Array Margaret Schedel and Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz, editors Jen Wang, designer Contents

The International Association ICMC 2004 Keynote Address...... 3 Jean-Claude Risset Officers President: Perry Cook (USA) Vice President (Membership): Bonnie Miksch (USA) ICMC 2004 Concert Reviews...... 10 Rosemary Mountain, Concert 5 Vice President for Conferences: Gary Scavone (Canada) Momilani Ramstrum, Concert 13 Vice President for Asia/Oceania: Ho Chee Kong (Singapore) Jeffrey Treviño, Concert 15 Vice President for the Americas: Gary Scavone (Canada) Vice President for : Leigh Landy (UK) Treasurer/Secretary: Andrew May (USA) Interview Series ...... 21 Array Editors: M. Schedel and J. Bernard Merkowitz (USA) Jeffrey Treviño vs. Chris Chafe Music Coordinator: Michael Alcorn (UK) Research Coordinator: Georg Essl (Germany) Gender and Computer Music (An Invitation)...... 32 Web Publications Coordinator: Hans Timmermans (Netherlands) Margaret Schedel and Gregory Taylor Music Publications Coordinator: Ian Whalley (New Zealand)

Board of Directors 2006-2007 Composing to Subvert Content Retrieval Engines ...... 37 At-Large Directors Nick Collins Michael Alcorn (UK) Perry Cook (USA) Why Haven’t I Written About the Pieces Played at ICMC...... 43 Margaret Schedel (USA) Leigh Landy John P. Young (USA) Americas Regional Directors Andrew May (USA) Festival Reviews ...... 46 Steven D. Beck (USA) Brian Kane: Spark Asia/Oceania Regional Directors Douglas Geers: Midwest Ho Chee Kong (Singapore) Naotoshi Osaka () CD Reviews ...... 55 Europe Regional Directors Robert Denham: Petri Kuljuntausta, Momentum Hugues Vinet () Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz: Rodrigo Sigal, Space Within Hans Timmermans (Netherlands) Book Review ...... 61 Non-Elected Positions Joseph W. Hupchick: Arun Chandra, ed. When Music Resists Meaning: ICMA Administrative Assistant: Sandra Neal (USA) The Major Writings of Herbert Brün. Accounting: DeVera Long (USA) ICMA Webmaster: Toine Henvelmans (Netherlands) array ICMC Keynote Address Jean-Claude Risset winter 2006 and transform musical sounds through itself to reproduction. Rather than computation, using processes similar arguing—we shall have several round ICMC 2004 Keynote Address to those used for texts, images and table discussions—I shall try to make my COMPUTING AND gestures. This has brought new creative point by presenting a number of brief COMPOSING potentialities, which have only barely been examples (in particular of my own work) to SOUNDS touched upon. illustrate new musical situations that only the computer made possible. Jean-Claude Risset Mathews, here playing his radio baton, first performed digital recording In my discussion of computing and and computer sound synthesis in Bell Fig. 2 Risset, Mathews, Pierce, 1965 composing sounds, I shall talk about (1) Editor’s note: Risset’s keynote was originally Laboratories in 1957. shaping or sculpting sounds, (2) associating accompanied by audio and visual aids that Thanks to the quest for creative innovation sounds and images, (3) controlling music cannot be reproduced here. Therefore, the led by engineers and avant-garde through gestures, and (4) composing text has been slightly modified; however, the composers, the computer has been able sounds for perception. descriptions of the sounds remain. to develop exciting novel possibilities. Resorting to the computer has brought First, let us consider shaping or sculpting I am pleased and honored to speak here new ways to extend the sonic vocabulary sounds. Clearly, sounds and music can be and now at ICMC, 40 years after David of music. generated according to various models, Wessel convened the first computer as exemplified long ago by the late Iannis music conference. Computer music has The digital domain has remained marginal Xenakis. Digital processes of various kinds expanded over the entire world, but in music for several decades. Today, digital can be used to generate sounds; this is the it was born and reared in the United processes are central in the dissemination basis of the process of “sonification,” also States. I come from France; France has Fig. 1 Max Matthews with his radio drum of existing music through CDs, and, discussed at this conference. One can set become very active in computer music, more recently, mpeg coding, which is used up situations that seem contrary to the as witnessed by IRCAM and GRM in Mathews was helped and protected by John extensively on the web. This is fine, but rules of physics. For instance, digital filters Paris, and other centres such as GMEB Pierce, who directed research at Bell Labs. digital technology should not be restricted can be non-causal. In the following sound in Bourges, GRAME in Lyin, ACROE Pierce pioneered traveling wave tubes, to the reproduction of the existing. As example, bird’s caws will excite resonant in Grenoble, and GMEM and LMA- PCM, satellite communication, and coined Varèse liked to say, new materials permit filters. The response follows the excitation, CNRS in Marseille. I am grateful to the the word transistor. He is in the center of and call for new architectures. With but the response can be made to precede United States, where I made most of my this photograph, along with Mathews, Jim plastics, one can do better than just fake the excitation as well. own research contributions. Tenney (the first composer in residence at wood; the quest of novelty is more exciting Bell Labs), and myself. I succeeded Tenney than the task of mimicking. The creative Computer music permits one to do both For almost half a century now, the in 1964 to explore the musical possibilities interest is in broadening musical horizons. concrete music (processing recorded computer has been used to generate of computer music synthesis. sounds of acoustic origin) and electronic I make a plea for computer music to music (synthesising sound material with continue to be innovative and not restrict controlled parameters without an acoustic

3 4 array ICMC Keynote Address Jean-Claude Risset winter 2006 source). My own computer music work to avoid sound and image tautologies. can be programmed so as to implement time control of scanned synthesis, a new used mostly synthesis until I realized Sud various models: the organ player model synthesis process invented recently by Max at GRM in 1984. This piece attempts Physical modeling provides natural ways (one gesture, one note), the CD player Mathews and Bill Verplank. to merge musique concrète and electronic to correlate sound and image, as shown model (one gesture, all notes), the "Music music (digital processing and digital in the pioneering work of Claude Cadoz minus one" model, and the - Real-time has enabled the computer to synthesis), and I shall give two examples and Annie Luciani. Solving the equations conductor model. Combining different perform live with instrumentalists and to from it. In the first, the energy flux of for a simple mechanical system gives models provides flexible ways to specify accompany them. Score following was sea waves shapes the mixing of synthetic the following sound result. It is quite performance nuances. It also helps to initiated by , who worked on tones. In the second, harmonic pitch grids characteristic. A vibratory system can study what performers do. We shall hear a his “synthetic performer” around 1981, composed like chords are imprinted upon be modeled in the computer. Solving performance of a brief section of Ravel's and by Roger Dannenberg. In order to any unpitched material. Synthesis and the equations provides time-animated quartet, realized in several successive implement score following more easily, processing are intertwined to generate images and evolving sounds, which bear sessions by two “performers.” Clearly, the developed the MAX hybrid textures. a straightforward relation because of their system allows varied nuances and musical programming environment and used it in common origin in virtual physics. options to come through. works such as Philippe Manoury's Jupiter Now, I shall discuss associating sounds with and Pluto. In the following example from images. Similar controls can be applied Now, I will talk about controlling music In Laboratoire de Mécanique et my piece Echappées, Denise Mégevand plays to both musical sounds and images, through gestures. Performers are essential d'Acoustique of CNRS in Marseille, the celtic harp alone at the very beginning. as exemplified by the late composer to bring life to music. Performance is all- Daniel Arfib and his students study various Then, her playing is amplified thanks to Emmanuel Ghent in his work with Jim important in computer music too. ways to capture gestures and to map them the Max/MSP software. Seawright and the Mimi Garrard Dance into musical parameters. I shall present company. The great artist Lillian Schwartz The gestural control of music can been some brief demonstrations of their work. Working with Scott Van Duyne at the realized several computer films and videos programmed in unprecedented ways. MIT Media Lab in 1989, I pursued with computer music. I shall present an The computer permits one to “map” at First, Fabrice Gagneux plays “virtual the instrument-computer interaction excerpt of the film she realized in 1970 will certain gestures to certain aspects of percussion”—hitting nothing, but not in the acoustic domain, realizing a Duet on my piece Mutations. We shall first see sound. Here one must mention the work of in vain. Virtual percussion can be for one pianist, in which the live pianist is laser beams diffracted through plastics, many pioneers, especially , implemented in various ways. In the accompanied by an invisible partner who briefly interrupted by crystal growth, Jon Appleton (who contributed to the example we just saw, accelerometers follow plays—on the same acoustic —an and then, at the end, colored dots that design of the digital the wrist motions of the percussion player. accompaniment that depends in various move in different places and gather at and who took it on the road), Second, Loïc Kessous uses a graphic tablet ways upon what the pianist plays and how. different times: a process of dispersion (who pioneered interactive composing), as a “voicer” to control a voice-like sound. In the following example, the louder the concentration. This is a process I had used Barry Vercoe, Miller Puckette, and David Third, using the mathematical concept pianist plays, the faster the accompanying in my piece Mutations, where fast tones Zicarelli. of sieve (in French crible), Jean-Baptiste arpeggio—a novel and playful interaction. have occasional rendezvous in pitch and Millien has set the computer to elaborate time. In her film, Lillian Schwartz elected With the hybrid real-time system on his rhythmic suggestions. Finally, Real-time is great, but it can be a mixed to use the same process at a different time, GROOVE, Mathews and Moore have Jean-Michel Couturier has implemented blessing. Works that use it rely on as a counterpoint rather than a harmony, provided a control of the music that a graphic interface for a personal real- advanced technologies that are often both

5 6 array ICMC Keynote Address Jean-Claude Risset winter 2006 idiosyncratic and ephemeral. One should on the sound material. Going beyond the Thus, Chowning strongly suggests an David Wessel has shown that hearing be aware that technical obsolescence tends assembly of pre-existing sounds, one can illusory rotation in space in his 1972 work has special ways to sort sounds, so that to make these works short-lived. Several apply compositional processes at the sonic Sabelith, and at the same time a continuous a change of timbres may completely works realized on the IRCAM's real- level and literally compose sounds themselves. timbral metamorphosis: unpitched change the melodic structure of an time audio processor 4X can no longer The exploration of synthesis has deepened percussive sounds turn into brassy tones. otherwise unchanged sequence. The be performed. There are maintenance our understanding of the schemes of The loudspeakers are fixed, but for our research of Wessel and others is precious problems even with well-structured auditory perception, and thus unfolded ears the source of the sound does move. to explore timbral space, a space that software. I discovered this morning that new aesthetic possibilities. This leads to a “The illusions are errors of the senses but is continuous and unbound thanks to Wuan Chin-li’s paper in ICMC04 is field of inquiry for which truths of perception,” as Purkinje said, and synthesis. dedicated to the problem of getting the has coined the expression “Sensory “music is meant to be heard,” as Pierre MAX patches of my Duet for one pianist to Aesthetics.” The examples are not recent, Schaeffer liked to say. Clearly, one must take the idiosyncrasies work on his computer. Several pianists but many of you may not know them, and of hearing into account, so that the performed this Duet, but this required I contend that they still hold potential for In the next example, we hear a recording of musical intention is conveyed to the updated documentation, expertise and future developments. A lot of research is soprano Irène Jarsky singing in a rather dry listener. But these oddities of hearing hard work! In contradistinction, pieces for being pursued on hearing, but it is rarely studio. Then, the recording is transformed permit one to construct paradoxical "tape" survive: the process of recording linked with the creation of novel music. in simple ways—by echoes—to make her sound sequences similar to Escher's will always be ported to more recent voice spread into a larger virtual space. paradoxical images. Here, the stream technologies, such as CDs, DVDs, and Computing sounds permits one to escape seems to flow down, yet it reaches a hard disks. Also, real-time operation, great the constraints of mechanically vibrating In his work Turenas, Chowning suggests higher point from which it falls as a for performance, can be hard to resist, sound sources and to take advantages of illusory motions with quasi-graphic cascade. The following sound sequence even though genuine the idiosyncrasies of hearing to give rise to precision, using auditory cues for seems to go down in pitch, yet it is higher implies freeing oneself from the constraints illusions. Chowning and I have used this localization and speed, and in particular at the end. It also seems to slow down; of real-time. possibility, which strongly interests György the Doppler effect. This would be much however, the beat is much faster at the Ligeti. more impressive if instead of stereo we end. (This example also seems to rotate My final chapter—not the least—will could hear the 4-track for which Chowning like the example from Sabelith.) return to elaborating, but specifically composed the piece. for the ear's sake, keeping perception as Synthesis provides sonic material of the constraint and the criterion. I shall Auditory perception is sometimes unprecedented ductility, and this opens present some instances drawn from the unintuitive and surprising. In the next interesting musical possibilities. In the work of John Chowning and from my own example, which is higher, the first or beginning of my piece Mutations, the same work. These examples were realized using the second tone? Listeners usually hear motive is used for melody, harmony and variants of Mathews’s modular “Music- the second tone a little lower - about a timbre. One can then compose timbres N” programs, which enable the user to semitone. However I go from the first just like chords. Synthetic bell-like tones design complex musical sounds in various tone to the second tone, judged lower, by can be turned into fluid textures with ways. Digital synthesis and processing doubling all frequencies—by going up a the same inner harmonies. This is an allow us to perform microscopic control Ligeti, Chowning, Sylvia Fomina and Risset at Stanford's CCRMA. physical octave. intimate transformation.

