Un voyage du son par les fils électroacoustiques : l'art et les nouvelles technologies en Amérique Latine

L'histoire de la musique électroacoustique latino-américaine est longue, intéressante et prolifique, mais peu connue, même régionalement. De nombreux compositeurs nés ou vivants en Amérique latine ont été très actifs à ce titre, dans certains pays depuis plus de 50 ans, mais la disponibilité de l'information et des enregistrements de musique électroacoustique à cet égard et dans cette région a posé de sérieux problèmes aux éducateurs, compositeurs, interprètes, chercheurs, étudiants et au public en général.\ud Compte tenu de cette situation, la question suivante s'est imposée comme point de départ de ma thèse: comment s'est développée la tradition de la création musicale avec les médias électroacoustiques en Amérique Latine. Pour y répondre, j'ai adopté une approche historique en utilisant une méthodologie ethnographique (caractérisée par une immersion à long terme dans le domaine, par des contacts personnels avec des compositeurs et par ma participation et mon souci en ce qui concerne l'évolution des arts faisant appel aux nouvelles technologies en Amérique Latine) dans toute ma recherche. Ayant commencé à travailler dans le domaine de la musique électroacoustique au milieu des années 1970 dans mon Argentine natale, il m'a été très difficile d'obtenir de l'information sur les activités reliées à ce domaine dans des pays voisins et même dans ma propre ville. Bien que difficile, il était néanmoins possible de trouver les enregistrements de compositeurs vivant en Europe ou en Amérique du Nord, mais plus ardu de trouver ceux réalisés par des compositeurs locaux ou régionaux. Dans divers pays d'Amérique latine, les universités, les organismes d'état et de grandes fondations privées avaient de temps en temps pris l'initiative de soutenir la recherche en art et le recours aux nouveaux médias, mais la plupart avaient cessé leurs activités avant même de développer les ressources pour documenter les processus et préserver les résuItats. J'ai obtenu chaque enregistrement et information que j'ai rassemblés, depuis le milieu des années 1970, en contactant directement chacun des compositeurs. Avec le temps, j'ai constitué des archives personnelles, modestes mais croissantes, comprenant des notes de programme de concerts, livres, bulletins, magazines et revues, partitions, lettres, courriels et des enregistrements sur bobines, cassettes analogiques et quelques vinyles 33 tours. J'ai décidé de partager mes trésors avec des collègues et étudiants et d'explorer des solutions pour les rendre accessibles au plus grand nombre possible. Il y a quelques années, l'UNESCO m'a demandé de rédiger des rapports sur la musique électroacoustique latino-américaine et les arts médiatiques. Les textes de cette recherche ont contribué à diffuser de l'information sur le travail de beaucoup d'artistes latino-américains. Afin de rendre également accessible au public les oeuvres musicales, et sauvegarder le matériel, j'ai cherché un endroit où la préservation des enregistrements était non seulement importante mais aussi possible. J'estimais que la fondation Daniel Langlois pour l'art, la science et la technologie à Montréal était le lieu idéal pour mon projet. Mes activités continues durant près de 28 mois comme chercheur en résidence à la fondation Daniel Langlois m'ont permis de numériser et convertir des enregistrements à partir de différents formats, faire du montage au besoin et verser dans la base de données de la Fondation tous les renseignements sur les pièces (titre, compositeur, année de composition, instrumentation, notes de programme, studio de production, version, durée, bio du compositeur, etc.). À ce jour, janvier 2006, il y a 2152 fichiers audio numériques qui sont archivés au Centre de recherche et de documentation (CR+D) de la fondation. En complément à cette thèse de doctorat, j'ai développé une collection d'enregistrements musicaux maintenant disponibles au public. Cette collection est constituée du résultat de mes recherches (textes, oeuvres musicales, quelques partitions et photographies historiques, entrevues) et diffusée sur le site Web de la fondation Daniel Langlois. Les archives comptent des pièces pour médias fixes ainsi que des oeuvres mixtes pour instruments acoustiques ou voix et médias fixes ou systèmes électroniques interactifs en direct (1722 compositions). Les archives comprennent aussi des enregistrements audio et audiovisuels d'entrevues avec des compositeurs et des novateurs techniques ainsi que des\ud photographies, des vidéos, et quelques très rares partitions.\ud Une grande partie de l'information textuelle contenue dans la base de données des fichiers de musique est accessible par le site Web de la fondation Daniel Langlois. L'information complète (ex. notes de programme) et tous les enregistrements sont accessibles au CR+D. Une courte sélection de pièces est aussi accessible pour écoute sur le site Web. La plupart des compositeurs représentés dans ces archives et dans cette dissertation sont nés dans des pays d'Amérique latine. Il y a aussi quelques compositeurs qui, bien que n'étant pas originaires de la région, ont poursuivi au moins une partie de leur carrière musicale en Amérique latine.\ud Cette thèse renferme de l'information sur des compositeurs liés à 18 pays d'Amérique latine: Argentine, Bolivie, Brésil, Chili, Colombie, Costa Rica, Cuba, République dominicaine, Équateur, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Pérou, Porto Rico, Uruguay et Venezuela. Les archives contiennent des enregistrements de compositeurs de tous les pays mentionnés. J'espère que ce texte incitera à explorer ce merveilleux univers musical plutôt inconnu, créé par des centaines de compositeurs latino-américains au cours des dernières décennies. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : musique électroacoustique, Amérique latine, art et nouvelles technologies, éthique, mémoire, culture, contexte, pionniers, interdisciplinarité

