[microsound] Electroacoustic techniques

Wed Feb 24 01:42:06 EST 2010

Right--with electronic music a composer essentially also becomes an
instrument inventor/builder and performer.  I'm drawing a blank on the exact
reference right now, but I remember an electronic music practitioner in some
mag talking about having to choose (each day?) between actually being
"creative," dealing with notes/sounds and learning software/gear, which can
be tedious and feel less creative at times. blah blah

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Batuhan Bozkurt <batuhan at batuhanbozkurt.com
> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> > I sometimes feel like despite all the advances done with electronic
> > music tools, it is extremely time consuming to do anything nontrivial,
> > involving many hours of set up; whereas I can write something
> > extremely intricate for, say, violin and piano, and get the most
> > incredible palette of sounds by writing a few notes on a piece of
> > paper. I don't understand why it should be so inherently hard to
> > create anything "musical" with electronic means??? I don't feel the
> > need to build my own piano and violin to write for piano and violin,
> > yet I feel like that is what I'm being required to do to compose
> > electronic music.
>
> I don't really think that this is a fair way of looking at this. Writing
> intricate yet functional things for traditional instruments require years of
> training. Playing those instruments also require a massive amount of
> training. Why should composing for and playing with electronic instruments
> be different in this sense? It is hard for me to play the violin for
> example, because I am not trained to play that instrument. But I can write
> some music for violin because I worked on that stuff. It took some years of
> my life to do that. It would be extremely frustrating for me to do it
> properly, otherwise. Same goes with electronic instruments. After all, they
> don't generate musically interesting sounds that fit into a particular
> composer's intents, automagically.
>
> > These answers are interesting, and do suggest one possible approach,
> > which seems to be to let the electronic timbres grow out of the
> > timbres being produced by the acoustic instruments.
> >
> > However, I don't seem to be able to find any concrete information on
> > how, for instance, I might use CSound or other software to emulate
> > such techniques...
>
> I'd suggest an environment agnostic learning approach to sound synthesis
> first. Tools/Instruments like CSound usually assume that you already know
> with what "recipe" you are going to create the sounds you have in mind, and
> they provide the necessary tools for you to achieve them. The Computer Music
> Tutorial by Curtis Roads, although quite thorough, will be an excellent
> resource if you are serious about getting your hands dirty with electronic
> sound generation and manipulation in general. You can experiment with the
> concepts as you go, in an environment of your own choosing. You may start by
> trying things out with regular software synthesizers and work your way up
> from there by building your own sound synthesizers (if need arises) in a
> musical programming language (with a clear image in mind, of what to
> expect).
>
> Since Max, PD and CSound are mentioned, I should add, you may want to look
> into SuperCollider too. But please be aware that these environments are only
> tools/instruments and being able to create interesting experiences with them
> (easily and comfortably) is not  something that will happen overnight. :)
>
> Best,
> Batuhan Bozkurt
> /* http://www.earslap.com */
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 23, 2010, at 11:22 PM, David Powers wrote:
>
> > These answers are interesting, and do suggest one possible approach,
> > which seems to be to let the electronic timbres grow out of the
> > timbres being produced by the acoustic instruments.
> >
> > However, I don't seem to be able to find any concrete information on
> > how, for instance, I might use CSound or other software to emulate
> > such techniques...
> >
> > CSound is itself a monster of a program to learn, so anything that
> > might point me towards useful techniques might be useful--I can
> > produce basic sounds but I'm not fully sure how to create a workflow
> > and actually compose with it. Creating instruments that respond to
> > MIDI does look somewhat promising, and I suppose I could go as far as
> > creating an instrument for each electronic sound I wish to create, and
> > simply trigger as needed.
> >
> > I sometimes feel like despite all the advances done with electronic
> > music tools, it is extremely time consuming to do anything nontrivial,
> > involving many hours of set up; whereas I can write something
> > extremely intricate for, say, violin and piano, and get the most
> > incredible palette of sounds by writing a few notes on a piece of
> > paper. I don't understand why it should be so inherently hard to
> > create anything "musical" with electronic means??? I don't feel the
> > need to build my own piano and violin to write for piano and violin,
> > yet I feel like that is what I'm being required to do to compose
> > electronic music.
> >
> > One side note, is that for the first run of things, I'm only making a
> > recording... so I don't need things to work in realtime per-se, they
> > just need to be able to be aligned with a score. I will also probably