7 8 array ICMC Keynote Address Rosemary Mountain winter 2006 The four last examples exemplify the many cases, multiple-speaker diffusion is in ductility of the synthetic material. One clear contradiction with the portrayal of a can extrapolate beyond usual values of sonic ICMC 2004 Concert Reviews virtual 3-D space that is more distant than parameters, like Chowning synthesizing University of Miami the sound, and typically viewed through a an extreme basso profundissimo voice. One Concert 5 small, front-centred window. Cadiz neatly can also interpolate, transform, morph; Rosemary Mountain circumvented this entire trap by presenting for his piece Phone, Chowning’s “bells” the visuals, at first, like a kind of typewriter gradually turn into voices. One can also The fifth concert of the ICMC was notation on a two-dimensional surface stage close encounters between instruments one of the most diverse of the week, coinciding with the screen itself. The and synthetic sounds. In the following both in aesthetics and in presentation. manifestation of time was often represented example, instruments appear like filigree It showed the full array of options, by the single placement of images like within synthetic tones. Acoustic sounds including sound+DVD, sound+dance, letters on the page, usually (but not always, are audible traces of a visible world, unlike live+recorded, computer-generated, and thankfully) in sync with rhythmic aspects of synthetic sounds, which only suggest an improvised. There was also a certain the sound. The typewriter analogy gave illusory world—a separate, internal sonic array of quality, but most of the pieces way to a more poetic dance, as lines of the reality that can also be appealing. When held my interest for one reason or another. pattern were initiated from the right side of these realities meet, identity can sometimes the screen and moved left—“backwards” be an enigma, as in this last example, where Id-fusiones by Rodrigo Cadiz was, for for those of us immersed in the “time as the flutist sings into the instrument—flute me, one of the highlights of the week, x-axis” reading mode. Likewise, colour and or voice? Also, the synthetic tones become due mainly to the innovative treatment size lent character to the sonic layers, which quasi-vocal—the voice of whom? of the image-sound correlation. As it were often, but not always, in keeping with becomes increasingly easy to achieve the sonic line. When sound and image diverged, however, one was led to appreciate “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The millisecond coordination between the counterpoint in full anticipation of their musical aesthetic experience is our ears and audio and visual, the number of failing impending resolution into homophony brain. Technology grows according to its attempts to combine them convincingly and/or rhythmic consonance. My ears own logic, but it can provide us with great seems to multiply. The perceptual and brain were particularly attracted resources. Such resources are especially issues involved are still seriously under- to a section of the piece that was filled wonderful when they are tailored to help researched, but one of the most common with individual sonic components whose us explore and enjoy unexplored worlds, factors in producing a sense of poor initial fluctuation was balanced with our inner worlds. That is our task in correlation is the discrepancy between long sustained notes focussed on a single computer music. sound and image space. (As this sense is often subliminal, the auditor/spectator unwavering frequency, reminiscent of may be left with the impression that certain Indian performance aspects. My the piece is simply not very good.) In aesthetic preference for less continuous sonic glides and nebulous frequency masses in favour of more precisely defined

9 10 array Concert Reviews Rosemary Mountain winter 2006 sonic elements was thoroughly indulged that of the technological. Ich, mich und mir was a particular skill in timing in Flutter. bit pretentious in its reliance on extreme in this piece. The visuals themselves were presented a fascinating counterpoint of and almost visceral reactions, which are fascinating for their patterned intricacy. real and virtual bodies, the virtual being Lyon’s Onceathon 2 also boasted recognizable far from the aesthetic designs that I find produced apparently by projections of structures of juxtapositions. What made so satisfying in many musical works. The impact of visual on sonic was perhaps the dancers, often delayed and displaced, the work less appealing to me was not nowhere so startling as at the junction but by varying and unpredictable so much the dissonance between the My appreciation of the effect of the between the first and second works on amounts. The range of sounds and of contrasting segments—“classic” atonal dancers in the first two works of the the show. The audience realized, at the visuals were also in correspondence, interrupting “classic” MIDI keyboard pop concert, and especially the stunning conclusion of Miyuki Ito’s Réminiscence from dramatic gestures to a static-type sounds—but that the pop elements were video of Cadiz, might suggest that I am d’un ancient esprit, that the ominous hooded noise produced by a dancer’s costume noticeably less interesting melodically, dependent on visuals for total involvement figures who stood immobile against the wall and echoed by visual noise on the screen. harmonically, texturally, and timbrally. in the music. The dynamic involvement of stage right throughout were actually waiting (This view was clearly not shared by many performers like flutist Elizabeth McNutt to spring into action for Palindrome’s work Of the four works for flute and computer, in the audience, who seemed particularly also contributes a significant element to the Ich, mich und mir, which followed it. I was three were appealing to me because of delighted at the hodge-podge and the listening experience. However, the “pure” not the only one who had difficulty in their classical roots. They were full of probably defiant sneering at those of electroacoustic pieces by Paulina Sundin trying to retroactively subtract that visual interesting sounds and audible structures. us who prefer beautiful things.) The and Robert MacKay were well crafted and image from the sonic piece, in order to Ainger’s Pacific Variations III presented microscopic nuances of tuning, dynamics, appealing throughout their respectively re-assess the impact of the work as it must its classical structure with appropriately and timing of acoustic instruments are, short durations. Sundin, in particular, have been originally intended, though I will contemporary modifications, sequences, to me, clearly more appealing than the played with the virtual physicality by assume that the composer condoned this and other such techniques applied steady-state, dead sound of electronic some nice uses of spatialization and an “contamination.” (The same phenomenon smoothly and with artistry. Even the pop. The whole piece reminded me of interesting preparation of one section by recurred dramatically later in the week, extended techniques, which often ruin a show of kitsch I saw years ago. At the a sudden cessation of sound after a long when we mistook fireworks outside for such pieces by their contrived placement, end, the wit involved in identifying and swell. It was particularly striking for those off-stage percussion effects in a work by seemed to be organically derived from the collecting the components as “kitschy” was of us who tend to track music’s motion with Brian Bevelander.) Ito’s work was very sounds’ evolution: long, sustained sounds submerged by precisely the unappealing our bodies. Nevertheless, the effect of these emotive, in a way that seemed quite in which faded into the air like butterflies; aesthetics that had earned them the label. recorded works seemed to be dependent keeping with the costumes. It would be and timbral effects (multiphonics, breath in part on their high-quality diffusion in a good point of departure for a study and singing into the instrument) balanced The work Terra Incognita by Frank Ekeberg a large concert hall. The impact of the in sound-image correlations to present not only by the comforting web of multiple relied on less imaginative ways of creating concert as a whole, therefore, provided the the same work with a different stage-set, (and interesting) delays, but also by the dissonance and tension, opening the kind of experience that justified the work such as rosier colours and gentler poses. formal arrangement of the effects into piece with a very short but ear-splitting of the software and hardware developers the multi-movement structure. Rowe’s noise and then teasing the audience with featured for much of the conference. That The Palindrome work maintained the Flutter and Pinkston’s Lizamander were the anticipation of whether we would is precisely the reason that is leading me to quality that I have seen and heard in their less obviously classical in form, but be attacked again. The level of dark, argue in favour of live concerts over the other works; it was striking because the were still musical in traditional ways: brooding apocalyptic mood, created in current state of internet music experiences. quality of the artistic elements matches they had nice embroideries, and there part by low vocal-type sounds, seemed a

11 12 array Concert Reviews Momilani Ramstrum winter 2006 Concert 13 section, the electronics become syncopated, of pallbearers. The video work is complex Both sounds are elaborated, and the sounds Momilani Ramstrum with spatialized and synthesized syllabic and powerful, moving and detailed. Sounds of the violist appear around the room. The duets. The soprano sings sprechstimme. In are simplistic. A man’s voice is taken apart. sounds have clarity, detail, texture, and As I enter, there is a work already in the background are pulsing, synthetic sine “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Candles float pace. The texture and gestures thicken and progress. On three screens are gray metallic tones. The electronics become broader around the screen. “Born again.” quicken. The electronics merge into a roar. bubbling masses surging upward and and slower. The vocal line restarts for the The violist is going so fast that he seems to cascading down. The music is dense, with third phrase, slowly and melodically, with a Solo/tutti by Richard Kapen, for viola be ahead of himself. He stops, plucks, and rising bird and insect sounds over a thick slow electronic fabric behind. There is no (Garth Knox) and live electronics. The the electronics dissolve backwards. The pad of rushing water. A deep rumbling vibrato on the vocals. The fourth part is like violist enters and attaches a wire to his belt. room expands, then calms as the array of bass sound coincides with the vibrating the second, with hocketing and the vocalist There is a large glass music stand. Three violists tune into silence. Perfect fourths— of the bubbles on the center screen. The mimicking the electronics with syllabic loudspeaker monitors face the performer. there is a thin, hesitant new beginning. A textures. The mixture goes back and forth bubbles on the right screen seem fleshy, The composer is seated at his table in hollow echo ringing in the loudspeakers. between smooth and jagged utterances. A or like flesh flowing over lumpy forms. the middle of the hall. The viola begins The hollow ringing moves around the The music shifts from foreground chirps series of increasingly higher notes is imitated loudly and quickly. The electronics are a perfect fourths. A romantic trill and many to background water. All coalesce into by a faint electronic echo. A crescendo of high whine behind the dignified viola. The pizzicato plucks. A few quick, whispered thunder, then dissolve into white noise. texture and sound. The soprano speaks. viola sound emanates from the loudspeaker phrases. The violist keeps looking left, as The surf pounds. The left screen becomes Low rumbles of electronics. Pure high closest to me. The pitch and volume of the if remembering something. Sul ponticello— dripping gray metal. A man is inverted and tones are contrasted with a counterpoint dives into a gray puddle. The water rises in of spatialized, rhythmic electronics and electronics descend. The viola plays slower hollow and metallic, a long, light bowing pitch like a chorus. The chirping slows and textured chordal noise. Omega. End. phases, ending with a long bowed crescendo of fourths. drops. There is a singing noise. The right note. A loud pluck. A bowed note. The screen fades to black. The center bubbles Mirror Story: Graveside by Alicyn Warren, for electronics rise in pitch and volume. Obsessions Delicates by Arne Eigenfeldt, become a smooth gray mass. The chirping soprano (Mimmi Fulmer), video and tape. Phrases are varied slightly, with long pauses for tape. Initial sounds zoom around. spirals around the room as the pitch of the The singer enters, smiling. There is no between subsequent phrases. The bowing Obsessively metallic. Textures close around water rises. The right screen returns to music stand. A screen is behind her. The of the final note of each phrase lengthens. the room. Singing in the background. flesh. The sounds cycle, rising and falling. stage slowly darkens. Clouds of smoke rise The electronics harmonize delicately. All Sounds are transformed with space and The left screen fades out as the pitch rises, on the screen. Dark low chords punctuated fades out, then comes a loud pizzicato note echoes. Metallic hits crash, amplitudes fades, then is cut short. The installation was by metallic synthetic tones glissando on the viola. Another softer pizzicato note increase. Objects become larger, sound is entitled Friction Sticky Rough and was by Fred upwards. The soprano deliberately looks begins frenzied sequences in the electronics. embodied. Giant toys. Rattles fade away, Semanski. around. Organ chords, chants, fleeting A pause, then more soft pizzicato on the and giant sizes dwindle to human. prayers. Second psalm. Images of trees, viola. An eerie echo in the electronics. The Terma by Craig Walsh, for soprano (Stella graves. The synthesizer tones are out sounds are subtle and shaped. The plucked Synthecisms No. 6, by Brian Bevelander, Markov) and CD. After the first electronic of place. A powerful voice is distorted. notes increase in rhythm. The synthesized for percussion ensemble (University of phrase, the soloist begins a slow melodic Image of rain on the graves. There are sounds echo with variations. Short phrases Miami Percussion Ensemble) and tape. line in Greek. The electronics fade to some distortions in the sounds. Footsteps on the viola are captured and spatialized. Six percussionists: one marimba, two accompaniment. At the end of the first vibraphones, tom set, gong, bass drum

13 14 array Concert Reviews Jeffrey Treviño winter 2006 and timpani, timpani, marimba, and percussionist has regular beats, but the Ending the piece alone, the flowing qin is I am seduced, and I believe that metal tom set. The tape begins slowly, with electronics do not. Bongos. Five timbres: weightless. can resonate that long. He returns to pointillistic timbres. Scales up and down two small cymbals, two metal lampshades, continuous percussion and the electronics on the xylophone and marimba. It is one set of bongos, electronics, and tamtams. Mellipse 2 by Mara Helmuth and Allen intensify. I think. Not sure how sound is the beginning of a symphonic work. An A rattling rhythm is contrasted with regular Otte, for percussion (Allen Otte) and tape. made at all. I am left not knowing what expansive start with a slow swell, then an beats and no syncopation, all even rhythms, The solo percussionist is caged behind is real, and unable to trust my own mind. ebb. A beautiful timbral portrait. It hangs with rests and longer notes at the ends of metal objects. Triangles, metal cymbals The work makes me believe in a new almost motionless on the concert stage. phrases. Interesting, strongly contrasted and gongs are suspended in front of him world of extended resonant metal over a There is an expectation of something timbres. later said that he liked in a metal frame. He swims in metal. The lifetime of my own experience. Later, the greater about to appear, furthered by a how this piece set up constraints and stayed percussionist is ringing a bell without percussionist said that he created his part sporadic low booming sound. Everything within those bounds—that it was a mature stopping. There is natural phasing. I as a response to the electronic tape that fades without having gone too far. The piece. When I asked James Harley about think the electronic part has begun. Time Mara had composed, purposely blurring low booming that I thought was a part of the piece, he said that it was missing a layer shifts as the tapping of metal swerves to the borders between their sounds. This the piece is continuing after the applause of processing of the live sounds. a different suspended cymbal. Now I am work was the highlight of the evening. has stopped. There is a musical event sure the electronics have started, because with fireworks outside that we hear in there is a high ringing tone not connected the concert hall, probably the Young Les Forges de l’Invisible by Elizabeth Anderson, for 8-channel tape. Two squiggling parts, to the force of the percussionist. There Republicans Club. It was an effective part are ambiguous transitions between the Concert 15 of the work, though I had wondered how vibrating textures, bells chime, rushing and retreating. Space sounds whir around tape and the performer that question Jeffrey Treviño the composer had gotten the floor to shake reality. For an instant I’m sure, then I’m without blowing out the loudspeakers. the room like a science fiction film. Night star sounds, the gravity of stars are placed not. The dominant sound is the metal The concert began with Adrian Moore’s around the atmosphere. There is a rumbling tamtam and the suspended cymbal. The Dreaming of the Dawn (listed incorrectly in Chaotika by James Harley, for percussion of outer space or a forest fire circling the percussionist skillfully dances with the the afternoon’s program as Dreaming of the (Rod Thomas Squance) and tape. Zipping building. Crickets or metallic planes blare percussion, bringing a metal cymbal that Drum), a large-scale, multi-section piece for sounds increase in pitch and density. with heat. Glossy intrigue. Silence for five is not suspended close in order to shift to eight loudspeakers originally commissioned Metallic hits. The lights are still on, so we seconds, then a loud restart. Long, phasing another instrument. Now, the sound has by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in aren’t sure if this is the piece. The sounds sounds over singing crickets. Expansive moved to the side loudspeakers and the 2003. The composer felt it appropriate stop and a few in the audience clap. Harley swirling attack. Everything fades except for electronics are obvious. A gong signals the to remind the audience of the work’s stands and says that Gregory Cornelius the crickets. switch to a buildup of pitch density, texture inspiration before its diffusion, because collaborated on the piece. The sounds and amplitude. The electronics hover on the title of the piece is drawn from Emily zip and restart, and the percussionist the edge of consciousness, extending and Dickinson’s poem “Dreams—are well—but Qin Music by Christopher Ewing, for qin stands. He hits two metal objects that elaborating the bell resonances. I’m not Waking’s better.” Mr. Moore first read the and computer. The delicate tones of the look like lampshades. They make varying sure if I am imagining the sounds on a hot eponymous poem aloud to the audience. qin are quiet and engaging. The computer’s pitched hollow metal sounds. The volume shimmering day, or if they exist outside of His reading was met with contemplative sine tones quickly and seemingly randomly increases. The rhythm is steady on twelve myself. A bored scream, a rubber mallet silence, and the concert seemed off to a obscure the ethereal sounds of the qin. beats, then varying and accelerating. The is dragged over the gong. Repeatedly, fairly solemn and meditative start—until

