Live Electroacoustics

EDITORS: Friedemann Sallis, Jan Burle and Laura Zattra

"During the twentieth century, electronic technology enabled the explosive development of new tools for the production, performance, dissemination and conservation of music. The era of the mechanical reproduction of music has, rather ironically, opened up new perspectives, which have contributed to the revitalisation of the performer’s role and the concept of music as performance. This book examines questions related to music that cannot be set in conventional notation, reporting and reflecting on current research and creative practice primarily in live electronic music. It studies compositions for which the musical text is problematic, that is, non-existent, incomplete, insufficiently precise or transmitted in a nontraditional format. Thus, at the core of this project is an absence. The objects of study lack a reliably precise graphical representation of the work as the composer or the composer/performer conceived or imagined it. How do we compose, perform and study music that cannot be set in conventional notation? The authors of this book examine this problem from the complementary perspectives of the composer, the performer, the musical assistant, the audio engineer, the computer scientist and the musicologist."

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
Friedemann Sallis, Laura Zattra and Ian Burleigh

Part I: Composition

2. The audible traces of man-machine-environment interactions: Sketches for an experimental epistemology of sound
Agostino Di Scipio

3. Beyond Hybridity: evolving theory and practice in audiovisual art
Laurie Radford

4. Encounterpoint: The Diversity of Species in Algorithmic Musical Agents
John Grasnow and Chris Chafe

5. Composition vs. Instrument
Martin Supper

6. Collaborating on composition: The role of the musical assistant at IRCAM, CCRMA and CSC
Laura Zattra

Part II: Performance

7. The interaction between performers and composers
Alvise Vidolin (interviewed by Laura Zattra)

8. The apperception of electronics by performers: The case of solo works with real-time electronics
François-Xavier Féron and Guillaume Boutard

9. Approaches to notation in music for piano and live electronics: the performer's perspective
Xenia Pestova

10. Robotic musicianship in live improvisation involving humans and machines
George Tzanetakis

11. New organology and the dematerialisation of musical instruments
Milan Guštar

12. Expressing the Inexpressible: An investigation into Stockhausen’s works for instruments and electronics
John Dack

Part III: Theory and Analysis

13. Textualising musical performances through technology: authorship in art music and traditional music practices
Angela Ide Di Benedictis and Nicola Scaldaferri

14. Examining the learning processes embedded in the production of live-electronic music
Vincent Tiffon

15. Fixing the fugitive: Case study in mixed music transcription
Ian Burleigh

16. An analysis and interpretion of Luigi Nono’s A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum. À più cori (1985)
Friedemann Sallis

17. Computer-supported analysis of religious chant
George Tzanetakis and Dániel Biró

Concordia Laptop Orchestra (CLOrk) is an ensemble of 20-25 laptop performers, which operates in the framework of a university course built around the production of laptop-orchestra performances. Interdisciplinary and networked presentations are created within a prolific performance schedule; every piece is developed democratically and considered as a distinct context demanding specialised methods of creation and mediation. This approach was built through cycles of problem identification, reflection, solution, and testing, with a particular emphasis on temporal multiplicity and flexibility. We have named this approach «whatever works» (WheW) to emphasise its focus on actions that solve problems and propel the process of creation forward. It has been implemented on all levels of creation and mediation – synchronously during performances, asynchronously during preparations to performances, and in a longer-term asynchronous manner, using action research to unearth deeper problems and promote transformation. This article reports the evolution and implementation of WheW in the context of four pieces and in light of the research purposes driving CLOrk: expanding the ensemble’s creative output, exploring new performance modes and related technologies, enriching the skillset of the orchestra’s members, improving efficiency and effectiveness of the creative process, and improving and developing a better understanding of CLOrk’s process of evolution.

El primer instrumento del hombre fue (es) su propia voz, su propio cuerpo. A lo largo de los milenios el hombre músico extendió las posibilidades sonoras a los materiales que están fuera de su cuerpo, creando recursos sonoros con maderas, parches y metales. Sin embargo, el enriquecimiento que esta industria propuso exigió un alejamiento de lo inmediato que sí es dado por la propia voz. Así, los instrumentos devinieron en prótesis que, por un lado, extienden las posibilidades musicales pero, por el otro, pueden debilitar capacidades específicas como la discriminación auditiva y la expresión rítmica. Este proceso se ha agudizado con el advenimiento de las nuevas tecnologías gracias a las cuales no es necesario dominar la techné que sí exigen los instrumentos acústicos. En este recorrido se ha perdido la necesidad de tener una buena voz, una correcta discriminación de las alturas y un sentido flexible del ritmo. Se ha perdido el cuerpo. Este artículo indaga acerca de las consecuencias de la tecnología electrónica y de su última etapa, la tecnología digital, llamando la atención sobre la incorporación no crítica de las herramientas ofrecidas por un mercado necesitado de aumentar sus beneficios