried out in diverse locations and comprised both experienced and novice listeners. In view of the difficulties encountered while analysing my findings using Delalande’s strategies, I formulated a new framework of reception behaviours for electroacoustic music.
Sonic Properties: Listeners who adopt this strategy centre on sound. They may take into account individual sound components, levels of abstraction, as well as extensive sonic topologies.
Structural Attributes: In this type of listening, the listener examines the structure of a work. Structural Attributes allows, additionally, for the use of metaphors and images as a way to illuminate structure.
Self Orientation: This reception behaviour has its inception in an emotional or physiological response, but it also permits for neutral observations.
Imaginary Realms: Imaginary Realms is an extension of figurativism, allowing for variations of figurativism as well as other strategies where the listener exercises imagination as an end in itself.

e.anderson@skynet.be

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Introducing the Acousmatic Score: A Model for the Perception and Valuation of Acousmatic Music +

Introducing the Acousmatic Score: A Model for the Perception and Valuation of Acousmatic Music -

This paper explores the development and theory of the ‘Acousmatic Score’, a unified and accessible model for addressing the perception and valuation of Acousmatic music. The Acousmatic Score is not intended for a particular style of analysis, but rather a vital platform of knowledge that can act as a versatile pedagogical tool and point of departure for future investigations in this area. The model is founded on cognitive principles coming to fruition throughout postgraduate study in composition and intimately linked to the authors artistic output. In essence, the Acousmatic Score is uniting the methodological contributions of four of the most remarkable minds in the scene; Albert Bregman, Dennis Smalley, Simon Emmerson and Trevor Wishart. Despite the validity and sheer ingenuity of each individual study, initially they can be overwhelming, but by uniting the underlying theories an all encompassing model begins to reveal itself. This paper provides an informative introduction into the Acousmatic Score and offers insight into the preliminary validity for a unified and accessible model for addressing the perception and valuation of Acousmatic music.

leah.barclay@student.gu.edu.au

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Fabricating aural landscapes: the referential and trompe l’oreille in multi-channel installation contexts +

Fabricating aural landscapes: the referential and trompe l’oreille in multi-channel installation contexts -

This paper investigates the notion of trompe l’oreille – the presentation of recognisable sounds in real-world contexts such that, unlike in other modes of electroacoustic music presentation (e.g. the concert hall) where the frame (i.e. the sound's nature as being electronically mediated) is clearly in evidence, the frame here is entirely transparent, i.e. sounds are sufficiently indistinguishable in spatial and sonic behaviour from reality as to suggest to a listener that s/he is actually hearing reality. The nature of the illusion itself is discussed, along with a history of, and issues – aesthetic and technical – surrounding these fabricated aural environments. Ultimately a typology of trompe l’oreille is proposed using my own and other composers’ works as examples, demonstrating environments and contexts in which such illusions might work effectively.

p.j.e.batchelor@gmail.com

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Image/diagramme/figure ou l’acousmatique comme champ symbolique +

Image/diagramme/figure ou l’acousmatique comme champ symbolique -

L’orientation des sensations, comme par exemple l’accroche qui déclenche, l’entretien qui stimule, agite, tisse des relations et trame des figures, va nourrir la cohérence de la “scène auditive” où opèrent des “actants” qui surgissent et agissent, semble-t-il mystérieusement? Profitant du fait que l’oreille autant que l’œil sont des organes polyvalents auxquels s’applique – selon l’expression de Cézanne, reprise par Gilles Deleuze – une “logique de la sensation”, peut-on “après coup” vérifier le fonctionnement de la pensée perceptive, en remonter le chemin pour retrouver ce lien logique autant que sensible, renseigner utilement, voire éclairer le travail d’écoute? En choisissant pour le vérifier une pièce qui présente une matière complexe en mouvement (Le sommeil d’Euclide – Son Vitesse-Lumière 4) je tenterai l’exercice d’indexer les transitions caractéristiques: fond/forme/couleur, ou geste/contrainte, ou encore flux/accent, afin de guider l’analyse et plus particulièrement de repérer le délicat passage du diagramme à la figure, d’où surgit parfois le musical.

magison@noos.fr

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Live-acousmatic Composition and Performance +

Live-acousmatic Composition and Performance -

This paper presents research into a new live-acousmatic music composition methodology and sound diffusion performance practice. A primary aim is to investigate correlations between directed spatial distribution or trajectory of sound and introduced variability in timbre, structuring processes and temporal parameters in acousmatic music. The concern for sound exploration and timbral articulation is extended from the creation and collection of sound source, through to the manipulation and transformation of materials, to structuring process and performance. In doing so, a greater degree of variability in timbre, morphology, time and structure is introduced through a new performance practice in addition, and in relation, to variability of spatial articulation in sound diffusion. The research aims to support the composition and performance of a large-scale work and live-acousmatic methodology, resources and techniques. Research will be enabled by the development of a software-based environment that will facilitate the performance of live-acousmatic work, using MaxMSP software. A further outcome is to analyse the interconnectedness of live-acousmatic performance practice and compositional strategies and methodologies and to evaluate the effectiveness and suitability of different sound materials within live-acousmatic work.

david.berezan@manchester.ac.uk

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Language as Material – Language as Communication: ‘Words’ and ‘texts’ in electroacoustic music “Words” and “Texts” in Electroacoustic Music +

Language as Material – Language as Communication: ‘Words’ and ‘texts’ in electroacoustic music “Words” and “Texts” in Electroacoustic Music -

Nearly from its beginnings electroacoustic music had a special approach to  language. What began with common problems of music and spoken language in the radio in the early years as well as the research of technology and new concepts, was very soon recognised as a big chance. Recorded language was seen as possibility for an often more popular or more up-to-date contemporary art. However, the first problems in reflection and reception occurred very soon. The paper deals with specific aspects of musical communication, such as the relations of “music as communication” and “communcation of music” in particular, the latter focussing on music including recorded spoken language. Giving examples of different historical and cultural origins, possible forms of communication and understanding are categorised and thus forms of reflecting “musical understanding” are presented.

Tatjana.Mehner@t-online.de

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Drive and Native Tongue: Intersections of electroacoustic documentation and gender issues +

Drive and Native Tongue: Intersections of electroacoustic documentation and gender issues -

At the EMS05, I argued for the “extended score documentation” of electroacoustic music, that specifies and determines the musical work and provides sufficient prescriptive information and material to make multiple performances of the musical work possible without the presence of the composer. It involves the translation of specific idiom and of specific technology into more general musical and technological “languages”. This way, the composition can “live on” (Simon Emmerson, EMS05). Elsewhere (Bosma 2005a, Bosma 2007), I showed that electroacoustic music by women is often interdisciplinary, and thus poses ontological and practical problems of documentation, which may hamper its “survival”. I will discuss the recently finished extended score documentation of Anne La Berge’s Drive (2003), a partly improvisational piece for one or more musicians, live electronics and samples, and analyse it with respect to gender. Alison Isadora’s composition Native Tongue (2001) seems to resist such extended score documentation, since it is composed for a specific performer, who is part of the composition.

mail@hannahbosma.nl

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Comment analyser un opéra avec dispositif électronique temps réel? +