15 16 array Concert Reviews Jeffrey Treviño winter 2006 Moore said under his breath (to some engaging, iterative process of expression. in time and space. The piece left me Certain electroacoustic traditions try tittering) as he returned to his seat, “Don’t The composer has compared the local with a variety of memorable experiences, to create a virtual acoustic space by ask me what it means.” detail at any given moment in this piece to ranging from poignant (a brief cloud of masking the existence of eight discreet driving a stick-shift car. However, although responses ending with “What is memory?” sound sources and the room in which Although many found Moore’s the piece might be careening recklessly followed by a particularly sparse moment) they diffuse. A venue like a church can comment funny, it pointed to a dogged through an amazing variety of altered to delightfully absurd (“Who is Wagner?” leave the art and its presentation space at creative struggle, intertwined with the orchestral timbres—beautiful sounds in followed immediately by “Who is The cross purposes (and, according to several comprehension of the poem, that is an their own right—it pauses occasionally to Flying Nun?” heard across the room). composers’ opinions following the concert, original quality of this work and others reconsider its path and begin anew. This did so). Fortunately, the program’s fourth by Moore. As François Couture has music is beautiful because it expresses an As an American from Bakersfield, CA— piece, Christopher Cook’s The Castle impossibility of precise expression through said of Moore’s work (and specifically the country music capitol of the American of Otranto for live trombone and tape, a series of masterfully calculated, ardently of his piece Sieve), “The large number West and the cradle of Buck Owens’s deviated significantly from such traditions. executed, and subsequently abandoned of sound sources used and the constant “Bakersfield Sound”—I appreciated the The trombonist entered the stage after outpourings. The composer reproduces analysis the listener must do to relate next piece, Chapman Welch’s TELE, the piece began with tape alone, pausing them to their manipulated counterparts Dickinson’s poem and discusses the work which was a monumental salute to one of to look up at a gigantic illuminated cross make for a busy, rich, exhausting work. as a search for a meaningful structure here: the genre’s most auspicious axes. A tribute hanging at the front of the church’s central [Sieve] leaves an impression of fulfilling http://www.shef.ac.uk/~mu1ajm/docs/ to jazz, rock, country, and rockabilly guitar knave. From this point on, the soloist creativity.” Although the former part dreaming.html. virtuoso Danny Gatton (known to fans as engaged in a series of theatrical gestures of this assessment is true of much good “The Master of the Telecaster”), the piece , the latter part is not, The next work on the program, one thousand reminiscent of Luciano Berio’s trombone and I too was left with the sense that the and seven hundred and fourteen questions by features several of Gatton’s signature guitar Sequenza, only with a more explicitly creation of DotD was a deeply involved and Michael Gurevich and Lindsay Manning, techniques—chicken pickin’ (playing each programmatic point of departure. The probing artistic endeavor. was a testament to the effectiveness of note with both pick and fingers), open- trombonist seemed to represent the hero simple in the face string rolls, and slide guitar techniques—as of the Gothic novel treading carefully So how exactly does one create a piece of the human psychological apparatus. well as several more common vernacular through a haunted castle, and the piece of music that leaves the impression of a The idea is straightforward enough: over electric guitar extended techniques, such reveled in the instability of the taped fulfilling creative process? The answer, a thousand contestant responses from the as volume swells and tremolo picking. Also response to the soloist’s stimuli. Cook took in this case, lies most apparently in the popular American game show Jeopardy! (in remarkable was an effective deployment of advantage of the highly directional nature relationship between the large-scale formal the form of questions, according to game that oft played out but frequently effective of the trombone’s sound by placing three structure and the more local development rules) were diffused into eight channels, dichotomy between “human” sounds and microphones left, right, and center of the within a given section of the piece. Save a with a sum decrease in the density of “machine” sounds: Welch juxtaposes his soloist’s bell, to allow and make visually few disruptive suffocations due to sudden responses as time went on. The piece’s warm, analog, human virtuosity with apparent the soloist’s transgression into bouts of digital silence between sections, effective moments—and some of them digital sounds like noise and sine tones the virtual space of the loudspeakers. the entire multi-movement work seemed were very effective, though they were few to create what seemed, at times, to be a The result was an observable joy of to be, like Dickinson’s hyper-articulating and far between—came from the mind’s dueling relationship between soloist and ventriloquism, brought on by the soloist’s punctuation in the original poem, an propensity to associate events by proximity accompaniment. ability to map his sound easily onto various

17 18 array Concert Reviews Jeffrey Treviño winter 2006 combinations of the eight loudspeakers. I don’t know what this means, but I’m fairly and it is unfortunate that they were heard Although the theatricality seemed a bit sure it’s political; the piece of music, on the in an environment as soupy as a church. stilted at first, the final gesture—in which other hand, was a recording of someone the soloist loses hope, stops playing, and driving somewhere. At the outset, a Considered as a concert event in its hangs his head in despair while sitting on collage of brushed garments, propositional own right, this was a show marked by the steps to the altar—was marvelously speech, and intimate breaths created an an amazing diversity of compositional executed by trombonist William Bootz. atmosphere of anxious waiting in advance goals, materials, and media. Considered If the content of the tape part aspired to of an engaging narrative trajectory. That as a single event in a weeklong festival of capture the supernatural element inherent this trajectory turned out to sound like an our organization’s activities, I take great in the genre of the piece’s program, the uneventful recording of an uneventful car pleasure in reporting that this diversity loudspeakers’ sounds bore too close a trip from point A to point B was wholly is representative of most of the concerts resemblance to others heard at this festival disappointing. Although I admire the heard throughout the conference. It was a (in less intentionally eerie contexts) to be composer’s sense of experimentation in joy to hear such an assortment of projects, effective. This, however, is more a criticism the context of certain politicized traditions, and I can hardly wait to hear what these of much of electroacoustic music’s propensity to represent unstable, negative, with experimentation comes the possibility composers come up with next. and ambivalent states than it is of the sonic of failure, and this one failed in more ways choices in this particular piece. than it succeeded.

The next piece, Ivica Bukvic’s Legisonitus The concert finished with Yu-Chung #1: Gone in 8 Minutes, came with a concise Tseng’s Burning Up, an homage to Iannis and heady program note attached, which I Xenakis’s use of hot coals in Concrete PH reproduce here in full: that engineers natural sounds from sampled instrument sounds. The direction of the Posing as one of the most polarized eleven-minute piece seemed to mirror the artifacts through superimposition process of creating the synthesized natural of the extreme right-wing Musique fire timbre: the disparate sounds combined Concrete and sporadic touches of the Cologne dogma, this piece is an over time to form an ultra-clear digital experiment in relegating the creator’s representation of the sound of a crackling responsibility to the world of chance fire. Although the form of this piece, as and circumstance, where author’s [sic] well as its author’s description of it, drew final touches but enhance the flavor attention to the timbral processes at work, of the moment preserved in time. most interesting to this audience member were the music’s rhythmic profiles. This That is all. piece contained some of the masterstrokes of spatialized rhythm at the conference,

19 20 array Interview Series JT vs. CC winter 2006 to Dallas for a lush reverb created by a real de Estanford into three recording studios bleeding edge—this is the hemorrhaging space miles away. The team expanded around the Bay Area. The three studios’ edge, sometimes. The duo was an Interview with Chris Chafe, their demonstration for SC01 (Denver, sound outputs were mixed back into a improvisation with Roberto Morales on July 22, 2005 Colorado) to include over 320 channels mariachi band in a concert flute and electronics and me on celletto. Jeffrey Treviño of audio streamed in real-time between hall for the conference attendees. We’ve been doing a lot of weekly playing Denver and Palo Alto. (All the channels together, recording everything we do, so Composer/performer Chris Chafe contained plucked string sounds in delay Composer Jeffrey Treviño, Chafe’s student we have this down to where a lot of our began experimenting with networked lines caused by the network latency.) while at Stanford, caught up with his reactions and musical thoughts just happen musical performance in 1998. In 2002 saw the group’s first successful former professor in Palo Alto on July and we’re having a good ole time; we’re 1999, he received a grant from the multimedia collaboration, with low- 22, 2005. The two discussed Chafe’s going to keep doing that every week. So National Science Foundation to initiate latency video by McGill University’s artistic interests, their relationship to the it made sense in this case to have Roberto the SoundWIRE (Sound Waves on Jeremy Cooperstock. For his senior thesis, SoundWIRE project, and future directions on the California end (since I was traveling the Internet from Real-time Echoes) Stanford undergraduate and SoundWIRE for his work in the realm of networked in Europe), and we just made a date to research group at Stanford’s Center contributor Daniel Walling distributed performance. try this thing out. There was enough for Computer Research in Music his dramatic improvisation ensemble wonderful support on the technical side to and Acoustics (CCRMA). The between and Palo Alto; the JT: The last time we talked, your most get the machines in place and connected group develops sonified evaluations resulting CyberSImps show can be seen recent networked performance project up, but then we discovered that, beyond of network Quality of Service and online at http://ccrma.stanford.edu/ involved piping a mariachi band from the basics, there was a crummy problem experiments in real-time musical groups/soundwire/cybersimps/. In the three different locations around the Bay in one direction where packets were being performance via networks with high spring of 2004, musicians in Palo Alto, Area into a performance at the Audio dropped, and—it’s interesting, maybe this Quality of Service. California; Missoula, Montana; and Engineering Society’s convention in San is a word to the future, you know, for me, Victoria, British Columbia collaborated Francisco. Was that the most recent major note this on a post-it—the thing to really The SoundWIRE project has led to in real-time for a week to determine the event for SoundWIRE? avoid is promising the world to anybody in several notable collaborative real- form of an improvisational composition, a show like this before you’ve actually tried time musical performances via high which was performed at a meeting CC: Almost the last thing. Roberto it for real. And I had that misgiving, so I QoS networks. In 2000, the team’s of CCRMA’s industrial affiliates. Morales and I had a demo when I was told them, “Don’t do any publicity for this real-time networked reverb won the Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kris in Europe about two months ago. I went demo.” You want to say, “Interested and “Most Captivating and Best Tuned” Samuelson joined Chafe and company to the art institute in Zurich, which is forgiving people are allowed to attend,” research demo award at the SC2000 for a summer 2004 collaboration that teamed up with the music conservatory, and it was a good thing I did it, because in supercomputing conference in Dallas, paired the improvisations of two duos and we wanted to find out if you could this case, we really couldn’t spend any time Texas. Chafe played his celletto (an of musicians, one in Palo Alto and the play together as a duo between Zurich and ferreting out the cause of the technical electric cello that he designed and other in , with flowing video of here [Palo Alto, California]. Every time bottleneck. Unfortunately, the audience built) in Dallas, sent the audio back jellyfish and lunar landings. At the Audio you set up for a networked performance was in Zurich, and it was the to-Zurich to CCRMA’s stairwell in Palo Alto, Engineering Society’s October 2004 somewhere, there’s a whole bunch of direction that was dropping, whereas back California, and then sent it back again convention in San Francisco, Chafe and his new problems that you never knew about, to Roberto was great. At that point, we colleagues triangulated Mariachi Cardenal you know. This is still kind of the very just yanked it down to one channel of 48

21 22 array Interview Series JT vs. CC winter 2006 kHz and said, “Okay, we’ll drop a certain the fifteen people or so who were there. JT: But Max and I were physically how crucial is the visual connection in this number of those packets, but at least it’ll They really picked up on it. there. world, too? And I can’t say one thing or play.” And we played like crazy; it was the other. Right now, I think it’s desirable, really fun. The thing that I really cared JT: But you play with him in person a CC: Yeah. Now the question is, could but the musicians, once they’re playing about musically was going great. We could lot. the same thing happen over a network? the music—it’s like the cockpit window really get into our thing. Roberto does this The answer is: the technology is successful on the shuttle: you just want to know if fabulous Max-based processing of his flute CC: A lot, yeah. when it doesn’t matter whether you’re the planet’s really out there, you know? and my cello and everything goes into the physically in the same place or you’re Take that window away, and there’s a Osterizer, and so on—so sometimes you JT: So, do you think you could get remote. So that’s when we’ve gotten there. little less of that assurance. Where we’ve couldn’t tell whether there were dropped that kind of rapport with somebody Now, the past history of our demos, and had ensembles that are less used to purely packets or not…no, seriously, you could whom you’ve never played with in person, maybe the hype of all this, is that we have acoustical cueing (like inhaling breath to tell, and we weren’t playing tight rhythmic- somebody with whom you’ve only played a successful technology, probably, because get a phrase started), where they really based music, either. We were flying over a network? of the kind of high-definition audio that need to have a nod, then you have to cover around all over the place, and we played a we’re doing. And my definition of high- for that. You put in an acoustical nod, good half-hour set that people enjoyed—at CC: Right, good question. So you only definition in this case is multi-channel, otherwise known as an upbeat. These are least they said they did—and we didn’t pay meet them for the first time in a tunnel or uncompressed, uncorrupted, low-latency all questions that we’re feeling our way them to say that. something, and then you start to play. It audio. And all these things kind of add up. through in this new venue. happens all the time when I’m improvising Adding compression adds latency, etc., so JT: So what do you care about that I find other people who do it, too, you just keep it down to the bare bones: it’s And it is a venue; I think it is, anyway. I musically? out of some sort of weird bodily need or here on the computer side, then it comes define it that way, because it’s really not something, and it works, the first time. off the converters, it goes into packets, and like playing in a tunnel. A tunnel has very Well, I saw you and Max Mathews play it goes on the wire, and there’s just nothing describable acoustics. I’ve been hiking CC: In improvisation, it feels like together once—was that the first time you else going on. Just do that with lots of through the underpass of a freeway this it’s working if you have this causal guys had played together? channels, and do it in a distance radius in summer. I think it’s a hundred feet long, development of a piece going on, where which the delay doesn’t impact the type of and it’s just a tube. Normally a river goes one thing leads to another thing, you’re JT: At the Cantor Arts Center? music you’re playing. In Zurich, you’re not through it, but during the summer, hikers building up this kind of forward history in going to play salsa (at least I’m not going to go through it, and it’s really narrow. And the piece, and you’re listening like crazy to CC: Yeah. try), but in Seattle, maybe. So scaling the if you’re in that tunnel, there’s a very each other, right? Roberto and I have that. type of music according to the network’s peculiar acoustic to a conduit like that, There’s a lot of development, there’s a lot JT: Yeah, that was the first time we’d distance radius seems, right now, to be part and that’s part of the sound of what you’re of common vocabulary, and when you’re ever played together— of that definition of high-definition. doing. If you’re in a room together, you finally in it, you’re playing with all those can’t avoid the sound of the room: it’s a elements, and you know you are. So we CC: And it smoked—I mean, it was So if two improvisers meet in this tunnel, physically consistent ambience that has had that going on. It wasn’t just sound great. You know, and everybody picked up no video channel or anything like that, the players and their reflections all in the effects; it was this really strong kind of on it. So it really has a lot to do with just a would it work? And this seems to be the right place. How would you simulate direction, which I think came through to kind of willingness, and some chops. question everybody’s asking right now: that electronically? You’d have to build

