Electroacoustic music studies

In this essay I discuss my research into the work of Hugh Davies, and in particular his electronic music research in the 1960s, which was my main focus during a period of research leave in autumn 2013. This is a slightly adapted transcript of a research seminar that I delivered at the School of Music, University of Leeds, 30 October 2013. An online version (PowerPoint slides with recorded narration) is available at: http://www.james-mooney.co.uk/hdbda

¿Qué usos narrativos y expresivos puede hacerse de la relación entre imagen y sonido en un film? ¿Qué lazos reales o ilusorios guarda esta relación? La publicación indaga y toma como principal referencia la obra de Michel Chion, analizando casos paradigmáticos de una praxis que suele ser soslayada en la enseñanza del arte audiovisual. En este contexto se acude a un repertorio de escenas y situaciones –de Hitchcock, Welles, Tati, Tarkovski, Lynch, Hnos. Coen, y también de series de TV como Lost o Los juegos del hambre–, al tiempo que las somete a una deconstrucción sistemática a fin de integrarlas a la paleta de recursos creativos propios del diseño sonoro.
[Prólogo] Dr. Eduardo A. Russo
[Posfacio:] Ricardo Dal Farra, Raul Minsburg, Felipe Londoño, Rodrigo Sigal y Mariela Yeregui.
[Ejemplos online] http://imagenysonido-estrategias.blogspot.com.ar/

Pierre Schaeffer's notion of reduced listening, closely related to his concept of the objet sonore (sound-object), encourages analytical attention to internal sound relationships only, downplaying real-world associations. This approach to analysis mirrors conventional practice in the analysis of Western instrumental music, with its philosophical underpinning in German metaphysics. However, such methods run the risk of missing the full potential that audio technology holds in altering sense perceptions, as they fail to recognize how the affordance of virtual events and spaces can play a central role in the experience of certain electroacoustic works. Short analyses of three works—Hildegard Westerkamp's "Cricket Voice" (1987), Judy Klein's "The Wolves of Bays Mountain" (1998), and Yves Daoust's "Mi Bémol" (1990)—are presented, revealing a key structural role in each case to the play between abstracted and real sound- worlds. In conclusion, the author argues in favor of real-world contextual-awareness in mapping the listening experience as a model for the analysis of electroacoustic works, along with a re-positioning of the aims of analysis.

Questo articolo è focalizzato su Atomi distratti, un lavoro per ensemble e live electronics del compositore italiano Mario Garuti, ed è organizzato su tre differenti livelli:
1. analisi poietico-estesica del brano;
2. presentazione dell’ambiente esecutivo del live electronics approntato per la prima esecuzione;
3. elaborazione di un algoritmo di sintesi in ambiente Max/MSP per l’esecuzione della parte di tastiera elettronica.
Dopo una breve introduzione in cui si chiarisce l’idea all’origine delle scelte musicali operate nel brano, viene precisata la metodologia di approccio all’analisi.
Il primo livello include un’analisi dei cambiamenti contrastivi in cui viene mostrato come, in Atomi distratti, a un’organizzazione gerarchica debole (Imberty) corrisponda un’esperienza del tempo musicale coesa e unitaria, attraverso cui la rappresentazione simbolica e fantasmatica sottesa al
brano (proprio la frammentazione del tempo interno, mise en abyme dell’ipotesi stessa) viene trasmessa integra ed intelligibile. Al fine di ottenere un tracciato delle immagini linguistiche, poetiche, musicali ed extra-musicali all’origine
del brano viene utilizzato il mezzo dell’intervista, in cui il compositore è chiamato in prima persona a indagare il proprio lavoro.
Il secondo livello include due sotto-livelli: in primo luogo viene data descrizione del materiale pre-registrato e del suo ruolo nell’economia del brano, quindi una descrizione tecnologica dell’ambiente esecutivo del live electronics di Atomi distratti si accompagna a un’osservazione comparata longitudinale delle opere di Mario Garuti che includono in organico il mezzo elettronico, al fine di chiarire il ruolo del live electronics all’interno del brano e l’evolversi del rapporto che il compositore modenese intrattiene con l’elettronica nei suoi lavori. Anche in questo caso l’intervista è lo strumento privilegiato per accedere al mondo interno del compositore.
Il terzo livello è strutturato a partire da una traduzioneinterpretazione in termini tecnologici delle descrizioni, registrate utilizzando il mezzo dell’intervista, che il compositore fornisce dei due preset di tastiera elettronica presenti in partitura. Di seguito viene descritto il progetto per lo strumento di sintesi, della cui realizzazione in ambiente Max/MSP si dà descrizione nel paragrafo conclusivo

