LAURA ZATTRA

John Chowning a pleinement contribué au développement de l'informatique musicale dans les années 1960 en mettant au point un algorithme de spatialisation sonore et en posant les bases de la synthèse par modulation de fréquence. Il fonde au milieu des années 1970 au sein de l'université Stanford le Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) mais il participe aussi, à la même époque, à la structuration de l'Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (Ircam) que dirige Pierre Boulez. En étudiant différents fonds d'archives et en conduisant, dans le cadre du projet RAMHO (Recherche et Acoustique Musicales : une Histoire Orale), plusieurs entretiens avec Chowning, nous avons restitué son parcours professionnel entre 1972 et 1977 et mis en évidence les liens étroits qui unissent historiquement l'Ircam et le CCRMA.

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

The revolution of sound recording, synthesis and transformation (commenced in 1948 with concrete music and in 1950 with electronic music), followed by the birth of computer music (since 1957), caused the natural emergence of a new professional profile – someone who can work in the phase of researching, writing, creating new instruments, recording and/or performing live during concerts. From the early days, laboratories and electronic music studios have involved the presence of different individuals with diverse but intertwined competencies. This is true for the Milan, Cologne, Paris and San Francisco centres during the first analogue generation; this has continued with the digital revolution (at CCRMA in Stanford and other centres in the United States, in France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, East Asia, to name a few). Although books and essays dedicated to the history of Computer Music do agree, in principle, on the interdisciplinary nature of this music and the importance of coll...

Preservation, restoration and critical editing of music start becoming aspects which concern even the youngest musical genre made with digital techniques. It can already happen that a CD is illegible, a program language is obsolete, computer data used to produce a piece twenty or thirty years ago are no more available. Some disciplines such as the philology of music should therefore start considering a music which, on the contrary, has seldom taken into account the problem of preservation against the obsolescence of the digital technology. Although in different forms compared to traditional western music, computer music stays anchored to the writing techniques and tools: texts, (digital) scores, supports, and notation. In these terms, it benefits from a tool, the computer, which is one of the main actual tools for stocking and composing music. Software and hardware components are, at the same time, supports for registration (preservation), manipulation, computation, reproduction, ac...

The work of Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) has been influenced by computer technology since 1969 at Princeton University, and later during a short course on MUSYS at the private EMS (Electronic Music Studios) of Peter Zinovieff. However, it was at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris that he could finally fully explore his aesthetic vision, a passion for compute music that lasted for twenty-eight years and resulted in eight pieces realised at the French Institute: among them the renowned tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) and Ritual Melodies (1990), but also mixed pieces like Bhakti (1982), String Quartet No.4 (2003), or Speakings (2008). This article focuses on Harvey’s collaborations with IRCAM computer music designers Stanley Haynes, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Denis Lorrain, Jan Vandenheede, Cort Lippe, Carl Faia, Gilbert Nouno, and Arshia Cont. This research, grounded on published and unpublished materials, and oral communications, does not focus on technical aspects, but rather on what Harvey and his collaborators did to create and organize smoothly their work, their modes of collaboration, their everyday workflow. Although relatively weak at the beginning, the evidence of collaboration and above all its recognition through available sources grows over time, since it is highly dependent on the awareness computer music designers have built up of their profession along the years. Moreover, the British composer is one of the few who always recognize, in statements, texts, articles or interviews, the important role of the assistants.

Preservation, restoration and critical editing of music start becoming aspects which concern even the youngest musical genre made with digital techniques. It can already happen that a CD is illegible, a program language is obsolete, computer data used to produce a piece twenty or thirty years ago are no more available. Some disciplines such as the philology of music should therefore start considering a music which, on the contrary, has seldom taken into account the problem of preservation against the obsolescence of the digital technology. Although in different forms compared to traditional western music, computer music stays anchored to the writing techniques and tools: texts, (digital) scores, supports, and notation. In these terms, it benefits from a tool, the computer, which is one of the main actual tools for stocking and composing music. Software and hardware components are, at the same time, supports for registration (preservation), manipulation, computation, reproduction, ac...