Comment analyser un opéra avec dispositif électronique temps réel? -

L’analyse d’un opéra comprenant un dispositif électroacoustique soulève certaines interrogations. Le propos s’appuie sur l’analyse de Wagner Dream de Jonathan Harvey (2007).
Que faut-il analyser ? Des entretiens, la correspondance et des brouillons permettent de mieux comprendre la genèse de l’opéra. La partition, les patches et les fichiers sons offrent un accès à la partie électroacoustique. L’ensemble de ces sources a été rassemblé et traité en s’appuyant sur les recherches antérieures de l’auteur.
Comment procéder ? Les spécificités d’une analyse d’un opéra avec dispositif électronique temps réel imposent un certain nombre de contraintes d’ordre technologique et musical. Différents axes ont été plus particulièrement approfondis, dont le rapport entre électroacoustique et dramaturgie (évocation du bouddhisme).
Comment diffuser les résultats ? Par rapport au support papier, un document hypermédia constitue une alternative intéressante, mais possède ses propres limitations.
Chez Harvey, le dispositif électronique n’est pas seulement un renforçateur d’effets spectaculaires tendant à favoriser l’efficacité de la représentation théâtrale, mais fait partie intégrante de la dramaturgie. Il constitue même un élément fusionnel entre l’action, le sens et la musique.

bruno.bossis@uhb.fr

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‘Klang, Kar, und Melodie’: A crash course on musical narrative +

‘Klang, Kar, und Melodie’: A crash course on musical narrative -

Mark Wingate describes his Klang, Kar, und Melodie as “a day in the life of a commuter…a hallucinatory journey through the congested arterial streets and back alleyways of an American city near the end of the millennium…” This inspired composition, which earned him the Prix de la Musique Electroacoustique Caractère during the 23rd International Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges, France, unmistakably unfolds a narrative plot. But, what exactly contributes to this perception? Is there a systematic theory that helps identify, name, and analyze the basic constituents and techniques of musical narrative? Recent scholarship that challenges the notion of musical narrative erroneously equates music with language based on epistemological correspondences rather than structural ones. This crash course seeks to: 1) rethink and clarify linguistic terminology and methodologies while adapting these to musical analysis; 2) propose a taxonomy that helps identify the features that contribute to the perception of narrative qualities in music; 3) establish an inter-disciplinary and inter-analytical approach applicable to all electroacoustic music regardless of its style, generative process, and organizing principles. The paper concludes by introducing the narrative cube: a three-dimensional Cartesian model that evaluates, comparatively, the musical parameters that generate narrative interpretations.

jchattah@agnesscott.edu

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L’analyse musical différentielle: principes, représentation et application à la structuralisation des entités musicales pour la musique électroacoustique +

L’analyse musical différentielle: principes, représentation et application à la structuralisation des entités musicales pour la musique électroacoustique -

Le fonctionnement cognitif est particulièrement sensible au « changement ». Or quasiment toutes les représentations de la musique, et singulièrement de la musique électroacoustique, s’appuient sur le « statique » de l’« objet sonore ». Un mode de représentation « différentiel » du signal doit pourtant permettre plus facilement l’émergence des marquages énergétiques qui sont à l’origine de la constitution des entités musicales. Cet article propose un premier pas dans cette direction en montrant l’intérêt d’un spectrogramme différentiel et des profils énergétiques associés. Ces outils sont implémentés dans l’environnement openmusic. Du point de vue analytique les applications les plus immédiates concernent l’évaluation de l’activité énergétique interne du matériau, le décryptage de l’organisation structurelle de la musique et l’exploration de nouvelles hypothèses sur le court terme (e.g. transitions harmoniques) ou le long terme (e.g. mise en évidence des invariants, de la directionnalité… etc.). La synthèse sonore est aujourd’hui dépendante d’un paradigme théorique restreint (synthèse additive, soustractive, FM, granulaire etc.). Cette recherche permet d’envisager des modalités de synthèse inédites à partir d’entités « transitionnelles ».

jeanmarc.chouvel@free.fr
Carlos.Agon@ircam.fr
Jean.Bresson@ircam.fr

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Analysis of Generative Music +

Analysis of Generative Music -

How might we go about the analysis of musical works (algorithmic compositions, or more fashionably, generative pieces) which are designed to vary with each run, even without any online interactive facility? This paper shall consider some of the issues and make a cautious start at providing some analytic methodology, which I hope that in the context of a conference, we might profitably discuss! I mean to tackle, not necessarily large-scale essentially deterministic and ambient works (like much of Brian Eno’s earlier work pre-Koan or Jem Finer’s LongPlayer, founded on isorhythmic layers) but programs which can vary their output each time they are started. These works might be represented by those in ‘The Algorithmic Stream’ or rand()% streaming algorithmic radio stations, Karlheinz Essl’s Lexicon Sonate (even in its non-interactive version), my own (over-enthusiastically dubbed) Infinite-Length Pieces (Collins 2002) or indeed, algorithmic artworks in the form of programs produced for various computer music systems from PD to CLM to the SuperCollider demo examples.

n.collins@sussex.ac.uk

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The Language of Electroacoustic Music with Moving Images +

The Language of Electroacoustic Music with Moving Images -

This study compares two contrasting schools of thought regarding the language of electroacoustic music with moving images. Firstly, that audiovisual composition functions through an amalgamation of audio and visual languages operating in parallel, as well as in combination. This view presents the standpoint, that adding moving images to electroacoustic music adds to its communicability. Secondly, the study tests the school of thought proposed by Michel Chion (1994) that the language of sound for film is primarily founded on visual language, and that adding moving images to electroacoustic music subtracts from its communicability. The research methodology features a combination of qualitative testing methods and practice-led action research methods that allows a dialectical discussion to evolve between aspects of theory and aspects of practical composition. The primary outcome of the research is a framework that describes the constraints of the language from the perspective of the listener and the composer.

j.coulter@auckland.ac.nz

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Dessin en 3D et système immersif pour la représentation de la musique électroacoustique +

Dessin en 3D et système immersif pour la représentation de la musique électroacoustique -

La 3D et les environnements immersifs sont deux technologies qui envahissent l’informatique depuis seulement quelques années à travers le domaine des jeux. Particulièrement adaptés à ceux-ci, puisque leur objectif est de recréer des situations de réalité pour immerger le joueur dans un monde virtuel, ils pourraient apporter à la musique électroacoustique des interfaces de représentations plus adaptées aux travaux pédagogiques mais aussi, par exemple, de permettre au compositeur d’intervenir directement sur son œuvre pendant la création. Ainsi, de telles interfaces placeraient les techniques de représentations graphiques, non plus comme de simple illustration d’une analyse ou d’une diffusion mais, directement au sein des processus de création et de diffusion de l’œuvre.

couprie.pierre@free.fr

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L’hybride est-il un parametre musical? Une analyse de la vidéomusique ‘Spin’ (1999-2002) de Jean Piché +

L’hybride est-il un parametre musical? Une analyse de la vidéomusique ‘Spin’ (1999-2002) de Jean Piché -

Pluralisme, interdisciplinarité, multimédia, le mélange des registres et des genres n’est-il pas une caractéristique fondamentale de la production musicale et artistique du troisième millénaire? Certes, et cet attrait pour l’hybride représente une nouvelle voie pour le compositeur montréalais Jean Piché (1951- ) qui propose un nouveau genre médiatique, la vidéomusique, où sons et images naissent d’un même geste. La vidéomusique repose sur un travail rigoureux de la plasticité du matériau et qui entraîne une perception double oscillant entre l’abstrait et le concret. L’hybride y occupe une place importante justifiant qu’il serve de paramètre d’analyse. L’examen de la vidéomusique Spin (1999-2002) de Piché fera ressortir la multiplicité des manifestations de l’hybride tant en ce qui concerne le jeu entre l’abstrait et le concret, l’interpénétration des genres ou la structure spatio-temporelle et le discours. Cette conférence présente une nouvelle approche analytique, spécifique à la vidéomusique, pouvant mener à une meilleure compréhension des œuvres de Piché en tant que manifestations de l’hybride.

ariane.couture@umontreal.ca

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The Favourite Sounds Project: London & Beijing +

