15 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Mapping the Klangdom Live: Cartographies for piano with two performers and electronics
The use of high-density loudspeaker arrays (HDLAs) has recently experienced rapid growth in a wide variety of technical and aesthetic approaches. Still less explored, however, are applications to interactive music with live acoustic instruments. How can immersive spatialization accompany an instrument already with its own rich spatial diffusion pattern, like the grand piano, in the context of a score-based concert work? Potential models include treating the spatialized electronic sound in analogy to the diffusion pattern of the instrument, with spatial dimensions parametrized as functions of timbral features. Another approach is to map the concert hall as a three-dimensional projection of the instrumentâs internal physical layout, a kind of virtual sonic microscope. Or, the diffusion of electronic spatial sound can be treated as an independent polyphonic element, complementary to but not dependent upon the instrumentâs own spatial characteristics. Cartographies (2014), for piano with two performers and electronics, explores each of these models individually and in combination, as well as their technical implementation with the Meyer Sound Matrix3 system of the Su Ì dwestrundfunk Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany, and the 43.4-channel Klangdom of the Institut fu Ì r Musik und Akustik at the Zentrum fu Ì r Kunst und Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. The process of composing, producing, and performing the work raises intriguing questions, and invaluable hints, for the composition and performance of live interactive works with HDLAs in the future
Recommended from our members
Fine-tuned Control of Concatenative Synthesis with CATART Using the BACH Library for MAX
The electronic musicianâs toolkit is increasingly characterized by fluidity between software, techniques, and genres. By combining two of the most exciting recent packages for MAX, CATART corpus-based concatenative synthesis (CBCS) and BACH: AUTOMATED COMPOSERâS HELPER, we propose a rich tool for real-time creation, storage, editing, re-synthesis, and transcription of concatenative sound. The modular structures of both packages can be advantageously recombined to exploit the best of their real-time and computer-assisted composition (CAC) capabilities. After loading a sample corpus in CATART, each grain, or unit, played from CATART is stored as a notehead in the bach.roll object along with its descriptor data and granular synthesis parameters including envelope and spatialization. The data is attached to the note itself (pitch, velocity, duration) or stored in user-defined slots than can be adjusted by hand or batch-edited using lambda-loops. Once stored, the contents of bach.roll can be dynamically edited and auditioned using CATART for playback. The results can be output as a sequence for synthesis, or used for CAC score-generation through a process termed Corpus-Based Transcription: rhythms are output with bach.quantize and further edited in bach.roll before export as a MUSICXML file to a notation program to produce a performer-readable score. Together these techniques look toward a concatenative DAW with promising capabilities for composers, improvisers, installation artists, and performers
Spherical correlation as a similarity measure for 3-D radiation patterns of musical instruments
We investigate the use of spherical cross-correlation as a similarity measure of sound radiation patterns, with potential applications for their study, organization, and manipulation. This work is motivated by the application of corpus-based synthesis techniques to spatial projection based on the radiation patterns of orchestral instruments. To this end, we wish to derive spatial descriptors to complement other audio features available for the organization of the sample corpus. Considering two directivity functions on the sphere, their spherical correlation can be computed from their spherical harmonic coefficients. In addition, one can search for the 3-D rotation matrix which maximizes the cross-correlation, i.e. which offers the optimal spherical shape matching. The mathematical foundations of these tools are well established in the literature; however, their practical use in the field of acoustics remains relatively limited and challenging. As a proof of concept, we apply these techniques both to simulated radiation data and to measurements derived from an existing database of 3-D directivity patterns of orchestral instruments. Using these examples we present several test cases to compare the results of spherical correlation to mathematical and acoustical expectations. A range of visualization methods are applied to analyze the test cases, including multi-dimensional scaling, employed as an efficient technique for data reduction and navigation. This article is an extended version of a study previously published in [Carpentier and Einbond. 16th CongrĂšs Français dâAcoustique (CFA), Marseille, France, April 2022, pp. 1â6. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/28202/]
Recommended from our members
Instrumental Radiation Patterns as Models for Corpus-Based Spatial Sound Synthesis: Cosmologies for Piano and 3D Electronics
The Cosmologies project aims to situate the listener inside a virtual grand piano by enabling computer processes to learn from the spatial presence of the live instrument and performer. We propose novel techniques that leverage mea- surements of natural acoustic phenomena to inform spatial sound composition and synthesis. Measured radiation pat- terns of acoustic instruments are applied interactively in response to a live input to synthesize spatial forms in real time. We implement this with software tools for the first time connecting audio descriptor analysis and corpus-based syn- thesis to spatialization using Higher-Order Ambisonics and machine learning. The resulting musical work, Cosmologies for piano and 3D electronics, explodes the space inside the grand piano out to the space of the concert hall, allowing the listener to experience its secret inner life
Recommended from our members
Convergence Lines: A Musical Distillation of Thomas Pynchonâs V.