23 24 array Interview Series JT vs. CC winter 2006 a tunnel out of a computer music reverb develop that. I think contributions from substantially. I think we had something on the time the delays are bigger than those that includes the regional distance of the various quarters will be necessary to get the order of twenty routers in the Zurich of the listening space of the audience. So delay as part of the acoustic. So we’ve the physically consistent ambience part of experiment. Each router’s delay time is we’re getting there. been playing some of those games, and the technology going right. under a millisecond now, and that’s really that leads to what’s been going on since cool. You’ll probably still have twenty JT: Going back to Max, I was talking the mariachi demonstration for the AES JT: You said that you could have a routers in a lot of these cases, but as the with composer Justin Yang earlier about convention last fall. We’ve been looking shorter delay time to Seattle than you did router delay time decreases, those twenty how we admired the musicality of people at distributed reverb, which allows you to Zurich. In your physical model, then, milliseconds of latency will go away. That like George Lewis and Max Matthews, to form a tunnel surrogate in a computer would you basically change the distance of part gets good, and we have optical-based who build a system or an instrument and music reverb algorithm. The transit time your tunnel based on your latency? router switching and all these things then stop development to take time and from one end to the other is actually coming around the corner—again, not learn how to play it. If you as an artist incorporated in the algorithm, so it’s a CC: Yes. If we wanted the hundred- because of us, but we can use it musically. were to stop at certain points throughout distributed signal-processing algorithm. foot tunnel in all cases, we could artificially And those twenty milliseconds are going the entire development from 1998 on, as It’s a reverberator that has components lengthen the delay to Seattle so that it to be significant for the extremes, for both things have changed, how did “what you on both ends and uses the network as matches the bare-bones delay that you the low latencies in Seattle and the larger would do” change with the technology as part of the delay structure of the reverb. get to Zurich. That’d be one way to do times in Zurich. If Zurich comes down it developed? And, if you do it with multiple channels of the same performance to both directions. from a hundred milliseconds to eighty audio, you can do it in a way that keeps Unfortunately, we can’t go the other way milliseconds, it may not ever get you into CC: I’m hoping to reach that stage the reverberation reflection angles, player (get the Zurich dimension to be as tight this range where you’re really cooking on where, for my less improvisational music, positions, all of that stuff, consistent with rhythmically as the Seattle one) until the rhythmic thing, but when some of the I start to actually structure stuff that the physics. So it would be like going into we figure out how to beat the speed of more local delay times change from fifteen lives only in this disconnected, remote a tunnel. We aren’t really there yet, and light. It’s quite a differential: just over milliseconds down to zero milliseconds, world. That’s part of the musical form, I think that may be another step towards ten milliseconds to Seattle, and just under that puts it into the extremely close range. and it becomes one of the things that making this venue become even more of a hundred to Zurich. That’s what we’re That’s less than the five feet between I’m designing with musically. So the a natural performance space. Finally, dealing with on these round planets, darn us talking; that’s five milliseconds. And technology needs to sit still enough for me though, if I walk into a tunnel with a it. that was what happened with Mariachi to reach a point at which I can play with new player, and we just start playing, I Cardenal de Stanford at the AES those designs. It’s exactly put the way you think our performance is enhanced by JT: And you don’t think that that’s convention. That was the first time we had said it. But I haven’t had that opportunity the fact that our interactions in the same going to get any faster? actually heard a distributed ensemble for yet. I haven’t written specifically for this space are physically meaningful, even if which the radius, in terms of the acoustical medium, let’s say, whereas I guess I’ve the space is synthetic. I should probably CC: It will, slightly. The basic speed delay between the ends of the ensemble, got projects going on for other media do the experiment with a willing stranger law is at work here, but what’s been nice was much smaller than the room that we that are sitting still, and I’m having that under that freeway sometime, just to see, is that—for reasons other than music, were listening in. It was like a little egg kind of enjoyment. I haven’t reached but I probably won’t. It’s more likely that obviously—people have been gnawing inside this bigger natural room, the concert the point at which you cease the technical we’ll do it between here and, who knows, away at the transit times on the Internet, hall that the audience was in. That was introspections, the “make it work” part, Los Angeles or some place. So we have to so that these router delays are shrinking kind of inside out for me, because most of and really get into the musical materials.

25 26 array Interview Series JT vs. CC winter 2006 JT: When you say that you eventually sets and dress them up musically so that, learning about are some underpinnings cover for that. On the other hand, Daniel want to make the remote and disconnected using your musical listening, you can pull of the psychophysics of this weird beast, Walling’s CyberSImps show, done a couple tangible in these projects, it sounds out patterns from these data sets. This is the ensemble. We often study players in years ago, is a perfect example of a form like a potential outgrowth of your Ping interesting in and of itself, because you can isolation, but ensembles are really different that came out of separating the ensemble project and other collaborations with use it to better appreciate the dynamics of beasts. They have these coupled behaviors and crafting improv sketches that took UC Berkeley’s Greg Niemeyer. Can you some sort of system. But for me, in those that I don’t know much about myself, and advantage of the fact that they’d been split talk about the connections between your pieces, it’s much more about the music I don’t think these have been teased out apart between Los Angeles and here. That networked improvisations, projects like that comes out of them, because they’re terribly well elsewhere. So as soon as we was a major tour de force on the technical Ping, and the idea of making tangible not all that different from the equations stick a wire in the middle and cause that side, for him to get that going, but he closed something that’s normally not? that I play with and jam with, which, separation, we’ve exposed some of the the technology and then started working in their first principles, really resemble dynamics of those ensembles. But better on the show. And that was great. That’s CC: There are four projects with Greg the chaotic systems that are going on in to understand it a little bit before I go too really what you want to see happen more Niemeyer in which we’re making tangible an Internet traffic simulation. So the far in tweaking this behavior to my own in the future, too. We will. some sort of flux that’s inherent in really artistic perspective I have on sonification nefarious needs. That’s going to happen, commonplace stuff, but not apparent. In music is, again, really different from too, but it’s a little bit like violin acoustics: JT: So what’s going to happen next Ping, it was the behavior of network traffic. this kind of perspective that I’ve got on a lot of time is spent trying to make a with all this? Everybody’s got these wires running the telecommunications stuff right now. software violin from algorithms that around them, and there are packets flowing These are worlds that will probably couple sounds exactly like the real thing. Well, CC: I don’t know exactly what’s up, all the time, but we’re not really aware of together at some point—who knows, at the that’s going to be hard to do, and we’re although it seems to involve a couple points all the funny rhythms and intricacies of moment? I’d love to see that. It would be not going to get there any time soon. But in Europe. The folks in Zurich would like traffic jams on the Internet. That wasa really fun to know what that means. the research itself is very informative. The to do something else, if we get it figured way of making that tangible. Also like closer you get, you pull out answers, which out. There’s a really neat possibility that that was the Oxygen Flute, which monitored JT: So right now, it is really more of a then become modules for manipulation. the group in Belfast, Ireland at Queens carbon dioxide levels in a plant growth telecommunications project. You can create weird violins with tuba University, will start to do some stuff with chamber. You walked in, and you became sprouts on them. We do that, obviously. a new group starting there. This group is sensible of your gas coming in and out CC: Pretty much. You can sort of look It’s that dual nature of research and fun to describe, on two fronts, because it of your mouth and exchanging with the over the hill in your imagination and say creation. I go into the research to learn has a little bit of its technical motivation, leaves and bamboo inside the chamber. It what this might be, in terms of new musical more about the goods that we’re going to but it is really more than that. On one makes tangible a very necessary exchange avenues and forms and fun music to make. play some games with later, and I think front, there have been collaborating haptic going on in our world: we breathe because At the first go-round, benchmarking it this distance stuff is really still in that first instruments coming out of that group. plants breathe, and we wanted to make against reality is an important thing to do, stage, you know; we don’t know enough They control synthesis with extremely that kind of tangible as well, to bring it to too. Say I’m going to split an ensemble to start playing. The technology is not simple stuff, like stirring your finger in a the surface. into two rooms, have these folks either in done, by any stretch of the imagination. pan of little pebbles, and the music that different parts of the country or different Dropping packets one way on the Zurich you get from the system fits that motion. If you look at those projects, they’re in parts of a building, and find out what thing: that’s broken, that’s just absolutely It’s absolutely simple: a microphone pickup the sonification world. They take data happens to ensemble playing. What we’re not ready, and we have to find out how to on the stones—not tracking every stone, or

27 28 array Interview Series JT vs. CC winter 2006 anything like that. And the sound is really you start this whole interest? “Okay, you have this odd idea of sending has the possibility of reflections. All of a good. Now, the question is: what happens MIDI data from one place to another.” Of sudden, it became a full-fledged medium, if you have one tray of stones on one CC: It was a lot of fun for me right at course, lots of people had been working on just like air, water, or earth: you bang on side, one on the other, and you cross their the outset, actually, probably because I was this, but I hadn’t really spent much time it, and it reverberates. I took that interest synthesis and send it across the network? a Ham Radio operator when I was kid. in the shower thinking about it before. I to a networking group at NSF that I’d just You have networked moving pebble music. was doing a lot of music with feedback learned about and said, “Hey, we can use That has haptics, sound synthesis, and JT: It all makes sense. algorithms, particularly in MIDI, and I these funny reverberating impulses to listen some ensemble questions to it. I think realized, “Okay, you could just get a couple to Quality of Service on the Internet. A those experiments are just ripe, ready to CC: Who’s out there, CQ, CQ—is Disklaviers, and you could have a feedback slightly changing delay time is going to go. We don’t need fancy stuff; we can use anybody listening? I think I told you this, loop, and then they’d both blow a fuse; it’d create a pitch change, or a dropped packet kind of a bare-bones signal transport to get but it was literally instigated by a woman, be really fun.” I immediately translated is going to create some kind of crusty that going. On the second front, both of Elizabeth Cohen, who was working with that into an audio picture, which is more string sound.” And the proposal floated, our groups are starting to work with large- the Audio Engineering Society as president of what Betsy was talking about. What if which surprised the heck out of me, and array multi-channel surround-sound-type during that time. Betsy had been part of you had a feedback loop, but it was audio it actually turned out to be really out on things. At Belfast, they have a concert a group who had been just commissioned feedback? It would incur this network a limb for that networking group. But it hall with a grid floor, a couple hundred to look at how Internet2 might serve the delay, and, with regular deliver and high turned out really good, because we had a seats, and they can surround them with an audio community. Lo and behold, after signal quality, you’d have a delay line. lot of students join this project. They did all array of loudspeakers, including under the looking into that for a bit, they happened That immediately grabbed me as a weird this fabulous work to set up the streaming, floor, and you can joystick sounds around to note that the AES and Internet2 fall way to make a plucked string. You can use which was really hard to do in 2000. It a full-sphere projection. With the pebbles meetings were both in San Francisco at the this delay line in a simple physical model, took a lot of special code and inventiveness folks, and some of their new ideas, they’re same time and, coincidentally, something and if you can use it in a simple physical to get low latency streaming, and we got going to be joysticking in haptic ways. like a block apart. So Betsy said, “You model, you can use it in anything. It’s a it going. It was great. Next, we started You’re going to have a very tactile sense can’t miss this opportunity. We want to delay line. I was also kind of going around using our system to split ensembles. We’ve of this ambience as well as an instrument cross-connect engineers from both sides and proselytizing at that point in time that always had this dual nature in the project. that you can feel; it touches back to you, it and talk about the problems.” She called delay is everything, and not just because One side of it is experimenting in this odd responds. So it’s a full-picture thing. We me up and said, “By the way, CCRMA of my administrator side of life. The acoustical medium called the Internet, just installed a room that has a hole in the should be there and do a demo.” I said, idea is: all wave motion that we’re used and the other is fun with ensembles. It floor like that, too, so the idea is to connect “Oh great,” you know, and to, except for direct sound (which is almost hasn’t really changed. That’s the telecom these kind of full-picture things over the and, “What do I have for this?” There’s completely missing in a lot of the things answer. The telecom approach to me is, network, doing music that can tolerate the this basic tenet that I was taught years ago: that we do), everything that makes a pitch, “Eyes open, what are the qualities of this hundred-millisecond delay one way, and don’t do a demo that makes music sound everything that has an echo, anything weird, acoustical medium?” It’s certainly getting the haptics involved. These are all worse. So I bagged it. I said, “No, there’s that has rhythmic systems—anything—is different from air; there’s no doubt pretty happening, I think. nothing here. I don’t have anything to all based on time delay. I was trying to about it. As far as I can tell, it’s the only show.” But it got the wheels turning, and hammer this into some of my teaching. medium that has a varying speed of sound, JT: Since it was a telecommunications this was at the right point in other work I also began thinking of the Internet as although air may be changing a little bit problem and not a musical one, why did that I was doing; I was trying to figure out, kind of a weird acoustical medium that over certain time scales. The Internet