El archivo de música electroacústica latinoamericana… diez años después

La creació musical amb mitjans electroacústics té una història llarga, interessant i prolífica a l'Amèrica Llatina. Molts dels compositors que han nascut o viscut a la regió van desenvolupar una destacada tasca en el camp de la música electroacústica, en alguns casos començant les seves activitats d'experimentació i creació fa cap a 60 anys. No obstant això, la possibilitat d'accedir a enregistraments i informació relativa a aquest àmbit ha estat sempre difícil, tant per a educadors, compositors, intèrprets, investigadors i estudiants com per al públic en general. En un esforç per a preservar, documentar i difondre almenys una part de la creació musical feta amb mitjans electroacústics per compositors nascuts a l'Amèrica Llatina, o clarament vinculats amb aquesta regió, es va crear un arxiu a la Fundació Daniel Langlois per a l'Art, la Ciència i la Tecnologia de Mont-real fa gairebé una dècada. Des de llavors és consultat àmpliament i ha facilitat la recuperació i el reconeixement de l'obra de compositors els treballs dels quals havien estat oblidats o perduts, i d'aquesta manera ha ajudat la memòria col·lectiva a valorar els assoliments i les dificultats dels qui ens van precedir, per a comprendre millor el present i pensar el nostre futur.Electroacoustic music has a long, interesting and rich tradition in Latin America. Certain outstanding composers who were born or lived in this region have been experimenting and creating in the field of electroacoustics since as far back as 60 years ago. However, it has always been difficult for educators, composers, performers, researchers, students and the general public to access recordings and information related to these composers and their work. In an effort to preserve, document and make known at least some creations by electroacoustic composers born in or associated with Latin America, an archive was created a decade ago at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal. This widely consulted archive has facilitated the recovery and recognition for our collective memory of near-forgotten works and their composers. By allowing us to assess the achievements and obstacles overcame by those who preceded us it will help us better understand the present and consider the future. La creación musical con medios electroacústicos tiene una larga, interesante y prolífica historia en América Latina. Muchos de los compositores que han nacido o vivido en la región desarrollaron una destacada tarea en el campo de la música electroacústica, comenzando sus actividades de experimentación y creación hace alrededor de sesenta años, en algunos casos. Sin embargo, la posibilidad de acceder a grabaciones e información relativa a este ámbito ha sido siempre difícil, tanto para educadores, compositores, intérpretes, investigadores y estudiantes como para el público en general. En un esfuerzo por preservar, documentar y difundir al menos parte de la creación musical realizada con medios electroacústicos por compositores nacidos en América Latina, o claramente vinculados con esta región, fue creado un archivo en la Fundación Daniel Langlois para el Arte, la Ciencia y la Tecnología de Montreal hace casi una década. Desde entonces es consultado ampliamente y ha facilitado la recuperación y el reconocimiento de la obra de compositores cuyos trabajos habían sido olvidados o perdidos, y ayuda así a la memoria colectiva a valorar los logros y las dificultades de quienes nos precedieron, para comprender mejor el presente, y pensar nuestro futuro