The Favourite Sounds Project: London & Beijing -

The 'Favourite Sounds Project" aims to discover what city dwellers find positive about their city's soundscape by asking the seemingly simple question, "What is your favourite London, Beijing, or .......... sound, and why?" The replies create a database of knowledge about the city's sounds and their significance to people. It has proved an effective way of engaging the public in discussions about city soundscapes, including serious attention from local government - the GLA in relation to London's new Ambient Noise Strategy (2004) - as wellas arts and education contexts. City sonic identities, rapid soundscape change, disappearing sounds, noise problems and creative approaches to the sound environment are raised. The project was first carried out in London in 1998 and, subsequently, in Chicago and Beijing (2005). Comparisons are fascinating. Responses reveal not just different soundscapes, but cultural differences in people's relationship with the sound environment. Some of these will be outlined and sounds played.

pcusack@btinternet.com

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Acoulogie: an answer to Lévi-Strauss? +

Acoulogie: an answer to Lévi-Strauss? -

My paper will examine Lévi-Strauss’ critical opinions regarding musique concrète taking Pierre Schaeffer’s comprehensive Programme de la Recherche Musicale (PROGREMU) as my main point of reference. Lévi-Strauss claimed that the ‘noises’ of musique concrète (and the term ‘noise’ demands detailed examination!) excluded the possibility of a second level of articulation. Lévi-Strauss wrote: ‘(…) but it is then impossible to define simple relations among the latter (pseudo-sounds), such as could already form an already significant system on another level and would be capable of providing the basis for a second articulation. Musique concrète may be intoxicated with the illusion that it is saying something; in fact it is floundering in non-significance’ (Lévi-Strauss, 1969: 23). I will examine the role of the Schaefferian discipline of acoulogy, which explicitly sought to bridge the divide between sounds and meaning, and will, therefore, clarify the position of musique concrète theory and provide a counter-argument to Lévi-Strauss.

j.dack@mdx.ac.uk

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Methods for the Analysis of Granular and Microsound Based Composition +

Methods for the Analysis of Granular and Microsound Based Composition -

Granular synthesis techniques are currently widely used by electroacoustic composers. However, structural analysis of these works is often complicated, as the composition may use several time layers of sound structures, and methodologies commonly used in electroacoustic music analysis rely partly on the perceptual depiction of musical structures. Analytical methods are rarely able to provide a transversal reading of microsound compositions, as they are frequently tied to the immutable time-scale of perception. This compositional approach also raises problems on the technical aspect of electroacoustic music analysis, which can provide useful representations in order to assist the analyst. By discussing representational strategies, we are indeed directly questioning the multidimensionality nature of the transformational approach to electroacoustic composition.

kevin.dahan@wanadoo.fr

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“¡¿Qué dijo?!” – Spanish electroacoustic-music terminology +

“¡¿Qué dijo?!” – Spanish electroacoustic-music terminology -

The lack of electroacoustic music texts written originally in Spanish language is noticeable, considering in Spain and most of the Latin American Spanish-speaking countries there are many active composers working on this field. The number of compositions created by musicians whose mother language is Spanish is astonishing. We are talking about thousands of pieces. If we agree that language is significant to any culture, the initiative to develop a glossary on this particular field is essential. My talk will introduce the Spanish version of the EARS Glossary and will present some specific entries of historical value from the Bibliography section (including interviews and early schematics, scores and photos by Asuar, Pavón, Bolaños, von Reichenbach). It will focus also on additional resources (e.g. archives) available in Spanish or related to Spanish-speaking countries, and will discuss some online databases of interest to the international electroacoustic-music community.

ricardo@dalfarra.com.ar

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Real-time Composition or Computer Improvisation? A composer’s search for intelligent tools in interactive computer music +

Real-time Composition or Computer Improvisation? A composer’s search for intelligent tools in interactive computer music -

Twenty year ago, live electroacoustic music could not compete with tape music in terms of sonic complexity. As a result, composers tended to concentrate upon a complexity of interaction, most often through the note-based paradigm of MIDI, using improvisation as a model. Today, complex DSP processing is available in real-time, and interactive music now tends to explore sample playback and live processing, thereby more closely resembling studio composition. If contemporary creators of real-time composition systems wish to match the complexity of studio-based composition, they will require more than the existence of real-time processing algorithms; intelligent tools that assist in the creation of the composition itself are necessary to assume responsibility over many high-level decisions.

arne_e@sfu.ca

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Where Next? New music, new musicology +

Where Next? New music, new musicology -

Asymmetric exchange: the relationship of experimental electronica, glitch, noise art, lower case with the ‘art’ tradition of electroacoustic music is not always an easy one. There is Polystylism, involving quotation and reference, often with little attempt at integration. There is Eclecticism a more subtle and understanding crossover: not ‘alluding to’ but drawing on the experience of ‘other’ genres. These may have Oedipal undertones which reveal deep-rooted historical processes of change. These are not only grounded in sound material, but in Performance practices. No ‘new musicology’ can address material without practice. This helps define the genre (in perpetual evolution). To complete the circle there is a relationship with the act of Composition, a field of great complexity, misunderstanding and yet potential creativity. Ideally, material, performance practice, ‘forming’ of the work all reinforce. But this is challenged in practice, sometimes deliberately. The new musicology must be an empirical and humanistic science, examining what is, within a context of endless flux.

s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk

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Imaginary Listening +

Imaginary Listening -

The definition of the four listening modes by Schaeffer presupposes that sound is encountered and that composers react to it. This explanation seems to cast the composer or sound artist in a passive role. What the modes don’t seem to deal with is the sound which is dreamt up in order to accompany a visual image or an evoked mental image; a sound with no real source. Through reviewing cinematic instances such as the nightmarish sound world created for the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde in the 1931 film by Reuben Mamoulian and the electronic sounds of futuristic space age machines in Maetzig’s Spaceship to Venus (1960), amongst others, this paper seeks to show how the work of sound artists in film precedes and then shadows the work of electroacoustic composers as they endow their sound creations with causal and semantic cues, through imaginary listening.

j.descrivan@anglia.ac.uk

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‘Mimetic Space’: A conceptual framework for the discussion analysis and creation of mimetic discourse and structure +

‘Mimetic Space’: A conceptual framework for the discussion analysis and creation of mimetic discourse and structure -

Electroacoustic mimetic discourse opened new semiotic channels through its potential to immerse the listener in virtual sonic realities. However, in spite of human beings’ inherent mechanisms for the construction of meaning out of mimetic discourse, the product of years of creative practice exploiting mimesis suggests the need for further refinement of such conceptual tools. This paper aims to provide an initial version of a framework and terminology for the discussion, analysis and creation of music that articulates mimetic discourse and structure. It aims to provide parallel and complementary approaches to those of spectro-morphology. It proposes the notion of multi-dimensional mimetic space, taking as its point of departure Emmerson’s Language Grid, constructing additional axes representing compositional continua, similar in function to those proposed by spectro-morphology, but applicable to mimetic material. The argument also focuses on paradigms in virtual acoustic space (Wishart), extending these to interactions with physical space involving live performance.

r.a.fischman@keele.ac.uk

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CHEARS: China Electroacoustic Resource Survey +

