Networked Comprovisation Stratagies with ZScore

ZScore is a networked notation system for mixed ensemble composition and performance. This paper describes recent system developments towards a platform for comprovised music making. The long-term project objective is to provide an inclusive, democratised music-making environment by utilising technology that enables distributed decision making, dynamic notation processing and visualisation. It is proposed that all music is the outcome of a decision-making process that can be represented on the spectrum between immutable static and real-time dynamic decision making. Networking technology can act as an enabler for moving the dial on this decision-making spectrum in a required direction. Furthermore, a definition of a networked notational perspective is outlined, covering the dynamic aspects of distributed notation for heterogeneous clients. Several strategies for dealing with dynamic notation visualisation and control are presented, such as the dynamic performance parameter processing and embedded scripting. Finally, this paper presents the results from recent user trials and plans for future developments

A Thousand Bells: Acoustical implementation of bell spectra using the finite element method and its compositional realization

This dissertation focuses primarily on the analysis of acoustical models of bell sounds and the modelling of virtual bell shapes and their spectra using the Finite Element Method (FEM) technique. The first chapter provides a brief introduction of pre and post-spectral music that is inspired by or employs bell sounds from which it derives its central materials. The second chapter introduces bell acoustics and the creation of new spectral profiles of optimal bell tone colors based upon just tuning ratios. In this chapter, I discuss how the concepts of consonance and Just Noticeable Difference in psychoacoustics are applied to use the 96 tone equal temperament tuning system for bell harmonic profiles. The third chapter includes the theoretical basis of the FEM and its application to the isoparametric 2-D quadrilateral elements, which are the fundamental theories of how bell harmonies are mathematically calculated. This includes the central concepts of the FEM, such as the Principle of Virtual Work/Displacement, master to global coordinate transformation, FE shape functions, usages of Jacobian matrices, numerical integration of the stiffness matrix and the equivalent nodal force vector for the element by using the Gauss-Lagrange quadrature. In the fourth chapter, I create bell model geometry by using 2D bell nominal curve and adjustable design variables. Physical parameters, such as the Poisson ratio, Young’s modulus, and material properties are also adopted from previous bell design research. Based upon the aforementioned prototypes, I create 24 different 3-D bell geometries, and analyze the spectra of these virtual bells. These bell models are analyzed, optimized and tuned to create tone colors that are defined in Chapter 2. After a validating process of the bell model, the general backgrounds of optimization theory are also introduced and analyzed for the purpose of creating 3-D virtual bells. For a general background of campanology, I use André Lehr’s Campanology textbook to provide the brief history, types, mechanism, casting, forms and parts, and tones of different bells. For acoustical and computational realizations of virtual bells, the analysis focuses on the research of Albertus Johannes Gerardus Schoofs and his follower PJM Roozen-Kroon on the FEM bell optimization, upon which the first prototype of the major-third bell was designed and cast

Determinacy, indeterminacy and collaboration in contemporary music-making

This thesis is structured around three key phases in the process of collaborative music-making—composition, preparation, and performance—examining the function of indeterminacy at each stage, and the way in which musical factors are determined. At what point in the creative process a musical decision is made, the path chosen, and critically, by whom the decision is taken, are all explored in the context of a portfolio of pieces performed and recorded as part of this practice-led research. The portfolio comprises recordings of projects undertaken with composers, as well as pre-existing repertoire, and the written commentary explores my creative role as a performer in relation to that of the composers and the other performers I have worked with. Practical issues faced in collaboration, practice, and performance are dealt with, as are questions of musicality, and the notion of success in musical performance

A Portfolio of Compositions in Response to a Study of the Aesthetic Function of Folklore in Modern Polish Music

There is an overwhelming tendency for scholars of Polish music to politicise the presence of folk music references when they appear in art music compositions. This has particularly been the case in studies of Frédéric Chopin, where certain myths pertaining to that composer’s extramusical intentions long dominated how his music was unpacked in musicological discourse. In this thesis, I demonstrate that our understanding of later Polish composers suffers similarly from this tendency. In an examination of the discourse surrounding both Karol Szymanowski and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, I show that a myopic understanding of the compositional possibilities bound up in folk music engagement has limited the scope of our interrogations into their compositional practices. I then reposition folk music as an aesthetic tool in their works that has enabled these artists to negotiate the compositional challenges confronting their respective generations. In addition to improving our understanding of these two composers’ methods, my analyses highlight how folk music models can lend a sense of familiarity and cohesion to the modern musical aesthetic. I then take these findings and define a framework for categorising the aesthetic function of folklore in modern Polish music. Turning to my own compositional practice, I analyse a portfolio of original works that have been influenced by my concurrent study of Polish composers and Polish folk music. With this I demonstrate how these categories of aesthetic function have enabled me to engage with a wide range of traditional sources, including Polish folk music, folk music from other cultures, and other non-musical artefacts of Polish culture. I further show that, within this breadth of historical sources, there exists a significant amount of aesthetic potential waiting to be unpacked by any modern composer who shares my goal to create music that is cohesive, conveys a clear musical narrative, and possesses a strong individual identity