Music and Digital Media: A planetary anthropology

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and Digital Media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies. Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of an extra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max. The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory

Music and Digital Media

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and Digital Media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies. Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of anextra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max. The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory. Praise for Music and Digital Media ‘Music and Digital Media is a groundbreaking update to our understandings of sound, media, digitization, and music. Truly transdisciplinary and transnational in scope, it innovates methodologically through new models for collaboration, multi-sited ethnography, and comparative work. It also offers an important defense of—and advancement of—theories of mediation.’ Jonathan Sterne, Communication Studies and Art History, McGill University 'Music and Digital Media is a nuanced exploration of the burgeoning digital music scene across both the global North and the global South. Ethnographically rich and theoretically sophisticated, this collection will become the new standard for this field.' Anna Tsing, Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz 'The global drama of music's digitisation elicits extreme responses – from catastrophe to piratical opportunism – but between them lie more nuanced perspectives. This timely, absolutely necessary collection applies anthropological understanding to a deliriously immersive field, bringing welcome clarity to complex processes whose impact is felt far beyond what we call music.' David Toop, London College of Communication, musician and writer ‘Spanning continents and academic disciplines, the rich ethnographies contained in Music and Digital Media makes it obligatory reading for anyone wishing to understand the complex, contradictory, and momentous effects that digitization is having on musical cultures.’ Eric Drott, Music, University of Texas, Austin ‘This superb collection, with an authoritative overview as its introduction, represents the state of the art in studies of the digitalisation of music. It is also a testament to what anthropology at its reflexive best can offer the rest of the social sciences and humanities.’ David Hesmondhalgh, Media and Communication, University of Leeds ‘This exciting volume forges new ground in the study of local conditions, institutions, and sounds of digital music in the Global South and North. The book’s planetary scope and its commitment to the “messiness” of ethnographic sites and concepts amplifies emergent configurations and meanings of music, the digital, and the aesthetic.’ Marina Peterson, Anthropology, University of Texas, Austi

Music and Digital Media

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and Digital Media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies. Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of anextra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max. The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory. Praise for Music and Digital Media ‘Music and Digital Media is a groundbreaking update to our understandings of sound, media, digitization, and music. Truly transdisciplinary and transnational in scope, it innovates methodologically through new models for collaboration, multi-sited ethnography, and comparative work. It also offers an important defense of—and advancement of—theories of mediation.’ Jonathan Sterne, Communication Studies and Art History, McGill University 'Music and Digital Media is a nuanced exploration of the burgeoning digital music scene across both the global North and the global South. Ethnographically rich and theoretically sophisticated, this collection will become the new standard for this field.' Anna Tsing, Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz 'The global drama of music's digitisation elicits extreme responses – from catastrophe to piratical opportunism – but between them lie more nuanced perspectives. This timely, absolutely necessary collection applies anthropological understanding to a deliriously immersive field, bringing welcome clarity to complex processes whose impact is felt far beyond what we call music.' David Toop, London College of Communication, musician and writer ‘Spanning continents and academic disciplines, the rich ethnographies contained in Music and Digital Media makes it obligatory reading for anyone wishing to understand the complex, contradictory, and momentous effects that digitization is having on musical cultures.’ Eric Drott, Music, University of Texas, Austin ‘This superb collection, with an authoritative overview as its introduction, represents the state of the art in studies of the digitalisation of music. It is also a testament to what anthropology at its reflexive best can offer the rest of the social sciences and humanities.’ David Hesmondhalgh, Media and Communication, University of Leeds ‘This exciting volume forges new ground in the study of local conditions, institutions, and sounds of digital music in the Global South and North. The book’s planetary scope and its commitment to the “messiness” of ethnographic sites and concepts amplifies emergent configurations and meanings of music, the digital, and the aesthetic.’ Marina Peterson, Anthropology, University of Texas, Austi

New timbral directions in the contemporary cello repertoire : Analysis of works by Colombian composers from 2000 to 2015

