Towards a Semiotic Model of Mixed Music Analysis*
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Towards a semiotic model of mixed music analysis* PHILIPPE LALITTE{ MINT, LEAD, Universite´ de Dijon, France E-mail: [email protected] In this paper I try to outline a model that can bring out the balance/imbalance, simultaneity/succession, etc. meaningful relationships between ‘the instrumental’ and ‘the Although Vare`se decided to intercalate pre-recorded electronics’ in mixed music. The model is based on the interpolations between the instrumental sections of semiotic square which is considered in semiotics as a powerful De´serts (1954), as is also the case in the first version of conceptual framework to examine the relationships between Musica su due dimensioni (1952) by Maderna and two terms (S1/S2) and their negative (non-S1/non-S2), terms which can be characters, situations, actions, concepts, etc. Analogique A et B (1959) by Xenakis, Stockhausen’s Two paradigmatic axes represent the relations between the Kontakte (1959-60) was the first piece to establish a true actors of mixed music: the sources (instrumental and ‘contact’ between these two universes. Starting from the electronic) on the one hand, and the manipulations (real-time postulate that ‘the meeting of the familiar, the named, in processing and sound projection) on the other. According to the areas of the unknown and the unnamed, confers the the semiotic square, the relations inside the environment are earlier growing mystery and fascination. And conver- defined in terms of contrariety, contradiction and sely, the well-known, even the banal, the old, to which complementarity. This model allows us to start out with a we hardly pay any attention, gets fresh and alive again in purely technological description of the ‘mixed music’ genre the new environment of the unknown’, Stockhausen and of individual pieces, with the advantage of a pre-operative (1988: 109) set the basis for mixed music. Consequently, analysis of the system. It describes the immanent structure of the environments and releases the potential interactions the desire to explore the interactions between these two between the instrumental and the electronics of mixed music. worlds gave rise to a full musical genre that still develops These interactions are examined, from a paradigmatic point and evolves. of view, with numerous representative pieces of mixed music We have to notice that the evolution of new musical from the twentieth century. technologies in the twentieth century involved contin- uous bidirectional passages from the studio to the instrument and vice versa, symptomatic of the simulta- 1. INTRODUCTION neous need to process the sound in-depth and to keep it The first examples of the confrontation of live music live at a concert. Thus Battier (1992: 66) analysed it as with magnetic tape within performance date back to the follows: ‘In the twentieth century musical technology is beginning of the 1950s. They were meant to merge the subject to a strange cycle. In the first half of the century infinite variety of concrete and electronic sounds with it appears as a full instrument. After the birth of the the contemporary instrumental pallet and, secondarily, support-based music in the 1950s, it takes on the form of to bring in a visual dimension that was absent at a network of the laboratory equipment with limited loudspeaker concerts. However, the composers quickly functions. In the recent years it took up the keyboards realised that this new means of expression involved and recovered the appearance of instruments and many aesthetic and formal problems. The confrontation electronic processing boxes; step by step the computer of the instrumental and the electroacoustic universes slips to the centre. At that time, a concept of a silent revealed traps inherent in the nature of these media. The instrument simply controlling an external device of instrumental is ‘played’, and thus visible, flexible and sound production emerged. That’s why keyboards and malleable, however limited by its timbric and spatial wind instruments lost their own voice and gesture or potential, while the electroacoustic is ‘projected’, and oral interfaces, etc.’. This trend can also be observed in thus invisible, rich in unprecedented resources, however the evolution of mixed music practices, which can be rigidinitstiming.Soonafterthesetwodomainswere divided into seven main stages. brought together, it turned out that defining their Since the 1920s, instrumental pieces with at least one relationship was a real challenge; it may be grasped by electronic instrument have been composed (Honegger, the concepts of fusion/opposition, similarity/difference, Rose de metal with Dynaphone, 1928; Schillinger, First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra,1929; *I would like to thank Joanna Kantor-Martynuska for her comments and help with translation. Milhaud, Suite pour Ondes Martenot et piano,1933; Organised Sound 11(2): 99–106 ß 2006 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the United Kingdom. doi: 10.1017/S1355771806001348 Organised Sound jos87608.3d 22/5/06 13:29:15 The