DESCRIPTION La recherche, l’identification et la préservation des sources, qui sont des étapes essentielles pour l’étude d’une œuvre de computer music, soulèvent de nombreuses questions, ouvrant un champ de réflexion que je trace dans cet article à paraitre prochainement. Je mets l’accent sur la multiplicité des approches dites « génétiques » à divers titres comme la reconstruction de l’atelier technologique/intellectuel in progress du compositeur, l’étude de cet atelier a posteriori, la resynthèse dédiée à une opération de conservation de l’œuvre ou encore l’« analyse par synthèse » comme vérification de l’analyse et enfin la révision de l’œuvre, voire sa réécriture qui peut donner lieu à une version complètement nouvelle. Les savoirs et les opérations (certaines étant purement techniques) alors convoqués – philologie numérique, ethnographie, histoire des technologies… –, se sont déjà révélés efficaces dans la génétique musicale plus traditionnelle. Mais d’autres, comme par exemple...

International audienceThis contribution describes an ongoing project started in March 2018 entitled "Analysis of Sound Design Practices" [ASDP]. The team comprises members from the LABEX CAP (Création, Arts et Patrimoines); the ACTE Institute (Arts Creation Theory Aesthetics); IRCAM's APM (Analysis of Musical Practices) and PDS (Sound Perception and Design) teams. By means of a large-scale study-based on web documentation, an online questionnaire, interviews and analytical results-the team is working towards understanding the creative process as well as the identity of Sound Design and Sound Designers in particular, in Europe. The main target concerns the development of a consistent sociological, geographical and historical knowledge of the discipline, and, consequently, to better identify the relevant issues in both artistic, technical or scientific commitment. The purposes of this article is to describe (a) the general framework of the project; (b) the methodology of...

Electroacoustic music analysis is a complex and heterogeneous discipline depending on one musical genre which includes a large typology of subgenres: from tape music to computer music, from concrete music, to mixed music, live electronic music, laptop music, etc. Even though there are personal approaches, which causes musical analysis to be a delicate and subjective discipline, some main trends can be outlined: some analysts skip the technological dimension and base their work on perceptual dimension; other ones deepen a genetic approach. Computer science applied to sound features ’ extraction begins being interested to this music with promising perspectives. Any approach is worth being considered in order to create an interdisciplinary research area in electroacoustic music analysis. In this paper, the point of view is the musicological one. The goal is to outline a general survey of different musicological and computational approaches. Each of them is partial. What musicologists a...

Electroacoustic music analysis is a complex and heterogeneous discipline depending on one musical genre which includes a large typology of subgenres: from tape music to computer music, from concrete music, to mixed music, live electronic music, laptop music, etc. Even though there are personal approaches, which causes musical analysis to be a delicate and subjective discipline, some main trends can be outlined: some analysts skip the technological dimension and base their work on perceptual dimension; other ones deepen a genetic approach. Computer science applied to sound features’ extraction begins being interested to this music with promising perspectives. Any approach is worth being considered in order to create an interdisciplinary research area in electroacoustic music analysis. In this paper, the point of view is the musicological one. The goal is to outline a general survey of different musicological and computational approaches. Each of them is partial. What musicologists an...

Teresa Rampazzi (1914-2001), pianist and composer, is one of the pioneers of electronic music in Italy and the first Italian woman to produce and promote it. She started her career as a pianist; in the 50s she attended the Darmstadt’s Ferienkurse, she played in the Bartok Trio and was a member of the Circolo Pozzetto. She was deeply convinced of the necessity to develop Avant-Garde Music to prepare people for the Neue MusiK and new electronic paradigm. In 1965, Teresa created the N.P.S. (Nuove Proposte Sonore) Group, in collaboration with Ennio Chiggio and they started to produce experiments with analogue equipment. After some disagreement, she continued her activity with young engineers and musicians. From 1972 to 1979, she taught electronic music at the Paduan Conservatory and began to learn and produce computer music at the CSC (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale), obtaining numerous prizes. In 1984 she retired to Bassano (VI), where she continued her musical activity.