29 30 array Interview Series Margaret Schedel winter 2006 is jittery. You don’t want it to be jittery. Recently, Harvard University President When we’re trying to do these shows, we Lawrence Summers issued an apology Letter from the Editor try to factor that out, but its nature is that for comments he made at an academic it’s jittery. The other weird thing about it conference on women and science Over the past twenty years, Array has is that it’s asymmetrical. And that’s more suggesting that “innate differences” been a reflection of the interests and like a violin top plate, actually, because the between the sexes may account for fewer issues surrounding the International speed of sound along the grain and across numbers of women in elite math and Computer Music Association. the grain is different; but end-to-end, bi- science academic positions. This created Periodically, the editors of Array have directionally, I don’t know if there are a firestorm in the media, and many focused on the status of women in any media that are asymmetrical like that articles were written containing possible computer music. It has been seven years besides the Internet. So it’s this kind of explanations as to why the percentage of since the publication of Bonnie Miksch’s funny beast that we’re just playing games women earning doctorates in science and letter and the responses to it from women with right now. That’s the short answer, engineering is considerably higher than working in the field of computer music. told long. the percentage of women professors. Continuing in this tradition, I have asked Gregory Taylor to write an open Computer music straddles two worlds: letter to the community, and I invite science and art. The number of women responses to his letter. Some people were in academic positions in art and music concerned by my choice—they thought is much higher than in science and I should have invited a woman to write engineering, but there is still a bias toward a statement about the female gender. I men in the arts. Of the 861 works that strongly believe that the lack of equality Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & is not just a women’s issue; it affects all Company offered over three days starting members of the community. Gregory May 10 2004, a mere 13 percent were Taylor is an advocate for women in by female artists. Sixty-one pieces were the field, programming many works by assigned an estimated price of $1 million women on RTQE, a radio program of or more; of those, only 6 were by women. electronic, classical, ethnic, improvised Of course, the fields of art and music are and that has aired on vastly different, and it is difficult to put a Sunday evenings in Madison, Wisconsin value on art. I mention this case merely to since 1987. He has studied feminist show a concrete example of difference in theory and has a unique perspective on gender and the arts. the computer music community because of the diversity of his background. Computer music exists at the intersection of the two male-dominated fields of science and art, resulting in a subgroup that inherits

31 32 array Gender and Computer Music Gregory Taylor winter 2006 stereotypes from both parents. Gregory Thoughts on Gender and music no longer involves negotiating Similarly, what effects might the arrival Taylor postulates that Open Source, iPods, Computer Music limited access to a small number of centers of new approaches toward intellectual Intermedia and Millennials will be the key Gregory Taylor of physical, intellectual and social capital. property associated with Open Sourcing, to equality among the sexes. Much progress Although the Open Source movement such as Creative Commons, have on the has been made over the past twenty years, I am honored (if a little surprised) to be is of recent vintage, computer musicians landscape of computer music practice for but I am still hearing stories of sexism invited to say a few things about gender and were among the first groups to make use the community and the for the individual from young women who are just entering computer music. For one thing, it provides of freely available source code for the composer herself ? the field. From conversations stopping me with the instructive dilemma that purpose of creating music (cf. Cmix), and when young women enter the room, to gathering one’s thoughts and commenting that list of programs has now expanded Composition itself is and largely remains overheard gossip about women’s husbands on the history through which one has to include software tools such as Pd and a private and personal undertaking, programming their computers for them, to moved always provides (I am old enough SuperCollider, among others. While some whose results are mediated through a set noticing a distinct lack of representation to recall the original ICMA meetings that feminists view the Open Source movement of complex social interactions whereby at the higher-level conferences, women began this public discussion). I am sure as crucial to the task of empowering music is distributed, received, experienced, are still being discriminated against in that there are many of you who are flush women and their communities in the discussed and appreciated. While the computer music community. It may with harrowing or amusing tales of what developing world (based upon its low cost various parties have worked to create not be the blatant sexism of the past, but has not changed, and who can also bear and the ability to modify source in ways that wider opportunities in these interactions worrisome conditions still exist. I believe witness with greater skill than I to the string “localize” or tailor the software to specific as currently constituted, we are seeing we, as men and women straddling the dual of victories—modest or otherwise—won communities), I’d like to suggest that it shifts away from historical mechanisms disciplines of art and technology, need by patient, sustained work and attention. may be interesting to consider questions for “vetting,” producing and distributing to carefully mentor the next generation I’d like to briefly mention some things I see of gender and the Open Sourcing of music, as well as the rise of “iPod culture” of women composers and researchers to as emergent features in the landscape since software in a more general context—that as a default mode of listening—a shift ensure equality in the future. I encourage the 1990s, and to wonder aloud about of intentional communities formed around away from the traditional modes and sites all readers to respond with their own how, if at all, they might represent vectors the use of common tools. This slight shift for listening, which involve the gathering of replies to Gregory’s statement. These of change and opportunity for computer in emphasis allows us to consider how the communities who agree to listen together, statements will be published in a future music as an en-gendered enterprise. These emerging Open Source movement might toward experiences that are simultaneously edition of Array. changes can be summed up with four change the gender dynamics of computer public (wherever we sit with our recent neologisms: Open Source, iPods, music in ways that are qualitatively headphones on) and private (what we’re Thank you, Intermedia and Millennials. different from user communities organized listening to). I believe that the challenge Margaret Schedel, Array Editor around the use of proprietary or lies not only in working to encourage It is neither surprising nor novel to commercial software, where common use diversity in the current modalities of note that technological advances and does not necessarily imply the access or the the computer music community, but improvements have changed the face ability to engage in the transformation of in thinking about what these shifts in of computer music practice, and that a these shared tools at a low level. To what enabling technologies and new forms of similar shift has occurred with respect to extent do Open Source communities share production, distribution and attention the software tools used to create music on features with more traditional software suggest. Are we looking at the beginnings these machines. The creation of computer communities in terms of gender analysis? of a discourse that allows us to surround

33 34 array Gender and Computer Music Gregory Taylor winter 2006 ourselves with voices and objects we agree shifts in goals and norms that might Intermedia work and practices could be with, to engage more easily in the guilt-free best be described as generational. An said to reflect the cultural practices of may now find themselves serving as demonization of an “other” that the rise acquaintance of mine once suggested more “traditional” genres from which “gatekeepers” to a younger group of “gen of Talk Radio demonstrates (remembering that anyone wondering what “happened” it is partially constituted, how might Z” or “Millennial” composers, who have that we ourselves may be tempted to to gender in computer music should feminist analyses of those constituent come of age in a different set of historical create our own more salutary aesthetic entertain the notion that some feminists practices elucidate the dynamics of new conditions and who may view their or political “bubble” that varies from that have simply decamped to newer forms that and emergent collaborative Intermedia apparently “shared” circumstances and of others in content but not in form), and are more hospitable to them—to some new enterprises? surroundings quite differently. I would like to withdraw from the communities we “frontier” more amenable to homesteading to suggest that acknowledging, translating could be creating and nurturing with more and settlement. As I understand it, In addition to new tools and new forms of and reconciling differences borne of age direct engagements (whose new forms we this view argues that feminists have activity, the intervening years since the ’92 and cultural/historical circumstance is an must also imagine)? What happens to migrated from what we would define as ICMA meeting have also seen the arrival important part of creating a consensus that forms of mentoring (formal and informal) the traditional boundaries of “computer of a new group of computer musicians empowers communities, as well as provides and the exchange of information and music” to Intermedia in the same way that who came of age and entered the practice opportunities for empathy, enlightenment, enthusiasms when communities become the dinosaurs evolved to become birds. I with their own energies and strategies and personal growth. increasingly non-geolocal, and creative find such a Darwinian characterization for transforming the discourse. While I output comes to us as objects we interact exceptionally problematic, and would find it ironic that scholarship and study with privately with no audiences nearby? generally argue that feminist enterprises about “generations in the workplace” How do we replace or account for the have been more involved in maximizing that is intended to oil the machineries million little bits of back- or sub-channel the number of places in which people of production and consumption remains information that are mediated along with are free to work (and, thus, computer one of the primary sources of potential the direct experience of art and persons music is and should remain a choice for insight into the forms these differences of in physical/social/communal settings as anyone who wants to compose or create perspective may take, feminist study has our works travel (and travel a wider and audio art) and nurturing those choices consistently and properly argued that our more unpredictable path) without us or wherever they occur. But there is a sense knowledge is situated in a set of overlays our friends by their side? The so-called in which the past decade has seen the of gender, class, race, and historical “second wave” feminists saw, quite rightly, emergence of Intermedia as both a new circumstance. While there remains a that their task involved not only working to genre and a collection of attitudes about strong and widespread set of shared goals create a place for their works, but to create work that arguably represents a change in and values where issues of gender and new contexts and discourses in which the landscape. If so, is this new landscape computer music are considered, I would works were situated. That work continues, more amenable to the goals, values, and also argue that we have and will continue but new contexts are also emerging. practices that thematize gender? What to see emergent differences within the effect, if any, does this new landscape of discourse that are best characterized as I also believe that recent history suggests practice have on the ways that computer generational. The older generation of that the nature of those contextual shifts musicians define themselves? To the women and men in our midst who worked also concerns boundaries of genre and extent that the current landscape of for inclusion and greater opportunity

35 36 array Composing to Subvert Content Retrieval Engines Nick Collins winter 2006 rights management info is longer than the the problem of music, let alone auditory of many measures. summary. scenes (or maybe that should be the other There are useful compositional applications Composing to Subvert way around). Despite many brave efforts, hidden amongst all this, particularly on the Content Retrieval Engines Some researchers in the field have at we are unlikely to gain much deeper level of event classifications and sound Nick Collins least admitted that categorisation is analysis in the short term. This does raise databases on the note/phone time scale inherently problematic and that genres some peril of blandification. If entered (Schwarz 2003, Sturm 2004). In fact, this [Author’s Note: I have angled this mostly from the into too hastily under some imagined is about to become the boom audio effect. viewpoint of audio research, but the same would apply are ill defined (Aucouturier and Pachet to general multimedia content analysis. Also, note my 2003, Lakoff 1987), and there is hope that lucrative commercial payoff, content As a researcher, I’ve already heard enough tongue in my cheek as I exaggerate the dangers and search platforms will be customisable to an summarisation is employed independent of it, and the chart hits are still to come undervalue some of the great research in these areas.] individual user’s definitions and personal of any great solution of the cognitive a few years down the line… But it is the preferences. Even so, we face a set of properties of music and exploits rather wholesale study of pieces of music as data It’s not enough that everybody on the rather dangerous parameterisations, using facile and pragmatic attributes. points in an immense and head-spinning planet has become a potentially prolific such assumptive properties as tempo (as space greater than all the audio you could composer, and that everyone expects if fixed 4/4 120bpm for a given piece is Now, there are even more implicit ever listen to in your life that scares me. the wide dissemination of their talent the only possible metrical reality), key (as measures of timbral similarity within for using entry-level computer music if non-standard tunings, that is, anything and between pieces based on generalised One further danger is that fixed products software. What really hurts is the other than 12TET, are an unnecessary information content, time and frequency are praised and promoted above any knowledge that engineers are devising inconvenience) and forms that contain domain features and other data grist to the generative or algorithmic works, which are machines that will riffs, verses and choruses. Despite music machine learning mill. The problem is that much more difficult to classify. However, automatically categorise all this psychologists prompting a wider cross- these data features tend to fail in analysing given assumptions that a work cannot excessive output and establish a world of cultural viewpoint on what constitutes the fine musicological details of works, generate more than some limited extent content-based searching and meta-data music (Carterette and Kendall 1999, Cross having little regard for the particulars of of timbrally dissimilar material, generative databases, where everyone is made equal 2003), and composers’ and sound artists’ the cognition of music and the human music may be subsumed by the expedient in association (for examples, see the wider explorations (too many to list—I auditory system. Meanwhile, our auditory of running the categorisations on a Semantic HiFi, SIMAC and SeMMA guess I need a good classifier to sum them models are hardly perfect, and where the concatenation of four of five sample slices. projects, or look at the proceedings of the up), our future is most likely to be angled cochleograms and basic linear simulated So let’s hope that no one goes through ISMIR conference). And to continue the towards a limited, commercially dogmatic sensorimotor loops are running, they the effort of making any large-scale fearful tirade, I don’t know if you’ve yet and self-prophesizing Western popular are too often in slow non-realtime that algorithmic works that would be annoying heard an automatic summary generated music perspective of . Of will hardly classify fast enough for all the to summarise. from Stravinsky’s information-heavy course, there are good practical reasons new content being generated every day. I Rite of Spring, but I can assure you for this. For instance, automatic tempo guess it’s not our fault that our biological That is probably enough background that it doesn’t quite sum up that work’s tracking is much more accomplishable for computers still outwit their mostly non- for my rant. Now, it’s time for a positive full scope (Peeters et al 2002). Even obvious four to the floor metronomic parallel silicon rivals. However, the proposal. more regrettably, I imagine the digital dance tracks. We are perhaps rushing optimistic surge of papers on machine into the technology of content analysis, classifiers continues, unabated by any As serious composers commenting on this however, without any full solutions to worries about the psychological plausibility rising phenomenon, we need to create

