Examining Motivations of Spectral CompositionMT4103 Context and Methodology

Semester 1 20089

B Yianni 013901

Abstract

In 4466 words the author introduces some binding concepts for the spectralist style of composition as a whole and explores the supporting theory of various spectral composers

The author discusses musical perception of spacetime as a hierarchy of composition and proposes time as the main concern of the spectralist composer discusses various implications of meaning in music questioning the creative role of the spectralist composer and discusses various implications of computational analysis questioning the use of analysis in composition

Time and Space

Marvin Minsky suggests that music teaches the human about time in the same way that a child lsquostacks and packs blocks and boxes lines them up and knocks them downrsquo (1981) in a naturally driven effort to learn about space Interestingly Frances notes that lsquobefore musical education children do not situate high and low sounds in spacersquo (1958) but can mark the passage of time by successive sound events which can be observed by the act of dancing

So is it time rather than space that is perceptually relative in this case

Gerard Grisey notes his fascination for the perception of space over time what he calls lsquoextended time and for continuityrsquo (1996) He asks lsquoWhat language does that extended time implyrsquo and lsquoproposes a scale of complexity for duration that goes from order to disorderrsquo (1987)

The language he refers to is the gradual development of one sound into another - what he calls lsquothe degree of pre-audibilityrsquo the sounds between and within sounds the barely perceived scrape before the tone the overtones that create timbre and the resonance thereafter

It is time that shapes his idea of consonance and dissonance He asks lsquohow to compose an extended type of timersquo (1996) and his answer is to slowly reveal the component timbres of a tone that would otherwise be perceived as one timbre only

This lsquoscale of complexityrsquo (1987) is not dissimilar from Katya Saareijos introduction of the noisesound axis with which she replaces the lsquodynamic function of harmonyrsquo (1987) She uses noise to lsquoreplace the concept of dissonance and ldquosoundrdquo that of consonancersquo

But are perceptions of sound and noise governed by perception of time

Hempholtz (1963) postulated that sound is a regular vibration and noise an irregular one be it over time or intensity But if an irregular vibration is slow enough a pattern may be perceived and fluctuations in vibration become interpreted as musical motifs Equally an irregular vibration may become so fast as to create a pure tone

Grisey attempts to blur our interpretation of time he claims that lsquothe absolute relativity of temporal perceptionrsquo (1987) is proven by becoming a function of the differences between successive sound-objects markers in time that in essence control time This relates to Minskys thoughts about interpreting

013901 2

sound as time

lsquoIf you extend time you extend in all directions you extend going up and in depthrsquo (1996) Grisey says which seems to suggest that he treats time as space textural timbres as a vertical axis and dynamic range as depth It is the slowing down of a sound that lets the listener perceive the modulations instead as additions additions which imply this idea of space a hierarchy The same as the acceleration of a series of sounds blurs distinction until only one continuous sound is perceived

Saariaho wonders lsquoif there might be a way to organize timbre in more complex mdash hierarchical mdash waysrsquo (1987) than her noisesound axis - could this be time she refers to The idea of an order as in first next last implies a hierarchy as well as a space or a hierarchy of space

The composer Gyorgy Ligeti reveals how he toys with perceptions of time In his piece Continuum he lsquocreates the illusion of a rhythmical succession which is not actually playedrsquo by using very rapid notes that interplay to imply a second layer of rhythm He says that the illusion lsquois the result of distribution over a certain period of timersquo and refers to the distribution as lsquospatialrsquo what he calls lsquoa rhythmical gestaltrsquo and emphasises that it lsquois not actually performedrsquo (1987) So one could say that it is purely perceived and also that Ligeti like Grisey conceptualises time within the machinations of space In other pieces including Apparitions and Atmospheres he introduces lsquonew timbres which are not due to the timbres of the instruments but which are the result of a transformation of a rhythmrsquo (1987) He talks about deceiving the ears - a musical technique known as trompe loreille a term included in the title of Dumitrescus piece Cogito trompe lOeil and a technique much used by the minimalists But by transforming rhythms Ligeti is playing with Helmholtzrsquos idea of noise sound and therefore timbre as being regular or irregular For example the phenomenon of beating where there occurs a periodic variation of sound or amplitude due to the combination of similar but not identical frequencies may be simulated using Ligetis technique Is it possible then to create an irregular regular vibration

Dumitrescu describes his own compositional process as lsquoeliminating everything around [a sound] that isnt strictly part of it gradually structures can begin to develop to extend into timersquo (1997) This implies that the minute beatings that may occur in a sound and describe its timbre will be ignored So before he arranges a sound in time he examines it without time so to speak because this interaction of tone can only occur over time

He goes on to say that the instability of sound is very important in his musicrsquoThere is definitely not the idea of perfecting something of making the sounds fixed and perfect for all time The point is to find out how they can be different every time but in exactly the way that is right for that particular timersquo So the final stability is a relative onersquo (1997) and this relativity is in the context of time

Grisey talks about lsquofinding the right placersquo (1996) for sounds in his composition An obstacle composers face he says is lsquotrying to find the right function of the right sound at the right momentrsquo He notes a cultural idea of relativity in that lsquothere is no concept in the world that can tell you this is too long or too short and tell you exactly whyrsquo

Dumitrescu says that lsquofor each person you have to discover the things that are validrsquo (1997) but here he

013901 3

refers to an act of performance rather than listening lsquoMusic has to acknowledge fully the uniqueness of persons and the fact that sounds only come alive through personsrsquo lsquoyou might say that in western thought there is an emphasis on external time and that in eastern though there is an emphasis on internal timersquo (1997) The rigidity of structured rhythm in western music ties in with the development of the equal tempered scale equal tempered time a most unnatural or inhuman phenomenon another structure partially disregarded by the spectralists This second idea of time is personal cultural linked to lsquothe experience of being alive in a bodyrsquo (1997) but also organic and so shared by organisms which he notes can cause problems lsquowhen you are working with conventionally trained musicians you persuade a musician in the group of the rightness of a certain rhythm then all the others follow the same rhythmrsquo whereas in fact he wants each musicians part to be lsquoplayed in its own rhythm which is also the rhythm of the musician at that timersquo (1997)

Despite this the idea of organic rhythm goes some way to explaining performance as a concept the best musicians obtain merit through their expression - is this due to a heightened sense of inner rhythm Dumitrescu found lsquoa kind of proportionality between the act of playing a note and the pause which follows itrsquo (1997) This idea of the cyclic rhythm of physical activity lsquosystole and diastole the heart the steprsquo refers back to Griseys lsquodegree of pre-audibilityrsquo (1987) the gap or pause - that Dumitrescu says lsquowestern musical culture has succeeded in abolishingrsquo (1996) - as well as Helmholtzs ideas of irregularity

These gaps are just as important as the note itself in fact make the note what it is indeed conceptually there is no sound without silence

The philosopher Husserl tried to understand how lsquoentities in the human universe appear to have stability in timersquo (1950) As an image for the emergence of a complementary sense of time and self he uses the activity of following a musical melody arguing that the human remembers primary impressions as well as the lsquoact-phasersquo (1950) of forming these impressions The gaps between the memory of the note and the memory of understanding the note place these realisations in a temporal space

Murail has described spectralism as an attitude towards composition rather than a style - which explains why most commonly described spectralist composers do not embrace the moniker wholly finding the term lsquoinappropriate misleading and reductiversquo (2000) The attitude Muriel refers to is that lsquomusic is ultimately sound evolving in timersquo a concept that is fairly obvious but also implies that it is the manipulation of time which alters how a sound may evolve which in turn is the essence of the spectralist composers oeuvre as we have seen

Meaning and Perception

013901 4

It is interesting to note that composers using spectralist techniques tend not to provide pre-descriptive explanations or descriptions of their work unless regarding particular extended performance techniques So one cannot infer meaning by a preparatory description of performance

The composer Alban Berg used an arrangement of orchestral strings to simulate the sounds created by his asthmatic struggle to breathe (1969) However a listener will not necessarily perceive this factual simile but is likely to experience an unsettling feeling from the uncomfortable chords If the same listener is told that the sound mimics asthmatic breath they will immediately hear it as such

Although Russolo states that lsquonoise reminds us of life we think of the things that produce the noises we are hearingrsquo (1954) Nattiez suggests that lsquoto become art traces of cause and effect (links between noise and creator) must be lostrsquo (1987)

When we hear a cello concerto we think perhaps of the performer but not of the horse hair

If we hear a steam train we think of a steam train and all the cultural and historical associations thereof

So the fact that the real-sound associations of asthma in Bergs piece are lost must be due to the fact that music is considered as art by the casual listener rather than a transcription of real-sound It is Nattiezs neutral carrier (1987) destroying the intent the listener is detached from reality because music is not real

The result is that the emotional association with the physical pain of asthma is perceived rather than an acknowledgment of the asthma itself

In Griseys work Partiels (1975) the harmonics of a single e-flat trombone tone are disassembled (Fineberg 2000) and brought to the listeners perception however the result does not necessarily bring to mind lsquoa trombonersquo

So if with Bergs piece the emotional pain of asthma is interpreted if not the asthma and in Griseys case the trombone goes unnoticed what is the emotional signifier behind this transcribed sound of a trombone