CHEARS: China Electroacoustic Resource Survey -

The presentation for EMS07 will consist of my master degree work related to the compilation of a Chinese Electroacoustic music bibliography. The bibliography is organised according to the scheme of the EARS categories. There are few books of originality related to the relatively new EA music discipline in China, but the bibliography does include related interdisciplinary areas of physics, acoustics and psychology that do historically have a literature base. The Chinese EA music bibliography, given its many significant gaps, is thus essentially an exceedingly useful map for future EA graduate research in China for the coming years ahead.  The more positive aspects that my research covers is an analysis of the EARS categories as perceived of from a Chinese musicological point of view. I've mapped out the complete EARS structure using a free software called Freemind and have conducted interviews with Chinese professors to get their comments. Furthermore, by beginning to work with the organisational structure of EARS, we will be able to migrate the bibliography seamlessly and translate the EARS site into Chinese.

mungozhangruibo@gmail.com
ken@ccom.edu.cn

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Educating International Composers: The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center +

Educating International Composers: The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center -

The role of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC) as the first educational and creative institution of its kind in the United States is well known. The Center was established in 1959 by founding director Vladimir Ussachevsky, in association with Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions. Support was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Less widely known is the centrality of CPEMC in training composers hailing from outside the United States, including several South American countries, Israel, Turkey, Japan, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Iran and Ghana. Who were these composers and what was their impact on the CPEMC. Most important, what was the impact of their studies at CPEMC on the development of their own work and on the growth of the field in their home countries?

gluckr@albany.edu

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Chunking Sound in Listening and Analysis +

Chunking Sound in Listening and Analysis -

One intriguing issue in the analysis of electroacoustic music (and other kinds of music as well) is the segmentation or parsing of continuous auditory streams into meaningful and analytically convenient units, a process I here denote as chunking. This paper shall present elements of a theory of chunking and propose a three-layer model that can accommodate musical features at different time-scales: i) Micro-level (or sub-chunk level), focused on the content of the chunk, what Schaeffer called its contexture, including features such as grain and motion. ii) Meso-level (or chunk-level), focused on the overall shape-features of the chunk, corresponding to Schaeffer's typological categories. iii) Macro-level (or supra-chunk level), consisting of the cumulative memory of several successive chunks, as in the case of longer passages of music. This three-level model seems reasonably well founded and could be convenient for analytical purposes, something that will be illustrated with sound examples during the presentation.

r.i.godoy@imv.uio.no

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L’approche de l’écologie sonore par Salvatore Sciarrino dans Lohengrin II, dessin pour un jardin sonore +

L’approche de l’écologie sonore par Salvatore Sciarrino dans Lohengrin II, dessin pour un jardin sonore -

Lohengrin, dessins pour un jardin sonore de Salvatore Sciarrino voit la lumière en 2004, à Villa Rufolo. L’idée de Sciarrino est de réaliser une nouvelle version de Lohengrin, action invisible, qui prenne vie et se déroule dans un espace sonore ouvert, où la musique puisse évoluer et se transformer en symbiose avec la nature. Nature qui représente pour le compositeur l’espace dans lequel puiser ses effets et son atmosphère acoustique. Le jardin ne se présente pas seulement comme le décor naturel de l’action dramaturgique, mais comme un organisme vivant contribuant à la transformation de la musique, à son tour organisme vivant naissant des plantes, des ruines, des fleurs de la villa. Une étrange continuité est ainsi établie entre la nature et le monde des sons et des bruits. Dans cet univers écologique, ces « jardins sonores », Sciarrino convoque la présence humaine.

guerrasio2000@libero.it

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Hear Me Now: The implication and significance of the female composer’s voice as sound source in her electroacoustic music +

Hear Me Now: The implication and significance of the female composer’s voice as sound source in her electroacoustic music -

In her writings about the role of the female voice in electroacoustic music, noted Dutch researcher Hannah Bosma has identified a variety of issues surrounding the compositional choices of those utilizing spoken and sung text in their work and has illustrated the differences of use in relationship to the chosen vocalist’s gender. Bosma exclusively focuses upon the musical works of men in her studies. Using Bosma’s research as inspiration this paper explores how women utilize their own voices both literally and symbolically in their electroacoustic music and also whether their treatment of the female voice in any way differs from the treatment of the female voice by their male counterparts. The paper uses the works of Pamela Z., Alice Shields, Christine Baczewska and Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner as examples of contrasting creative approaches.

ehinkle@unt.edu

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Finding Rules in Shakuhachi Timbre and Applying Them to Structure Music: Composition for shakuhachi and live electronics ‘Kaze no Michi’ (Wind Way) +

Finding Rules in Shakuhachi Timbre and Applying Them to Structure Music: Composition for shakuhachi and live electronics ‘Kaze no Michi’ (Wind Way) -

In shakuhachi solo music honkyoku of Kinko-style, a player uses various timbral expression. It is likely that the enormously wide range of timbral expression of the shakuhachi would not have been imported from the continent at the same time as the instrument, but must have been developed through the period during which the shakuhachi was used as a religious tool. Through the interview with shakuhachi master Ernst. G. Linder, the fact that the shakuhachi has several timbral qualities was revealed. The examples of shakuhachi tones explained by Linder were examined from the viewpoint of acoustic sound quality in order to apply the sound aesthetics of the shakuhachi to structure the live electronic piece Kaze no Michi. In this piece the shakuhachi part follows the ‘history’ of timbral development mentioned. The computer part is not an extension of the instrument, but is rather designed as ‘environment’. The functions for sound processing are planned referring to the parameters of timbral change in the shakuhachi sound mentioned. The paper presents the ways of analysis and structure of the piece.

hrmi_99@yahoo.com

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Considering the Terms of Our Language in Electroacoustic Spatialization +

Considering the Terms of Our Language in Electroacoustic Spatialization -

The expanded range of its spatial palette is one of the important attributes that distinguish electroacoustic music from acoustic music, but the spatiality of electroacoustic music still lacks a definitive vocabulary. Recent perceptual research can help us in shaping and clarifying this vocabulary even though the context of this research (concert halls and surround sound systems) is fundamentally different from electroacoustic music. Rumsey (2002) provides a particularly useful discussion of auditory spatial attributes from the vantage point of scene analysis that is an excellent starting point for describing the interplay of spatial attributes within the electroacoustic context. For example, the way that Rumsey situates spatial attributes within nested levels of auditory organization provides a tool for discerning the interactions between spatial imagery and electroacoustic source material. Our ability to describe and categorize such interactions depends on having clear terminology and concepts that recognize artistic play in perceptual organization.

g-kendall@northwestern.edu

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La spatialisation en musique électroacoustique: un nouvel art de mémoire ? +

La spatialisation en musique électroacoustique: un nouvel art de mémoire ? -

Cette communication tente de montrer en quoi la spatialisation du son est une composante essentielle pour la mémorisation et la signification de la musique électroacoustique. Dès les premières œuvres, la spatialisation du son s’est imposée comme un élément fondamental. Au-delà des effets purement expressifs, elle permet tout d’abord une meilleure différenciation des sources et des flux auditifs dans la perception des scènes auditives. Nous postulons que la spatialisation favorise également la mémorisation et le rappel des images sonores. En effet, les attributs de la spatialisation du son - profondeur (distance), direction (azimut et zénith) et mouvement (vélocité) de la source sonore -, sont comparables, dans une certaine mesure, aux caractéristiques de la mémoire. De ce point de vue, les processus de spatialisation sont interprétables comme un « art de mémoire », un art fait de traces et d’empreintes, qui offre de nouveaux éléments de signification et d’interprétation.

philippe.lalitte@u-bourgogne.fr

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A Future for EARS: Going global and providing didactic opportunities +

A Future for EARS: Going global and providing didactic opportunities -

Two months after EMS07, the funding provided by Britain’s Arts and Humanities Research Council for the ElectroAcoustic Resource Site project – EARS: http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk – will end. The EARS team are now looking forward to the next phase of this dynamic project’s evolution. The project finds itself at a fork on the road. One path involves the continuation and further internationalisation of the current site. The second path, called Pedagogical EARS is being prepared primarily for children and will involve three interrelated aspects: one focused on music appreciation; one on knowledge related to electroacoustic music; and one focused on creativity. Our intention is to proceed down both paths as best we can. This paper will describe fully where we are, what these paths involve and what role they may play in terms of the future of the field of electroacoustic music studies.