37 38 array Composing to Subvert Content Retrieval Engines Nick Collins winter 2006 pieces that will cause misclassifications, 2004). Tempo and metrical variations should be Unfortunately, I imagine that some annoy the assumed parametrisations and explored throughout a work. Impose a safeguards to unequal weightings will wreak general havoc with information A standard tactic to harry any established constant accelerando or a varied tempo continue—that the cunning engineer- retrieval assumptions. I list below a few hierarchical order is to take any two curve, a mixture of tempi and other creators in the content companies will practical things that artists may like to or more hitherto dissimilar styles from complex metrical structures, a metric uprate their own works, that corrupt dabble with, in the manner of anti-pieces diverse branches of the tree and meld modulation or two and a mixture of the composers will pay top dollar for for content description, underminers of them. Punk + Ravel = Never Mind the beatless and the pulsing. You may enjoy preference and that various critical database music and playful compositional Bolero. Salsa + glitch + skiffle = Satchel. adding a complex tempo pattern that is authorities, retaining prominence by their ripostes to the information engineers. Mexican electroacoustic + Japanese court subliminal (slowly varying with less than established audiences, will remain arbiters music = Alvergaku. This genre game may 5% overall rate change, so as to provoke of much public taste. To disrupt imposed genres: Play be automated, using technology against only preconscious phase change rather Perhaps it is a dream, but I also have a plea with polystylistics and polygenristics. technology. Write a set of genre rules than period adaptation) (Repp 2001). to the listeners, if there are to be any who Your pieces should fit into as many styles within an interface that treats interpolations Research melodies you cannot easily hum. aren’t too busy composing and authoring. as possible in as short a time frame as (you’ll need to define this interface first to Even the contour should be ambiguous. I only hope these consumers will use appreciable. Disrupt established forms, avoid writing many transition functions I suggest working with Shepard tones in classifications to generate dissimilarity jumping between verse and chorus at to cover all combinatorial cases). Or, you 72TET. and make playlists that subvert their improbable speed. Run conventional might use statistical analysis techniques a own favoured styles in the celebration of forms in retrograde or rotation, or place la David Cope’s algorithmic composition Write inconsistent Creative Common diversity and the reward of novelty. Finally, two popular songs almost exactly end to or similar. Licenses to originally protect your rights. the common claim to have a “really varied end. You must evade automated analyses record collection” can be quantified by constructed by the association of like Note, in particular, that flooding a market As a point of policy: Play live only to genuine statistical measures. textures, metres and other supra-note level with algorithmically composed variants is select audiences, paying great attention information. I foresee timbral variations a way to change the genre weightings. A to the threat of bootlegs. Submit no I should set up an international if you wish to retain some thematic core, lazier creator, without profound dreams fixed audio to categorisation, or send in organisation such as ISNTMIR (Irate but certainly dispense with simple relations of variability, might create many subtly unrepresentative samples to distort your Syndicate Not Trusting Music Information and embolden your medium to long time varied copies, perhaps dissimulating their predicted field of endeavour. Retrieval) or CACAPafMuP (Composers scale constructions. meta-data descriptions. If the Against Content Analysis, Particularly for signal analyses that set up classification Failing all this, I suggest artistic Musicological Purposes). But I assume You may also embrace established forms parameters remain so expensive that home collaborations with the engineers that this small essay will eventually in a very literal sense, leveraging them to users are authorised to run them on their themselves, where a good insider automatically be placed with like calls to sneak up on places in the categorical space. own data, I imagine crack coding software knowledge of the machines may empower war, and that content analysis will prepare For instance, steal a model entirely from being readily available to masquerade your you. But for those who maximise hits and its own nemesis for me. another piece, perhaps using substitution variants as truly tested media. their own marketing exposure by such synthesis operations to change the timbre, dealings, I reserve the horrible reward of but leave associative form intact (Sturm To mess up likely parameterisations: an empty soul.

39 40 array Composing to Subvert Content Retrieval Engines Leigh Landy winter 2006 a reasonable amount of money, having References Computer Music Association. chosen not to review dozens of events Why Haven’t I Written About for a significant number of newspapers, the Pieces Played at ICMC? Aucouturier, Jean-Julien, and Francois Sturm, Bob, 2004. Concatenative journals and newsletters throughout the Leigh Landy Pachet, 2003. Representing Musical sound synthesis for sound design years. Why have I not done this? The Genre: A State of the Art. Journal of New and electroacoustic composition. In answer is simple. Unless the reader is able Music Research 32(1), 83-93. Proceedings of the Digital Audio Effects It had to happen sooner or later. It to be encouraged to hear the piece(s) of Workshop (DAFX04). happened at ICMC 2004 in Miami. music in question after reading the review, Carterette, Edward C., and Roger A. Margaret Schedel, editor of Array, what’s the point? Kendall, 1999. Comparative Music Peeters, Geoffroy, Amaury La Burthe and approached me during a meal sliced Perception and Cognition. In Diana Xavier Rodet, 2002. Toward Automatic thinly among the numerous events that The French music critic Maurice Fleuret Deutsch (ed.), The Psychology of Music Music Audio Summary Generation from make up an ICMC and made a request is known to have called the late twentieth (2nd edition), 725-91. San Diego: Signal Analysis. Proceedings of ISMIR that I review one of the following day’s century the Kleenex Era, i.e., use (perform) Academic Press. 2002. concerts for this publication. I like Meg a piece once and throw it away. I’ve written terribly, so my negative response was on occasion that the unfortunate result of Cross, Ian, 2003. Music as biocultural Copyright, Nick Collins, Barcelona, 31 rather out of character. She persevered phenomenon. In G. Avanzini, C. Faienza, this notion is that many a work’s première is May 2005. Released in the expectation of and deserved to succeed, having also its dernière. This sad if not ridiculous D. Minciacchi et al (Eds.), Annals of the plagiarism and insignificant exposure, but worked with me so closely on recent fact is even more ridiculous when one takes New York Academy of Sciences (The at least to be filed somewhere. collaboration issues for the journal I Neurosciences and Music), Vol. 999, 106- into account that a great deal of new music edit, Organised Sound. However, there are 11. deserves to be heard a number of times for moments when integrity takes over and a listener to gain a reasonable amount of kindness has to take second place. Lakoff, George, 1987. Women, Fire, understanding of what the piece involves, and Dangerous Things. Chicago, IL: what it communicates and so on. You, University of Chicago Press. So what is this rant all about? It all the reader, may now complain: what’s the starts with the years and years of ICMC point in performing a one-off piece in the Repp, Bruno, 2001. Processes underlying reviews read in ICMA publications, and first place? I (virtually) blanche and have adaptation to tempo changes in even in Computer Music Journal. I shall little to reply. Any Friedman-influenced sensorimotor synchronisation. Human comment about these presently, but economist can tell you that the effort that Movement Science 20: 277–312. before doing so, there’s something else goes into the creation of a new work is that needs to be discussed, and that is hardly “economically” sound if it is only Schwarz, Diemo, 2003. New the question of whether after-the-fact performed once or a few times. I would developments in data-driven concatenative reviews of one-off events serve much suggest that in such cases, what goes into a sound synthesis. In Proceedings of the of any purpose at all. I personally don’t work’s creation and what comes out do not International Computer Music Conference think so, and have therefore not earned add up to the artistic equivalent of black (ICMC2003). San Francisco: International ink.

41 42 array Why Haven’t I Written About the Pieces Played at ICMC Leigh Landy winter 2006 You may now suggest that with our that may be)—in any event, someone allow me to do it beforehand and publish articulate why this is so. The same holds current ability to offer our music in the working in a similar context and therefore it before the event as well? This implies true for many events beyond the ICMC. form of downloads, CDs and so on, why someone who understands the lonely, that I might be able to find out (much) Furthermore, where there are repeated worry about the one-off concert? This, detached cultural role of the person or more about the works in question. It performances, where there is a relevant again, is a valid argument. Still, the people involved in the work being reviewed. also means that I might get to know the accessible document (sound or audio- This type of understanding is totally constitution of the ICMA does not yet music better through its recorded version visual recording), there is every reason to praiseworthy; nevertheless, these reviews include a paragraph suggesting that a work do tend to leave a great deal of space (if relevant) or through rehearsals. Last start a debate, as there is every opportunity that has been accepted for performance for reading between the lines concerning but not least, it allows the listeners a for that debate to develop. should, by definition, be placed on that issues that one has decided not to discuss. chance to be provided with a good deal year’s ICMC website or the ICMA’s own of information before the fact to either The ICMC seeks premières, or at least site. Therefore, the further distribution • A tendency exists in these reviews to accept or reject, facilitating intelligent works of very recent vintage. It includes of the work in question is up to the artists describe things from a fairly technical point discussion of the pros and cons of the work a handful of “works of historic interest” themselves. There are exceptions, and the of view, as this is what brought the ICMC afterwards. Indeed, such announcements from time to time, e.g. in Berlin. It is people together in the first place. Again, this ICMC 2004 DVD included more works do run the risk of alienating a potential unlikely that most Array readers will have makes total sense, but has little to do with the than I remembered ever being distributed. public (although not at the ICMC), or at heard any of the new works unless they These, indeed, could have been reviewed. success or failure of aesthetics, one of the key least placing expectation into their ears. roles of a music review throughout the ages. were present at the concert in question or So perhaps here, too, there’s something have received the work through alternative But before moving on, although there wrong. I see a role of facilitation in such • In consequence, and given the fact that means (a small minority, methinks). So isn’t too far to go anymore, there’s the the review writer will probably not be provided articles, as they can enable potential what’s the point of reading a review about story I interrupted a few paragraphs ago. with adequate time to have a long chat listeners to make an educated choice about a piece that most people are unlikely to be This story concerned reviews I’ve read with all artists involved in the review, there attending an event. With this in mind, able to hear? describing ICMC concerts. With very few is hardly any attention provided in terms I would opt to write up works or events exceptions, these reviews could be placed of what I call the “dramaturgy of music,” that I personally support. This in no As an ICMA board member, I have in a bundle entitled “Essays in Mutual including a composer’s vision, the “why” of way means that I am against controversy spent many an hour at board meetings Back Patting” or some such. The ICMC is a work, what is intended to be communicated or against negative reviews. Still, at the encouraging a greater ICMA/ICMC music not as evil as some festivals I have had the (if the composer is able to articulate this) and end of this Kleenex Era, we should find focus. This has many manifestations, most pleasure to attend, where most face-to-face so on. Please note that there is a maximum means of support for cultural events. word count for the concert programme of which fall outside this short discussion discourse is warm and encouraging, but a in the ICMC concert booklet that more article. As long as most composers good deal of behind-the-back talk is rather or less disallows this aspect of a work to Where, then, is there a place for negative don’t introduce their works properly in different. There is some of that at ICMCs, be adequately introduced beforehand. comment? The answer to this in terms an appropriate form (art for art’s sake’s too, of course. What typifies an ICMC of the ICMC is obvious. First of all, it death is long overdue); as long as many review are the following: will inevitably take place in the corridors of these composers aren’t even present at So where does this leave us? My response and the bars of that conference. The the event; as long as time isn’t set aside for • An attempt to find at least something to all of those newspapers, journals and average IQ of those present goes hand in the discussion of musical issues, writing worth praising in a work, as the author newsletters has been: if you want me to hand with an ability to dislike works that reviews of Kleenex(-like) events serves little is also a “computer musician” (whatever write something about the event, why not don’t agree with anyone in attendance and purpose.

43 44 array Why Haven’t I Written About the Pieces Played at ICMC Spark Festival winter 2006 Although I firmly believe that many of commissioned by the Chicago Symphony, these works deserve praise, what I am more and K, his most recent based on interested in is their being understood Festival Reviews Kafka’s The Trial. The majority of the and, in consequence, appreciated. The lecture was devoted to explaining the panel I chaired at ICMC 2004 focused Spark Festival of Electronic analogies between Faulkner’s great novel on appreciation—something most ICMC Music and Art and Manoury’s work. Disregarding any artists encounter much too little of. Until February 16-20, 2005 programmatic representation of the we have found a better balance to that University of Minnesota novel, Manoury discussed the musical “economics” problem introduced above, Brian Kane way in which the novel unfolds in time. the place of the post-mortem review is not Through the negation of chronological clear to me. I would prefer to see active Spark 2005, hosted by the University of narrativity, both Faulkner and Manoury musical debate (and distribution) replace Minnesota and organized by Douglas unfold events that become fully clarified the review until the status of appreciation Geers, presented a broad array of only as the piece develops. In addition has been improved. compositional, conceptual, intellectual to his lecture, Manoury’s Jupiter, a seminal and improvisational work in electronic piece in the development and application music. Transcending the stylistic of computer-based score-following and artistic preconceptions that often techniques, was brilliantly performed by pigeonhole the vast terrain of electronic Elizabeth McNutt. Manoury also held a music into distinct categories, Spark master class seminar where he looked at 2005 presented an exciting, arresting the work of graduate composers at the and balanced sampling of recent pieces University of Minnesota. and research. Spanning four days, the festival included panel discussions; As for live performance, some of the papers on recent research in computer festival highlights included a concert of music, technology and aesthetics; chamber pieces with electronics performed concerts of live electroacoustic by NeXT Ens, which included works by music, eight-channel tape pieces, Burton Beerman, Douglas Geers, Gabriel multimedia works and improvised sets; Ottoson-Deal, Zack Browning and installations; lectures and seminars; and Margaret Schedel. This group is dedicated demonstrations of new technology. to performing works of live electronic and computer music, and its musical, intelligent The keynote artist was composer and intense performance reveals a Philippe Manoury, who lectured on tremendous commitment to their mission. two recent works: Sound and Fury, In particular, Shiau-uen Ding, the director and pianist, is a powerful force on the new music scene. Her solo recital, where she