Nattiez (1987) states that meaning is lost through the neutral trace or carrier - the necessary written or verbalised arrangement of sound The original meaning intended by the poietic (creative) impulse cannot be the same as the resulting esthetic (understanding) impulse because of this and other reasons previously considered

But what of mimicry

Horror film music for example mimics the symptoms of fear to inspire fear in the listener a faster heartbeat heightened senses etc all imitated by a musical arrangement This links to time as a compositional tool when thinking about another much used aspect of horror film music suspense the freezing of time created by held tones

However these techniques are hidden from the listeners perception (unless a piece is being actively examined) The body responds to the sounds of fear mimicking what is being mimicked Perceptively the

013901 5

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

Time and Space

Marvin Minsky suggests that music teaches the human about time in the same way that a child lsquostacks and packs blocks and boxes lines them up and knocks them downrsquo (1981) in a naturally driven effort to learn about space Interestingly Frances notes that lsquobefore musical education children do not situate high and low sounds in spacersquo (1958) but can mark the passage of time by successive sound events which can be observed by the act of dancing

So is it time rather than space that is perceptually relative in this case

Gerard Grisey notes his fascination for the perception of space over time what he calls lsquoextended time and for continuityrsquo (1996) He asks lsquoWhat language does that extended time implyrsquo and lsquoproposes a scale of complexity for duration that goes from order to disorderrsquo (1987)

The language he refers to is the gradual development of one sound into another - what he calls lsquothe degree of pre-audibilityrsquo the sounds between and within sounds the barely perceived scrape before the tone the overtones that create timbre and the resonance thereafter

It is time that shapes his idea of consonance and dissonance He asks lsquohow to compose an extended type of timersquo (1996) and his answer is to slowly reveal the component timbres of a tone that would otherwise be perceived as one timbre only

This lsquoscale of complexityrsquo (1987) is not dissimilar from Katya Saareijos introduction of the noisesound axis with which she replaces the lsquodynamic function of harmonyrsquo (1987) She uses noise to lsquoreplace the concept of dissonance and ldquosoundrdquo that of consonancersquo

But are perceptions of sound and noise governed by perception of time

Hempholtz (1963) postulated that sound is a regular vibration and noise an irregular one be it over time or intensity But if an irregular vibration is slow enough a pattern may be perceived and fluctuations in vibration become interpreted as musical motifs Equally an irregular vibration may become so fast as to create a pure tone

Grisey attempts to blur our interpretation of time he claims that lsquothe absolute relativity of temporal perceptionrsquo (1987) is proven by becoming a function of the differences between successive sound-objects markers in time that in essence control time This relates to Minskys thoughts about interpreting

013901 2

sound as time

lsquoIf you extend time you extend in all directions you extend going up and in depthrsquo (1996) Grisey says which seems to suggest that he treats time as space textural timbres as a vertical axis and dynamic range as depth It is the slowing down of a sound that lets the listener perceive the modulations instead as additions additions which imply this idea of space a hierarchy The same as the acceleration of a series of sounds blurs distinction until only one continuous sound is perceived

Saariaho wonders lsquoif there might be a way to organize timbre in more complex mdash hierarchical mdash waysrsquo (1987) than her noisesound axis - could this be time she refers to The idea of an order as in first next last implies a hierarchy as well as a space or a hierarchy of space

The composer Gyorgy Ligeti reveals how he toys with perceptions of time In his piece Continuum he lsquocreates the illusion of a rhythmical succession which is not actually playedrsquo by using very rapid notes that interplay to imply a second layer of rhythm He says that the illusion lsquois the result of distribution over a certain period of timersquo and refers to the distribution as lsquospatialrsquo what he calls lsquoa rhythmical gestaltrsquo and emphasises that it lsquois not actually performedrsquo (1987) So one could say that it is purely perceived and also that Ligeti like Grisey conceptualises time within the machinations of space In other pieces including Apparitions and Atmospheres he introduces lsquonew timbres which are not due to the timbres of the instruments but which are the result of a transformation of a rhythmrsquo (1987) He talks about deceiving the ears - a musical technique known as trompe loreille a term included in the title of Dumitrescus piece Cogito trompe lOeil and a technique much used by the minimalists But by transforming rhythms Ligeti is playing with Helmholtzrsquos idea of noise sound and therefore timbre as being regular or irregular For example the phenomenon of beating where there occurs a periodic variation of sound or amplitude due to the combination of similar but not identical frequencies may be simulated using Ligetis technique Is it possible then to create an irregular regular vibration

Dumitrescu describes his own compositional process as lsquoeliminating everything around [a sound] that isnt strictly part of it gradually structures can begin to develop to extend into timersquo (1997) This implies that the minute beatings that may occur in a sound and describe its timbre will be ignored So before he arranges a sound in time he examines it without time so to speak because this interaction of tone can only occur over time

He goes on to say that the instability of sound is very important in his musicrsquoThere is definitely not the idea of perfecting something of making the sounds fixed and perfect for all time The point is to find out how they can be different every time but in exactly the way that is right for that particular timersquo So the final stability is a relative onersquo (1997) and this relativity is in the context of time

Grisey talks about lsquofinding the right placersquo (1996) for sounds in his composition An obstacle composers face he says is lsquotrying to find the right function of the right sound at the right momentrsquo He notes a cultural idea of relativity in that lsquothere is no concept in the world that can tell you this is too long or too short and tell you exactly whyrsquo

Dumitrescu says that lsquofor each person you have to discover the things that are validrsquo (1997) but here he

013901 3

refers to an act of performance rather than listening lsquoMusic has to acknowledge fully the uniqueness of persons and the fact that sounds only come alive through personsrsquo lsquoyou might say that in western thought there is an emphasis on external time and that in eastern though there is an emphasis on internal timersquo (1997) The rigidity of structured rhythm in western music ties in with the development of the equal tempered scale equal tempered time a most unnatural or inhuman phenomenon another structure partially disregarded by the spectralists This second idea of time is personal cultural linked to lsquothe experience of being alive in a bodyrsquo (1997) but also organic and so shared by organisms which he notes can cause problems lsquowhen you are working with conventionally trained musicians you persuade a musician in the group of the rightness of a certain rhythm then all the others follow the same rhythmrsquo whereas in fact he wants each musicians part to be lsquoplayed in its own rhythm which is also the rhythm of the musician at that timersquo (1997)

Despite this the idea of organic rhythm goes some way to explaining performance as a concept the best musicians obtain merit through their expression - is this due to a heightened sense of inner rhythm Dumitrescu found lsquoa kind of proportionality between the act of playing a note and the pause which follows itrsquo (1997) This idea of the cyclic rhythm of physical activity lsquosystole and diastole the heart the steprsquo refers back to Griseys lsquodegree of pre-audibilityrsquo (1987) the gap or pause - that Dumitrescu says lsquowestern musical culture has succeeded in abolishingrsquo (1996) - as well as Helmholtzs ideas of irregularity

These gaps are just as important as the note itself in fact make the note what it is indeed conceptually there is no sound without silence

The philosopher Husserl tried to understand how lsquoentities in the human universe appear to have stability in timersquo (1950) As an image for the emergence of a complementary sense of time and self he uses the activity of following a musical melody arguing that the human remembers primary impressions as well as the lsquoact-phasersquo (1950) of forming these impressions The gaps between the memory of the note and the memory of understanding the note place these realisations in a temporal space

Murail has described spectralism as an attitude towards composition rather than a style - which explains why most commonly described spectralist composers do not embrace the moniker wholly finding the term lsquoinappropriate misleading and reductiversquo (2000) The attitude Muriel refers to is that lsquomusic is ultimately sound evolving in timersquo a concept that is fairly obvious but also implies that it is the manipulation of time which alters how a sound may evolve which in turn is the essence of the spectralist composers oeuvre as we have seen

Meaning and Perception

013901 4

It is interesting to note that composers using spectralist techniques tend not to provide pre-descriptive explanations or descriptions of their work unless regarding particular extended performance techniques So one cannot infer meaning by a preparatory description of performance

The composer Alban Berg used an arrangement of orchestral strings to simulate the sounds created by his asthmatic struggle to breathe (1969) However a listener will not necessarily perceive this factual simile but is likely to experience an unsettling feeling from the uncomfortable chords If the same listener is told that the sound mimics asthmatic breath they will immediately hear it as such

Although Russolo states that lsquonoise reminds us of life we think of the things that produce the noises we are hearingrsquo (1954) Nattiez suggests that lsquoto become art traces of cause and effect (links between noise and creator) must be lostrsquo (1987)

When we hear a cello concerto we think perhaps of the performer but not of the horse hair

If we hear a steam train we think of a steam train and all the cultural and historical associations thereof

So the fact that the real-sound associations of asthma in Bergs piece are lost must be due to the fact that music is considered as art by the casual listener rather than a transcription of real-sound It is Nattiezs neutral carrier (1987) destroying the intent the listener is detached from reality because music is not real

The result is that the emotional association with the physical pain of asthma is perceived rather than an acknowledgment of the asthma itself

In Griseys work Partiels (1975) the harmonics of a single e-flat trombone tone are disassembled (Fineberg 2000) and brought to the listeners perception however the result does not necessarily bring to mind lsquoa trombonersquo