While electroacoustic music has been in existence for well over half a century, related study in terms of music theory and analysis is yet at a fledgling stage. In this talk, I provide an overview of variegated strands of music-theoretical discourse concerned with electroacoustic music, with an emphasis on those that take ear training (or focused listening) as a key element in their approach. The lack of a standardized graphical representation (notation) is often a common motivator in such cases; thus I review some of the divergent solutions that have been sought to this perceived problem and discuss their respective strengths and weaknesses in relation to the listening experience. Over the course of the talk, I offer brief samples of given analytical approaches that illustrate how they have been applied to actual works from the electroacoustic repertoire.

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 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.

In questo articolo si opera un’analisi di Anthèmes 2, un
lavoro di Pierre Boulez datato 1997 per violino e dispositivo
elettronico della durata approssimativa di 20
minuti. Il brano del compositore francese, di estrema rilevanza
per ciò che concerne la storia della composizione legata
all'uso delle nuove tecnologie, è stato fatto oggetto di
analisi musicale e tecnologica condotte sulla partitura al
fine di individuare le strategie e i processi compositivi
messi in atto. I dati emersi sono stati in seguito posti a
confronto con le dichiarazioni del compositore: la sostanziale
concordanza tra queste ultime e le evidenze analitiche
ha permesso di costruire un quadro integrato di inferenze
circa l’approccio bouleziano al live electronics,
evidenziandone linee guida (asimmetria nel rapporto tra
strumento ed elettronica; monodirezionalità
dell’interazione; funzione demiurgica del compositore;
utilizzo della ridondanza all’interno di una drammaturgia;
finalità costruttiva del dialogo tra funzione mimetica/
elettronica e funzione diegetica/materiali strumentali) e
finalità (manipolazione mirata dei meccanismi psicologici
della fruizione). Ampia parte delle dichiarazioni rilasciate da Boulez in
occasione della prima esecuzione del brano (21 Ottobre
1997, IRCAM, Parigi) al filosofo e musicologo francese
Peter Szendy è stata appositamente tradotta in italiano e
inclusa in appendice.

In this essay I discuss Hugh Davies’s Répertoire International des Musiques Electroacoustiques / International Electronic Music Catalog.  It is a book of 330 pages that lists, ostensibly, every piece of electroacoustic music ever composed up to the time of its compilation. I begin by describing the Catalog itself, and the process of compiling it. I then discuss Hugh Davies—aspects of his character, and interests—and suggest how these might contribute toward an interpretation and contextualisation of the Catalog. I refer to a sample of publications that reference the Catalog, highlighting some of the broader issues that the Catalog raises in relation to the musicology of electroacoustic music, including some specifically international issues.

An exploration of trends and challenges regarding musicological research on electroacoustic music by means of a survey of relevant articles published in leading North American journals of musicology and music theory from the 1930s through the end of the twentieth century.

El desarrollo de la música electroacústica parece estar relacionado solamente con aquellos países donde comenzaron actividades pioneras en este campo. Aunque poco conocida, la creación musical con tecnologías electroacústicas empleando un lenguaje contemporáneo (a la que me referiré a partir de ahora como "música electroacústica") ha despertado en América Latina un notable interés en muchos compositores, en algunos casos ya desde antes de los años '50. Sin embargo, hay una significativa falta de información y grabaciones que documenten este desarrollo, y muy poco se ha investigado al respecto. Cuando comencé a trabajar en el campo de la música electroacústica en mi país de origen, Argentina, a mediados de los años '70, resultaba extremadamente difícil obtener información acerca de las actividades relacionadas con la misma, tanto de países de la región como incluso de la ciudad donde yo vivía. Aún resultando una tarea poco sencilla, era posible entonces conseguir al...

