Introducing TaCEM and the TIAALS software.

This paper introduces the TaCEM project (Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music), funded for 30 months by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK, investigating the relationship between technological innovation and creative practice in electroacoustic music of the last 40 years (http://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/tacem/). It is a collaborative project between the universities of Huddersfield and Durham in the UK and outputs from the project will include a book and freely available interactive software. This paper explains the context for the project and its goals, and discusses some of the generic software that is being developed as part of the project, intended not only for use in the project itself but also to be freely available for others to use in the study of any electroacoustic work as appropriate

Barry Truax Riverrun (1986/2004), a case study from the TaCEM project, exploring new approaches to techniques of analysis and re-synthesis in the study of concert electroacoustic works

At last year’s EMS in Lisbon we introduced the TaCEM project (Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music), a 30-month project funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, and demonstrated the generic TIAALS software being produced as part of this project. This year we present an update on the project, focusing particularly on the first of our case studies, Barry Truax’s Riverrun. Eight works have been selected for the project, taking into account criteria such as historical context, the nature of the synthesis techniques employed, and the aesthetics that have underpinned their realisation. Key considerations have included the accessibility of the technical resources and composing materials used in their production, and opportunities to pursue particular lines of enquiry with the composer concerned. In selecting the eight works for detailed study, a further consideration has been the extent to which the composers explored techniques that were already available at the time in ways that are unique and distinctive, or alternatively developed entirely new methods of synthesis in pursuit of their creative goals. The pioneering work of Barry Truax in terms of developing techniques of granular synthesis assign his achievements almost exclusively to the latter classification, and the composition of Riverrun (1986/2004) is a landmark achievement in this regard. Truax’s composing environment evolved from the early study of interactive real-time synthesis techniques at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht 1971-73, exploring the possibilities of using Poisson-ordered distributions in the generation of microsound, to the emergence of entirely granular techniques at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia a decade later, culminating in the development of his program GSX designed specifically for waveform-based synthesis and first used to compose Riverrun, and its later extension, GSAMX, that extended these granular techniques to include the manipulation of previously sampled sound material. At the time of composition conventional minicomputers still lacked the capacity to generate multiple voices of granulated sound material in real time, but for Truax the acquisition in 1982 of a high speed bit slice array processor, the DMX-1000, provided the enhancedprocessing power necessary for achieving such a goal. The unique characteristics of its special hardware and associated programming environment, managed in turn via a host PDP 11/23 computer, both empowered his creative objectives and also materially shaped and influenced the ways in which they could be practically achieved. The significance of such causal relationships in the evolution of the electroacoustic music repertory has yet to be widely understood, and this study of Riverrun corroborates the importance of such a line of investigation. In this case it has been possible to carry out a detailed study of the original system, still maintained in working order by Truax, leading to a reconstruction of key elements of Riverrun using a Max-based simulation of GSX, the authenticity of the results being assessed both subjectively by means of a direct aural comparison and also measured objectively using software. Our presentation at this year’s EMS in Berlin included a demonstration of examples of the software we have developed to enable readers to engage with Riverrun interactively, both by analysing the original recordings and by using our emulation of the GSX system to be able to recreate passages of the work and manipulate the techniques employed in order to learn more about them. We also gave examples of other materials we have collected in relation to this case study, including videos of the composer himself working with the GSX system and discussing the composition of Riverrun

Introducing TaCEM and the TIAALS Software

This paper introduces the TaCEM project (Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music), funded for 30 months by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK, investigating the relationship between technological innovation and creative practice in electroacoustic music of the last 40 years (http://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/tacem/). It is a collaborative project between the universities of Huddersfield and Durham in the UK and outputs from the project will include a book and freely available interactive software. This paper explains the context for the project and its goals, and discusses some of the generic software that is being developed as part of the project, intended not only for use in the project itself but also to be freely available for others to use in the study of any electroacoustic work as appropriate

Analysing the Creative Process through a Modelling of Tools and Methods for Composition in Hans Tutschku’s Entwurzelt

