A Conceptual Framework for Motion Based Music Applications

Imaginary projections are the core of the framework for motion based music applications presented in this paper. Their design depends on the space covered by the motion tracking device, but also on the musical feature involved in the application. They can be considered a very powerful tool because they allow not only to project in the virtual environment the image of a traditional acoustic instrument, but also to express any spatially defined abstract concept. The system pipeline starts from the musical content and, through a geometrical interpretation, arrives to its projection in the physical space. Three case studies involving different motion tracking devices and different musical concepts will be analyzed. The three examined applications have been programmed and already tested by the authors. They aim respectively at musical expressive interaction (Disembodied Voices), tonal music knowledge (Harmonic Walk) and XX century music composition (Hand Composer)

The Politics of Resonance

‘GIB SIE WIEDER’1 is a series of two political compositions, dedicated to exceptional performers Garth Knox (viola d’amore) and Rhodri Davies (harp). In this project the central focus is on resonance in both a musical and wider socio-cultural sense. Finding the term closely correlated to the construction of gender, I direct my inner ear to the hidden background noises of the organisation of society. As a woman and composer, I perceive aural patterns of individual and political significance. In this work my aim is to to deconstruct engrained structures of resonance and assumptions of gender, and redefine them from a personal perspective as the basis for a new compositional identity. In this article, I identify my political perspective as an artist, and describe how this affects and stimulates my creative process. I discuss the compositional approach taken in the two compositions making up ‘GIB SIE WIEDER’ and their public performances in 2014

Extended methods of notation in Josh Levine's Les yeux ouverts and Daniel Tacke's Einsamkeit

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 201

Aspects of openness and specificity in post-minimal music

This commentary discusses my exploration in applying openness to minimalist compositional methods in the forms of inclusivity, democracy, intuition, improvisation and non-teleology. Additionally, I consider methods of balancing such openness with the specificity of virtuosity, idiom and process within my Master of Arts by Research portfolio of compositions. Each section of the thesis details my approach to different aspects of openness and specificity as a post-minimalist composer and how I have considered them in my music, including; contextualising my music within contemporary and historical manifestations of minimalist music and wider discourse; paradigms of role, format and protocol in the musical process; enculturation in the process of musical learning. I have referred to a wide range of academic and informal literature, music and media to substantiate my research interests as relevant to contemporary music and its practitioners, and widespread in popular and vernacular idioms. I conclude to clarify the position of my compositions and their methodologies in a relevant post-minimalist context and their functions as archetypes of a pragmatic system for future compositions

An examination of the keyboard technique of Bach, Haydn, Chopin, Scriabin and Prokofiev

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016In this research paper, I will explore the keyboard technique of each composer presented in my recital: J.S. Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Frederic Chopin, Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Prokofiev. I hope to elucidate the physical approach used by each composer, and show in turn how that same approach influenced the music of each composer by analyzing the pieces performed in my recital. To understand the distinct technique of the composers, it is important to know some context. The instrument each composer wrote for necessarily influenced their technique and resulting composition. However, the instrument cannot explain every facet of technique, and it becomes necessary to understand the underlying aesthetics of technique. Moving chronologically from Bach to Prokofiev, a general trend of expansion in the use of the hand and arm will be seen throughout. Keyboards became louder and heavier in touch and the hand faced greater reaches in every generation. The technique of Bach and Haydn was largely focused on compact and relaxed hands with distinct finger movements, while Scriabin and Prokofiev at the other end require sweeping gestures that occupy the entire arm. However, it would be too easy to present this progression as a story that technique is only getting better and better, implying that the older composers were inferior to the later. That is simply false. Instead, extended study of each composer shows that many technical principles are universal. The baroque keyboardists were likely playing with more weight than popularly imagined and one cannot play Scriabin with mittens on the hands

A microtonal wind controller building on Yamaha’s technology to facilitate the performance of music based on the “19-EDO” scale

We describe a project in which several collaborators adapted an existing instrument to make it capable of playing expressively in music based on the microtonal scale characterised by equal divsion of the octave into 19 tones (“19-EDO”). Our objective was not just to build this instrument, however, but also to produce a well-formed piece of music which would exploit it idiomatically, in a performance which would provide listeners with a pleasurable and satisfying musical experience. Hence, consideration of the extent and limits of the playing-techniques of the resulting instrument (a “Wind-Controller”) and of appropriate approaches to the composition of music for it were an integral part of the project from the start. Moreover, the intention was also that the piece, though grounded in the musical characteristics of the 19-EDO scale, would nevertheless have a recognisable relationship with what Dimitri Tymoczko (2010) has called the “Extended Common Practice” of the last millennium. So the article goes on to consider these matters, and to present a score of the resulting new piece, annotated with comments documenting some of the performance issues which it raises. Thus, bringing the project to fruition involved elements of composition, performance, engineering and computing, and the article describes how such an inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaboration was co-ordinated in a unified manner to achieve the envisaged outcome. Finally, we consider why the building of microtonal instruments is such a problematic issue in a contemporary (“high-tech”) society like ours

Composing Music for Acoustic Instruments and Electronics Mediated Through the Application of Microsound

This project seeks to extend, through a portfolio of compositions, the use of microsound to mixed works incorporating acoustic instrument and electronics. Issues relating to the notation of microsound when used with acoustic instruments are explored and the adoption of a clear and intuitive system of graphical notation is proposed. The design of the performance environment for the electroacoustic part is discussed and different models for the control of the electronics are considered. Issues relating to structure and form when applied to compositions that mix note-based material with texture-based material are also considered. A framework based on a pure sound/noise continuum, used in conjunction with a hierarchy of gestural archetypes, is adopted as a possible solution to the challenges of structuring mixed compositions. Gestural and textural relationships between different parts of the compositions are also explored and the use of extended instrumental techniques to create continua between the acoustic and the electroacoustic is adopted. The role of aleatoric techniques and improvisation in both the acoustic and the electroacoustic parts are explored through adoption of an interactive performance environment incorporating a pitch-tracking algorithm. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of real time recording and processing of the electronic part when compared with live processing of pre-existing sound-files are discussed

Toy pianos, poor tools: virtuosity and imagination in a limited context

The toy piano is fast becoming a concert instrument in its own right, with its own (growing) body of repertoire that has moved well beyond John Cage’s 1948 classic Suite for Toy Piano. There are dedicated musicians specialising in toy piano performance all over the world, and numerous composers producing new works written specifically for the toy piano. This unusual miniature instrument provides a respite from the traditional implications of the grand piano, breaks the ice with audiences and allows pianists to perform in locations that would otherwise be inaccessible. In this article the author introduces the history and mechanism of the instrument, performance considerations, extended techniques and approaches to working with electronics, recent repertoire and suggestions for performers and composers. Discussion is supplemented with musical examples

COMPOSITIONAL EXPLORATIONS OF PLASTIC SOUND

Each piece of music in this research is meant to explore a different aspect of music as a plastic art. Conclusions reached in the review of each new work were used to guide the development of the next. The notions of plasticity in sound, and sound as a plastic material were used to give the overall research a focal point. In exploring different types of composition, reciprocal plasticity between the materials and the developing ideas of the music are discussed in the context of ecological and biological psychology. By restricting all these works within the genre of 'plastic arts' it became necessary to introduce a new technique for instrumental composition. An aural model is used to replace the traditional written score. These instrumental works were developed entirely within an auditory situation.Funded by De Montfort Universit