llandy@dmu.ac.uk

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Synthèse sonore et musiques électroacoustiques: une phenomenologie du sonore +

Synthèse sonore et musiques électroacoustiques: une phenomenologie du sonore -

Pour qui pratique la synthèse sonore, l’enjeu est de susciter une écoute qui dépasse la compréhension du son comme le seul résultat de la mise en action d’un modèle. Pourtant, la synthèse sonore n’interroge pas l’écoute sur le terrain de l’inouï radical, telle une métaphysique du son. Elle construit, avec la musique électroacoustique, un jeu imbriqué entre une perception seulement attentive à elle-même et un monde  sonore pris dans toutes ses dimensions de signes. Cet exposé vise à esquisser les éléments d’une phénoménologie sonore qui construit la dialectique des musiques électroacoustiques. Il tente de définir une approche perceptive dans laquelle s’institue un lien avec le monde acoustique différent de celui du mimétisme et de la symbolisation mais qui néanmoins conserve avec lui tout un réseau de forces attractives.

guillaume.loizillon@univ-paris8.fr

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The Acousmatic and the Language of the Technological Sublime +

The Acousmatic and the Language of the Technological Sublime -

The acousmatic is typically positioned within the tail of high modernism. Yet, it is better understood as archetypal of postmodernism, within the framework outline by Fredric Jameson (in Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism). That is, as a postindustrial aesthetic practice characterised by a particular condition: that in which cognitive mapping is problematised because the spaces and materialities generated through acousmatic technologies relate only obliquely, as surrogates (Smalley), to the life-world. Thus, the acousmatic is a contemporary instance of the sublime (in Burke¹s terms, a mix of terror and delight), as it threatens to efface the spectator and frustrates their ability to make cognitive sense of the acousmatic experience. The acousmatic is therefore in line with Jameson¹s description of the postmodern work as tapping Œthe networks of the reproductive process and thereby [affording] us some glimpse into a postmodern or technological sublime.

dugal.mckinnon@nzsm.ac.nz

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If a picture is worth 1000 words, and music is a language, how many notes is a picture worth? +

If a picture is worth 1000 words, and music is a language, how many notes is a picture worth? -

The paper explores the concept of music as ‘the universal language’ and identifies some of the problems that result from the often careless usage of the phrase. It is argued that not only are some of the parallelss between music and language illl-defined, but also that characteristic attributes of music are not adequately addressed by the concept. Various aspects of the concept of language are examined, and suggestions are made about how well these aspects can be mapped to music. A proliferation of musical styles and objectives are shown to have increased such potential mapping; musique concrète, soundscapes, and sonification on the one hand can exploit universally-recognizable sounds, whereas some of the more cerebral styles of 20th-century composition often challenge the understanding of the uninitiated. Personal reflections on the subject are interleaved with references to other writers in musicology, language and cognate disciplines.

mountain@alcor.concordia.ca

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Where are we Listening? and What are We Listening To? +

Where are we Listening? and What are We Listening To? -

At the time of writing this my keynote presentation is

(a) a short wish list concerning language, listening and reflection
(b) a collection of eccentric anecdotes about shopping
(c) rather too long.

But then again, one remains hopeful that things may change.

katharine@novamara.com

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La spatialisation timbrale ou le médium, c’est l’espace +

La spatialisation timbrale ou le médium, c’est l’espace -

Ce qui fait la spécificité du médium électroacoustique, c’est sa virtualité. Le son et la source ne sont pas soudés ensemble. Tel timbre entendu est complètement indépendant du haut-parleur à partir duquel il est entendu. Et celui-ci peut projeter toute la variété des timbres disponibles, ainsi que tous les autres haut-parleurs dans la salle. Et ainsi que tous les points situés entre tous les haut-parleurs. Mais ce qui rend encore davantage unique l’expérience de l’espace en musique électroacoustique c’est la possibilité de fragmenter le spectre dans l’espace et en cela, elle se distingue nettement de la musique instrumentale. Là où nous avions un violon localisé à un endroit précis, nous avions aussi tout le timbre du violon. Alors qu’ici, il est possible de distribuer le timbre d’un son complexe en le répartissant sur l’ensemble des points virtuels disponibles. C’est ce que nous appelons la spatialisation timbrale: le spectre ne se retrouve en totalité que virtuellement dans l’espace du concert.

robert.normandeau@umontreal.ca

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Recent Spatialisation Trends in Electroacoustic Music +

Recent Spatialisation Trends in Electroacoustic Music -

This work describes a survey of approaches towards the use of spatial design in electroacoustic music done in 2006, focusing on the type of spatial systems used by a sample of composers and the way they conceive the use of space in their music. The results were compared with information gathered from seventeen articles by composers written on the topic in 1997 and showed that composers in recent years are using more types of spatialisation systems than a decade ago. Compared results show an increase in the use of surround 5.1 as well as 4 and 8-channel systems as well as a decrease in the use of stereo. The compared results also show that, in recent years composers seem to be less concerned with the performance and technical aspects of spatialisation. Further studies could investigate the way in which new spatialisation tools have shaped the aesthetical character of the music composed in recent years.

fo500@york.ac.uk

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Syntax and Discourse: A re-evaluation of Simon Emmerson’s ‘The Relation of Language to Materials’ +

Syntax and Discourse: A re-evaluation of Simon Emmerson’s ‘The Relation of Language to Materials’ -

In Simon Emmerson's influential chapter in The Language of Electrocaoustic Music, The Relation of Language to Materials (Emmerson, 1986), he suggests a classification system for works using recorded sound based on two fundamental aspects, which he refers to as discourse and syntax. This paper looks at these classifications in detail, examining their relationship with particular regard to role played by syntax in determining discourse, which, it is argued, is essentially a perceived quality of a work. Emmerson's categories of aural and mimetic discourse emerge as listening strategies which may be suggested or guided by the composer through the interaction of the sonic vocabulary and the syntax used to arrange it. Situating discourse and syntax as aspects of reception and production respectively, sheds light on a range of practices in today's electroacoustic music and sonic art which take a fluid and playful approach to perception.

nye@nyeparry.com

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Auditory Scene Analysis and Sound Source Coherence as a Frame for the Perceptual Study of Electroacoustic Music Language +

Auditory Scene Analysis and Sound Source Coherence as a Frame for the Perceptual Study of Electroacoustic Music Language -

This paper proposes a method for the perceptual study of sound language and sound material in electroacoustic music based on ASA (auditory scene analysis), using contextual listening and sound source coherence as the main perceptual task. Claiming that out-of-context listening of sounds to describe their features - either timbre or morphological features – is not sufficient to understand their musical value, the paper proposes to combine it with contextual listening. The research paradigm is ASA, using the notions of stream segregation and abstract source coherence perception. The acousmographe is a sufficient tool for ASA based analysis of musical sequences, and the experiments can combine a top-down approach (understanding the features perceived in preexisting musical works) and a bottom-up approach – creating musical sequences where features vary in a controlled way. This allows a real musical listening that can be compared with non contextual listening to understand which features really are musically salient.

bpayri@har.upv.es

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I Took Away Their Guitars, but They Still Found a Use for Their Effects Pedals! +

I Took Away Their Guitars, but They Still Found a Use for Their Effects Pedals! -