> > use MIDI for the piano part, since I don't have the means to record a
> > proper piano right now, so that gives me some additional flexibility.
> > I'm hoping what I learn could eventually be extended to actual live
> > performances with acoustic instruments, but I don't have to get all
> > the way there in one leap.
> >
> > I currently don't have any way to access either JSTOR to get articles,
> > or the scores of the works mentioned, although the Avant Garde Project
> > at least has Subotnick audio files, which I'm downloading this very
> > minute.
> >
> > It is unfortunate that despite the supposed open access to information
> > provide by the internet, much of the good stuff is locked away and
> > only accessible to university students and faculty, unless one has a
> > fair amount of disposable income. In the last year this problem has
> > been hampering me more and more, to the point where I am considering
> > enrolling in university courses simply to afford access to research...
> >
> > ~David
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Steven Ricks <stevericksmusic at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> I think Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms are essential pieces if you're
> >> interested in a "traditional" approach to composing for traditional
> Western
> >> acoustic instruments plus electronics.  All of them include scores which
> >> become increasingly more specific in terms of notating what the
> electronics
> >> are doing and how the live instrument syncs up with them.
> >>
> >> I apologize if I've misunderstood your question and these works are
> known to
> >> you.  Anyway, in an an interview with guitarist David Starobin,
> Davidovsky
> >> says something to the effect of wanting to imbed the sound of the guitar
> (or
> >> whatever instrument he's dealing with) into the electronics, and vice
> >> versa.  It's an approach in which the sounds/timbres of the two mediums
> are
> >> meant to dovetail and be closely related, at least much of the time.
> >>
> >> SR
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Randal Davis <
> randal_davis at operamail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> David,
> >>>
> >>> You might start by looking into Morton Subotnick's "ghost scores."  You
> >>> can find some program and technical notes on his website, recordings
> and
> >>> additional texts at the Avant Garde Project site, and a good article
> from
> >>> some years back in The Musical Quarterly (requires JSTOR access).
> >>>
> >>> I'd look particularly closely at the works in The Double Life of
> >>> Amphibians, which include works for solo cello, solo voice and string
> >>> quartet (all with electronic "ghost scores."
> >>>
> >>> RD
> >>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "David Powers" <cyborgk at gmail.com>
> >>>> To: microsound at microsound.org
> >>>> Subject: [microsound] Electroacoustic techniques
> >>>> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:03:26 -0600
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Greetings,
> >>>>
> >>>> For a new project (actually Pi Day), I have decided to take a
> >>>> different route and compose my piece in a more traditional manner,
> >>>> basically as a piano piece, and then add in electronic elements, some
> >>>> of which will probably be based on probabilities and some more or less
> >>>> notated.
> >>>>
> >>>> So with that being said, in my mind the great weakness in the classic
> >>>> books for electronic techniques that I've read ('Formalized Music' and
> >>>> 'Microsound') is that, in my opinion, they fail to bridge the gap
> >>>> between the world of composing as I know it, and new ways of
> >>>> approaching sound. I am not interested in discarding traditional
> >>>> techniques but rather extending them.
> >>>>
> >>>> So, I would be interested to hear from composers who work with
> >>>> traditional musical materials and instruments alongside electronic,
> >>>> especially those who use "normal" notation, manipulate cells and
> >>>> motives, and do not rely on improvisation for the performance of the
> >>>> electronic elements. How do you approach the use of electronics in
> >>>> your work? How do you bridge the gap in sound between the electronic
> >>>> and acoustic elements in your piece? Any software and technology that
> >>>> you find to be especially helpful? If you work on micro timescales,
> >>>> how do you bridge the gap between that timescale and the more normal
> >>>> timescale of notated music?
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm considering finally digging into CSound to do the current piece;
> >>>> the other options that occur to me offhand are ChucK, for the Physical
> >>>> Modeling code, and PD, which I know reasonably well but usually only
> >>>> use to generate data which I send via MIDI or OSC elsewhere. Any
> >>>> advice would be appreciated.
> >>>>
> >>>> ~David
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> microsound mailing list
> >>>> microsound at microsound.org
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> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Steven Ricks
> >> Composer
> >> Associate Professor, BYU School of Music
> >> (801) 422-6115
> >> www.stevericks.com
> >>
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> >>
> >>
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-- 
Steven Ricks
Composer
Associate Professor, BYU School of Music
(801) 422-6115
www.stevericks.com
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