45 46 array Festival Review Spark Festival winter 2006 performed a wide variety of pieces by or in open source code, older pieces can be way it wove these two strands seamlessly Josh Clausen, a young composer studying composers James Mobberly, Christopher saved from technological destruction. Scott together. The festival began with an in Minneapolis, created dense, aggressive Bailey, Katherine Norman, Eric Chasalow, Miller’s paper “Audio Mobiles” explored opening lecture by DJ Spooky, who has and funky rhythms based on pre-recorded Corte Lippe and Jonathan Harvey, was some exciting new directions in eco- managed to straddle both the academic phonemes in his eight-channel piece staggering in its sheer breadth. Her systemic programming based on Agostino and popular worlds through sheer musical Phoneme Play. Zack Browning’s Secret handling of Lippe’s classic Music for Piano Di Scipio’s ideas. By using the computer and intellectual force. But it is clear that Pulse for flute, violin, cello and computer and Computer and Harvey’s eerie Tombeau de as an autonomous system within the sonic DJ Spooky is not alone. In fact, many generated sound applied magic squares Messiaen was truly remarkable: clear, smart, ecology of some given space, Miller creates of the events and performances at Spark onto musical structures such as density, aggressive, precise and lovely. Another fascinating sound sculptures that cause and were engaged, directly or indirectly, timbre, rhythm, style and orchestration. excellent concert featured an assortment of effect changes in the sonic landscape. In with popular music. J. Anthony Allen, The result is a collage of rapid crosscuts, electroacoustic works by such composers as addition, his work raises interesting and Margaret Schedel, Per Bloland and Robert evoking the flashy production of pop Noel Zahler, Alicyn Warren, Butch Rovan, complex questions about the nature and Hamilton held a round-table discussion on music and the jagged complexity of Frank and Anthony Cornicello. In particular, grounding of aesthetic experience. the problems facing the young composer Zappa. Rovan’s work for cello, electronics and today. Not surprisingly, much of the video was a true multimedia masterpiece. Several papers on Friday morning’s session discussion was centered around the role In surveying the variety of artistic and Based on the poetry of Anne Carson, addressed aspects of Pierre Schaeffer’s and influences of popular music on intellectual activity presented at Spark Hopper Confessions simultaneously presents work. Marcus Bittencourt used Schaeffer’s young composers versus the academic 2005, one clear theme emerged: the issue a series of short musical pieces (which criteria for musical instruments as a pressures to produce autonomous art of mapping in music. For example, how beautifully integrated the cello and the framework within which to create an music. But what was surprising was the can some set of originally non-musical electronics) with words and video. Rovan unusual virtual instrument—a “Tusk way in which the festival, through its vast data be mapped onto musical parameters? managed to capture the pacing and the Harp” that he uses in his radio-opera array of performances of widely divergent This question was explored by three works feel that one gets while reading poetry entitled KA. George Brunner’s lecture styles and its appropriation of non- in particular: Michael Berkowski’s Species, silently to oneself by slowly superimposing on the evolution and development of academic performance spaces, made the Craig A. Coburn’s lecture on musical the text over a video filled with dark and Text Sound traced the origins of this question moot. In particular, each night landscapes and satellite data, and Henrik moody images. fascinating movement back to Schaeffer of the festival was capped off by a set of Frisk’s etherSound. In Species, Berkowski and some of his original premises and experimental performances held in a casual takes John Conway’s classic “Game of In addition to the concerts and goals concerning musique concréte. These setting. Some memorable performances Life” algorithm and maps its generations performances, many of the papers premises were challenged in this reviewer’s were J. Anthony Allen’s set of music for of cells onto harmonic partials, creating presented at Spark 2005 were of unusually own presentation on Schaeffer and the drum, bass, electronics and video, an giant spectral structures that evolve high quality. Robert Rowe’s “Personal philosophical origins of musique concréte. improvised set by Seji Takahasi and Michi over time into more or less stable states. Effects: Weaning Interactive Systems Yokota, and an evening featuring Keith Coburn’s work, based on satellite images from MIDI” addressed the impact of With a new generation of composers, O’Brien and some local DJs. taken over Canadian cities, takes another technological obsolescence on the survival and with the general increase in access approach to parametric mapping. Each of electronic and interactive pieces that to recording technology, the line between Even within the usual electroacoustic and are facing imminent extinction from the popular music and academic electronic chamber music setting, a few pieces stood pixel of the image, which possesses five repertoire. By reconstructing obsolete music is beginning to vanish. One of out because of the manner in which they different parameters (three for color, two hardware in environments like MAX/MSP the great virtues of Spark 2005 was the tied the academic and the popular together. for location), is mapped onto musical

47 48 array Festival Reviews Electronic Music Midwest winter 2006 parameters, transforming these images a single video image is superimposed continues to present a large variety of The theme of globalization was integrated into a riotous and dynamic player piano. upon itself and transformed over time high-quality works and papers, there is into the festival as part of an ongoing Frisk’s etherSound installation allows the based on information gathered from the no doubt that it will become one of the series of events at Lewis University called audience to send a text message to a performers. The visual impression of a nation’s premiere festivals for new work in “The Many Faces of Globalization.” With computer that maps their message into a single, slowly transforming object was the electronic music and art. this theme in mind, the first event of the stretch of sound. The transformations are perfect complement to the music, which festival on the evening of September 16 based on factors such as the number of explored an extremely reduced palate of Electronic Music Midwest was the “EMM/Globalization Welcoming words in the message, syllables per word, sound objects in an astonishing variety of September 16-18, 2004 Concert,” a two-hour presentation by vowel sounds, and other phonological ways. Finally, the 60x60 Project premiered Lewis University Kevin Austin that could loosely be called data. Some technical problems arose due a video accompaniment to the collection a lecture. However, Austin’s presentation Doug Geers to the differences between European and of sixty short tape pieces, each one minute style, as well as his use of both sound and American cell phone protocols, but in an in length. Video artist Shimpei Takeda video, gave the evening an atmosphere The sixth Electronic Music Midwest ideal setting, the work would allow the worked with a series of visual motives, more like a variety show, albeit a thoughtful festival happened September 16-18, 2004 audience members a unique opportunity mostly taken from rural and urban and intellectual one (if such things exist). in Romeoville, Illinois (USA), south of to investigate the nature of the mapping landscapes, transforming the piece from Austin strode, stalked, and even danced Chicago. Organized by Mike McFerron through trial and error. a compilation into a “meta-composition.” in the Philip Lynch Theater as he spoke (Lewis University), Paul Rudy (University The imagery, which focused intensely on about the changes that globalization and of Missouri-Kansas City), Connie Mayfield In all of these works, the mapping of specific aspects of the landscape, acted electroacoustic sound reproduction have (Kansas City Community College), Ian parameters from one domain to another like a well-chosen metaphor for the music, brought to music since their inception, Corbett (Kansas City Community College), was much like an act of translation. Other which was also constrained to a small making extensive use of diverse audio and and Jay C. Batzner (University of Missouri- works handled the question of mapping amount of material due to the formal video examples. The audience included Kansas City), this festival alternates its differently, moving towards an artistic limits of composing a one-minute piece. many Lewis University faculty and location annually, and was hosted this time investigation that seemed more akin to In many respects, Takeda’s visuals, as students of various majors. Music played by Mike McFerron at Lewis University. poetic metaphor than translation. Dennis sophisticated and modern as they were, during this concert included recordings Miller’s faktura, a work for sound and video, also reminded this reviewer of the classic of traditional Chinese music played on Presented with a particular interest in presented a continuously evolving series of short film by Ray and Charles Eames MIDI instruments, a video of the Twelve the theme of globalization, EMM 2004 virtual textured landscapes paired with where an asphalt playground is being Girls Band playing a medley of classical consisted of eight concerts, several paper musical . Both the audio and washed down; both reveal the unexpected themes, Hugh LeCaine’s Dripsody, Max sessions, a roundtable discussion, and a the video were on equal footing here, one beauty and complexity of the common Mathews’s 1958 realization of Bicycle Built special opening event meant to reach out to mutually supporting the other, highlighting visual landscape. for Two, readings by Jack Kerouac, James non-aficionados of electroacoustic music. similarities between the aural and the Joyce, and Dylan Thomas, and more. Guest artists included a large number of tactile senses. In Margaret Schedel’s In conclusion, Spark 2005 was a composers and performers from across the Cassini Division, written for cello, violin, tremendous success, and the credit goes After this opening presentation, the world, and featured composer Kevin Austin flute, percussion, bowed piano, electronics to Douglas Geers (with the help of his remaining concerts featured a wide (Concordia University) and a concert and video, a different balance was struck students) and the University of Minnesota. variety of works, including music for by the Cincinnati-based NeXT Ens. between the aural and the visual. Here, If, in future years, the Spark festival live performers with electronics, pieces

49 50 Festival Reviews Electronic Music Midwest array winter 2006 for two- and eight-channel playback, Benjamin Broening’s Arioso/Doubles for instrumental combinations and aesthetic clarinetist Jeffrey Ouper played mostly and electroacoustic music with video. clarinet and Max/MSP used the French approaches on their program, and all of long notes that wafted in and out of the Moreover, although many of the works on Baroque variation technique of doubles the performances sounded precise and texture, moving from niente to piano and to these concerts were likable, for the sake of as a conceptual inspiration for a work in committed. Highlights of their program niente once more. As this work began, I was brevity I have selected a small number of which both melody and timbre develop included Mara Helmuth’s The Edge of Noise, prepared to become bored, but Herriot’s them to discuss here. and vary thematically. The melodic a quirky but convincing ensemble-plus- subtle manipulation of the simple material shapes and flowering of motivic material MSP work that explored non-traditional held my attention through most of the One interesting work from the first concert were both excellently realized, giving instrumental noises, seemingly non sequitur piece. on September 17 was James Caldwell’s the piece a strong sense of coherence, vocalizations, parody, and spicy harmonies. Texturologie II: Density 10.6, played by alto sustained energy, and forward motion. This piece succeeded in unifying the The second concert on Saturday featured flutist Andrea Redcay Graves. In this The MSP processing consisted mostly of disparate materials, and its humor works with video. Of these, three piece, a gently lyrical work, particular soft waves of harmonic material, delays, seemed more like existential commentary especially successful pieces were Interludes flute pitches and attack/amplitude values and reverberation. This was subtly than silliness. Sean Verah’s Slipping by Keith Kothman (music) and John triggered arpeggios of computer-generated realized, creating a halo-like trail behind Image for ensemble and tape developed Fillwalk (video), Slowly Sinking Slower by sounds and controlled aspects of them the clarinet. The development of the from angular interjections to an elegiac Douglass Bielmeier, and Underground by such as brightness, tempo, pitch range and computer material was possibly a bit too ending, sustaining interest with thematic Tom Lopez (music) and Nate Pagel (video). contour. Although seemingly simple, the subtle, though, in that its general character development and excellent instrumental Interludes consisted of three movements, work was effective in that the performer did not seem to change dramatically writing. Christopher Bailey’s The Quiet Play and the video for each of these focused on used her own performance gestures to during the piece. of Pipes brought forth pungently expressive a single subject: a field of grass, a merry- control the computer’s gestures, and microtonal harmonies from the group, go-round, and birds in air. The images because the relationship between these The entire concert by the NeXT Ens was aided once again by computer sounds moved slowly and were subtly processed, felt completely organic. The work’s only a pleasure. This recently formed group, generated in Max/MSP. The spectral shortcoming was that the limited harmonic whose members are graduate students colors of this work evolved as if in slow and the music matched this well, with long language, combined with the call and in music at the University of Cincinnati motion, lingering and breathing gently, and often spare sonic lines. Slowly Sinking response relationship between the flute and College-Conservatory of Music, is with sounds reminiscent of industrial noise Slower mixed raw footage of intriguing but computer that pervaded nearly the entire dedicated to performing electroacoustic occasionally drifting into the texture. In not always identifiable outdoor objects and piece, made it feel, despite its attractive repertoire. Chamber groups devoted addition, NeXT also played works by scenes with dreamlike music in which long surface, a bit long. entirely to electroacoustic music are Dorothy Hindman, Jen Wang, and Ivica drones created a darkly meditative feel. unfortunately rather rare in the USA, and Ico Bucvic; each contained intriguing Underground, in contrast, sought to express J. Anthony Allen’s Saturations III-B for although NeXT only began performing in moments. the energy of a London subway station. two-channel tape was another appealing, 2004, this concert demonstrated that they Its video included clearly recognizable focused work. All the sounds of the piece have already developed into an expressive, Jeff Harriot’s Design for bass clarinet and parts of the station: subway cars, turnstiles, were derived from filtered noise, but Allen cohesive ensemble. fixed media playback served as a gentle passengers, etc., but also subjected the successfully built this basic material into a The instrumentation of the NeXT Ens opening to the festival’s second day. The raw footage to significant processing, so convincing repertoire of gestures, and used is flute/piccolo, alto, guitar, percussion, piece was minimalist in conception, that much of the work was a collage of pulse and crescendos to generate sustained piano, violin, and cello. The group with slowly repeating patterns of pitches visual design. Meanwhile, the music to tension. performed seven works of varying that outlined consonant intervals. Bass the piece worked in a similar manner:

51 52 array Festival Reviews Electronic Music Midwest winter 2006 Mr. Lopez used a palette of sounds in the face” gesture is a good thing, then recordings from an anti-war rally, and I dominated by struck and plucked sounds, a piece consisting of fifty of them must find that it is very hard to write political including several piano-like and bell-like be wonderful. I have left concerts in the music that transcends politics. However, timbres. He manipulated them quite past feeling literally abused. However, this work effectively captured the visceral interestingly and deployed them at times in Mr. Spindler’s work avoided that Jerry feelings of urgency from the rally without a manner of acousmatic music, at others Bruckheimer approach to composition, merely becoming a document of it. as interlocking pulsed modal patterns in and created clever gestures from samples The recordings were highly edited, and a manner somewhat reminiscent of Paul of a toy piano, with a particularly good use thematic materials were drawn from them Lansky’s works, and at several other places of space to rhetorically animate them. and repeated with variations, so that the as energetic techno music. The result was listener’s experience was primarily sonic/ dense, interesting, and fun. Moreover, Paul Rudy’s Love Song, which appeared musical and not literary. In other words, Lopez’s clever transitions between these later on the same program, combined field Mr. Bloland developed his materials in genres pointed out the similarities among recordings from outdoor locations with a convincing way, and the result was a them, most noticeably in their use of recorded vocalizations into a convincing compelling composition. rhythmic gesture. However, although sonic journey through several distinct Underground succeeded as a piece, it did have musical scenes. This piece also featured a EMM ended with ’s Tableaux: some flaws. First, and most importantly, I moving apotheosis near its end, created in Convolutions on a Theme for alto saxophone, felt that the video and music sometimes part by building a thick harmonic block of reverberation, and eight-channel tape. seemed out of step with each other. An timbre. This fifteen-minute work was written example of this is the end of the piece, for saxophonist Stephen Duke, who where slow, fuzzy, contemplative shots The final concert of EMM 2004 featured performed it here. The computer part of of turnstiles were accompanied by very another performance by Kevin Austin, this this work comprised a harmonic tapestry, upbeat pop-like music. Another problem time as composer and diffuser. Austin’s and the saxophone part was a semi- I had with the piece was that I enjoyed the Three Zheng Etudes (Version II) were a set of improvisatory fantasia over the tape. As music’s swerving stylistic presentation but exquisite playback works that imagined the work progressed, the tape harmonies felt that some moments sounded a bit too physically impossible performances of the became increasingly bright in timbre, and “MIDI” for my taste. zheng, a traditional Chinese instrument. the saxophone became more energized. Another piece that succeeded was Jeremy Each of the movements used a seemingly Finally, in the last minutes of the piece, Spindler’s Glassworks and Silverscapes, a work simple bit of recorded zheng as its basic a famous nineteenth-century theme which I would describe as a “kinder and material, but then spun out a wonderfully was revealed as the source for the entire gentler” type of acousmatic music, in that shaped and endearing tapestry of sound. composition. In performance, this piece it featured the granularization of sounds Another successful work on this concert worked quite well as a showpiece for Mr. into a myriad of gestures without overusing was Per Bloland’s The Wondrous Delight of Duke, whose intense and virtuosic playing explosive gesture shapes. I must admit, by Profound Ineptitude. Reading the program held the audience’s attention throughout. the way, that I am dismayed by the number note, I was a bit concerned about this of composers who think that if one “punch piece, because it mentioned the use of