In our project, a detailed genetic study and a careful examination of a performance of Luigi Nono’s "A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum" - for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet and live electronics (1985) - intertwine to create a new approach to musical analysis intended specifically for music for conventional notation is inadequate.
The purpose of the project is to provide a reliable and stable record of one instantiation of the work. (The performance took place at the Banff Centre (Canada) on 28 February 2009). This information is being examined in conjunction with data gleaned from a study of sources pertaining to the creative process conserved primarily at the Archivio Luigi Nono: sketches, drafts, fair copies, test and experimental recordings, interviews with Nono’s collaborators, records of rehearsals, as well as a careful examination of the equipment used at the time to manage the live electronic component of the composition.

The first part of this essay describes some of Hugh Davies’s self-built instruments, focusing on their material characteristics and playing techniques. The context in which Davies’s instrument-building practice developed is outlined, and four themes that characterise his work are proposed: economy, materiality, community, and environment. The second part of the essay focuses on present-day electronic and digital instrument-building practices. A number of practitioners whose work has been directly influenced by Davies are discussed. Finally, some more speculative suggestions are made concerning how Davies’s practice might indirectly be connected—in terms of three of the themes mentioned previously—to the present-day practice of live-coding. This essay describes research in progress, and as such does not present any concrete conclusions. The research is being carried out as part of an AHRC-funded project in partnership with The Science Museum. For further information see http://hughdaviesproject.wordpress.com.

In this paper I provide an account of certain key aspects of Hugh Davies’s electronic music research and documentation in the 1960s. By presenting evidence from a range of Davies’s published and unpublished writings I aim to show how Davies sought to document the development of the electronic music phenomenon up to 1967. In his writings from this period, Davies commented upon the fragmented nature of the electronic idiom, as evidenced—for example—in multiple parallel nomenclatures (elektronische Musik, musique concrète, Cage’s ‘Music for Tape-Recorder’ group, Varèse’s ‘organised sound,’etc.). ‘This proliferation of different names for what is basically the same kind of music,’ Davies wrote in 1963, ‘shows that a considerable number of composers in different countries are all trying to find a workable idiom.’ I aim to provide an account of some of the ways that Davies described the idiom’s maturation as an international, interdisciplinary praxis, conveying—perhaps for the first time—a sense of the various international, aesthetic, and disciplinary threads coalescing into an apparently coherent whole, a process driven by the exchange of ideas across international and disciplinary boundaries.

Even in his earliest unpublished writings on the subject (dating from 1961), Davies drew attention to the presence of ‘a large group of international composers’ at the WDR studio in Cologne, and also indicated the existence of studios in various different countries throughout the world. Davies’s tendency to classify by nation was not merely an organisational device, since he went on to emphasise the role of internationalisation as a potent source of musical innovation, both in the fledgling idiom of electronic music in particular and in avant-garde music more generally. Specifically, he pointed to the developmental avenues opened up via the hybridisation of already-developed international musical traditions—a phenomenon that he contrasted with the ‘on-the-spot’ invention of new musical forms, syntaxes, etc., which he referred to as ‘parlour games.’ He also drew attention to the exchange of ideas mediated by visits to electronic music studios by composers with different international and disciplinary backgrounds, and to the catalytic effect this had on the development and maturation of the electronic idiom in the late 1950s and early 60s. He sought to convey a sense of the interdisciplinary nature of electronic music by drawing parallels with the techniques of painting, sculpture and other musical traditions such as jazz in his earlier writings, and via the provision of several appendices in his International Electronic Music Catalog, each of which focussed on the use of electronic music techniques in a different interdisciplinary area.

All the while, Davies was working toward the production of a comprehensive inventory of electronic music, beginning in earnest with his ‘Discography,’ which listed recordings available commercially on records or for hire on magnetic tape. This endeavour reached its pinnacle with the publication of the Catalog in 1968, which Davies estimated (quite accurately, as far as anybody can tell) accounted for ‘probably about 90% of all electronic music ever composed.’ (Davies made this suggestion in unpublished promotional materials dating from 1967.)