The analysis of the creative processes involved in electroacoustic music may to a large extent rely on the thorough study of the technological tools used for the realisation of a musical work, both on the composition and on the performance sides. Understanding the behaviour and potential range of aesthetic results of such tools enables the musicologist to approach the studied work much beyond its final form, as presented on tape or as performed on a particular occasion: gaining knowledge on a wider technological context leads to considering the actual artistic decisions in the perspective of the potential outcomes that the composer and performer could face but not necessarily adopt. Hence, analysing an electroacoustic work on the basis of the study of its creative context, technological tools and compositional methods may constitute a useful approach to a better understanding of its related creative processes. However, the implementation of such an approach, mainly based on the hardware or software elements used during the creation of a given work, is not straightforward. First, it implies that the considered technologies are still in use and have not be come irreversibly obsolete. In this matter, new performances of a work are good opportunities for such investigations, as they often provide a technical update and require a deep understanding of the composer’s intentions. The musicologist also needs to have access to the resources, which may not be available without a direct contact with the composer. Assuming these conditions are reached,the musicological and organological studies can encounter another issue, particularly in the digital domain: the sources are not always presented under forms that are directly readable by the analyst, for instance with a specific programming language. Despite all these possible difficulties, many cases of technological tools lean themselves to an in-depth investigation, leading to relevant conclusions on some of the creative processes appearing in the field of electroacoustic music. In the context of a common session of several analytical approaches to a same electroacoustic piece, Hans Tutschku’s Entwurzelt for six singers and electronics (2012), this article focuses on the investigation and modelling of tools and methods of the compositional stage of the realisation of the work. During a performance of Entwurzelt, the electronic materials are simply triggered as events by one of the singers, without further interactivity–thus, the essential part of the research on the electroacoustic realisation aims at exploring the processes used during the compositional stage itself. As the electronics are used as an extension of the live vocal expression by the means of harmonic amplification and complex texturing, the tools for generation and processing of both symbolic representations and audio explored. Since the software tools that constitute the primary sources for our research were not directly designed to be used beyond their creative purposes, this talk presents software modelling implemented by the two authors to demonstrate the technological context in which Tutschku could compose Entwurzelt, emphasizing his creative methods and the decisions he could make upon a wider range of possible materials and processing techniques

From Technological Investigation and Software Emulation to Music Analysis: An integrated approach to Barry Truax's Riverrun

This paper presents an approach to studying Barry Truax’s Riverrun as it is being carried out within the TaCEM project (Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music), a collaboration between the Universities of Huddersfield and Durham funded for 30 months (2012-2015) by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom. This approach aims at realising an Interactive Aural Analysis with which the user can explore the creative and technological environment used by the composer to build his oeuvre, as well as navigate aurally through the results of the musicological study. It involves an important technological investigation of Truax’s GSX program for digital granular synthesis, leading to the implementation, in the Max environment, of emulation software allowing for the live recreation of each of Riverrun’s sequences, along with further tools dedicated to the musical analysis of the piece. This paper presents the technological investigation and its issues, the pieces of software for the Interactive Aural Analysis of the work, and musicological observations drawn from such an approach

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL CASE STUDY OF COMPUTER-BASED MUSICAL CREATIVITIES

This thesis offers a phenomenologically framed exploration of “computer-mediated” (Duignan, 2010) musical "creativities” (Burnard, 2012) and draws upon established creativity models to inform the development of a creativity framework that speaks specifically to the domain of computer-mediated musical practice. It is important to understand that the framework itself is not the focus of this thesis; rather, the aim of this thesis is to disclose transparently a method for developing a personalised understanding of my computer-mediated musical creativities as a template for other practitioners. Drawing from contemporary literature on creativity from a sociocultural perspective (Amabile, 1996), this study implements a phenomenological (Van Mannen, 2007) approach in order to capture a detailed impression of how my creativity is informed by concrete (computers, technology) and conceptual (socio-cultural background, cognitive processes) contextual resources. More specifically, this research focuses on “little c” (Craft, 2000) creativity, the skills possessed by all individuals as evidenced in learning and development literature (Craft, 2000; Arvaja, 2007; Burnard & Younker, 2010). This thesis offers a longitudinal case study of the sociological contexts of computer-mediated music creativities by focusing on myself as a subject for this work. Various types of data collection were collected, including: comprehensive written protocol (note-taking), audio excerpts of deconstructed musical materials; and audiovisual screen-capture of real-time creative practices. The creativity stages outlined by Sawyer in Explaining Creativity (2012) and Zig Zag (2013) were used as data sets for template analysis (King, 1998). Data that met these criteria were analysed and represented through structural mapping and analysis of the musical product, methods drawn from Collins (2005). The findings demonstrate that the chronology and direction of my creative focus between stages is intuitive and context dependent. It was also found that the influence of concrete and conceptual resources can be observed and understood through metacognitive investigation. This guided the development of a framework for the understanding of my computer-mediated musical creativity. This thesis encourages digitally informed musicians to think critically about their own creativity and guides the exploration of sociocultural context as a mediating resource and inspiration

Performance cartography, performance cartology: Musical networks for computational musicological analysis

This research seeks to track the creative processes of a group of musicians who were commissioned to make music with a set of digital tools created by the FluCoMa project. These tools offer many solutions for dealing with digital audio, notably large collections of sounds. The varied and multidisciplinary natures of the case studies mean that traditional forms of analysis would miss essential parts of these practices. Subscribing to contemporary approaches, this research proposes a methodology for analysis articulated around the idea of musical networks. Here, musical practice is conceived of as the configuration of, and existence within, networks of entities where musicking occurs. The methodology is proposed in two parts: a cartographical, descriptive analysis that seeks to map these networks; and a cartological, interpretative analysis that seeks to inspect the nature of these networks. The methods are illustrated and developed by the case studies, grounding them in real musical practice. With these methods, this research looks to address three primary questions: how can a network-oriented analytical stance account for temporality in musicking? Can we consider the network as constituting a materialised form of musical thought? And what are the ways in which entities of networks are configured