This work analyses the repertoire for solo cello and cello with electronic media from 2000 to 2015 by Colombian composers, focusing on timbre as the main musical element explored. Nevertheless, a historical view on the European and non-European repertoire is included. This thesis consists of two parts. The first part includes chapters 1, 2, and 3. Chapter 1 classifies the cello playing techniques used in the most well-known pieces and studies the solo cello from the 17th century onwards, emphasising so-called extended playing techniques. Such classification serves as a tool for the further musical analyses in this work and as a foundation for the methodological framework in chapter 2, which discusses the notions of timbral modulation, timbral polyphony, and timbral re-signification. Chapter 3 discusses a new timbral development in the solo cello and cello with electronic media repertoire in the 20th and 21st century. This chapter surveys the crucial historical facts that generated a paradigm shift in the cello repertoire. This includes the emergence of different musical tendencies and the work of pioneer composers and performers. The second part of this study includes chapters 4 and 5, where the solo cello and cello with electronics repertoire from 2000 to 2015 by Colombian composers is analysed. The pieces involved emphasise a new timbral development within the repertoire. To summarise, this thesis emphasises how timbre was one of the elements that bifurcated the cello repertoire in the 20th and 21st century. Furthermore, this study describes how progressive composers and performers have deeply expanded playing techniques and the timbre of the instrument, and the exploration and combination of the medium with apparatus, artefacts, and new instruments into new ways of making music.Tämä tutkimus analysoi kolumbialaisten säveltäjien teoksia sellolle sekä sellolle ja elektroniselle medialle vuosina 2000–2015 ja keskittyy sointiväriin analyysin kohteena. Mukana on lisäksi myös historiallinen katsaus eurooppalaiseen ja ulkoeurooppalaiseen ohjelmistoon. Väitöskirja koostuu kahdesta osasta. Ensimmäiseen osaan sisältyvät luvut 1, 2 ja 3. Luku 1 luokittelee tunnetuimmissa teoksissa ja etydeissä soolosellolle 1600-luvulta eteenpäin käytetyt soittotekniikat painottaen niin sanottuja laajennettuja soittotekniikoita. Tämä luokittelu toimii työkaluna tämän väitöskirjan musiikkianalyyseissä sekä pohjana metodologiselle kehykselle luvussa 2, joka käsittelee sointivärillisen modulaation (timbral modulation), sointivärillisen polyfonian (timbral polyphony) ja sointivärillisen uudelleenmerkityksellistämisen (timbral resignification) käsitteitä. Luku 3 käsittelee uusia sointivärin kehityksiä soolosellolle sekä sellolle elektronisen mediaan yhdistettynä 1900- ja 2000-luvuilla. Tämä luku käy läpi merkittäviä historiallisia tapahtumia, jotka rakensivat paradigmamuutoksen sellorepertuaarissa. Tämä sisältää erilaisten uusien musiikillisten suuntausten muodostumisen sekä pioneerisäveltäjien ja -esittäjien esiintulon. Tutkimuksen toinen osa sisältää luvut 4 ja 5, joka analysoi kolumbialaisten säveltäjien teoksia soolosellolle sekä sellolle ja elektroniselle medialle vuosina 2000–2015. Analysoidut teokset painottavat uusia sointivärillisiä kehityksiä ohjelmistossa. Yhteenvetona, tämä tutkimus käsittelee sitä, miten sointiväri oli yksi sellorepertuaaria 1900- ja 2000-luvulla haarauttaneista tekijöistä. Lisäksi tämä tutkimus käsittelee, miten edistykselliset säveltäjät ja esittäjät ovat merkittävästi laajentaneet soittimen esitystekniikoita ja sointivärejä, kuten myös luoneet uusia musiikin tekemisen tapoja yhdistelemällä soittimen laitteisiin, esineisiin ja uusiin soittimiin