So if with Bergs piece the emotional pain of asthma is interpreted if not the asthma and in Griseys case the trombone goes unnoticed what is the emotional signifier behind this transcribed sound of a trombone

Nattiez (1987) states that meaning is lost through the neutral trace or carrier - the necessary written or verbalised arrangement of sound The original meaning intended by the poietic (creative) impulse cannot be the same as the resulting esthetic (understanding) impulse because of this and other reasons previously considered

But what of mimicry

Horror film music for example mimics the symptoms of fear to inspire fear in the listener a faster heartbeat heightened senses etc all imitated by a musical arrangement This links to time as a compositional tool when thinking about another much used aspect of horror film music suspense the freezing of time created by held tones

However these techniques are hidden from the listeners perception (unless a piece is being actively examined) The body responds to the sounds of fear mimicking what is being mimicked Perceptively the

013901 5

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

sound as time

lsquoIf you extend time you extend in all directions you extend going up and in depthrsquo (1996) Grisey says which seems to suggest that he treats time as space textural timbres as a vertical axis and dynamic range as depth It is the slowing down of a sound that lets the listener perceive the modulations instead as additions additions which imply this idea of space a hierarchy The same as the acceleration of a series of sounds blurs distinction until only one continuous sound is perceived

Saariaho wonders lsquoif there might be a way to organize timbre in more complex mdash hierarchical mdash waysrsquo (1987) than her noisesound axis - could this be time she refers to The idea of an order as in first next last implies a hierarchy as well as a space or a hierarchy of space

The composer Gyorgy Ligeti reveals how he toys with perceptions of time In his piece Continuum he lsquocreates the illusion of a rhythmical succession which is not actually playedrsquo by using very rapid notes that interplay to imply a second layer of rhythm He says that the illusion lsquois the result of distribution over a certain period of timersquo and refers to the distribution as lsquospatialrsquo what he calls lsquoa rhythmical gestaltrsquo and emphasises that it lsquois not actually performedrsquo (1987) So one could say that it is purely perceived and also that Ligeti like Grisey conceptualises time within the machinations of space In other pieces including Apparitions and Atmospheres he introduces lsquonew timbres which are not due to the timbres of the instruments but which are the result of a transformation of a rhythmrsquo (1987) He talks about deceiving the ears - a musical technique known as trompe loreille a term included in the title of Dumitrescus piece Cogito trompe lOeil and a technique much used by the minimalists But by transforming rhythms Ligeti is playing with Helmholtzrsquos idea of noise sound and therefore timbre as being regular or irregular For example the phenomenon of beating where there occurs a periodic variation of sound or amplitude due to the combination of similar but not identical frequencies may be simulated using Ligetis technique Is it possible then to create an irregular regular vibration

Dumitrescu describes his own compositional process as lsquoeliminating everything around [a sound] that isnt strictly part of it gradually structures can begin to develop to extend into timersquo (1997) This implies that the minute beatings that may occur in a sound and describe its timbre will be ignored So before he arranges a sound in time he examines it without time so to speak because this interaction of tone can only occur over time

He goes on to say that the instability of sound is very important in his musicrsquoThere is definitely not the idea of perfecting something of making the sounds fixed and perfect for all time The point is to find out how they can be different every time but in exactly the way that is right for that particular timersquo So the final stability is a relative onersquo (1997) and this relativity is in the context of time

Grisey talks about lsquofinding the right placersquo (1996) for sounds in his composition An obstacle composers face he says is lsquotrying to find the right function of the right sound at the right momentrsquo He notes a cultural idea of relativity in that lsquothere is no concept in the world that can tell you this is too long or too short and tell you exactly whyrsquo

Dumitrescu says that lsquofor each person you have to discover the things that are validrsquo (1997) but here he

013901 3

refers to an act of performance rather than listening lsquoMusic has to acknowledge fully the uniqueness of persons and the fact that sounds only come alive through personsrsquo lsquoyou might say that in western thought there is an emphasis on external time and that in eastern though there is an emphasis on internal timersquo (1997) The rigidity of structured rhythm in western music ties in with the development of the equal tempered scale equal tempered time a most unnatural or inhuman phenomenon another structure partially disregarded by the spectralists This second idea of time is personal cultural linked to lsquothe experience of being alive in a bodyrsquo (1997) but also organic and so shared by organisms which he notes can cause problems lsquowhen you are working with conventionally trained musicians you persuade a musician in the group of the rightness of a certain rhythm then all the others follow the same rhythmrsquo whereas in fact he wants each musicians part to be lsquoplayed in its own rhythm which is also the rhythm of the musician at that timersquo (1997)

Despite this the idea of organic rhythm goes some way to explaining performance as a concept the best musicians obtain merit through their expression - is this due to a heightened sense of inner rhythm Dumitrescu found lsquoa kind of proportionality between the act of playing a note and the pause which follows itrsquo (1997) This idea of the cyclic rhythm of physical activity lsquosystole and diastole the heart the steprsquo refers back to Griseys lsquodegree of pre-audibilityrsquo (1987) the gap or pause - that Dumitrescu says lsquowestern musical culture has succeeded in abolishingrsquo (1996) - as well as Helmholtzs ideas of irregularity

These gaps are just as important as the note itself in fact make the note what it is indeed conceptually there is no sound without silence

The philosopher Husserl tried to understand how lsquoentities in the human universe appear to have stability in timersquo (1950) As an image for the emergence of a complementary sense of time and self he uses the activity of following a musical melody arguing that the human remembers primary impressions as well as the lsquoact-phasersquo (1950) of forming these impressions The gaps between the memory of the note and the memory of understanding the note place these realisations in a temporal space

Murail has described spectralism as an attitude towards composition rather than a style - which explains why most commonly described spectralist composers do not embrace the moniker wholly finding the term lsquoinappropriate misleading and reductiversquo (2000) The attitude Muriel refers to is that lsquomusic is ultimately sound evolving in timersquo a concept that is fairly obvious but also implies that it is the manipulation of time which alters how a sound may evolve which in turn is the essence of the spectralist composers oeuvre as we have seen

Meaning and Perception

013901 4

It is interesting to note that composers using spectralist techniques tend not to provide pre-descriptive explanations or descriptions of their work unless regarding particular extended performance techniques So one cannot infer meaning by a preparatory description of performance

The composer Alban Berg used an arrangement of orchestral strings to simulate the sounds created by his asthmatic struggle to breathe (1969) However a listener will not necessarily perceive this factual simile but is likely to experience an unsettling feeling from the uncomfortable chords If the same listener is told that the sound mimics asthmatic breath they will immediately hear it as such

Although Russolo states that lsquonoise reminds us of life we think of the things that produce the noises we are hearingrsquo (1954) Nattiez suggests that lsquoto become art traces of cause and effect (links between noise and creator) must be lostrsquo (1987)

When we hear a cello concerto we think perhaps of the performer but not of the horse hair

If we hear a steam train we think of a steam train and all the cultural and historical associations thereof

So the fact that the real-sound associations of asthma in Bergs piece are lost must be due to the fact that music is considered as art by the casual listener rather than a transcription of real-sound It is Nattiezs neutral carrier (1987) destroying the intent the listener is detached from reality because music is not real

The result is that the emotional association with the physical pain of asthma is perceived rather than an acknowledgment of the asthma itself

In Griseys work Partiels (1975) the harmonics of a single e-flat trombone tone are disassembled (Fineberg 2000) and brought to the listeners perception however the result does not necessarily bring to mind lsquoa trombonersquo

So if with Bergs piece the emotional pain of asthma is interpreted if not the asthma and in Griseys case the trombone goes unnoticed what is the emotional signifier behind this transcribed sound of a trombone

Nattiez (1987) states that meaning is lost through the neutral trace or carrier - the necessary written or verbalised arrangement of sound The original meaning intended by the poietic (creative) impulse cannot be the same as the resulting esthetic (understanding) impulse because of this and other reasons previously considered

But what of mimicry

Horror film music for example mimics the symptoms of fear to inspire fear in the listener a faster heartbeat heightened senses etc all imitated by a musical arrangement This links to time as a compositional tool when thinking about another much used aspect of horror film music suspense the freezing of time created by held tones

However these techniques are hidden from the listeners perception (unless a piece is being actively examined) The body responds to the sounds of fear mimicking what is being mimicked Perceptively the

013901 5

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

refers to an act of performance rather than listening lsquoMusic has to acknowledge fully the uniqueness of persons and the fact that sounds only come alive through personsrsquo lsquoyou might say that in western thought there is an emphasis on external time and that in eastern though there is an emphasis on internal timersquo (1997) The rigidity of structured rhythm in western music ties in with the development of the equal tempered scale equal tempered time a most unnatural or inhuman phenomenon another structure partially disregarded by the spectralists This second idea of time is personal cultural linked to lsquothe experience of being alive in a bodyrsquo (1997) but also organic and so shared by organisms which he notes can cause problems lsquowhen you are working with conventionally trained musicians you persuade a musician in the group of the rightness of a certain rhythm then all the others follow the same rhythmrsquo whereas in fact he wants each musicians part to be lsquoplayed in its own rhythm which is also the rhythm of the musician at that timersquo (1997)