The Catalog remains, to this day, the most complete record of international electronic music activity up to the end of 1967. A broader aim of this research is to work towards an evaluation of the implications of this, historiographically speaking. To what extent, and with what consequences, do subsequent published histories of electronic music rely upon data provided in the Catalog, for instance? In what ways might Davies’s model of electronic music as an international, interdisciplinary praxis be criticised, and what might be the implications of such criticism for the field of electroacoustic music studies?

Have you ever listened to an audio recording and wondered, "What's that strange sound?" If so, you've experienced acousmatic listening. Since the 1950s, a number of works have been composed that seek to exploit the possibilities for audio technology to ambiguate sound sources and recontextualize both the sounds and the listeners into fictionalized virtual spaces. In this talk, I discuss the challenges these works pose to the music theorist and analyst, illustrated through an analysis of the opening of Judy Klein's 'The Wolves of Bays Mountain' (1998).

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 j’aborde à travers ce chapitre. 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 la formalisation d’une tradition orale, le recensement des modes de collaboration, la systématisation d’un mode de recherche collectif et interdisciplinaire, n’ont encore guère été explorés pour l’étude d’un répertoire si récent.

In this paper I focus on Hugh Davies's work as a researcher and documenter of electronic music in the 1960s. In particular, I discuss Davies’s work as a champion of two causes in electronic music - internationalisation; and historicisation - explain how these were manifest in his programme of research from 1961-8, and show how these concerns are reflected in subsequent studies that reference Davies's work. This text is a combined transcription of presentations given at the Eighth Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900 (Liverpool Hope University, 12–15 September 2013) and the Royal Musical Association’s 49th Annual Conference (Institute for Musical Research, London, 19–21 September 2013). An online version (slides and recorded narration) can be viewed at http://www.james-mooney.co.uk/davies_sep13.

This article examines Walter Ruttmann's Weekend, a twelve-minute programme made for German radio in 1930. Recorded and edited using Tri-Ergon optical film sound technology, it was described by Ruttmann in the following terms: ‘Weekend is a study in sound montage. I used the film strip to record the sound exclusively, yielding what amounts to a blind film’. The programme is often referenced in histories of sonic art, since Ruttmann's ‘cinematic’ use of montage seems to have prefigured the developments that took place in musique concrète over a decade later. However, despite being a well-known piece of work, Weekend remains critically neglected: a footnote to Ruttmann's better-known work in cinema. The article aims to revisit and reappraise Weekend as a radical modernist work by considering not only its status as a pioneering piece of sonic art, but also its intermediality. Ruttmann's deployment of filmic techniques within a radiophonic context can be seen to radically...

This paper develops the notion of space-source in electroacoustic music. Space-source is one of the four spatial categories, drawn from the theoretical work of Annette Vande Gorne (the other spatial categories are spaceambiophony, space-geometry and space-illusion). It demonstrates the methods by which space-source can be integrated into the compositional process and in the projection of electroacoustic music in performance. It examines different ways with which space-source is perceived and deciphered. The influential role of the loudspeaker installation for the projection of space-source is also a preoccupation in this paper. The art of projection plays a decisive role in the perception of electroacoustic music and the space-source in particular. The way we compose and hear electroacoustic music is defined by a loudspeaker-based approach. Individual or pairs of loudspeakers project sonic images, which are influenced by the acoustic properties of the listening space and the project...

This paper examines the use of terminology that springs from parts of the theory of light, applied to electroacoustic music, highlighting the intimate connections between the visual and the auditory, and suggesting that music is not solely an auditory experience. Furthermore, the extra-musical nature of various sonic parameters cannot be addressed solely with reference to musical language, but should include possible relationships and analogies with other forms of art and, in general, with aspects of life. Hence, the concept of Textural Value is introduced as a unifying feature that relates sonic parameters and attributes with light, contributing to a meaningful understanding of music. The terms of Frequency and Amplitude, Hue, Saturation, and the Brightness of a sound are presented as coordinates that unify aspects of sound and light.

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.