Portfolio of original compositions with written commentary

This project documents the development of my recent compositional practice, a selection of which is presented in the accompanying portfolio. Through this commentary, the work is discussed in relation to a central theme: the figure of musical fragility, and its significance to my recent practice and surrounding musical thinking. Fragility is presented as a nebulous aesthetic concept, and a lens through which to examine elements of instability, vulnerability and tension between limits as they occur in various forms throughout my music. The compositions included in this portfolio therefore each exhibit some form of fragility as a moment of tension between that which is held delicately in cohesion, and the point at which it collapses into noise or silence. The compositions broadly operate within the context of instrumental contemporary classical music and the music of John Cage, Iannis Xenakis and late-period Luigi Nono, with a specific focus on stasis and quietness as found in minimal and drone-based musics. The music of Jakob Ullmann is also examined both as a proponent of features I deem to be fragile, and as an influence upon my compositional development. The research methodology for this project follows a reflexive framework: the composition of a work raises questions or problems which are then used to shape the next work, assessing its subsequent outcomes and so on. Particular attention is given to discussion of the development of my various notational practices, both in its technical relation to fragility, but also as a compositional process. This commentary does not attempt to say emphatically what fragility is, but rather, follow what fragility is doing and how it manifests throughout my recent compositions. The three most prominent themes I have identified are used as a means to navigate the discussion in each chapter: fragility in performance, fragility of form, and fragility as quietness

Xenakis in America

Iannis Xenakis had a long-standing interest in the U.S., but given the five years he spent here, little has been written about his experiences. This study attempts, through archival research and interviews, to document Xenakis’ time in the United States. Its subject is his relationship to American cultural institutions, and in what lured Xenakis here for musical composition and research. The narrative treats the period from Copland’s invitation to Tanglewood in 1963, through Xenakis’ 1972 investment by France as a state-supported artist. While he visited the U.S. many times thereafter, he no longer sought long-term engagement with U.S. institutions, but presented work completed elsewhere. After his summer at Tanglewood, I track performances of Xenakis compositions by Schuller, Foss and Bernstein (among others) throughout the 1960s and 1970s. I examine Xenakis’ association with Balanchine, and the reception of Xenakis’ theoretical writings, culminating in the publication of Formalized Music in 1971. I give an account of Xenakis’ collaboration with Alexis Solomos on Aeschylus’ Oresteia, produced in 1966 by the Ypsilanti Greek Theatre, as well as the founding of Xenakis’ research center CMAM at Indiana University in 1967, which he would build over the next five years. Concerning Xenakis’ reasons for coming to America, I argue for two major motivations. First, there were reasons to look beyond France: its state institutions, up to the late 1960s, provided little support for avant-garde composition. Later, there were reasons to return: with the Polytope de Cluny of 1972, the Ministry of Culture signaled a policy change that favored Xenakis, and established his CeMAMu as a state-supported research center. Second, Xenakis’ opportunities in the U.S. satisfied his interest in working outside the boundaries of autonomous composition. The collaboration on the Ypsilanti Oresteia offered Xenakis involvement with both ancient and modern Greek theater, and Bloomington’s sponsorship of CMAM, which included the equipment necessary for computer synthesis of sound, gave Xenakis access to technology unavailable in France at the time

Composing Irishness: Remembrances of the Irish Past Through the Prism of the Present in Music by Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970) and Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974)

Although modern remembrances in the fields of literature, theatre, poetry, and the visual arts have received considerable scholarly attention in Ireland since the publication of History and Memory in Modern Ireland in 2001, similar activities in an Irish art music context remain unexplored. This thesis addresses this lacuna in examining how the contemporary Irish composers Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970) and Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974) have remembered, reimagined, and reinvented the past to communicate their positions on Irish history and modern Irish society, as well as to respond to recent historical and curatorial practices. Through a series of five works written between 2003 and 2019, Dennehy has critiqued the ideologies underlying imperialism, racism, and colonialism in Irish history, and challenged the recent period of revisionism in Irish historicization. His anti-colonial project combats historical amnesia, advocating for consciousness of the past to address current problems. In January 2015, Walshe, in collaboration with a handful of Irish artists, musicians, and composers, published Aisteach, a fictional history of an Irish avant-garde. This alternative tradition consists of an ‘archive’ of Irish avant-gardists who allegedly created art and music in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Including many female and LGBTQ figures, Aisteach builds a more diverse and inclusive history of Irish art and music, which in turn casts a new light both on the real historical past and the present musical and political scenes. Through a detailed examination of Dennehy and Walshe’s compositions, this study aims to illustrate how they evoke alternative memories that fill gaps in Irish history and work through their cultural inheritance to reshape and, in some cases, reaffirm conceptions of national identity

Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo

How do keyboards make music playable? Drawing on theories of media, systems, and cultural techniques, Keys to Play spans Greek myth and contemporary Japanese digital games to chart a genealogy of musical play and its animation via improvisation, performance, and recreation. As a paradigmatic digital interface, the keyboard forms a field of play on which the book’s diverse objects of inquiry—from clavichords to PCs and eighteenth-century musical dice games to the latest rhythm-action titles—enter into analogical relations. Remapping the keyboard’s topography by way of Mozart and Super Mario, who head an expansive cast of historical and virtual actors, Keys to Play invites readers to unlock ludic dimensions of music that are at once old and new