This dissertation consists of two parts: Convergence Lines, my twenty-four-minute composition for ten instruments and electronics, and this subsidiary essay. Convergence Lines was written in 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Pynchonâs V. At the center of this discussion is my creative process in imagining a musical corollary to Pynchonâs fictional world: his large cast of vivid characters, far-flung settings, and disjointed sense of time. I also detail my attempt to fashion a formal parallel to the novelâs unorthodox structure of two independent strands of narrative that converge towards the end. I discuss the role of allusion in Pynchonâs work and in my own, and the various points of reference the music is meant to invoke. A second important topic is the role of electronics in the composition, presenting both a technical analysis of the tools employed and an aesthetic perspective, considering how the intrusion of non-acoustic sounds mirrors a central theme of V.: the gradual replacement of the animate by the inanimate. The thesis endeavors to explain from a composerâs perspective, and in an integrated, organic manner, the poetic, musical, and technical aspects behind my work
The Sound of the hallmarks of cancer
The objective of this research is to create a mixed portfolio of data-driven composition and performance interfaces, fixed Electroacoustic/Computer music compositions, and live-improvised musical and audiovisual works reflecting cancer as a disease. The main methodology in generating the raw sonic material is the sonification of high-throughput, protein/RNA fold-change data, derived from the bio- molecular research of cancer cells. This data and relevant insight into the field are obtained as part of a collaboration with Barts Cancer Institute, in London, UK. Furthermore, for the purpose of musical effectiveness and reaching wider audiences, a focus has been placed on balancing the use of data-driven sonic material with composer-driven musical choices, by drawing upon the narrative of the Hallmarks of Cancer (Hanahan and Weinberg, 2011) which is a widely accepted conceptual framework in the field of cancer research for understanding the various biomolecular processes responsible for causing cancer. This method is adopted in order to inspire musical form, and guide some of the syntactic and aesthetic choices within both fixed and improvised works. In addition, this research also reflects upon the use of data sonification as an artistic tool and practice, while also addressing the contradictions and contention that arise as a result of scientific aims and expectations regarding sonification, resulting in a proposed original model for framing and classifying artistic works incorporating this approach
Technology and composition â an autoethnography on the influence of electronics on orchestration practice
This research explores novel methods of orchestration, focusing on the influence
of electronics on my own orchestration practice. By drawing upon electronic music
composition techniques and timbral-shaping tools, this project addresses the
boundaries of orchestration and examines processes that inform orchestration
decisions. Through the resulting portfolio, I explore timbral blend, spatialization and
acoustics, real-time orchestration, computer-aided/assisted orchestration, and the
extension of the timbral palette by rethinking the ideals of spectral composition. These
methods aim to create unique sound worlds and audience experiences while situating
my distinctive approach in relation to other existing practices. Furthermore, a
supporting commentary illuminates the deep pre-compositional research that informs
my orchestration practice by identifying the techniques and evaluating their
application.
To explore such concepts, it is vital to conduct practice-led autoethnographic
research. This allows for full, creative exploration and application of site-specific and
acoustic/electronic tools. Through recognizing the impact of electronics on my
approach to orchestration, I have made exciting discoveries in this field by integrating
electronic and non-electronic systems, forming what I regard as my orchestration
discourse.
The radical overhaul of my orchestration approach has served to highlight just how
much more work there is to be made in the realm of human-machine creative
collaboration and that sound has many more lessons to teach me. This research
marks a âcheckpointâ of life-long research as contemporary arts and science work
hand in hand. We cannot disregard the fact that the gap between the world of
instrumental music and electronic music is still too unexplored in the timbral-based
orchestration domain
Agent-Based Graphic Sound Synthesis and Acousmatic Composition
For almost a century composers and engineers have been attempting to create systems that allow drawings and imagery to behave as intuitive and efficient musical scores. Despite the intuitive interactions that these systems afford, they are somewhat underutilised by contemporary composers. The research presented here explores the concept of agency and artificial ecosystems as a means of creating and exploring new graphic sound synthesis algorithms. These algorithms are subsequently designed to investigate the creation of organic musical gesture and texture using granular synthesis. The output of this investigation consists of an original software artefact, The Agent Tool, alongside a suite of acousmatic musical works which the former was designed to facilitate. When designing new musical systems for creative exploration with vast parametric controls, careful constraints should be put in place to encourage focused development. In this instance, an evolutionary computing model is utilised as part of an iterative development cycle. Each iteration of the systemâs development coincides with a composition presented in this portfolio. The features developed as part of this process subsequently serve the authorâs compositional practice and inspiration. As the software package is designed to be flexible and open ended, each composition represents a refinement of features and controls for the creation of musical gesture and texture. This document subsequently discusses the creative inspirations behind each composition alongside the features and agents that were created. This research is contextualised through a review of established literature on graphic sound synthesis, evolutionary musical computing and ecosystemic approaches to sound synthesis and control