In this paper, I use the program for a concert of electroacoustic music as a point of departure for discussing issues related to teaching electroacoustic music in the musicology or music theory classroom. Specifically, I examine the implied pedagogical framework of the Masterpieces of 20th Century Multi-channel Tape Music concert (hosted by Columbia University in the summer of 2000 as part of the Lincoln Center 2000 Festival) as it presented six works to a general, non-academic audience. In conclusion I suggest educators resist the urge to establish new canons of electroacoustic works,  and instead employ pedagogical approaches that encourage critical engagement with contemporary musical works from a variety of perspectives.

« A l’inverse des voyages cosmiques et autres retours vers le futur, Son Vitesse-Lumière figure musicalement l’odyssée d’un “être lumineux“ curieux de notre monde. Venu en “éclaireur“, il visite (à différentes vitesses) quelques-uns de nos paysages, absorbe quelques climats et même pénètre en nous sans aucune peine, tel un neutrino. » (Bayle, 1997)
E compositeur nous propose, dans l’écoute de cette œuvre, une sorte de voyage aux paysages de la mémoire, de l’imaginaire. […] L’horizon, presque toujours présent, ressemble ici à une toile vierge, mirage lointain, vivant et discret, sur laquelle se posent des images, des figures, des gestes… des sonorités électroniques créent des sensations intenses, des images de la nature, des oiseaux, des insectes… et puis des voix, des voix parlé, l’animation des conversations, toujours au masculin. Un appel à la prière résonne, image marquante et intense, traversera l’œuvre et se propage au delà delle. Nous la retrouverons notamment dans Le Sommeil d’Euclide. Le travail du compositeur, travail d’expérimentation, artisanale, fait par la main est mis en évidence, tantôt dans le traitement de la structure, avec articulations fréquentes, des transformations subtiles, des superpositions délicates qui s’intensifient, tantôt par sa présence même : la voix du compositeur au travail, sa pensé, ses questionnements, iront marquer la deuxième moitié de l’œuvre.

Analyse de l'œuvre:
Paysage, personnage, nuage est constitué par des sections bien articulés, comportant des sonorités très propres mais qui, peu à peu se superposent, s’articulent, se perturbent, s’entrelacent. […]

Con la nascita della tecnologia digitale, immagini e suo- ni sono stati entrambi ridotti alla stregua di numeri e liberamente trasducibili da una all'altra forma. Questa facilità di trasduzione è stata sfruttata per creare dei lavori audiovisivi con una forte connessione fra materiali audio e video, aprendo ad esempio un'immagine in un software audio o un suono in un software grafico.
Ciò nonostante, sebbene l'interesse si sia spostato verso la generazione audiovisiva in tempo reale, tutt'oggi vengono prodotti lavori che giocano sulle asincronie (cioè un tipo di interazione audiovisiva non sempre puntuale) costruendo una sorta di contrappunto audiovisivo ma mantenendo una forte correlazione fra forma e materiali usati. I lavori a cui ci si è riferito in questo articolo sono lavori con immagini astratte e musica elettroacustica. I quesiti ai quali si è cercato di fornire una risposta sono stati: Cosa si perde abbandonando la narratività dell'immagine filmica? Cosa si guadagna utilizzando delle immagini astratte? Cosa si perde abbandonando il suono strumentale? Cosa si guadagna utilizzando il suono elettronico?

In this paper I focus on Hugh Davies's work as a researcher and documenter of electronic music in the 1960s. In particular, I discuss Davies’s work as a champion of two causes in electronic music - internationalisation; and historicisation - explain how these were manifest in his programme of research from 1961-8, and show how these concerns are reflected in subsequent studies that reference Davies's work.

This text is a combined transcription of presentations given at the Eighth Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900 (Liverpool Hope University, 12–15 September 2013) and the Royal Musical Association’s 49th Annual Conference (Institute for Musical Research, London, 19–21 September 2013). An online version (slides and recorded narration) can be viewed at http://www.james-mooney.co.uk/davies_sep13.