53 54 array CD Reviews Petri Kuljuntausta, Momentum winter 2006 Canvas (1999) relies almost exclusively on other times, it is abrupt and the changes the second. As a result, periods where the the preoccupation with color described are immediately apparent. The process CD Reviews figures seem to correspond alternate with above. The piece begins with a sample is still typical of Kuljuntausta’s interest in moments where the patterns are obviously of male voices singing an F major chord. finding the profound within the mundane, disjunct from one another. In addition, the P. Kuljuntausta: Momentum Kuljuntausta stretches this sample to the since he is exploring the rich possibilities individual figures themselves eventually Robert Denham point that it carries a certain timeless contained within a seemingly insignificant split to produce a total of two string and quality, and eventually creates other chords fragment of sound. two harpsichord samples. Can a work of (music) survive that are closely related to the original F on color alone? Petri Kuljuntausta major (D minor, for instance). Within The title of the third piece on the disc, Four Freedom (1998) is yet another work that makes a good case for it in his most this slow-moving texture, he alternately Notes (2001), is not surprising considering gives color the central role, but it is unique recent CD, Momentum. All of the works magnifies specific pitches or overtones the composer’s tendency to use limited among the other pieces on this CD in represented on his program rely heavily that occur naturally within these chords. resources to produce maximum results. that it focuses less on isolated overtones on the concept of color as subject matter, The overall sense of this music is that it is This piece is also derived from samples and more on the beating produced by the some exclusively so. Kuljuntausta’s derived from Medieval practice, emulating of the string quartets mentioned above, harmonic relationships between various fascination with color takes form in a in some distant way the straight tones, and is similar to Canvas in that it sets up pitches. A low pedal A is established near keen interest in the building blocks of smooth swells, and cathedral quality decays a relatively static texture out of which the beginning as a sort of ominous drone sound and how these various elements of Gregorian Chant. This piece does pinpoints of color are explored under a from which the texture is not allowed to (harmonics, beating patterns, etc.) can reveal a subtle sense of progression (the musical microscope. This piece, by virtue escape until the end, when it finally steps be isolated and magnified so that they male voices, which begin with “Ah” tones, of its lack of direction, makes it obvious that up to B. As other pitches are set against begin to function as their own entities gradually evolve to express some Latin Kuljuntausta does not consider horizontal this pedal, beatings result in the pedal itself apart from the sonorities within which texts), though it is primarily concerned form as being an essential element in the so that it “grumbles.” This is yet another they originated. As a result, his music with exposing the variety of different color message he is trying to convey. work where Kuljuntausta creates a sense is more concerned with the steady possibilities within the original sample. of timelessness due to a lack of harmonic revelation of these hidden components Just as the focus on color in Canvas is progression; one gets the impression that than with any sort of linear form or Violin Tone Orchestra (1996) betrays the reflected by similar practices in Four Notes, the composer intends these pieces to be presentation of themes, which would influence of Steve Reich, as Kuljuntausta so the concept of phase shifting within seen as “meditative escapes,” where a be indicative of the classical tradition. momentarily sets aside the concept of “color Violin Tone Orchestra is reflected in the fourth given concept is evident from the start and With this in mind, one should not as king” in favor of exposing the rhythmic piece, When I am Laid in Earth (2002). In has only to be experienced (less thinking, listen to Kuljuntausta’s music with the possibilities within a given sample. Just as the latter, Kuljuntausta works with a more feeling). In this sense, it is not so expectation that it should methodically Reich explored the possibilities of phase limited sound palette (again he is using important that the listener be present progress from one point to another, but shifting in his early tape-loop pieces (Come samples of his string quartets, along with a for every moment of the piece, though should instead revel in the experience of Out, It’s Gonna Rain), Kuljuntausta takes a synthetically produced harpsichord sound), doing so would allow the full meditative being enlightened as to the latent powers short sample from one of his own string and creates rhythmic friction between a experience that Kuljuntausta envisions. of expression that are contained within quartets and phase shifts it against itself. pair of two-note figures. These figures “simple” particles of sound. Sometimes the phasing takes place at such are set in opposition to one another so Counterpoint plays a major role within a slow rate that it is barely perceivable; at that the first pattern is slightly slower than Momentum, which suggests a trend on the

55 56 array CD Reviews Rodrigo Sigal, Space Within winter 2006 part of Kuljuntausta towards referencing rate of speed (if it can be said to be moving and the pieces were part of a thesis returning to the sounds of the beginning. music of the past (remembering his at all); listening to this piece is like sitting in entitled “Compositional Strategies in It is almost as if the listener is taken on reference to the medieval period in Canvas). Golden Gate Park on a sunny afternoon, Electroacoustic Music.” As such, each a journey through space at one moment In the course of this piece, string samples experiencing the curious conflict between piece demonstrates a different strategy in time, and then suddenly gets yanked are contrasted with an electric guitar patch, the urban and natural worlds. and dynamic between acoustic instrument backwards to the point of departure. Each and these timbres are subtly altered to and electronics (or, in the case of the two transition is beautifully handled, and the produce vague shades of color, or ghostlike Kuljuntausta does not present the listener fixed format pieces, between different connections between the diverse sounds effects. As one might suspect from the with an endless variety of stimuli, but recorded materials), and Sigal is a master seem both jarring and completely logical work’s title and its contrapuntal texture, a chooses instead to focus on the variety of managing those subtle variations. at the same time. Sigal takes care to subtle sense of direction does present itself that is contained (though often overlooked) Coupled with remarkable performances manage his themes so that the listener can in the form of a gradual shift from simple within limited sources. His music offers by three different instrumentalists, the follow the trajectory of the piece while still two-voice counterpoint to a more complex the listener an opportunity to explore the execution of his ideas is coherent, musical, exploring variations and relationships with web of contrapuntal lines. In this way, many possibilities inherent to these sources, and memorable. other sounds. Momentum stands apart from its peers by and to briefly step back and appreciate the virtue of taking more care in the process of beauty of “common” sound. In this light, Sigal, who was born in Mexico in 1971, Rimbarimba (Lejos Del Silencio) (2002) for “getting from here to there.” his CD is a great success, and deserves the demands much of his listener: he states marimba and Max/MSP-triggered consideration of every serious appreciator that his music “cannot be understood while electroacoustic sounds is the next piece on In the Beginning (2001) is a provocative of computer music. the listener is engaged in other activities,” the disc, opening with a memorable octave reference to the first chapter of Genesis. and recommends the use of headphones riff accented by an electroacoustic whoosh- Again, the composer uses string quartet or a high-quality sound system. Indeed, thud (pardon the onomatopoeia). In this samples, but this time they are presented his music requires fixed concentration in piece, Sigal visualizes the human performer as a slow-moving backdrop against which Rodrigo Sigal, Space Within order to appreciate all the subtle changes in as a “bridge” between the artificial sound other sampled sounds are set. These Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz timbre, clever spatial effects, and carefully worlds and the recorded sounds related samples include city noises such as traffic planned structures. The experience of to the marimba. The marimba and the and trains, coupled with natural sounds Rodrigo Sigal’s new solo CD, Space Within, listening to this CD with headphones is electroacoustic sounds draw from each such as birds and wind. The composer is is a tour de force of complex yet clearly phenomenal; I highly recommend it. other, and their relationship is made still interested in the integral components defined aural interaction. The music, evident in the connections between their of the string quartet sample, magnifying all written between 1999 and 2002 while The first piece on the CD, and my favorite, rhythmic materials and their spectral particular harmonics or other pitches, but the composer was working on his PhD is Friction of Things in Other Places (2002). characters. The electronic sounds turn these are not so invasive as in the other at City University in London, focuses It focuses on the musical ideas that can the marimba into a kind of “meta- pieces. The quartet samples are subservient on the relationships between sound stem from disparate sounds happening instrument” by adding to the timbre of to the other sampled sounds, much like the worlds, whether they are synergistic or simultaneously. The piece starts out with the live performer’s line. At times, this string ensemble in Ives’s Unanswered Question fraught with tension. Sigal’s goal was the peaceful sound of wind chimes, and enhancement is very subtle, like the slight is a backdrop against which the proverbial to “generate emotions by exploring the traverses parallel soundscapes where we detuning of the marimba’s pitches, and at question is asked. As may be expected, In relationships between human beings and hear voices, electronic hum, water, coins, other times the electronics add another the Beginning moves at an incredibly slow computer generated sound material,” and the heavy drums of pop music before element to the sound, making for a duet

57 58 array Book Reviews When Music Resists Meaning winter 2006 The essays in this volume span more than through messages required and The third and fourth sections, “Composing forty years—1952 to 1993—and represent permitted by already available systems with Computers” and “Cybernetics,” Book Review a diversity of views on music and the or mechanisms,” anticommunication is a are naturally the most technical and, arts. The collection is divided into five similar relationship “which emerges and consequently, the most difficult to follow Arun Chandra, ed. When main sections. The first four comprise is maintained through messages requiring for those who might not be familiar with Music Resists Meaning: The Brün’s essays and lectures, and the last and permitting not-yet-available encoding the technology of computer music. In Major Writings of Herbert Brün. comprises Brün’s poetry and plays. The and decoding systems or mechanisms” these sections, Brün’s lucid and insightful Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan first section, “Listening,” concentrates on (288). Similarly, while “communication is prose occasionally gives way to writing University Press, 2004 (ISBN 0- music from the listener’s perspective and achievable by learning from language how to that straddles the fine line between the on the relationships between listener and 8195-6670-5). say something,” anticommunication “is an seemingly profound and the virtually composer. For Brün, the centrality of the attempt at respectfully teaching language to nonsensical. Consider Brün’s definition Joseph W. Hupchick listener cannot be understated; concerning say it” (63). For Brün, anticommunication of music: listening, he writes: “It is absurd that and communication have a deeper social Throughout much of the history of throughout the history of music and its significance: “Insistence on communication Music is the result of a continuous music in the Western world, composers social functions, the word genius frequently ultimately leads to social and physical attempt to reduce to order the seem to have had little to say about applied to composers never yet has been their own music, or even about the applied to a listener” (52). Although violence. Anticommunication ultimately leads assumed chaos in the system of music of others—at least as far as Brün’s work ponders the very nature of to the insistence on composition and peace” acoustical elements and events, with the surviving evidence is concerned. music (“Under what circumstances will an (289). the purpose of mobilizing the means For composers who have written a acoustical event turn into a musical event” for the communication of thoughts substantial amount on the subject (50)), he is primarily concerned with the The better part of the second section, which transcend the definition of the of music—Schumann, Wagner, listener whose intent is to listen, rather “Composing,” consists of two previously system. (A creative project.) Schoenberg, Babbitt, and Oliveros than the casual listener who happens to published interviews with Brün concerning immediately come to mind—such hear music, as on the radio. It is therefore his compositional philosophy and practices. These thoughts, consequently called writings are an invaluable resource, not no surprise that Brün makes no attempt In particular, “Toward Composition,” “musical thoughts,” are the result only for understanding the composer’s to hide his distaste for—even hostility an interview with Stuart Smith originally of a continuous attempt to organize own work, but for gaining insight into towards—background music of any kind. published in Perspectives of New Music in a system, called the “composer’s his or her philosophy of music and 1979, provides a glimpse into Brün’s mind,” with the aim of knowing all its relationship to history, society, and Central to Brün’s view of the relationship beliefs about the composer and his place about the system, and to render the culture. When Music Resists Meaning: The between composer and listener is the in society. For Brün, the composer should extracted information communicable. Major Writings of Herbert Brün, edited by concept of anticommunication, a term maintain a level of political responsibility. (A scientific project.) (186) Arun Chandra, provides such insight so difficult to define that Brün himself In their relationships with society, people into the musical and cultural world of often writes around it rather than define The body of the volume closes with the one of the late-twentieth century’s most can be either products of society or inputs it. While communication is defined as fifth section, a brief selection of Brün’s inventive composers. into society, and Brün believes the latter to “a human relation between persons and be more socially responsible. poetry and plays. Considering the things which emerges and is maintained appeal of Brün’s poetry in particular, it is

61 62 array Book Review The Editors winter 2006 regrettable that this section is so short: the poetry and plays amount to a scant thirteen pages, comprising five poems and two One final remark concerning the title: the short plays. Appendices include a brief identification as “The Major Writings of biography, a list of Brün’s compositions Herbert Brün” is somewhat misleading. and program notes, and chronological lists Given Brün’s substantial list of publications, of compositions and publications. those that comprise this volume represent a mere fraction. This fact should not The Editors of Array are looking for interested persons to write articles and In general, Chandra has done an diminish the value of this important work, reviews for upcoming issues. (The next admirable job in editing the collection; the nor should it be interpreted as a criticism book is well organized and free from the of this collection. However, it does issue will be coming out in the summer types of errors that so frequently plague underscore the need for further recognition of 2007.) If you would be willing to write similar publications. But notwithstanding and availability of Brün’s additional something for Array, or have feedback the virtues, the collection does suffer writings. In particular, his earlier writings, about this issue or ideas for future issues, from a few problems. Perhaps its chief which were printed in German, have never please email us: [email protected]. weakness is the lack of editorial material. been available to the English-speaking In your email, please give us your name, Considering the value of this collection of world; even the original German versions mailing address, and any particular areas essays, not only to composers and computer are frequently conspicuously absent from of interest, so that we can send you any musicians but to a more general readership American library shelves. It is hopeful that appropriate materials. If you write a CD of artists and musicians, a foreword by the this volume will be only the first pioneering or book review, you will be able to keep editor concerning Brün’s contributions step towards an increased awareness of the your review copy free of charge. The and his importance to twentieth-century life and works of one the most innovative success of Array depends on input from music is certainly warranted. This is all composers of the twentieth century. its readers, and we look forward to hearing the more necessary considering how little from you. attention Brün has received in general musical discourse during the last several Thank you, decades. For example, only a scant Margaret Schedel 225 words have been devoted to Brün Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (a generous treatment, considering that he is just as often not mentioned at all). In addition, a number of the essays contained in the collection are previously unpublished lectures. Additional information about the context of such lectures would be helpful to readers.

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