Preservation, restoration and critical editing of music start becoming aspects which concern even the youngest musical genre made with digital techniques. It can already happen that a CD is illegible, a program language is obsolete, computer data used to produce a piece twenty or thirty years ago are no more available. Some disciplines such as the philology of music should therefore start considering a music which, on the contrary, has seldom taken into account the problem of preservation against the obsolescence of the digital technology. Although in different forms compared to traditional western music, computer music stays anchored to the writing techniques and tools: texts, (digital) scores, supports, and notation. In these terms, it benefits from a tool, the computer, which is one of the main actual tools for stocking and composing music. Software and hardware components are, at the same time, supports for registration (preservation), manipulation, computation, reproduction, ac...

Demetrio Stratos (1945-1979) was a singer known for his creative use of vocal techniques such as diplophony, bitonality and diphony (overtone singing). His need to know the scientific explanation for such vocal behaviors, drove him to visit the ISTC in Padova (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies) in the late Seventies. ISTC technical resources and the collaboration with Franco Ferrero and Lucio Croatto (phonetics and phoniatric experts), allowed him to analyze his own phonoarticulatory system and the effects he was able to produce. This paper presents the results of a broad historical survey of Stratos’ research at the ISTC. The historic investigation is made possible by textual criticism and interpretation based on different sources, digital and audio sources, sketches, various bibliographical references (published or unpublished) and oral communications. Sonograms of Stratos’ exercises (made at the time and recently redone) show that various abilities existed side by ...

In this paper I will deconstruct the collaborative creative process with the computer in Prometeo. Tragedia dell'Ascolto by Luigi Nono (1984-85). Prometeo is particularly illustrative of the way in which the use of technology constructs both what is composed on paper (the score), as well as how the use of technology influences the listening (the public). I will report findings from a two-fold investigation: from one hand, an exhaustive study of source materials pertaining the generative process of sounds and software, including the score of the first performance (Venice, September 1984), and computer sketches from the first and second performance (as mentioned above, real-time synthesis was used only in these two occasions). I am pleased to present here, for the first time, figures taken from Alvise Vidolin diary of his meetings with Nono and his colleagues (from April 1984 to the second performance in Milan). Source analysis, however, is not sufficient to reveal the whole compositional/research project, and oral history is equally important (personal communications collected with interviews, discussions and/or e-mails). Researchers’ memories enable to explain certain technological developments, problems and solutions which have been adopted, and discover details and backgrounds in collaboration management (esp. section: Sound Design Thinking in Prometeo: achievements and bottlenecks).

Throughout the history of electroacoustic music, creative collaboration has been a constant feature due to the complexity of the technology. All laboratories and electronic music studios involved the presence of different individuals with diverse, intertwined competencies. In particular, the embedding of technological tools into the process of musical creation prompted the rise of a new “agent” called the Computer Music Designer (CMD), who can work in writing, creating new instruments, recording and/or performance. Audiences as well as the academia have long been unaware of this emerging profession and its crucial role in the creative process of electroacoustic, electronic and computer music. This study sheds light on the socio-professional profile and expertise of the CMD in order to better understand how computer music design contributes to shaping electronic music as we know it. We present the methodology and outcomes of a questionnaire submitted to several CMDs. The purpose was ...

Che cos’è e come si può studiare la computer music? Con l’avvento dell’epoca attuale in cui tutta l’arte dei suoni passa per il digitale, si chiude l’era della computer music che va dal 1956/57 al 1999-2003. Il volume illustra le caratteristiche storiche, geografiche, tecnologiche e collaborative di questo repertorio e propone una metodologia di indagine che mutua dalla filologia d’autore (variantistica, sketch studies, critique génétique). Infine presenta il confronto tra la produzione nel CSC (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale dell’Università di Padova) e dell’IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) di Parigi, nel periodo 1975-1985. Le analisi dei brani basate sui testi – in particolare quelli informatici scritti in MUSIC 5, 360 e 10 – e il loro confronto, permettono di valutare la relazione tra strumento ed estetica, scrittura informatica e composizione, ambiente e constraints, economia di utilizzo del software.