In this paper I suggest that Hugh Davies’s Repertoire International des Musiques Electroacoustiques / International Electronic Music Catalog (1968)—which lists every work of electronic music up to April 1967—is more than just a list of compositions, and that it in fact expresses a particular view—encapsulates a particular narrative—of electronic music. I also show some of the ways in which that particular narrative has been carried forward in subsequent writings that have referenced the Catalog, as a way of indicating how the Catalog—and by extension Davies’s narrative—has shaped subsequent discourses on electronic music and its history. To do this I refer to the systems of classification used in the Catalog, through the theoretical lens provided by Bowker & Star in their book Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences.

This article examines Walter Ruttmann's Weekend, a twelve-minute programme made for German radio in 1930. Recorded and edited using Tri-Ergon optical film sound technology, it was described by Ruttmann in the following terms: ‘Weekend is a study in sound montage. I used the film strip to record the sound exclusively, yielding what amounts to a blind film’. The programme is often referenced in histories of sonic art, since Ruttmann's ‘cinematic’ use of montage seems to have prefigured the developments that took place in musique concrète over a decade later. However, despite being a well-known piece of work, Weekend remains critically neglected: a footnote to Ruttmann's better-known work in cinema. The article aims to revisit and reappraise Weekend as a radical modernist work by considering not only its status as a pioneering piece of sonic art, but also its intermediality. Ruttmann's deployment of filmic techniques within a radiophonic context can be seen to radically challenge the differentiation of art forms and media that has been seen to define modernism, and by situating Weekend within the context of Ruttmann's broader project as an artist, the article examines how the relationship the programme forges between cinema and radio might be understood within in a history of radical modernism.

An updated version of this article appeared as Chapter 2 and 3 of Hannah Bosma's doctoral dissertation The Electronic Cry: Voice and Gender in Electroacoustic Music (2013). The whole dissertation or the separate chapters can be downloaded for free via http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.400268

The first part of the article begins with a discussion of the musical material under research. Thereafter follows an elaborate overview of the number of male and female composers, vocalists and recorded voices in several series of CDs of electroacoustic and computer music. The gendered roles of the live, pre-recorded and synthesised voices are discussed and the musical couple of the male composer and the female vocalist emerges. The second part touches upon several issues raised by the results of part one: the roles of the performer and the composer, (dis)embodiment, femininity and technology. This is a preview into some of the remaining research. In section 2, other music than the CD series of section 1 is discussed as well. The gender patterns are interpreted in a broader context. The role of the female vocalist is many sided. Cyborg voices relate to old patterns as well as new possibilities.

Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam, December 2013. Download a digital copy at http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.400268

The voice provides an entrance to discuss gender and related fundamental issues in electroacoustic music that are relevant as well in other musical genres and outside of music per se: the role of the female voice; the use of language versus non-verbal vocal sounds; the relation of voice, embodiment and gender; the vocal persona; the listener’s position; issues of authorship; ‘écriture féminine’ or feminine style. A number of electroacoustic compositions is compared to discern patterns with regard to the gender of the composer, the gender of the vocalist and the (non)linguistic character of the gendered vocal sounds. These patterns function as a reference for further close analysis of individual pieces, such as Jean-Claude Risset’s ‘L’autre face’ (1983), Wende Bartley’s ‘Ellipsis’ (1989-1993), Milton Babbitt’s ‘Philomel’ (1963), Lars- Gunnar Bodin’s ‘Anima’ (1984), Alejandro Vinao’s ‘Hildegard’s Dream’ (1994), Luciano Berio’s ‘Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)’ (1958), Paul Lansky’s ‘as it grew dark’ (1983), Larry Austin’s ‘La Barbara: The Name, The Sounds, The Music’ (1991), Christian Marclay’s ‘Maria Callas’ (1988), Gilius van Bergeijk’s ‘Een Lied van Schijn en Weezen’ (1993), Charles Dodge’s ‘Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental’ (1980), Vivian Adelberg Rudow’s ‘With Love’ (1986), Anne La Berge’s ‘Drive’ (2003), Alison Isadora’s ‘Native Tongue’ (2001), and more, each framed within a specific theoretical approach. Gender stereotypes are found more in traditional concert stage settings; while the gender breaches occur when the technology has influenced ontological and institutional musical changes (related to composition, concert performance, score, concept of the musical work, media, musical genres and (inter)disciplinarity).