There is an abundance of cheap effects pedals waiting to be hacked or bastardised, or redeployed into feedback loops. The interest in non-digital forms of music making and analogue hardware has also helped the guitarist discover the electronic circuits lying at their very feet. The appropriation of effects pedals has enabled a new group of musicians to explore and develop a new language. Consequently, there is a new breed of musicians taking part in the broader field of live electronics. Many of the musicians involved in this process have a digital mindset, and are used to working with sound processing and transformation techniques. Therefore, working with electronics alone seems a natural progression. In performance there are still some vestiges of the guitar. In some cases the tradition associated with pedals being on the floor has remained, and performers hunch crouched on knees over their effects to operate parameters by hand. As a result of this idiosyncratic mode of presentation, a new performance style has taken root.

jrich@dmu.ac.uk

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Witness and Sonic Metaphor in the Music of Francis Dhomont +

Witness and Sonic Metaphor in the Music of Francis Dhomont -

Sonic connotations or metaphors are a particularly strong feature of Francis Dhomont’s work. In his epic Forêt profonde, Dhomont creates a series of linked sonic metaphors which serve to build up complex layers of association and meaning and to provide thematic continuity and coherence. Its thirteen sections are inspired by the thirteen pieces of Schumann’s Kinderszenen. With this classic piano suite as a reference and occasionally as recognizable theme source, Forêt profonde also grapples with the nature of the fairy tale, psychoanalytic theory, the story of Bruno Bettleheim’s suicide and his holocaust experience. To explore Dhomont’s means of creating these metaphors, I will discuss the composer’s varied narrative devices, temporal structures, and musical textures. Underlying these tools is Dhomont’s creation of a pervasive sense of presence or witness, even in non-narrative sections, which is enlightened by M. Chion’s concept of êtricule, a kind of anthropomorphization of sound character.

airubin@umbc.edu

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Sex, Lies and Audiotape: The language of electroacoustic sound in music and image +

Sex, Lies and Audiotape: The language of electroacoustic sound in music and image -

In the perception of an audiovisual scenario and context our ears are informed by our eyes, just as our eyes can be redirected by our ears. Perception becomes the grounds on which film artists manipulate sonic/visual relationships to create meaning beyond the surface of the narrative. As tools and techniques of electroacoustic sound become more available, timbre plays an increasing role across all segments of our sonic culture-especially in film. As a result, the irresistible synchretic weld between sound and image (Chion) has reached a sophistication exploited by a growing number of filmmakers. Diegetic attack/release transients initiate morphological development into an ever-increasing abstraction of sonic material. Diegetic sound is abstracted into non-diegetic usage and vise-versa: the line between diagetic/non-diegetic disintegrates. Abstract diegesis and abstracted non-diegesis bound a continuum on which sound opens up deeper potentialities in the expression of film. The resultant perceptual vacuum, filled by a this growing language of electroacoustics in film will be discussed with examples from the film repertoire.

rudyp@umkc.edu

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Perceptual Investigation into Envelopment, Spatial Clarity, and Engulfment in Reproduced Multi-channel Audio: Compositional approaches in 3D music +

Perceptual Investigation into Envelopment, Spatial Clarity, and Engulfment in Reproduced Multi-channel Audio: Compositional approaches in 3D music -

Composers of electroacoustic music have engaged with 3D sound since the first performances of works in the 1950s. Currently, the majority of electroacoustic compositions continue to be presented in 2D. Although human auditory perception is 3D, music composition has not adequately exploited the creative possibilities of this dimension. It is argued that ecologically valid perceptual experiments are required when attempting to formulate compositional techniques for electroacoustic music composition. Further, by utilising concert hall acoustics and reproduced multi-channel research, the paper presents a novel research method for the perceptual evaluation of 3D multi-channel electroacoustic music. The spatial attributes of envelopment and spatial clarity, along with the proposed 3D unique attribute of engulfment are employed to evaluate composed multi-channel 3D sound executed within an ecologically valid concert hall environment. A total of 16 expert participants using a five level Likert scale rated the spatial scenes for their level of envelopment, spatial clarity, and engulfment. The paper reports on the results of Experiment 1 and discusses the conceptual and practical challenges encountered when designing an ecologically valid experiment.

r.sazdov@uws.edu.au

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Recurrence in Acousmatic Music: Creative and Analytical Possibilities +

Recurrence in Acousmatic Music: Creative and Analytical Possibilities -

This paper will introduce the concept of recurrence within acousmatic music, and explore its potential as a concept for composition practice and the examination of existing works. The apprehension of musical structuring or semblances of formal organisation, however loosely perceived, can often be traced to the perception of recurrent phenomena within a musical work. The process of recognising returning sound identities and their transformations, drawing links between them, and trying to understand the various interrelationships can be a rewarding aspect of the listening experience. These sound material connections can be made through all manner of perceivable characteristics, for example common source and/or cause associations, or more subtle spectral attributes. This paper will present the concept of recurrence in relation to sound material identity, and then illuminate its potential as an approach to both compositional practice and analysis through the discussion of my own acousmatic composition, Fouram (2005).

ambrose@seddons.eclipse.co.uk

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Space ... the final frontier? +

Space ... the final frontier? -

The analytical discussion of acousmatic music can benefit from being based on spatial concepts, and this paper aims to provide a framework for investigation. A personal experience of soundscape listening is the starting point, and uncovers basic ideas relating to the disposition and behaviour of sounding content, and listening strategy. This enables the opening out of the discussion to include source-bonded sounds in general, giving particular consideration to how experience of sense modes other than the aural are implicated in our understanding of space, and in acousmatic listening. Attention then shifts to a source-bonded spatial model based on the production of space by the gestural activity of music performance, prior to focusing in more detail on acousmatic music, initially by delving into spectral space, where ideas about gravitation and diagonal forces are germane. This leads to concepts central to the structuring of perspectival space in relation to the vantage point of the listener. The final section considers a methodology for space-form investigation.

d.smalley@city.ac.uk

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Perception of the Perception +

Perception of the Perception -

Any kind of music is perceived predominantly through loudspeakers today. During a broadcast the listener at the loudspeaker will construct a reality, which corresponds to his normal experience in a concert. But, what do we hear, what do we 'see' through the loudspeaker? What exactly happens during the listening act of an abstract sound timbre probably can only be answered by modern cognitive science, in particular the branch, which was started by Humberto R. Maturana: the question, which reality is produced when listening through loudspeakers is a problem of cognition. Heinz von Foerster, who developed a theory of perception defines cognition based on Maturana as "calculation of a reality". The statement 'a reality' implies that there are other realities as well. Radical constructivism becomes doubly useful when hearing electroacoustic music, when hearing an abstract, new tone quality: the listener not only calculates a reality, he constructs a reality, which he hasn't known until now.

supper@udk-berlin.de

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I Have No Memory of This Place: The changing nature of soundscape composition +

I Have No Memory of This Place: The changing nature of soundscape composition -

Hildegard Westerkamp is largely responsible for the creative shift in the mid-1970s—wherein recorded environmental sounds could be collaged and even manipulated using techniques borrowed from musique concrète—that saw soundscape composition move beyond the documentary nature of Acoustic Ecology to claim its own ground as a musical genre. Thirty years later, as more and more electroacoustic (and even purely acoustic) music is linked to what has traditionally been called soundscape composition, has the term become too limiting or, conversely, too inclusive to remain useful in defining a focused sub-genre within our field? More importantly, how might this music respond to or influence the world’s dynamic and often volatile soundscapes? I examine these questions of electroacoustic music vocabulary and practice by discussing my own yearlong soundscape recording/composition project while touching on related issues in ecological psychology, Deep Ecology, and visual art.

swendsen@virginia.edu

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The Role of Behaviour in the Analysis of Electroacoustic Music +