Despite this the idea of organic rhythm goes some way to explaining performance as a concept the best musicians obtain merit through their expression - is this due to a heightened sense of inner rhythm Dumitrescu found lsquoa kind of proportionality between the act of playing a note and the pause which follows itrsquo (1997) This idea of the cyclic rhythm of physical activity lsquosystole and diastole the heart the steprsquo refers back to Griseys lsquodegree of pre-audibilityrsquo (1987) the gap or pause - that Dumitrescu says lsquowestern musical culture has succeeded in abolishingrsquo (1996) - as well as Helmholtzs ideas of irregularity

These gaps are just as important as the note itself in fact make the note what it is indeed conceptually there is no sound without silence

The philosopher Husserl tried to understand how lsquoentities in the human universe appear to have stability in timersquo (1950) As an image for the emergence of a complementary sense of time and self he uses the activity of following a musical melody arguing that the human remembers primary impressions as well as the lsquoact-phasersquo (1950) of forming these impressions The gaps between the memory of the note and the memory of understanding the note place these realisations in a temporal space

Murail has described spectralism as an attitude towards composition rather than a style - which explains why most commonly described spectralist composers do not embrace the moniker wholly finding the term lsquoinappropriate misleading and reductiversquo (2000) The attitude Muriel refers to is that lsquomusic is ultimately sound evolving in timersquo a concept that is fairly obvious but also implies that it is the manipulation of time which alters how a sound may evolve which in turn is the essence of the spectralist composers oeuvre as we have seen

Meaning and Perception

013901 4

It is interesting to note that composers using spectralist techniques tend not to provide pre-descriptive explanations or descriptions of their work unless regarding particular extended performance techniques So one cannot infer meaning by a preparatory description of performance

The composer Alban Berg used an arrangement of orchestral strings to simulate the sounds created by his asthmatic struggle to breathe (1969) However a listener will not necessarily perceive this factual simile but is likely to experience an unsettling feeling from the uncomfortable chords If the same listener is told that the sound mimics asthmatic breath they will immediately hear it as such

Although Russolo states that lsquonoise reminds us of life we think of the things that produce the noises we are hearingrsquo (1954) Nattiez suggests that lsquoto become art traces of cause and effect (links between noise and creator) must be lostrsquo (1987)

When we hear a cello concerto we think perhaps of the performer but not of the horse hair

If we hear a steam train we think of a steam train and all the cultural and historical associations thereof

So the fact that the real-sound associations of asthma in Bergs piece are lost must be due to the fact that music is considered as art by the casual listener rather than a transcription of real-sound It is Nattiezs neutral carrier (1987) destroying the intent the listener is detached from reality because music is not real

The result is that the emotional association with the physical pain of asthma is perceived rather than an acknowledgment of the asthma itself

In Griseys work Partiels (1975) the harmonics of a single e-flat trombone tone are disassembled (Fineberg 2000) and brought to the listeners perception however the result does not necessarily bring to mind lsquoa trombonersquo

So if with Bergs piece the emotional pain of asthma is interpreted if not the asthma and in Griseys case the trombone goes unnoticed what is the emotional signifier behind this transcribed sound of a trombone

Nattiez (1987) states that meaning is lost through the neutral trace or carrier - the necessary written or verbalised arrangement of sound The original meaning intended by the poietic (creative) impulse cannot be the same as the resulting esthetic (understanding) impulse because of this and other reasons previously considered

But what of mimicry

Horror film music for example mimics the symptoms of fear to inspire fear in the listener a faster heartbeat heightened senses etc all imitated by a musical arrangement This links to time as a compositional tool when thinking about another much used aspect of horror film music suspense the freezing of time created by held tones

However these techniques are hidden from the listeners perception (unless a piece is being actively examined) The body responds to the sounds of fear mimicking what is being mimicked Perceptively the

013901 5

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

It is interesting to note that composers using spectralist techniques tend not to provide pre-descriptive explanations or descriptions of their work unless regarding particular extended performance techniques So one cannot infer meaning by a preparatory description of performance

The composer Alban Berg used an arrangement of orchestral strings to simulate the sounds created by his asthmatic struggle to breathe (1969) However a listener will not necessarily perceive this factual simile but is likely to experience an unsettling feeling from the uncomfortable chords If the same listener is told that the sound mimics asthmatic breath they will immediately hear it as such

Although Russolo states that lsquonoise reminds us of life we think of the things that produce the noises we are hearingrsquo (1954) Nattiez suggests that lsquoto become art traces of cause and effect (links between noise and creator) must be lostrsquo (1987)

When we hear a cello concerto we think perhaps of the performer but not of the horse hair

If we hear a steam train we think of a steam train and all the cultural and historical associations thereof

So the fact that the real-sound associations of asthma in Bergs piece are lost must be due to the fact that music is considered as art by the casual listener rather than a transcription of real-sound It is Nattiezs neutral carrier (1987) destroying the intent the listener is detached from reality because music is not real

The result is that the emotional association with the physical pain of asthma is perceived rather than an acknowledgment of the asthma itself

In Griseys work Partiels (1975) the harmonics of a single e-flat trombone tone are disassembled (Fineberg 2000) and brought to the listeners perception however the result does not necessarily bring to mind lsquoa trombonersquo

So if with Bergs piece the emotional pain of asthma is interpreted if not the asthma and in Griseys case the trombone goes unnoticed what is the emotional signifier behind this transcribed sound of a trombone

Nattiez (1987) states that meaning is lost through the neutral trace or carrier - the necessary written or verbalised arrangement of sound The original meaning intended by the poietic (creative) impulse cannot be the same as the resulting esthetic (understanding) impulse because of this and other reasons previously considered

But what of mimicry

Horror film music for example mimics the symptoms of fear to inspire fear in the listener a faster heartbeat heightened senses etc all imitated by a musical arrangement This links to time as a compositional tool when thinking about another much used aspect of horror film music suspense the freezing of time created by held tones

However these techniques are hidden from the listeners perception (unless a piece is being actively examined) The body responds to the sounds of fear mimicking what is being mimicked Perceptively the

013901 5

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

sound is understood as music This again refers to Nattiezs neutral carrier of composition

Frances writes lsquothe kinship between rhythmic pattern[s] in musicrsquo are directly related to

lsquothe patterns of gestures that accompany behaviourrsquo (1958) Nattiez clarifies that lsquothis explains the tremendous richness of musics representational capacitiesrsquo (1987) and goes on to cite a number of works including Mozartrsquos Don Giovanni (1787) in which the lsquoplay of the swords in Act 1 is rendered by the rising violin scalesrsquo (1987)

Movement of course creates space which in turn allows movement and therefore time a concept we have already discussed

What is interesting about these musics is that the listener is already aware of the subject a preparatory description of content is present in the title or storyline of the piece triggering thought rather than allowing a bodily reaction and emotive response Horror film music comes with a horror film so we can say the same thing However listen to Don Giovanni and to the soundtrack from The Shining and you are more likely to understand fear from the latter than swords from the former

Ramjil Fischman proposes that this lsquostrong imagery inherent in mimetic discoursersquo (2008) allows composers to conjure lsquonew landscapesrsquo that vary from lsquothe physically possible to the surrealrsquo to the hyper-real He claims that lsquohuman beings possess innate mechanisms necessary to construct meaning out of mimetic discoursersquo (2008) as opposed to lsquotimbral aspects of soundrsquo citing Emmersons language grid of 1986 in which the aural (actual) moves to the mimetic over an axis of the abstracted (displaced) to the abstract

Hyper-reality is a concept influencing many aspects of synthesis and other spectral composition techniques as we have seen However instead of building new sounds

Westerkamp points out that in soundscape and spectromorphological composition lsquothe artist seeks to discover the sonicmusical essence within the recordings the artist works with the understanding that aesthetic values will emerge from the soundscape or its elementsrsquo (1998) Fischman draws a similarity between Emmersons syntax axis and the potential textural functions of spectral composition implying that spectral and mimetic approaches can create the same results

So how can we understand these aesthetic values Westerkamp says are fundamental to both

In the experiments of Manfred Clynes lsquotwo particular [musical] patterns that gently rise and fall are said to suggest states of love and reverence two others (more abrupt) signify anger and hatersquo (1992) These conclusions are relative to movement but Carpentier Rameau (1722) Hoffman and Lavignac (1942) have all put forward emotive descriptions of stationary keys in western tonality There are strong differences and striking similarities between each interpretation The key of b flat major is described as lsquomagnificent and joyousrsquo (Nattiez 1987 125) by Carpentier lsquostorms and ragesrsquo by Rameau lsquorusticrsquo by Hoffman and lsquoelegant and graciousrsquo by Lavignac We also know that for Beethoven (1962) d flat major had associations of lsquosolemnity and deathrsquo a key described by Lavignac as lsquofull of charmrsquo

Another b flat minor was a black key for Beethoven described by Carpentier as lsquogloomy and terriblersquo

013901 6

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

and Lavignac as lsquofunereal or mysteriousrsquo

These interpretations are physical cultural and personally varied - the first person to write gloomy music in b flat minor must influence those who hear it - but is there a running theme that exists outside of cultural influences Evidently history has not much altered the common interpretations of this key although spectralist techniques in general move away from western tonality Perhaps the gloomy interpretations of b flat minor inspire composers to write in a suitable style an effort to fit music to a key not unlike Griseys attempts to place sounds where they should occur