Hearing Voices: Sound Art Practice in a Cross-Cultural Context

This dissertation is concerned primarily with the body of work which has emerged from the author's project with endangered click languages in the Kalahari Desert. It looks at the development of his sound art practice by tracing the work leading up to Hearing Voices and by discussing the directions it has taken since the completion of that project. It examines the dichotomy in contemporary (sound) art between work which deals with ethnic identity and otherness and work which does not and outlines the ways in which the author's practice attempts to bridge this gap. Detailed examination of the socio-linguistic context of his work with Khoisan languages leads to an investigation of the issues and ethical responsibilities of cross-cultural practice. Links between acoustic ecology and language ecology are explored and consideration given to the way Hearing Voices and other works explore the boundaries between language and music, documentary and abstraction. The possibilities for new relationships between sound and (still) image are assessed through the author's use of new flat speaker technology and through an examination of the differences in approach required for the various media used in the Hearing Voices project (installation, radiophonic work, CD-ROM and work for multi-channel concert diffusion). Finally, the roles each of these forms can play in research-led sound art projects are considered

Multiplicity as a process of experimental music

This PhD explores my practice through six new compositions of experimental music: Far Infrared (2015/18/19), “As Sure as Time…” (2016-), Amalgamations (2016-), Continuum (2017-), ُ وِيَّةُه (Huia) (2018-) and postcard-sized pieces (2020). Using the philosophical concept of multiplicity (discussed by Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Alain Badiou) as a framework for the composition, realisation, and experience of this music, I highlight the heterogeneity of seemingly quantitative multiplicities. Key points of focus include considering the experience of sound, silence and durations, indeterminacy and interpretation, the notation, and musical situations (including space and collaboration) as qualitative multiplicities. Extensive research in experimental music, recent approaches to experimental music, and practice research methodologies form the background of this project. Prior knowledge within the field of experimental music is examined and extended, with case studies including Wandelweiser, and specific Wandelweiser composers such as Antoine Beuger and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, as well as Éliane Radigue. Realisations of the six new compositions have been documented through audio recordings, videos, photographs, and scores, and are analysed and reflected upon in the exegesis, which influenced future situations and compositions in an iterative, reflexive cycle. As well as new compositions of experimental music, this research offers new perspectives on the concept of multiplicity as a paradigm to understand experimental music, particularly through the compositional process, realisation and listening experience. The compositions of this project explore multiplicity in various ways, such as series, flexibility of score and situations, types and experiences of silences, sustained sounds, duration, and instrumentation. Despite these traditionally being considered as quantitative multiplicities, I argue that they are qualitative through Badiou’s ontology of multiplicity due to their subjectivity, simultaneous and interwoven experiences of past and present, and all experiences not being complete. By considering multiplicities in this way, it highlights the complexity of experimental music practice

An Omnivorous Ear: The Creative Practice of Field Recording

“An Omnivorous Ear - The Creative Practice of Field Recording” offers new insights into the history of recording outside of the studio in North America, challenging the various working definitions of field recording in music studies, anthropology, and communications. I examine recording methodologies through the late 19th and 20th centuries as a documentary technique, a tool for composition, and an art object in the United States of America and Canada from the late 19th century to the present day. Within this geographical region, I focus on the invention of acoustic recording, the proliferation of the technology amongst the public, folkloric recording supported by governmental and academic institutions, as well a experimental artistic practices. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that ‘the field’ is a social construction mediated by the recordist and recorder. Chapter 2 focuses on how cultures translate collective and phenomenological experiences into histories through sound media. These include orality, writing, the inscription of sound waves onto media, acoustic recording, and radio as forms of sound media that each embodies distinct forms of social and political knowledge. Chapter 3 details the development of recording machines and their effect on listening practices. Chapter 4 locates practitioners of phonography within the development of portable recording equipment on the one hand and the ‘hi-fi’ cultural movement in North America on the other. Practitioners included folklorists Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress, Moses Asch of Folkways Records, and Harry Smith, creator of the Anthology of American Folk Music; Stefan Kudelski, creator of the NAGRA recorder; and media maker Tony Schwartz, among the first to create the sound documentary by editing field recordings. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between sound, music and the environment within the paradigm of the soundscape as theorized by the World Soundscape Project (WSP). I critique the research and compositional practices developed by WSP members, and the influence it has on ecomusicology and sound art. Chapter 6 outlines sonic ethnography, a methodology that borrows from the best practices of many of the individuals mentioned throughout the dissertation, and employs new compositional techniques to condense and manipulate social, political and historical narratives through sonic works. The dissertation concludes by arguing that field recording, can be used to critique aesthetic and cultural dilemmas of representation.Cambridge Overseas Trus