Che cos’è e come si può studiare la computer music? Con l’avvento dell’epoca attuale in cui tutta l’arte dei suoni passa per il digitale, si chiude l’era della computer music che va dal 1956/57 al 1999-2003.
Il volume illustra le caratteristiche storiche, geografiche, tecnologiche e collaborative di questo repertorio e propone una metodologia di indagine che mutua dalla filologia d’autore (variantistica, sketch studies, critique génétique). Infine presenta il confronto tra la produzione nel CSC (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale dell’Università di Padova) e dell’IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) di Parigi, nel periodo 1975-1985. Le analisi dei brani basate sui testi – in particolare quelli informatici scritti in MUSIC 5, 360 e 10 – e il loro confronto, permettono di valutare la relazione tra strumento ed estetica, scrittura informatica e composizione, ambiente e constraints, economia di utilizzo del software.

Invenzione musicale is an unusual manuscript that may be read as an unconventional handbook for young composers and a novel as well. The contents of the book establish the type of musical education that should be used in a teacher-pupil relationship, as outlined by Renata Zatti (1932-2003). Musical creativity should be an interplay between the two poles of the complete liberty based on inner competences and a guided technical learning. It has been said that composition cannot be taught and the most the teacher can do is to guide the student in his/her work. Musician and self-taught composer Renata Zatti wrote a book in the ‘80s trying to show this vision.

The book is staged as a Plato’s dialogue, and it is based on two characters: the teacher (R. Zatti) and the pupil (Carlo). This character really existed: Carlo was born in 1970 and took very pleasant musical lessons, as he recalls, with his aunt during the first half of the ‘80s. The materials they produced became materials for the book. The narration follows the progression of creative exercises in musical simple compositions, in terms of musical theory, forms, traditional and modern harmony (examples are taken from XVII to XX Century). The dialogue follows the interwoven and dynamic act of creating, planning, doing, and readjusting.

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

Spectral music is now more than forty years old. In his preface, French composer and philosopher Hugues Dufourt defines it thus: ‘Spectralmusic’essentiallyrepresentsachangeinourwaysofthinkingaboutmusic. It is no longer a music based on discrete traditional categories, such as melody, counterpoint, harmony or timbre. Spectral music, on the contrary, is a music of middle categories and hybrid objects. Its objects stand at the frontier of two or more dimensions, timbre and harmony, harmonicity and inharmonicity, pitch and noise, rhythm and grain. Spectral music is the exploration of continuous transitions between traditionally heterogeneous domains; it creates mixtures, and works to cross thresholds of perception. The music of the end of the last century has irresistibly uncovered colour, as both a predominant and autonomous dimension of its language. We can define it as the art of colour modulation...

Text for the first Round Table at the conference: UTOPIAN LISTENING - the Late Electroacoustic Music of Luigi Nono
Technologies, Aesthetics, Histories, Futures
International Conference/Workshop/Concerts
March 23-26, 2016
Tufts University, Medford, MA