Minsky asksrsquoIs there some more abstract idea that both [of Clynes statements] embodyrsquo (1981) This is the question im asking which lsquois like the problem raised by Wittgenstein of what words like game meanrsquo (1981)

A particular form of Inuit vocal music can be described as a game (Nattiez 1987) - for all intents and purposes is a game so the real meaning of the music that is a result of this game is fun playful and so on But the meaning interpreted by a non-Inuit differs entirely the music is not in the western equal tempered scale so the western listener may experience some unease from the musics perceived strange sound which in turn they may ascribe to sadness or foreboding

It could be said that there is no meaning behind the music that in fact it is not music at all It is described by those who create it in purely extra-musical terms The meaning is our own conception in the same way that we describe birdsong as being musical but not music

The descriptions of a certain type of music performed by the Mapuche Indians of Argentina (Robertson De-Carbo 1976) are also purely extra-musical

As well as other musics defined as such they have Tayil which is a verbalisation of a persons patrilineage (called Kimpen) and can only be performed by an Eltun - a female authorised to do so

However if this music was analysed and transcribed unto an acoustic ensemble for example the Bath Philharmonic it would become music to the minds of the listeners There is nothing else such an ensemble can create Referring to Emersonrsquos grid this is abstracted but not abstract

But would the meaning of a lsquovocalised patrilineagersquo remain the same

Almost certainly this meaning could not be inferred by the ear alone

Nattiez (1987) states that all heard sound depending upon how it is heard (and by this he refers to the realisations of an individual organism) can become music

Mache (1983) discovered that birdsong is organised by a repetitiontransformation principle universal to human musics and posed the question do birds posses an organised music themselves

This in turn begs a question regarding the mechanics of a music Is a language of music defined by the

013901 7

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

limitations imposed upon it - the physical properties of a birds gullet - as it is in the case of the extra-musical Tayil where when transcribed unto the language of the western orchestra it becomes music in very real terms

Orchestral instruments are not designed to play music - rather they are objects designed to be very conducive for making sound The development of early Romanian folk music as collected by Bella Bartok was influenced by the capabilities of the instruments themselves rather than the other way around The use of acoustic scales derived from the resonant partials of natural wind instruments is not unlike matching a meaning-in-composition to meaning-in-key as mentioned above

So does any sound played upon an instrument become musical

Certainly when in accord to the composers or the performers intention

Can we say that sound is music when governed by this controlled thought - intention - which we cannot assume of a bird Or can intention be subconsciously driven

What if a composer were to take birdsong analyse and arrange for orchestral ensemble Many composers have attempted this using varying methods

There are creative processes that adapt the birds form to fit the orchestra - methods of absorbing the former into the theory of the latter - and there will be new methods developed to accurately reproduce these sounds Will the Wrens call be in b flat and is this the composerrsquos decision

Even if so we cannot say that the final result was created wholly by the composer Even if the birdsong is an inspiration rather than an analysis the composer is not totally in control of his output It does not come totally from the composers mind

Can we say this of any composed music Surely all forms of sound influence a composers music Is the composer just a channel for his own understanding of the world he lives in

Nattiez (1987) states that the creative impulse - the poietic - comes first and music is thusly composed The final stage is the listeners attempt to understand - the esthetic impulse

I argue that there is no creative impulse in spectral composition other than the impulse to transcribe The original impulse is actually to fit sound into how the composer hears it to explain how the composer understands rather than create a new understanding The impulse is a desire to share an esthetic consideration

This fits very well with the spectralists As a rule they intend not to create but to reveal what is already in existence as we have already discussed If this entails an amount of creativity then so does the esthetic impulse - the effort of understanding

013901 8

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

Analysis and Composition

Grisey (1996) says he worked lsquovery little with computers and electronicsrsquo He complained that pieces of his that contain implied electronics lsquohave to be revised constantly because of the change of technology The technology of new instruments of synthesizers or whatever is not done for [the musician] Its done for the businessrsquo

Grisey is somewhat of a technophobe strange for a notable composer of the spectralist style He claims that the future development of technology is lsquoendlessrsquo (1996) perhaps echoed by Moores Law (1965) that the number of transistors on a computer chips doubles every 18 months

But what does this mean when applied to computer analysis

Arguably Fouriers method of imaging sound is as unreal as the standard amplitude to time axis familiar to music technologists It may represent sound more comprehensively most notably in the frequency spectrum but this frequency content is also present in the amptime visualisation Perhaps the representation in the latter is just not as easily recognised by humans So the Fourier representation is a visual alteration that fits our understanding Following this thought to its logical conclusion the Fourier method of representation is less accurate than previous representations because it has been altered the most

When applied to Moores Law and Griseys cry of an endless process this means that newest and most advanced representation is a byword for most unreal representation Ultimately the most advanced and most comprehensible musical analysis system will be the least related to its subject

So the process of computational analysis is unreliable at best

Grisey complains of using systems of analysis that are lsquoalready totally outdatedrsquo and have become symptoms of our lsquothrow-away societyrsquo (1996) Varese said in 1916 that we need new musical instruments very badly Grisey comments that lsquonow we have the musical instruments but today I thought he would have said we need new musicians very badly and perhaps new musicrsquo (1996)

Murial says that it is lsquovery hard in general to produce interesting electronic sounds without using spectral techniques to some extentrsquo (ref 9) Grisey speaks about lsquointegrating [electronics] in a large orchestrarsquo (1996) Murail tries to lsquodeconstruct acoustic sounds and reconstruct electronic sounds with the same emphasisrsquo and points out that both types of sound are lsquonot really different in their essencersquo However this sounds a lot like simple synthesis of real sounds with electronics rather than lsquotrying to find the hidden relationships insidersquo instrument spectra lsquoextracting this formal or algorithmic basisrsquo and creating new sounds which lsquohave the same kind of internal relationships as the existing instrumentrsquo (ref 9) Ligeti refers to various spectral techniques that lsquoexploit the phenomenon of thresholds of perceptionrsquo (1978) He says that lsquoone would never have invented this technique imagined this possibility without the work at the electronic studiorsquo (1978) He echoes Murials statement about the homogeny of sounds essence lsquoI may

013901 9

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

provoke the same phenomena with normal instruments and voicesrsquo (1978)

In the same way that Romanian folk scales were based upon the natural harmonics of the instruments proto-spectralist composers were inspired by the complex harmonics of bells double-stop organs and so on Musicians who regularly played such instruments - such as Olivier Messiaen - were steeped in the sound and so became influenced by it

Computer aided analysis simply speeds up this gradual process of focus allowing anybody to instantly examine the components of any sound But the magnifying process has been visualised by someone else instead of becoming personally perceived by the composer

Does this imply less understanding which in turn implies that control over musical result lies with the style of analysis Does the responsibility of the composer become more about negotiating the notational hurdles created by analysis

Ligeti echoes the need for new music Making new musical structures lsquowith the use of computers which is only beginning opens up revolutionary possibilitiesrsquo (1978)

Dumitrescu talks about contradictions in his own compositional approach

lsquoIm split between two tendencies one towards the past the other towards the present and the future emerging in the presentrsquo (1997) He states that lsquomusic is not soundrsquo but is lsquobehind beyond sound revealed by soundrsquo Music is an irrational communication and in this extent lsquolike mysticismrsquo (1997) Is this a creative application of a misunderstanding in analysis Mysticism the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect echoes the idea of playing with half-understood analytical processes especially when these processes are meant to be revealing truths about sound

This embraces a de-individualisation of composition - the self-reference that achieves an immediate familiarity the repetition of themes cannot exist within computer-aided analysis The composers control is lost other than over the analytical processes themselves or the choice of analyzed subject

Saariaho has experimented with multiple ways of using computer technology in composition The harmony of her piece Lichtbogen is based on an analysis of a cellos various transitions as it moves from light sounds to noisy sounds through increasing pressure of the bow Vers le Blanc realised with IRCAMs chant software presents a three tone chord that changes into another during the 15 minute composition But was this progression created analysed and transcribed Or were the two chords analysed separately and morphology created during the process of composition Vers le Blanc questions notions about a composers choice both in subject and process Did the machinations of the Chant software dictate the musical result I argue that the process must influence the composition Another style of analysis would have yielded a very different result

Dumitrescu embraces this concept of changeability as musical in itself lsquothere are an infinity of errors the errors of the first day [then] there are the new errors the ones that only come on the second dayrsquo (1997) The idea of an allowable error can also be thought of as something that is inherent to the

013901 10

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

process a byproduct that is disregarded by the composer For example the concept of the digital noise floor when the artefacts of digital production and reproduction have become part of the sound and no longer recognised The first and second day Dumitrescu refers to can be thought of as time in terms of technological development The composer lsquolearned to strive against dead perfectionrsquo (1997) in light of this mysticism of composition

Another serious technological element relating to Fouriers spectrum is the use of microtonality

When is it acceptable to allow inaccuracies of transcription (in the use of microtonality) Is this a compositional performance or analytical consideration