The Role of Behaviour in the Analysis of Electroacoustic Music -

The analytical discourse is based on two assumptions: that to some extent musical traits, forms and meanings can be considered stable, and that the application of a good rule-grid should produce reliable results. But acousmatic music pieces are often characterised by multiple-writings, to which the analyst has to oppose a plurality of reading strategies and suitable behaviours. This means not only reflecting on basic assumptions of a composition, dissecting musical materials and reviewing procedures, but it also means operating analytical choices based on declarative statements, strategies, and assessment. Analytical behaviours can relate either to a paradigmatic, legitimating proposition or to a personal, subjective conjecture. While creating different expectations, they imply choices in favour of behaviours that are destined to become carriers of particular cogence within the analytical discourse.

dante.tanzi@unimi.it

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Les langages de la production électroacoustique du Studio di fonologia musicale de Milan +

Les langages de la production électroacoustique du Studio di fonologia musicale de Milan -

«Nous écoutions la musique d’une façon particulière. Nous voulions organiser, construire. Ce qui était important pour moi, c’était de pouvoir écouter en ‘temps réel’ et de choisir en écoutant, là, dans l’instant.» Ces mots de Boucourechliev se réfèrent aux expériences faites dans le Studio di fonologia musicale de Milan, laboratoire où des compositeurs comme Berio, Nono, Cage, Maderna y ont travaillé, en progressant dans leurs esthétiques et leurs buts. Avec ma communication, je voudrais analyser la façon avec laquelle les intentions des compositeurs actifs en Studio sont présentes dans ce qui est perçu de leurs œuvres : de quelle façon le résultat sonore de leurs compositions est-il lié aux ressources disponibles à Milan? Les musiciens ont-ils su réaliser une correspondance entre leurs langages et ce laboratoire? Comment certaines œuvres réflètent-elles les projets de leurs compositeurs? Je souhaite donc de constater le poids de ce fameux Studio dans la production de musique électroacoustique, et de vérifier son importance dans le développement esthétique des artistes qui y ont travaillé.

elisa.teglia@poste.it

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The Technological Artifact Working Definitions for a Contemporary Sound Ecology +

The Technological Artifact Working Definitions for a Contemporary Sound Ecology -

The electronic sound ecology of 2007
The electronic production of sound now provides a fundamental and expected part of our living day-to-day experience. The technological artifact is all around. The commercial has comfortably interfaced with the avant-garde. Electronic sound branding provides a familiar sonic interlude to our shopping experiences. Sound as an icon for identity is openly expressed through mobile technology on buses and tubes.
Language
Electronically produced sound is here and technological sound it is now, it is not the future anymore. So where is our language to describe such sound and sound behaviours?
Taxonomy
Working as a composer and educator within a multicultural environment, which is defining itsself more and more through the ecology of electronic and technological sound, it is important more so than ever before that we can develop a working taxonomy which allows the direct communication of electro-acoustic music.

J.M.Thomas@uel.ac.uk

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Analyse de la densité événementielle: une approche de la perception temporelle dans ‘Kontakte’ de K. Stockhausen +

Analyse de la densité événementielle: une approche de la perception temporelle dans ‘Kontakte’ de K. Stockhausen -

En écoutant Kontakte de Stockhausen, ce qui frappe d'emblée l'auditeur est le déroulement temporel de la pièce. Si les sons électro-acoustiques employés ont peut-être perdu ce côté "inouï" que les auditeurs pouvaient percevoir en 1960, en revanche le parcours temporel est toujours réellement fort et original. Comment, pour aller plus loin dans la compréhension des phénomènes en jeu, rendre compte de cette perception temporelle si particulière? Il est évident qu'un relevé chronométrique ne peut suffire, l'importance relative de l'événement anamorphosant le temps. Le véritable enjeu est en fait de pouvoir quantifier l'importance de l'événement, par effet de contraste d'intensité, de timbre ou de morphologie par exemple. Il est alors possible de mieux comprendre le déroulement de la pièce sur le long terme, de mettre à jour des schéma types de l'évolution de la densité ou encore de rendre compte de façon intéressante des phénomènes de coupure/continuité qui jouent un rôle important dans la musique de Stockhausen.

gael.tissot@laposte.net

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The Analysis of Electroacoustic Music as Soundscape +

The Analysis of Electroacoustic Music as Soundscape -

The tradition of listening to environmental soundscapes as if they were music is inverted to suggest listening to electroacoustic music as if it were soundscape. What analytical tools and insights would result? The theoretical concepts introduced in soundscape studies and acoustic communication are summarized and applied first to media and digital gaming environments, noting the extensions of both their sound worlds and the related listening attitudes they provoke in terms of analytical and distracted listening. Traditional approaches to acousmatic and soundscape analysis are compared for their commonalities and differences, the latter being mainly their relative balance of attention towards inner and outer complexity. The types of electroacoustic music most amenable to a soundscape based analysis are suggested, along with brief examples of pieces to which such analysis might be directed.

truax@sfu.ca

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A typological space for representing collections of sound objects +

A typological space for representing collections of sound objects -

More than 40 years ago Pierre Schaeffer's Traité des objects musicaux (1966) proposed a way to think the audible domain avoiding the simple shortpaths of a pure acoustic approach. Schaeffer's attitude yielded to a double-sided analytic device -the so-called “typo-morphologie''- which was intended as a multifaceted tool for the description of the “sound objects'', i.e. all the objects belonging to the audible domain. In particular, the “typologie'' resulted in the proposal of a descriptive space where each sound object can receive a specific position. As Schaffer's ``geography of sound'' has never been consistently developed, this contribution tries to redefine the typological space in a continuous, consistent and intersubjectively usable way. The resulting space is intended as a reference frame for the phenomenological mark-up of sound objects. Due to its typological nature, it is particularly well-fitted for the annotation of sound object collections: such an annotation is relevant for the description of soundscape and audiovisual/multimedia domains but also in the analysis of music corpora. As an example, an analysis of Edgar Varèse's Poème électronique will be discussed. The music material is the unpublished original 3 track version rediscovered by the VEP project (http://edu.vrmmp.it/vep/).

andrea.valle@unito.it

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Title +

he Documentation Centre of Musique & Recherches: “Electrodoc” Database

Any important documentation centre for electroacoustic music must offer to its users -students, course participants, researchers, musicians, listeners- the ascertainment of knowledge and the potential to answer and satisfy questions of a theoretical, technical and aesthetic nature. The centre makes available for consultation reference material that, under normal circumstances, may prove difficult to find or to access. Such a centre exists as a powerful pedagogical tool, and consists of a comprehensive catalogue of printed press and audio/visual support. Our Database www.musiques-recherches.be/database organises elements of our collection in order to permit a fast and logical search of different subjects. Our catalogue contains more than 6000 electroacoustic works, 2500 supports, 2800 articles, 4000 authors (composers, musicologists etc.) and 700 books. The majority of our data are issued from commercial existing edition, both for audio supports (CD, DVD, LP and Tapes) and paper editions (books, magazine and revues), trying to be as open as possible in the field of electroacoustic music. We developed our database in a 4D environment whose structure is then translated in MySQL in order to be edited on the web. It is essentially a French database and its interface is, for the moment, only in French. The content of our library is conceptually divided between “container” (contenant) and “contained” (contenu). The first refers to the book/revue as physical object. The second is composed of one or more articles that are always contained in a book/revue. The media centre is divided into two families of documents: commercially available published material (Compact Discs, CD-Rom, vinyl discs and DVD), and non published (independent non-commercial CD-R, DAT, ADAT, DVD-R and analogue tapes); the latter mainly issued from both the production of our studios (Métamorphoses d'Orphée) and our activities (concerts, festival, contest “métamorphoses”, conferences and panels).

