78 research outputs found
Harmonic duality : from interval ratios and pitch distance to spectra and sensory dissonance
Dissonance curves are the starting
point for an investigation into a psychoacoustically informed harmony.
Its main hypothesis is that harmony consists of two independent but
intertwined aspects operating simultaneously, namely proportionality and
linear pitch distance. The former aspect is related to intervallic
characters, the latter to ‘high’, ‘low’, ‘bright’ and ‘dark’, therefore
to timbre. This research derives from the development of tools for
algorithmic composition which extract pitch materials from sound
signals, analyzing them according to their timbral and harmonic
properties, putting them into motion through diverse rhythmic and
textural procedures. The tools and the reflections derived from their
use offer fertile ideas for the generation of instrumental scores,
electroacoustic soundscapes and interactive live-electronic systems.LEI Universiteit LeidenResearch in and through artistic practic
Infrasonority: exploration of sound energy below 20Hz in music
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music (MMus in Composition), 2017This thesis investigates an underdeveloped and little explored area of music and the arts: the use of infrasound (frequencies below 20Hz) as musical material in creative composition. Discussions, research and experiments conducted toward the prospect of exposing infrasonic characteristics were fundamental to the composition and recital that informed the thesis. The infrasonic material from which the composition was created contained synthesized wave forms, recordings of elephant vocalisation and thunderstorms. The infrasonic reproduction for the concert required explicit attention and enquiry regarding physical properties of the sonic phenomenon, equipment infrastructure and limitations in human perception.XL201
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Feeling Machines: Immersion, Expression, and Technological Embodiment in Electroacoustic Music of the French Spectral School
This dissertation considers the music and technical practice of composers affiliated with French spectralism, including Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Jean-Claude Risset, and Kaija Saariaho. They regularly described their work, which was attuned to the transformative experiences that technologies of electronic sound production and reproduction could inspire in listeners, using metaphoric appeals to construction: to designing new sounds or exploring new illusory aural phenomena. To navigate a nascent but fast-expanding world of electronic and computer music, the spectralists appealed to physical musical attributes including gesture, space, and source-cause identification. Fascinated by gradual timbral transformations, they structured some of their pieces to invite speculative causal listening even while seeking to push it to expressive extremes.
I hypothesize that, much as the immersive technology of the cinema can create the illusory feeling of flight in viewers, electronic music can inspire listeners to have experiences in excess of their physical capabilities. Those feelings are possible because listening can be understood as empathetic and embodied, drawing on a listener’s embodied and ecological sensorimotor knowledge and musical imagery alongside referential, semiotic, and cultural aspects of music. One way that listeners can engage with sounds is by imagining how they would create them: what objects would be used, what kind of gestures would they perform, how much exertion would be required, what space would they inhabit. I cite recent research in psychoacoustics to argue that timbre indexes material, gesture, and affect in music listening. Technologies of sound production and reproduction allow for the manipulation of these tendencies by enabling composers to craft timbres that mimic, stretch, or subvert the timbres of real objects. Those electronic technologies also suggest manipulations to composers, by virtue of their design affordances, and perform an epistemological broadening by providing insight into the malleability of human perceptual modes. I illustrate these claims with analytic examples from Murail’s Ethers (1978), Saariaho’s Verblendungen (1984), and Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour (1984), relating an embodied and corporeal account of my hearing and linking it to compositional and technological features of spectral music
An introduction to Musical Interactions
The article presents a contextual survey of eight contributions in the special issue Musical Interactions (Volume I) in Multimodal Technologies and Interaction. The presentation includes (1) a critical examination of what it means to be musical, to devise the concept of music proper to MTI as well as multicultural proximity, and (2) a conceptual framework for instrumentation, design, and assessment of musical interaction research through five enabling dimensions: Affordance; Design Alignment; Adaptive Learning; Second-Order Feedback; Temporal Integration. Each dimension is discussed and applied in the survey. The results demonstrate how the framework provides an interdisciplinary scope required for musical interaction, and how this approach may offer a coherent way to describe and assess approaches to research and design as well as implementations of interactive musical systems. Musical interaction stipulates musical liveness for experiencing both music and technologies. While music may be considered ontologically incomplete without a listener, musical interaction is defined as ontological completion of a state of music and listening through a listener’s active engagement with musical resources in multimodal information flow
Architecture: Music, City, and Culture
Many scholars have discussed the relationship between architecture and music. Design methodologies have been created to highlight this intersection, attempting to attain the sublime. While architecture theorists have used western music as a foundation, this thesis aims to investigate this relationship in a non-western setting. Music would be used as a cultural identifier, to unlock "hidden dimensions" shared in language, music, and architecture.
The case study site is historic Cairo, between the Fatamid Walls. For the past two centuries, Cairo has abandoned its cultural heritage and embarked on a process of westernization. Those who seek to hold onto the city's identity are abusing traditional motifs in a manner that seems cliché and somewhat absurd. The thesis calls for a deeper understanding and evolution of Cairo's heritage, using concepts of the Arabic Melodic modes, Maqams, to create a place for listening, al Masmaa'
The computer analysis of polyphonic music
Human beings are adept at distinguishing simultaneous sounds. A person can understand one of several people speaking at the same time (the so called cocktail party effect). An orchestral conductor can tell if one instrument out of a hundred is playing out of tune. How this discrimination is made from the acoustical signal is not well understood
Terminal Station: The Creation And Study of A Canadian Rock Operetta (And Its Idiomatic Soup)
What does the action or discipline of composition mean in 2017? Different arts will flow into, and away from each other organically. Rigidly defined boundaries can restrict what art belongs where, and which preservation and qualitative techniques are used, and can be an impediment to evolving the creative process. Authenticity happens in a fleeting moment; it is a product of an evolving environment; some aspects natural, others arranged and ordered. It may be fortuitous to freeze creation in a moment, and it may not. Preserving compositions made using the digital Audio Workstation will require acceptance of methods that are not yet standard pedagogy, but are common and required in the business and professional lives of composers all over the world. The process used to create of the original Rock Operetta Terminal Station, initiates a discussion about method, content and technology, and supports a philosophical and cosmopolitan compositional environment in 2017
Analysis and resynthesis of polyphonic music
This thesis examines applications of Digital Signal Processing to the analysis, transformation, and resynthesis of musical audio. First I give an overview of the human perception of music. I then examine in detail the requirements for a system that can analyse, transcribe, process, and resynthesise monaural polyphonic music. I then describe and compare the possible hardware and software platforms. After this I describe a prototype hybrid system that attempts to carry out these tasks using a method based on additive synthesis. Next I present results from its application to a variety of musical examples, and critically assess its performance and limitations. I then address these issues in the design of a second system based on Gabor wavelets. I conclude by summarising the research and outlining suggestions for future developments
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