Charlesworth Group, Wakefield +44(0)1924 369598 - Rev 7.51n/W (Jan 20 2003) 100 Philippe Lalitte Vare`se, Ecuatorial, with 2 Ondes Martenot or 2 clarifying the relationships between the instrumental on Theremins, 1934). Soon after the first works with the one hand, and the electronics on the other, in mixed useofatapewereputforward(Schaeffer,Orphe´o 51, music? In this paper we try to outline a model that can 1951; Badings, Capriccio for violin and two sound tracks, bring out the meaningful relationships between the 1952; Maderna, Musica su due dimensioni, 1952), pieces instrumental and the electronics, starting from the poles transforming the sounds of the acoustic instruments by defined by the environment. The model is based on the means of live electronics appeared (Kagel, Transicion II, semiotic square already employed in the analysis of 1958–1959; Stockhausen, Mixtur, 1964). They were various semantic micro-universes (novels, comics, logically followed by the coexistence of magnetic tape advertising, visual arts, music, etc). According to music and live electronics within the same piece in the Greimas (1970), the semiotic square fits into the 1970s and the 1980s (Ferneyhough, Time and Motion Generative Course on the level of the underlying Study II, 1973–1976; Manoury, Zeitlauf,1982).Inthe structures, i.e. the immanent structures, which can be 1980s, MIDI keyboards controlling the sounds stored in actualised in the surface structures (semio-narrative and a sampler or on a computer’s hard disk restored the discursive structures). Two paradigmatic axes represent flexibility of synchronisation (Maˆche,Iter memor, 1985; the relations between the actors of mixed music: the Aliunde, 1988). At the same time, computers were sources (instrumental and electronic) on the one hand, dealing with the real-time processing, the diffusion of and the manipulations (real-time processing and sound sounds stored on a hard disk, and even the synchronisa- projection) on the other. The relations inside the tion between the performer and the electronics (Boulez, environment are defined in terms of contrariety, Repons,1981;…Explosante-fixe…, 1993; Manoury, contradiction and complementarity. This model allows Jupiter, 1982, rev. 1992). These six stages should be us to start out with a purely technological description of supplemented by works using gesture interfaces, which the ‘mixed music’ genre and of individual pieces, with are the subject of abundant current research (Cage, the advantage of a pre-operative analysis of the system. Variations V, 1964; Machover, Begin Again Again, But before we describe these relations in more detail, it is 1991). necessary to specify what perspective we take in The technological development and the composers’ employing the concepts ‘instrumental’ and ‘electronic’. creative imagination multiplied the possibilities of interaction between the instrumental and the electro- 2. INSTRUMENTAL GESTURE VS nics. Such potentialities have been realised in various ELECTRONIC GESTURE environments as a choice of an instrument and its function and a device used in sound production, To characterise the instrumental and the electronics is processing and diffusion. The environment is not only not an easy task. Referring to the difference of timbre a heterogeneous sample of equipment and software, it is does not seem valid in this day and age. Soon after the a reflection of the creative will. Thus, sometimes the rise of electronic music their timbres were easily choice of the environment could close the aesthetic gaps, differentiable, today they aren’t anymore. The progress as pointed out by Durieux (1992: 95): ‘The composers of sound synthesis makes the acoustic differences attached to the post-serial tradition eagerly practise between instrumental and electronic timbres less and instrumental transformations of the figures directly less noticeable unless the perceiver has access to the resulting from the score, and they spatialise them by visual aids of the source. The possibility of recording means of the loudspeakers. On the other hand, those and sampling instrumental sounds has also contributed representing the spectral school conceive electronic to reducing the gap. As soon as this technology became parts as a global realisation of non-tempered frequen- available, composers took advantage of such an cies, calculated beforehand, on which the instrumental ambiguity by mixing instrumental pre-recorded parts parts are grafted’. Before writing a single note or and instrumental live parts (Ho¨ller, Arcus 1978; working out a single sound, part of the relations Reynolds, Archipelago, 1983). According to Levinas between ‘the instrumental’ and ‘the electronics’ would (1998: 301), the ‘instrumental’ implies a relation with the depend on the choice of an environment.1 human body (gesture and breathing): ‘I call the Thus, what environment should be chosen is not instrumental all the sounds produced in real time as a trivial: it is a consequence of both the precise result of an intervention of a human body. The sound technological needs and an aesthetic wish. How do we immediately prolongs the movement of the body.