For example player interpretations of microtonality vary despite an often mathematical representation Many instruments are physically incapable of playing certain pitches or combinations while some extended technique methods are unreliable Sonic results of these methods become gestural The clarinet for example is capable of very high cluster-pitches which are difficult to exactly reproduce every time (WPiston 1955) So a composer can imply spectral content without having to be accurate about microtonality ndash for example pitch bend interaction whispers and noise- sounds including hitting or scratching an instruments body This implication of spectral content can be accomplished to some degree without analysis so analysis in this respect becomes a reference rather than a generator

Analytically if one inspects a sound using an fft transformation the amount of information available is dictated by assigned parameters of the computation the number of frequencies analyzed is up to the human and to the capabilities of the computer Does this confirm the unreal-ness of the analytical model and its inherent inaccuracy

If the analysis is controlled by the composer it becomes an extension of his or her perception The model may be tweaked until it corresponds with the composers own vision This has serious implications for transcription as the analysis becomes gestural once more I have found that 20 resynthesized frequency bins can recognisably recreate a musical sound and due to the simplicity of a bells timbre a passable imitation of one can be simulated with less (interesting note timbre in Spanish means bell)

This thin resynthesis does not apply to complex lsquonoisersquo - which is more commonly implied as mentioned

Cipriani and Ligeti argue that electroacoustic music analysis is soundscape similar terms in this context being acoustic ecology and phonology because of analytical parameter choice We can agree with them and go further by adding that soundscape is composition and that in turn analysis alone can be said to be composition

Conclusion

013901 11

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

The rationalised techniques of spectralism imply a reconstitution of sound that is beholden to external considerations be they emergent computational methods relative perception or notational difficulties

I have tried to reveal that the deeper concepts of spectralism involve a personal process of translation in an attempt to create a reality that represents the composers vision of reality despite these external considerations

I have examined three important related concepts time meaning and analysis and how these relate to the spectralist composers main oeuvre perception reality and understanding

I have argued that time is the major consideration of the spectralist and that the impulse to create comes from a desire to share experience I have shown that accurate transcription of sound is difficult in the extreme but also that this pure transcription is not the aim of a spectral composition and that successes of this type are perceptually relative

The spectral composer attempts to create tools that mirror his own processes and perceptions in an effort to remove the personal and place sound in its natural habitat The result is a new type of lsquomusicrsquo that takes human perception instead of human existence as a reference for composition

Quote and Reference Sources

Anderson Julian 2000 A Provisional History of Spectral Music Contemporary Music Review 19 no 2 (Spectral Music History and Techniquesrdquo) 7ndash22

013901 12

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

Black J 2007 The Secret History of the World Quercus

Cipriani A and Latini G 2008 Soundscape Composition as Global Music Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Clynes M 1992 Time-Forms Natures Generators and Communicators of Emotion Proc IEEE Intl Workshop on Robot amp Human Comm (Tokyo Sept 1992)

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

Fischman R 2008 Mimetic Space - Unravelled Organised Sound volume 13 August 2008

Frances R 1958 La Perception de la Musique

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

Grisey G 1987 Tempus ex Machina A Composers reflections on Musical Time Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 239 ndash 275

Hempholtz HLF Von 1963 Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als Physiologische Grundlage fur die Therorie der Musik

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Ligeti G 1978 Interviewed by Herman Sabbe 23 October 1978 published in Interface vol8 1979 pg 11-34

Lavignac A 1942 La Musique et les Musiciens

013901 13

Mache F B 1983 Musique Myth Nature ou les Dauphins dArion

Minsky M 1981 Music Mind and Meaning Computer Music Journal Vol 5 Number 3

[ref 9] Murail T Interviewed by Anton Rovner for Musika Ukrainia regrettably no date is given

httpwwwmusica-ukrainicaodessauai-rovner-murailhtml 12th December 2008

Nattiez J-J 1987 Music and Discourse toward a Semiology of Music

Piston W 1955 Orchestration W W Norton amp Company

Rameau J P 1722 Traite de lHarmonie Reduite a ses Principles Naturels

Robertson-de Carbo C E 1976 Tayil as Category and Communication among the Argentine Mapuche A Methodical Suggestion 1976 Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council

Russolo L 1954 lArt des Bruits Manifeste Futuriste de 1913 published 1986 Pendragon press

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Scott Marion M 1962 Beethoven part of the series The Master Musicians edited by Sir Westrup J

Westerkamp H 1998 Speaking from Inside the Soundscape in From Awareness to Action Proceedings from Stockholm Hey ListenConference on Acoustic Ecology June 9-13 1998 The Royal Swedish Academy of Music Blasieholmstorg 8 Stockholm Sweden

Verma S 2005 The Little Book of Scientific Principles Theories and Things New Holland Publishers

013901 14

(UK) p187

Selected annotated Bibliography

Piston W 1955 Orchestration W W Norton amp Company

Piston takes the reader through a detailed analysis of each instrumental grouping within the orchestra and then each instrument individually providing technical information regarding the mechanics of the instruments themselves relative notation performability and subtler effects including tone-matching and so on He briefly examines some of the major extended techniques for the instruments

In part 2 he takes common problems with orchestration ndash including relative velocity some aspects of microtonality and so on ndash and demonstrates common methods of dealing with these problems

Russolo L 1954 lArt des Bruits Manifeste Futuriste de 1913 published 1986 Pendragon press

Russolo in this letter to the composer Pratella states that noise did not exist before the 1900s He proposes that sound is lsquosomething apart different from lifersquo something that does not occur naturally so that when the first pipe was blown humans treated the sound as deity

He goes on to describe manrsquos music as travelling from the most simple to the most complexly polyphonic and dissonant stating that anything less lsquono longer arouses feelingrsquo

He discusses the possibilities of orchestrating the bustle of crowd noise sliding shop doors and so on and includes a poem by Marinetti that describes a war experience in descriptive and sound terms (of the futurist style of the period)

He says that noise reminds us of life and states that soon the sections of the orchestra will be mimicked mechanically

He notes that lsquomodernrsquo dissonance moves closer and closer to lsquonoisersquo but the ultimate result cannot be attained through classic instrumentation He hypothesises that any noise still contains its dominant vibration or tone He points out that the variety of sound is lsquoendlessrsquo and should not be hampered by available instruments He makes an interesting reference to the lsquorhythmsrsquo of noise

He finishes by urging Pratella to take up his ideas and coins the phrase the Art of Noise

013901 15

Nattiez J-J 1987 Music and Discourse toward a Semiology of Music

Nattiez introduces a conceptual theory of musical semiology summing his previous work on the subject He explains semiotics as the study of signs and states that music is not merely a whole composed of structures (configurations) but is also constituted by the procedures that have engendered it and the procedures to which it gives rise He introduces his categories of definition as the neutral or immanent the poietic and the esthetic which are the carrier (the written or verbalised description necessary to musical replication) the creative (composition) and the interpretive (listening or understanding) respectively

He discusses the semiology of musical fact and presents a cultural concept of music itself being that sound is a necessity of music the musical is any intentionally constructed sonic event the relevant culture of a music is entirely relevant to the music itself and that universals of music must be sought at the poietic or esthetic level rather than the immanent

He goes on to discuss concepts of musical work proposing that improvisational structures and open compositional structures prove his tripartitional theory of analysis given above he discusses the sound-object and questions the sense of continuity within the succession of isolated moments that create music in light of immanent and esthetic structures He discusses the symbolism of musical meaning stating that music is not a narrative but an incitement to make a narrative and claims that humans are symbolic animals who when confronted with the neutral seek to interpret it to give it meaning in light of cultural and personally perceived references

He mentions that his theorems can be applied to analysis itself and breaks the process down into the object - in this case music - the metalanguage - which music communicates by - and the method of analysis He notes that one cannot grasp the import of an analysis unless one considers the connections between an isolated work and a series of works and considers where the analyst is situated between musical universals and the particular properties of a work He points out that these reasons create very few strictly comparable analyses

He discusses the semiology of musical analysis itself stating that it draws its legitimacy from its link to another symbolic fact He goes further discussing the principles of an endless semiology the fact that a metalanguage is a symbolic event that refers to other symbolic events He attempts to set out a discipline of speech that he will use to refer to music in analysis and expresses hope that others will adopt this discipline He breaks this analytical language into formal and informal and within this structure global models and linear models He questions the existence of intermediary models He begins to apply the systems he has set out in particular to Debussy to demonstrate their use

He discusses analysis from a composers viewpoint both in terms of their own music and music in general and begins to question any possibility of objectivity

013901 16

In the conclusion he affirms that theory and analysis are purely symbolic constructions referring again to his tripartite theory He returns to closer musical analysis and examines several works in light of a short history of harmonic principles He discusses compositional techniques in terms of a listeners expectation of what is to come in light of his semiological principles

He finishes by again questioning the validity of his analysis

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

In this published interview the composer speaks informally with a knowledgeable interviewer about his compositional approaches and perspective

They discuss interpretations applications and genesis of the spectral school which is denied real recognition by the composer They discuss spectralism as dealing with a better equation between the concept of the score and the perception of the audience

He discusses the perceptive limitations of the human being and discusses complexity as a concept of dissonance recognising the cultural considerations of composition implied