a.vandegorne@musiques-recherches.be

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CHEARS: China Electroacoustic Resource Survey +

CHEARS: China Electroacoustic Resource Survey -

The presentation for EMS07 will consist of my master degree work related to the compilation of a Chinese Electroacoustic music bibliography. The bibliography is organised according to the scheme of the EARS categories. There are few books of originality related to the relatively new EA music discipline in China, but the bibliography does include related interdisciplinary areas of physics, acoustics and psychology that do historically have a literature base. The Chinese EA music bibliography, given its many significant gaps, is thus essentially an exceedingly useful map for future EA graduate research in China for the coming years ahead.  The more positive aspects that my research covers is an analysis of the EARS categories as perceived of from a Chinese musicological point of view. I've mapped out the complete EARS structure using a free software called Freemind and have conducted interviews with Chinese professors to get their comments. Furthermore, by beginning to work with the organisational structure of EARS, we will be able to migrate the bibliography seamlessly and translate the EARS site into Chinese.

mungozhangruibo@gmail.com
ken@ccom.edu.cn

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Pierre Barbaud and the Birth of Computer-Music in France: From cybernetics to algorithmics +

Pierre Barbaud and the Birth of Computer-Music in France: From cybernetics to algorithmics -

In 1959, Pierre Barbaud entered the Compagnie des Machines Bull to make the computer do the calculation of his algorithmic music. There he phrased his project : to make the computer achieve music, starting with the algorithm till the ultimate sound production. At this time, Barbaud spoke of composing music by the means of cybernetics. He was influenced by two of the very first activists for the new science in France, G. Th. Guilbaud and Abraham Moles, but quickly took distance with this movement. By comparing the works labelled opus cyberneticus by the author (Conte sur le sable, Souvenirs entomologiques or La constante infidèle) to other works composed later under the name of ‘algorithmic music’ (Artémise ou La rhétorique des dieux, Réseau aérien or Nonetto in forma di triangolo), the conceptual differences between them will let us know what made his global project still valid in such a paradigm.

nicolas.viel@club-internet.fr

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Performance Ecosystems: Ecological approaches to musical interaction +

Performance Ecosystems: Ecological approaches to musical interaction -

The terms ‘performer’, ‘instrument’ and ‘environment’ seem to determine self-evidently distinct categories. These become problematic in highly technologised contexts, and recent critical attention has focused on contiguities between composition and performance, performer and instrument, instrument and environment. This paper will look at a variety of practical projects and performances hosted at the University of East Anglia over the past four years, paying particular attention to some of the of hybrid virtual/physical feedback instruments developed there, but it will also seek to reconnect the notion of a fluidity between performer, instrument and environment with models from far earlier in the practice of music. The ‘performance ecosystem’ is presented as a fruitful tool for understanding the.work of practitioners such as Nic Collins and Agostino di Scipio, but which is equally applicable to the concerns of contemporary improvisers and to those of composers and performers from far earlier in music’s history.

s.waters@uea.ac.uk

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Evaluating analysis through the mapping of perceptual possibilities +

Evaluating analysis through the mapping of perceptual possibilities -

In this paper, I briefly discuss what I see as the tripartite role of analysis in electroacoustic (E/A) music; that being, to assist the composer in making contact with her/his audience in terms of their perceptual capabilities; to assist the audience in establishing an adequate mode of listening in order to be able to appreciate the work; and to educate in terms of composition, the use of technology, understanding the technical means by which one can manipulate and organise sound most effectively in order to provide an engaging musical experience. This is followed by an explanation of the role that the Intention/Reception (I/R) method can play in the analysis of E/A music by mapping the perceptual experiences of the composer and listener as they function within what I term the 'communicative continuum'; this includes the socio-cultural context in which the making and taking of the art form takes place. Finally, I offer an overview of the initial stages of the latest phase of development of the I/R project.

rweale@dmu.ac.uk

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Sound Models in the Construction and Analysis of All-sound Music +

Sound Models in the Construction and Analysis of All-sound Music -

Sound modeling is typically considered as part of the construction of algorithms for synthesizing sound, but it can also be considered as an act of listening. In both cases, objects are constructed that are capable of generating a constrained class of sounds under active parametric control. As conceptual tools for understanding music, sound models define distances and relationships between different sounds, and can also be used to explain the satisfaction and violation of expectation in sound sequences. Sound models can be viewed as a generalization that includes physical sound generating objects and abstract synthesis algorithms, thereby enabling some unity in the analytical approach to musical works employing very different levels of source bonding.

lonce.wyse@zwhome.org

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Issues of Form in Electroacoustic Music +

Issues of Form in Electroacoustic Music -

This paper discusses issues surrounding the articulation form in electroacoustic music. The term form is used to describe features of musical processes that project generalisable patterns of structural morphology—likeness, contrast and change, through which processes of transformation and transition may operate. A concept of form may help understand the way fundamental constructs of meaning such as expectation and motion through time function in electroacoustic music. Two features of electroacoustic music are seen as core problems in identifying formal archetypes:
1. the multiplicity of sound sources with real and virtual provenances that may be implied, and
2. the potential for acoustical complexity of materials with associated potential difficulty in applying traditional ‘reduction’ based musical analytical concepts.
The notion of form will then be characterised not as a set of moulds that simply ‘contain’ music, but as a more organic principle by which sound identities, transformative and ordering processes may project fundamental structural morphologies.

jyoung@dmu.ac.uk

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‘Aur(or)a’: Exploring Attributes of a Live Algorithm +

‘Aur(or)a’: Exploring Attributes of a Live Algorithm -

A live algorithm describes an ideal autonomous performance system able to engage in performance with abilities analogous, if not identical, to a human musician. This paper proposes five attributes: adaptability (an ability to acclimatise to a shared audio environment, demonstrable by changes of musical behaviour); empowerment (the control over decisions that impact upon future events and experience); intimacy (a binding understanding achieved between collaborators via informed observation); opacity (avoidance of naïve processes of cause and effect); unimagined music (the unresolved “work in movement” in which musical contributions have equal significance, but may not be necessarily equivalent). These attributes are explored in Aur(or)a, a performer-machine system for Max/MSP that fosters listening and learning. Live improvisation is measured statistically to train a feed-forward neural network mapped to stochastic processes for musical output. Through adaptation, mappings are learnt and covertly assigned, to be revisited by both player and machine as a performance develops.

m.young@gold.ac.uk

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L’œuvre de Teresa Rampazzi: entre étude de genre et analyse des sources +

L’œuvre de Teresa Rampazzi: entre étude de genre et analyse des sources -

Teresa Rampazzi (1914-2001) est l’une des pionniers de la musique électroacoustique. Elle s’est vouée aux techniques analogiques d’abord et ensuite à l’ordinateur, réalisant plus d’une centaine d’œuvres. L’université de Padoue possède les bobines et quelques documents appartenus à la compositrice. L’état de détérioration des matériaux audio a rendu nécessaire leur reversement numérique, grâce auquel il est finalement possible d’étudier ses œuvres. Cette recherche se place sur le double binaire et la collaboration entre l’étude de genre (très particulier chez Rampazzi) et l’analyse des œuvres. Partant de la comparaison philologue des sources, elle étudie tant les aspects biographiques que les œuvres, examinant l’activité de révision d’une compositrice à la lumière de ses relations personnelles, son esthétique et le contexte historique. En outre, la collaboration avec un ingénieur de l’université de Padoue a permis d’élaborer une méthode d’analyse automatique des différences des fichiers audio.

laura.zattra@unipd.it

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