Compositional LanguagesFall 2012

Instructor: Prof. SIGMANTuesday 13:00-15:00

Lecture XII (LAST LECTURE!)

End-of-Semester Schedule

• 12/04: Musical “Timbre”• 12/11: Final Project Presentations; Study

Guide distributed• 12/18: FINAL EXAM ( 시험 )

Assignment III

• DUE TODAY! ( 오늘 )

Topics

• I. Musical Timbre Defined (?) • II. Musical Timbre Structured:

Klangfarbenmelodie• III. Musical Timbre Classified: Musique concrète• IV. Musical Timbre Analysed I: Melody-

Harmony-Timbre-Orchestration• V. Musical Timbre Analysed II: Cross-Synthesis• VI. Noise

I. Musical Timbre ( 음색 ) Defined

A. Dictionary Definition

• “the character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from pitch and intensity”

• Origin: French (timbre); Greek (tumpanon) = “drum”

What does this mean?

Timbre is: •NOT pitch/harmony (but related) •NOT rhythm•NOT intensity•NOT register

•So what is it?

(Imprecise) Timbre descriptors

• Rough/smooth• Rich/poor• Thick/thin • Complex/simple • Nasal• Flute-ish, Violin-ish, etc. • Stable/unstable• Attack-oriented/resonant• ???

B. Classical Definition: Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone (1863)

Helmholtz/Fourier Definition

• Complex tone = sum of sinusoids

Problem with Helmholtz’ Theory

• Timbre defined as time-constant (or “steady-state”) spectrum

• Most sounds are time-varying (change in time)

C. Time-Varying Timbral Parameters

1. Amplitude Envelope Components

2. Spectral Envelope

• Unfolding of a sound’s spectrum over time e.g., brass instruments: high harmonics rise

later than lower ones

3. Other Sources of Time Variation

• Vibrato (frequency variation) and tremolo (amplitude variation)

• Crescendo: gradual shift in spectral energy, tuning, resonance, pitch-to-noise ratio

D. J.K. Randall, “Three lectures to scientists” (1967)

“It seems to me that any psycho acoustician ‐who forges ahead blithely out of touch with current concerns in musical analysis and musical composition is putting himself in an excellent position to produce silly science, silly music, or silly both.”

E. Composer Definitions

• 1) timbre as distinct and mobile “parameter”? • 2) as reducible to quantifiable, atomic parameters? • 3) timbre-harmony-pitch (+ rhythm)

continuum/ambiguity/fusion? In Ravel, Wagner, Scelsi, spectral music…

• 4) as determined by human “modes of production” and/or anatomy of the instrument (e.g., scordatura)

• 5) as multi-dimensional and constantly in flux

II. Timbre Structured: Klangfarbenmelodie

A. Klangfarbenmelodie• “The evaluation of tone color, the second dimension of tone,

is in a much less cultivated, much less organized state than is the aesthetic evaluation of pitch…Now, if it is possible to create patterns out of pitches, patterns we call ‘melodies,’ progressions, whose coherence evokes an effect analogous to thought processes, then it must be also possible to make progressions out of…tone color, progressions whose relations to one another work with a kind of logic entirely equivalent to that logic which satisfies us in the melody of pitches.” –Schönberg, Harmonielehre, 1911

Summary

• “tone colour” progressions = structured like chord progressions and melodies

• Tone colour = “the second dimension of tone”

B. A.Schönberg, “Farben”

• 5 Orchestra Pieces, op. 16, no. 3 (1909)• Use of Klangfarbenmelodie• Process: harmony changes slowly• Canon between 2 groups of instruments• Tone colour “progression” as second layer to

harmonic progression

Score/Analysis/Recording

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFT6NIYMF1I

•

III. Timbre Classified: Pierre Schaeffer

A. Musique concrète

• 1940s: Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry experiment with transforming recorded sounds using analog equipment in Radio France studios

• Sources: sounds from the outside world• Processes: Classical forms and phrase

structure applied

Musique concrète example: Etude aux chemins de fer (1948)

• Sources: train (railroad) sounds

• “Unnatural” ordering and repetition • Source sounds -> SOUND OBJECTS (objets

sonores), separated from their original CONTEXT

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFTo4UVYG8

B. Pierre Schaeffer, Traité des objets musicaux (1968)

• “Treatise on musical objects” • Treatise on the classification ( 분류하기 ) of

all timbres into a solfège

1. “Reduced Hearing”

• Separation of objet sonore (sound object) from its source

• Elimination of source-bonding (pairing of source with sound object)

• Reduction of universe of sounds to sound-object categories

• Psychological, rather than acoustic classification system

2. Schaeffer’s sound classification scheme

• 2 main criteria: mass and treatment

Mass

• M1 = pure tones• M2 = complex pitched sounds • M3 = complex, non-variable sounds • M4 = slightly varying sounds• M5 = highly varying sounds

Treatment (facture):

• F1-F3: Continuous• F4: Impulsive • F5-F7: Discontinuous

[Chart]

Schaeffer and the Objet musical

• Musical contexts for sound objects• Class: musical morphology• Genus: musical character• Species: musical character, intensity, etc.

• This classification system encourages analytic and intimate listening experience of sounds

Schaeffer Introduction: Solfège de l’objet sonore (1967)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWMA_iRQSFg

Objections

• Can the sound really be separated from its source? Does the sound not contain its source?

• As sounds change in time, are they best described as objects?

IV. Timbre Analysed I: Melody-Harmony-Timbre-Orchestration

Example: Jean-Claude Risset, Mutations (1969)

• For electronics• Melody-> harmony-> bell timbre • Steady-state (time-constant) timbre • Inharmonic partials • Similar to harmonies and orchestration based

upon trombone spectrum in Grisey’s Partiels

Score and Recording Excerpt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRxTGLp8AY

V. Timbre Analysed II: Cross-Synthesis

A. Cross-Synthesis Defined

• Creation of hybrid sound by combining spectral or temporal properties of time-constant OR time-varying sounds

• E.g.: a violin with a trumpet amplitude envelope• E.g.: A bell with a voice spectral envelope• https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/SpecEnv/Appli

cation_Example_Cross_Synthesis.html

B. Jonathan Harvey (b. 1939): Mortuous plango, vivos voco

(1980)• What’s going on here? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdRzDx1

_J4

•

VI. Noise

A. Definitions

• 1) loud, unpleasant disturbance• 2) confusion• 3) irregular fluctations ( 변동 ) in a signal

B. Acoustic Reality

• Random amplitude fluctuations• No regular integer harmonics: all frequencies

present

C. Types of Noise

• White • Pink• Brown

D. Noise-Tone Continuum

• There is no place where tone ends and noise begins

• Therefore: tone and noise fall along a continuum

E. Peter Ablinger: Der Regen, das Glas, das Lachen (1992)

• Explores continuum between pure tone and white noise

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuf0IcZ0dVc

너무 감사합니다 !

• Next week: PRESENTATIONS!