And, after all, what is originality? It is merely undetected plagiarism. This quotation, which seems to have been uttered by English writer Herbert Paul in 1896, but was echoed well before and long after him by many others, may stress the point that there never is anything new under the sun. What is originality? What is experimentation? Is the invention in art «an opaque process, and the word ‘experimentation’ really does not help to get a clearer picture» [During et al. 2009, 13]? Do we live in a depressing word where creativity has been overtaken by skill and technique? And as the venerable Jorge says «there is no progress, no revolution of ages, in the history of knowledge, but at most a continuous and sublime recapitulation» [Umberto Eco 2014, 426]?
The special theme of the conference “Is Electroacoustic Music still a Form of Experimental Music?” drives me to discuss experimentation starting from traditional definitions of experimental, originality, and research. I will examine one of the main criteria used to evaluate scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences: originality [Guetzkow et al. 2014]. As a reviewer myself, I have been faced many times with this concept. The established sociological literature [Kuhn 1970, Latour 1987, Pinch & Bijker 1984] devoted to science and natural studies defines originality as the making of a new discovery that adds to scientific knowledge. These writings, although not intended for other disciplines, have been largely applied to social sciences and art, without defining the extent to which the definition of originality characterizes them. Authors Guetzkow et al. [2014] define originality drawing on interviews with individuals who serve on funding panels. Originality of approach, method, data used, theory, topic, are the preferred categories: originality as a sign of the moral character of the researcher. In musicology, originality seems to be the relationship between courage, independence, and authenticity [ivi, 204].
But then, to what extent experimentation in art and music is linked with originality? And if originality has to be based on research (of method, data, theory, etc.), to what extent sound based art is to be considered research? In 2015, an article by John Croft entitled ‘composition is not research’ [Croft 2015], has generated a good deal of controversy on blogs and social media, including two responses by composer Camden Reeves and by Ian Pace, and a panel on November 25th, 2015 at City University of London. In my talk I will discuss a concept that opens possibilities of solution: no artistic practice can ever be experimental in itself, or from beginning to end [During et al. 2009, 15]. Experimentation has a local usage, it cannot hold a maximal opening to experimental. It could be recovered from the concept of dispositif (devise, system, framework) where there is a ‘game’ at stake [ibidem; Martin 2014].
Electroacoustic music and sound based art can and should be research towards experimentation. Crucial preconditions are the interest for knowledge, transmission and representation of this knowledge, a deep awareness of the state of the art, and a re-opening to questions instead of answers at the end of the process [Dombois 2009]. These prerequisites also motivate me to introduce the last part of my talk: the concept of archive, an aspect inherent in the very notion of research. Archiving – by artists, composers, musicians, performers, and scholars – is crucial for several reasons. In my experience, I often hear students and artists say disconsolately that everything has already been done before, that it is too easy to make music nowadays, and the means of creation and production are far too accessible. I will propose that the answer is in archiving. I will discuss some of the most salient questions associated with the idea of the archive: not only the archive as a separate entity, but essentially the necessity for the artist/composer/researcher to maintain his/her own materials (that is knowledge, culture and practice) in order to become responsible for their own choices, to conduct themselves consciously as artists, to assess their understanding of their own practice, which is the real way to originality and individuality [Atkinson 2014]. I will have a look back at previous works [Computer Music Journal. The Reconstruction of Stria, Fall 2007, Vol. 31, No. 3] and my collaborations with composers and computer music designers, to reflect on the idea of archive: knowing what preceded in order to mindfully address personal creativity. I intend archiving as a process of self-knowledge, of studying and revealing personal lacks and indicating new possibilities for innovation and experimentation; as an action to find the way through what has been already done.

The work of Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) has been influenced by computer technology since 1969 at Princeton University, and later during a short course on MUSYS at the private EMS (Electronic Music Studios) of Peter Zinovieff. However, it was at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris that he could finally fully explore his aesthetic vision, a passion for compute music that lasted for twenty-eight years and resulted in eight pieces realised at the French Institute: among them the renowned tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) and Ritual Melodies (1990), but also mixed pieces like Bhakti (1982), String Quartet No.4 (2003), or Speakings (2008).
This article focuses on Harvey’s collaborations with IRCAM computer music designers Stanley Haynes, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Denis Lorrain, Jan Vandenheede, Cort Lippe, Carl Faia, Gilbert Nouno, and Arshia Cont. This research, grounded on published and unpublished materials, and oral communications, does not focus on technical aspects, but rather on what Harvey and his collaborators did to create and organize smoothly their work, their modes of collaboration, their everyday workflow. Although relatively weak at the beginning, the evidence of collaboration and above all its recognition through available sources grows over time, since it is highly dependent on the awareness computer music designers have built up of their profession along the years. Moreover, the British composer is one of the few who always recognize, in statements, texts, articles or interviews, the important role of the assistants.

