Category: Composition

Patterns in Radical Spectra

Posted on 2nd February 20159th May 2019 by Mark Fell

This paper contextualises my creative practice produced over the past 20 years and discuss how some of the themes arising from this work relate to some of my contemporaries and wider musical and cultural thinking. These works have little or no percussive content yet are still loosely defined as, or considered to be, ‘post-techno’ (I discuss this term below). Here I describe these works, consider my relationships to them, and reflect upon my responses to those works – leading to the installation ‘The Moment of Impact’ (exhibited as part of the Beyond Pythagoras Symposium, March 2014).

Tuning Systems as Processual Material

Posted on 2nd February 20159th May 2019 by Richard Glover (University of Huddersfield)

The scope of this paper is to introduce and present two recent pieces I made for solo keyboard, Contracting triads in temperaments from 12 – 24 (2011) and Similarly spaced triads in temperaments from 12 – 24 (2011), and discuss the manner in which I used various equal-temperaments within a simple iterative framework to explore transformation of a chord pattern.

Strata Sequence: From Musical Rocks to Palaeo-Soundscapes

Posted on 2nd February 20159th May 2019 by Robert Mackay (University of Hull)

Strata Sequence is a body of work comprising a range of creative outputs, including compositions and installations. The work represents a series of collaborations with museums and festivals related by the theme of geology.

The Harmonic Sequencer: Mapping the Harmonic Series to a Sequencer

Posted on 2nd February 20159th May 2019 by Girilal Baars (University of Huddersfield)

This paper discusses a software tool created by the author in MAX. I have created a sequencer that mimics (in reverse) the relationship between the harmonic series and the equal temperament tuning in terms of temporal timing. I will discuss the theory underpinning the software and its implementation.

Strategies for spatial music performance: the practicalities and aesthetics of responsive systems design

Posted on 1st December 20149th May 2019 by Ricky Graham (Stevens Institute of Technology) & Brian Bridges (University of Ulster)

This article will explore practical and aesthetic questions concerning spatial music performance by interrogating new developments within an emerging hyperinstrumental practice. The performance system is based on an electric guitar with individuated audio outputs per string and multichannel loudspeaker array. A series of spatial music mapping strategies will explore in-kind relationships between a formal melodic syntax model and an ecological flocking simulator, exploiting broader notions of embodiment underpinning the metaphorical basis for the experience and understanding of musical structure.

Aural Territories: how phenomenology taught me how to compose electroacoustic spatial music

Posted on 1st December 20149th May 2019 by Frederico Macedo (University of the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil)

In this article I describe the process of creation, performance, and reception of two sets of multichannel pieces - Journey I and II and Night Song I and II - performed as part of Aural Territories: a concert of spatial electroacoustic music. The main philosophical foundation for this experience has been the views on phenomenology as conceived by Merleau-Ponty (2004) and Dufrenne (1973). In these pieces, I explore compositionally three aspects of the interrelationship between sound and space that were fundamental for my theoretical and practical understanding of electroacoustic spatial music: acoustic space, sound spatialisation, and reference.

Audium – sound-sculptured space

Posted on 1st December 20149th May 2019 by Stan Shaff

Audium has established a series of ideas, expanding the layers of controlled sound in space and evolving a paradigm for positioning and listening. Additionally, it has taken a new architectural approach to the performance-space, with a potential for flexibility through a myriad of environmental combinations.

Exploded sounds: spatialised partials in two recent multi-channel installations

Posted on 1st December 20149th May 2019 by Nye Parry (University of the Arts, London)

I discuss two recent sound installations that both explore a spectral sound diffusion technique based on partial tracking that allows individual partials of a sampled sound to occupy individual locations in space. The two installations, The Exploded Sound (60 channels) and Significant Birds (12 channels), use similar techniques and modes of presentation to different ends.

A direct link to the past: nostalgia and semiotics in video game music

Posted on 2nd June 20149th May 2019 by Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey (University of Cincinnati College, Conservatory of Music)

The multimedia nature of video games and the interactivity of the medium create new possibilities and purposes for nostalgia, as Bastion (2011), Fallout 3 (2008), and The Legend of Zelda series (1987 to present) illustrate. In Bastion, composer Darren Korb uses iconic signifiers of nostalgia to create an empathetic response within the player to the in-game character’s longing for a lost world and time. Fallout 3, in contrast, uses the player’s own familiarity with the popular music of the 1930s and ’40s to heighten the destruction of the world after an in-game nuclear war. Finally, The Legend of Zelda series, which made music a major part of its gameplay in Ocarina of Time, uses music indexically and symbolically in Twilight Princess to prompt a nostalgic response within the player that mirrors the response apparently felt by the main character in the game, Link.

Introduction: Temporalities in contemporary music

Posted on 1st March 20139th May 2019 by Richard Glover (University of Huddersfield)

Issues of temporality remain close to many musical discussions, yet there remain comparatively few sustained theses on the subject. In particular, contemporary and experimental musics, which can offer radically unique temporal experiences, provide many rich untapped sources for scholarly investigation. Often, research stops short of examining the actual experience, rather falling back to focus upon what information can be drawn from the score, or the compositional intentions behind a piece. But what is the relationship between these composed designs, and individual temporal experience?