He emphasises his own work as dealing with concepts of time in light of perception as well as the physical aspects of sound

He declaims the use of electronics to generate composition regarding it as an aid to the concept-percept equation He expresses personal dissatisfaction with the systems of minimalism He notes that spectral techniques once ground breaking are now in common usage

He presents an ecological attitude toward sound and music and refers to finding the right place for them both He discusses games of predictability that all composers play and considers being without an established musical language He discusses point of reference relating to these concepts

He discusses some composers as being unmusical and in doing so emphasises his position as a composer not an analyst He discusses the wrong thing and the opposite thing in terms of expectation - cultural and musical

He talks about notational difficulties and discusses the polarity of music as a discourse or as a state of

013901 17

sound

The interview finishes with grisey again declaiming the use of genre-labeling

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

The composer begins by discussing particular works of his own making and particular concepts that drive them

He discusses technical limitation as liberation from the conventional impersonal music comparing western facilities (ircam) with facilities available in his homeland Romania

He examines his compositional approach in light of the principle philosophies of phenomenology citing reduction focus meditation

He discusses the importance of instability in his work stating that stabilising sounds is a matter of technique and goes on to differentiate between the role of composer and performer

He compares performance to life the experience an individual has that must colour a performance

He mentions his use of free time in orchestral composition which is a big risk as compared to strict synchronisation

He argues that his own interpretations of music and sound are ingrained and unalterable personal to him and discusses the difficulties in transcribing this to another individual as in the case of performance He mentions that some of his musics have come fully formed to him in dreams He briefly discusses a concept of semiology relating to his experiences in war and the music these experiences inspired him to write stressing the importance of individuality in composition

He discusses his experiences of a totalitarian government and the freedoms that artists experience even within these constricting political structures He opines that for uncultured people there is no perception between different musics and the problems they may pose (this is relevant to his political leanings)

He discusses his educational and creative history as his work became globally recognised and speaks of this time as being when he first moves away from the internal machinations of composition describing these experiences as his first contact with musical life

he notes cultural effects on Romanian music explaining that it is rare to find jazz or rock musicians there formal training being more usual which he sees as another limitation that can open doors

013901 18

He notes that formal training can close the mind of the performer to the deeper concepts behind the music

He discusses internal and bio-rhythm in light of folk music and discusses pauses and gaps as part of the process of making a sound

He discusses numerology as an influence on his work He disuses the contradictions in his own work between rationalisation and intuitivism

He discusses the notion of not knowing what one is going to conduct when the piece has been conducted several times already the absorption of music and meaning into the life of the conductor and discusses this concept in light of composition

He finishes by repeating his notions of individuality in every musician and his attempt to release this life

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Saariaho uses examples of her own work to discuss the creative use of timbre-as-harmony in music and the use of the computer in this respect

She introduces her concept of the noisesound axis in which noise can replace dissonance and sound consonance implies the importance of time having a developmental role in her composition and further discusses the role of computer technology in building sounds and their pitch organisations

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Husserl creates a phenomenology of time that attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time He investigates the lsquoessential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive momentsrsquo offering neither metaphysical speculation about timersquos relation to motion nor the psychological character of timersquos past and future moments nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct

He states that time-consciousness is central to Phenomenology lsquoThe most fundamental and important of

013901 19

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20

Nattiez J-J 1987 Music and Discourse toward a Semiology of Music

Nattiez introduces a conceptual theory of musical semiology summing his previous work on the subject He explains semiotics as the study of signs and states that music is not merely a whole composed of structures (configurations) but is also constituted by the procedures that have engendered it and the procedures to which it gives rise He introduces his categories of definition as the neutral or immanent the poietic and the esthetic which are the carrier (the written or verbalised description necessary to musical replication) the creative (composition) and the interpretive (listening or understanding) respectively

He discusses the semiology of musical fact and presents a cultural concept of music itself being that sound is a necessity of music the musical is any intentionally constructed sonic event the relevant culture of a music is entirely relevant to the music itself and that universals of music must be sought at the poietic or esthetic level rather than the immanent

He goes on to discuss concepts of musical work proposing that improvisational structures and open compositional structures prove his tripartitional theory of analysis given above he discusses the sound-object and questions the sense of continuity within the succession of isolated moments that create music in light of immanent and esthetic structures He discusses the symbolism of musical meaning stating that music is not a narrative but an incitement to make a narrative and claims that humans are symbolic animals who when confronted with the neutral seek to interpret it to give it meaning in light of cultural and personally perceived references

He mentions that his theorems can be applied to analysis itself and breaks the process down into the object - in this case music - the metalanguage - which music communicates by - and the method of analysis He notes that one cannot grasp the import of an analysis unless one considers the connections between an isolated work and a series of works and considers where the analyst is situated between musical universals and the particular properties of a work He points out that these reasons create very few strictly comparable analyses

He discusses the semiology of musical analysis itself stating that it draws its legitimacy from its link to another symbolic fact He goes further discussing the principles of an endless semiology the fact that a metalanguage is a symbolic event that refers to other symbolic events He attempts to set out a discipline of speech that he will use to refer to music in analysis and expresses hope that others will adopt this discipline He breaks this analytical language into formal and informal and within this structure global models and linear models He questions the existence of intermediary models He begins to apply the systems he has set out in particular to Debussy to demonstrate their use

He discusses analysis from a composers viewpoint both in terms of their own music and music in general and begins to question any possibility of objectivity

013901 16

In the conclusion he affirms that theory and analysis are purely symbolic constructions referring again to his tripartite theory He returns to closer musical analysis and examines several works in light of a short history of harmonic principles He discusses compositional techniques in terms of a listeners expectation of what is to come in light of his semiological principles

He finishes by again questioning the validity of his analysis

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

In this published interview the composer speaks informally with a knowledgeable interviewer about his compositional approaches and perspective

They discuss interpretations applications and genesis of the spectral school which is denied real recognition by the composer They discuss spectralism as dealing with a better equation between the concept of the score and the perception of the audience

He discusses the perceptive limitations of the human being and discusses complexity as a concept of dissonance recognising the cultural considerations of composition implied

He emphasises his own work as dealing with concepts of time in light of perception as well as the physical aspects of sound

He declaims the use of electronics to generate composition regarding it as an aid to the concept-percept equation He expresses personal dissatisfaction with the systems of minimalism He notes that spectral techniques once ground breaking are now in common usage

He presents an ecological attitude toward sound and music and refers to finding the right place for them both He discusses games of predictability that all composers play and considers being without an established musical language He discusses point of reference relating to these concepts

He discusses some composers as being unmusical and in doing so emphasises his position as a composer not an analyst He discusses the wrong thing and the opposite thing in terms of expectation - cultural and musical

He talks about notational difficulties and discusses the polarity of music as a discourse or as a state of

013901 17

sound

The interview finishes with grisey again declaiming the use of genre-labeling

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

The composer begins by discussing particular works of his own making and particular concepts that drive them

He discusses technical limitation as liberation from the conventional impersonal music comparing western facilities (ircam) with facilities available in his homeland Romania

He examines his compositional approach in light of the principle philosophies of phenomenology citing reduction focus meditation

He discusses the importance of instability in his work stating that stabilising sounds is a matter of technique and goes on to differentiate between the role of composer and performer

He compares performance to life the experience an individual has that must colour a performance

He mentions his use of free time in orchestral composition which is a big risk as compared to strict synchronisation

He argues that his own interpretations of music and sound are ingrained and unalterable personal to him and discusses the difficulties in transcribing this to another individual as in the case of performance He mentions that some of his musics have come fully formed to him in dreams He briefly discusses a concept of semiology relating to his experiences in war and the music these experiences inspired him to write stressing the importance of individuality in composition

He discusses his experiences of a totalitarian government and the freedoms that artists experience even within these constricting political structures He opines that for uncultured people there is no perception between different musics and the problems they may pose (this is relevant to his political leanings)

He discusses his educational and creative history as his work became globally recognised and speaks of this time as being when he first moves away from the internal machinations of composition describing these experiences as his first contact with musical life

he notes cultural effects on Romanian music explaining that it is rare to find jazz or rock musicians there formal training being more usual which he sees as another limitation that can open doors

013901 18

He notes that formal training can close the mind of the performer to the deeper concepts behind the music

He discusses internal and bio-rhythm in light of folk music and discusses pauses and gaps as part of the process of making a sound

He discusses numerology as an influence on his work He disuses the contradictions in his own work between rationalisation and intuitivism

He discusses the notion of not knowing what one is going to conduct when the piece has been conducted several times already the absorption of music and meaning into the life of the conductor and discusses this concept in light of composition

He finishes by repeating his notions of individuality in every musician and his attempt to release this life

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Saariaho uses examples of her own work to discuss the creative use of timbre-as-harmony in music and the use of the computer in this respect

She introduces her concept of the noisesound axis in which noise can replace dissonance and sound consonance implies the importance of time having a developmental role in her composition and further discusses the role of computer technology in building sounds and their pitch organisations

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Husserl creates a phenomenology of time that attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time He investigates the lsquoessential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive momentsrsquo offering neither metaphysical speculation about timersquos relation to motion nor the psychological character of timersquos past and future moments nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct

He states that time-consciousness is central to Phenomenology lsquoThe most fundamental and important of

013901 19

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20

In the conclusion he affirms that theory and analysis are purely symbolic constructions referring again to his tripartite theory He returns to closer musical analysis and examines several works in light of a short history of harmonic principles He discusses compositional techniques in terms of a listeners expectation of what is to come in light of his semiological principles

He finishes by again questioning the validity of his analysis

Grisey G 1996 Interviewed by David Bundler January 18 1996 published March 1996 issue of 20th-Century Music

In this published interview the composer speaks informally with a knowledgeable interviewer about his compositional approaches and perspective

They discuss interpretations applications and genesis of the spectral school which is denied real recognition by the composer They discuss spectralism as dealing with a better equation between the concept of the score and the perception of the audience

He discusses the perceptive limitations of the human being and discusses complexity as a concept of dissonance recognising the cultural considerations of composition implied

He emphasises his own work as dealing with concepts of time in light of perception as well as the physical aspects of sound

He declaims the use of electronics to generate composition regarding it as an aid to the concept-percept equation He expresses personal dissatisfaction with the systems of minimalism He notes that spectral techniques once ground breaking are now in common usage

He presents an ecological attitude toward sound and music and refers to finding the right place for them both He discusses games of predictability that all composers play and considers being without an established musical language He discusses point of reference relating to these concepts

He discusses some composers as being unmusical and in doing so emphasises his position as a composer not an analyst He discusses the wrong thing and the opposite thing in terms of expectation - cultural and musical

He talks about notational difficulties and discusses the polarity of music as a discourse or as a state of

013901 17

sound

The interview finishes with grisey again declaiming the use of genre-labeling

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

The composer begins by discussing particular works of his own making and particular concepts that drive them

He discusses technical limitation as liberation from the conventional impersonal music comparing western facilities (ircam) with facilities available in his homeland Romania

He examines his compositional approach in light of the principle philosophies of phenomenology citing reduction focus meditation

He discusses the importance of instability in his work stating that stabilising sounds is a matter of technique and goes on to differentiate between the role of composer and performer

He compares performance to life the experience an individual has that must colour a performance

He mentions his use of free time in orchestral composition which is a big risk as compared to strict synchronisation

He argues that his own interpretations of music and sound are ingrained and unalterable personal to him and discusses the difficulties in transcribing this to another individual as in the case of performance He mentions that some of his musics have come fully formed to him in dreams He briefly discusses a concept of semiology relating to his experiences in war and the music these experiences inspired him to write stressing the importance of individuality in composition

He discusses his experiences of a totalitarian government and the freedoms that artists experience even within these constricting political structures He opines that for uncultured people there is no perception between different musics and the problems they may pose (this is relevant to his political leanings)

He discusses his educational and creative history as his work became globally recognised and speaks of this time as being when he first moves away from the internal machinations of composition describing these experiences as his first contact with musical life

he notes cultural effects on Romanian music explaining that it is rare to find jazz or rock musicians there formal training being more usual which he sees as another limitation that can open doors

013901 18

He notes that formal training can close the mind of the performer to the deeper concepts behind the music

He discusses internal and bio-rhythm in light of folk music and discusses pauses and gaps as part of the process of making a sound

He discusses numerology as an influence on his work He disuses the contradictions in his own work between rationalisation and intuitivism

He discusses the notion of not knowing what one is going to conduct when the piece has been conducted several times already the absorption of music and meaning into the life of the conductor and discusses this concept in light of composition

He finishes by repeating his notions of individuality in every musician and his attempt to release this life

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Saariaho uses examples of her own work to discuss the creative use of timbre-as-harmony in music and the use of the computer in this respect

She introduces her concept of the noisesound axis in which noise can replace dissonance and sound consonance implies the importance of time having a developmental role in her composition and further discusses the role of computer technology in building sounds and their pitch organisations

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Husserl creates a phenomenology of time that attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time He investigates the lsquoessential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive momentsrsquo offering neither metaphysical speculation about timersquos relation to motion nor the psychological character of timersquos past and future moments nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct

He states that time-consciousness is central to Phenomenology lsquoThe most fundamental and important of

013901 19

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20

sound

The interview finishes with grisey again declaiming the use of genre-labeling

Dumitrescu I 1997 Interviewed by Tim Hodgekinson published in Resonance volume 6 number 1

The composer begins by discussing particular works of his own making and particular concepts that drive them

He discusses technical limitation as liberation from the conventional impersonal music comparing western facilities (ircam) with facilities available in his homeland Romania

He examines his compositional approach in light of the principle philosophies of phenomenology citing reduction focus meditation

He discusses the importance of instability in his work stating that stabilising sounds is a matter of technique and goes on to differentiate between the role of composer and performer

He compares performance to life the experience an individual has that must colour a performance

He mentions his use of free time in orchestral composition which is a big risk as compared to strict synchronisation

He argues that his own interpretations of music and sound are ingrained and unalterable personal to him and discusses the difficulties in transcribing this to another individual as in the case of performance He mentions that some of his musics have come fully formed to him in dreams He briefly discusses a concept of semiology relating to his experiences in war and the music these experiences inspired him to write stressing the importance of individuality in composition

He discusses his experiences of a totalitarian government and the freedoms that artists experience even within these constricting political structures He opines that for uncultured people there is no perception between different musics and the problems they may pose (this is relevant to his political leanings)

He discusses his educational and creative history as his work became globally recognised and speaks of this time as being when he first moves away from the internal machinations of composition describing these experiences as his first contact with musical life

he notes cultural effects on Romanian music explaining that it is rare to find jazz or rock musicians there formal training being more usual which he sees as another limitation that can open doors

013901 18

He notes that formal training can close the mind of the performer to the deeper concepts behind the music

He discusses internal and bio-rhythm in light of folk music and discusses pauses and gaps as part of the process of making a sound

He discusses numerology as an influence on his work He disuses the contradictions in his own work between rationalisation and intuitivism

He discusses the notion of not knowing what one is going to conduct when the piece has been conducted several times already the absorption of music and meaning into the life of the conductor and discusses this concept in light of composition

He finishes by repeating his notions of individuality in every musician and his attempt to release this life

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Saariaho uses examples of her own work to discuss the creative use of timbre-as-harmony in music and the use of the computer in this respect

She introduces her concept of the noisesound axis in which noise can replace dissonance and sound consonance implies the importance of time having a developmental role in her composition and further discusses the role of computer technology in building sounds and their pitch organisations

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Husserl creates a phenomenology of time that attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time He investigates the lsquoessential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive momentsrsquo offering neither metaphysical speculation about timersquos relation to motion nor the psychological character of timersquos past and future moments nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct

He states that time-consciousness is central to Phenomenology lsquoThe most fundamental and important of

013901 19

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20

He notes that formal training can close the mind of the performer to the deeper concepts behind the music

He discusses internal and bio-rhythm in light of folk music and discusses pauses and gaps as part of the process of making a sound

He discusses numerology as an influence on his work He disuses the contradictions in his own work between rationalisation and intuitivism

He discusses the notion of not knowing what one is going to conduct when the piece has been conducted several times already the absorption of music and meaning into the life of the conductor and discusses this concept in light of composition

He finishes by repeating his notions of individuality in every musician and his attempt to release this life

Saariaho K 1987 Timbre and harmony Interpolations of timbral structures Contemporary Music Review Volume 2 Issue 1 pages 93 - 133

Saariaho uses examples of her own work to discuss the creative use of timbre-as-harmony in music and the use of the computer in this respect

She introduces her concept of the noisesound axis in which noise can replace dissonance and sound consonance implies the importance of time having a developmental role in her composition and further discusses the role of computer technology in building sounds and their pitch organisations

Husserl E 1950 The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Husserl creates a phenomenology of time that attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time He investigates the lsquoessential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive momentsrsquo offering neither metaphysical speculation about timersquos relation to motion nor the psychological character of timersquos past and future moments nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct

He states that time-consciousness is central to Phenomenology lsquoThe most fundamental and important of

013901 19

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20

all phenomenological problemsrsquo Husserlrsquos theories of constitution evidence objectivity and inter-subjectivity all relate back to time-consciousness He deems time-consciousness the most ldquoimportant and difficult of all phenomenological problemsrdquo and uses the concept of a melody to express his philosophy stating that for a melody to be perceived it must have lsquodistinguishable though inseparable momentsrsquo And for consciousness to understand a melody its structure must have features capable of lsquorespecting these features of temporal objectsrsquo He states that the lsquoact phasersquo ndash the memory of realisation ndash works together with the memory of the event itself to place the event in time-consciousness

Husserl claims that if our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict separation from every other then we never could apprehend or perceive the unity of our experiences or enduring objects in time To avoid this quantitative view of time as a container Husserl attempts to articulate the conscious experience of lived-time as the prerequisite for the Newtonian scientific notion of timersquos reality as a march of discrete atomistic moments measured by clocks and science

He goes on to say that we experience spatial objects both successive and stationary as temporal We do not on the other hand experience all temporal objects as spatial He breaks his theories down into (3) world[ly] or objective time (2) personalistic or subjective time and (1) the consciousness of internal time demonstrating that all three may exist at once

013901 20