The revolution of sound recording, analogue synthesis and the birth of computer music, caused the emergence of a new professional profile, the Musical Assistant – someone who collaborates with composers in the phase of researching, writing, creating new sounds, recording and/or performing live during concerts – whose presence remains hidden most of the time. How can we find traces of this collaboration in analysing electroacoutic music? I propose a unified methodology at the intersection of Music Analysis based on electronic and computer sources and instruments; the ethnographic research, being collaboration based on oral traditions and activities; the philology of music and source criticism. The article focuses on three Musical Assistants: Marino Zuccheri (1950s), Alvise Vidolin (1980s), Carl Faia (2000s). The choice is motivated by the significance of their work with composers such as Luciano Berio and John Cage (Zuccheri), Luigi Nono and Salvatore Sciarrino (Vidolin), Philippe Leroux and Jonathan Harvey (Faia). The collaboration I discuss here does have many facets and is rarely the same from author to author, from project to project. There are however several aspects that emerge such as diachronic versus synchronic collaboration, the mode of thoughts emerging from material and oral sources, intentions, actions, and constraints, psychology and authorship.

The work of Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) has been influenced by computer technology since 1969 at Princeton University, and later during a short course on MUSYS at the private EMS (Electronic Music Studios) of Peter Zinovieff. However, it was at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris that he could finally fully explore his aesthetic vision, a passion for electronic music that lasted for twenty-eight years and resulted in eight pieces realised at the French Institute: among them the renowned tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) and Ritual Melodies (1990) but also mixed pieces like Nouno, and Arshia Cont. This research, grounded on published and unpublished materials, and oral communications, does not focus on technical aspects, but rather on what Harvey and his collaborators did to create and organize smoothly their work, their modes of collaboration, their everyday workflow. Although relatively weak at the beginning, the evidence of collaboration and above all its recognition through available sources grows over time, since it is highly dependent on the awareness computer music designers have built up of their profession along the years. Moreover, the British composer is one of the few who always recognize, in statements, texts, articles or interviews, the important role of the assistants.

The revolution of sound recording, synthesis and transformation (commenced in 1948 with concrete music and in 1950 with electronic music), followed by the birth of computer music (since 1957), caused the natural emergence of a new professional profile – someone who can work in the phase of researching, writing, creating new instruments, recording and/or performing live during concerts. From the early days, laboratories and electronic music studios have involved the presence of different individuals with diverse but intertwined competencies. This is true for the Milan, Cologne, Paris and San Francisco centres during the first analogue generation; this has continued with the digital revolution (at CCRMA in Stanford and other centres in the United States, in France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, East Asia, to name a few). Although books and essays dedicated to the history of Computer Music do agree, in principle, on the interdisciplinary nature of this music and the importance of collaboration, and the field of music collaboration starts at last being investigated, the existence of the musical assitant has been often unreasonably neglected. In both the musical score and the program notes, or in written sources (a least in the published ones), his/her presence remains hidden most of the time, and literature on the collaboration composer/musical assistant is scattered. In this chapter I report findings from a study based on primary and secondary sources and administrative documents, conserved at three computer music centres: the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris, the CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) at Stanford University and the CSC (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale) in Padova. The analysis examines two points: 1) institutionalisation and recognition: I would investigate the presence (or absence or understatement, as the case may be) of an express concern for the theme of collaboration and the role of the musical assistant; 2) the presence of passages inside the sources, describing the ways in which this collaboration was undertaken between musical assistants and composers. My study covers the technological historical period which runs from the early computer programs until the first real time experiments. It is intended to enlighen the hidden art-science collaboration, the emergence of a profession, the traces remaining from the habitually wordless communication between a composer and an assistant, in the early era of computer music. It introduces questions about cooperation and the way it could induce dilemmas when considering authorship. The choice of these three centres is motivated by the close historical, musical, organisational, scientific and technological connections, and by the numerous technical, cultural and scientific exchanges between the three.