Spatial Music: ARTIST STORIES Erwin Roebroeks (Ed.) Wouter Snoei Yannis Kyriakides Arthur Sauer Kees Tazelaar Robert Henke Roel Funcken Miguel Negrão Ji Youn Kang Konrad Boehmer

T H E g a m e o f l i f e ## Introduction Europe, yet subsequently 1 What is musical space? declined with the advent 2 What is your approach Venice circa 1600, of concert life, when music to and/or experience St. Mark’s Basilica. began to travel and was with spatial music? Diverse choirs, ensembles therefore no longer tailored 3 How important is and soloists are placed at to a specific situation. spatial music to you? different locations in the Centuries later, musical 4 Any future plans/ church to perform music space has acquired possibilities? composed especially for renewed emphasis, this structure by Giovanni this time in the context The first Wave Field Gabrieli. Delays caused by of electronic music. Synthesis pieces were the spatial disposition of the Composers like Edgard composed by Wouter Snoei performers form a structural Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, and Yannis Kyriakides, and component of the music, Karlheinz Stockhausen Snoei also designed the which is the culmination of and Luigi Nono composed WFS system’s software. the Venetian technique of the physical and the sonic Arthur Sauer is the spiritual cori spezzati, “split choirs” space of their music as father of The Game of Life. or polychoral music. unities. Kees Tazelaar is also the head of the Institute of What exactly was The Game of Life Sonology at The Hague’s happening here, at this Foundation is aimed Royal Conservatory. Robert crucial period in Western at composers who are Henke (aka Monolake) music history? Was this interested not only in the and Roel Funcken (aka spatial music a new means sound of their music but one of the Funckarma of musical communication? also in composing space, brothers) are artists with Was it a decentralization and offers artists a tool a notable reputation in of the musical act, in line with which to create sonic dance music. Miguel with music’s transformation spaces. This is called Wave Negrão co-developed from a prescriptive liturgical Field Synthesis (WFS), a the live application of the tool into a free dramatic state-of-the-art technology WFS system. Ji Youn artform? Or was it just sheer specially designed for Kang studied with the coincidence, triggered by spatial sound rendering. shamanistic masters of the astonishing possibilities WFS not only offers the traditional South Korean for echoes between St. possibility to position or music before coming to Mark’s numerous domes? move sounds inside a Europe. Finally, Konrad If so, why didn’t it happen venue, but also enables Boehmer has not himself centuries earlier? Was composers to create a sonic made WFS music, but is Gabrieli’s spatialization the space which is bigger than interviewed as an expert on result of a compositional the physical venue itself. spatial composition. urge sonically to recompose The Game of Life’s WFS Their answers are as diverse St. Mark’s, to create a system consists of 192 as their music. space within a space? And loudspeakers, and is the if so, what is expressed only mobile and real-time Erwin thereby? In short: what is WFS system in the world. the nature of this musical Roebroeks space? I asked a diverse selection Co-founder and board member of composers who have The Game of Life Beginning at St. Mark’s, this made music for this system technique of composing for the same four questions specific structures gained regarding their own musical popularity throughout space: 3 To me space can be many sounds. When I make some extent in the music things. When I work with music for those kinds of of Ji [Youn Kang, ER]. She the Wave Field Synthesis situations, I tend also to has a clear idea of what system, I consider sounds think of my spatialization her movements mean, and to be objects which live from that point of view. And there are many circular in a certain space. With when the sound doesn’t movements around the the WFS system, I tend to come from the stage, there audience. At a certain point see the objects in a two- will be a good reason for these movements cease to dimensional space. I don’t this. Furthermore, there have the nature of graphical really mind that the space has to be a reason that the painting and become isn’t three-dimensional, music comes through the something else. We need to since I can imagine the walls. I like music to be figure out what that is. objects themselves to be alive and to be nearby. three-dimensional. In reality Furthermore, the WFS sound is not an object, but All music is spatial, system now offers something that is caused although not all composers the possibility of live by an object, but in music, think consciously about performance. To me that’s to me, sounds themselves this aspect. Even a non- the most interesting aspect become objects. electronic orchestral piece at the moment, because I is spatial. So to me, spatial like to see physical action Space is also the realm music is very important. directly connected with in which the music can sound movement. exist. So there are limits. I am not so sure any more Space, at least in music, is about creating sound- something that is confined movements. I still like Wouter within limits, for instance sounds to move, but Snoei limits in physical space, the way I think about or limits in pitch. As a movement, and how to composer, I need those design movement, has limits. changed. If I take a preset circle, triangle, or square My approach changes from on the computer screen, composition to another. I don’t hear a circle, For Wave Field Synthesis, triangle, or square in space. I have a specific approach Maybe that’s caused by in which I consider musical differences between seeing sounds as objects which and hearing. The behaviour may be freely moved. of a sound is now more Furthermore, I try to apply important to me than the reasoning to the positioning actual path it follows. For of these objects. I need to instance, the speed of ask consciously: where will a moving sound is more my sound be, and for what important than its exact reason? I think that’s the spatial co-ordinates. case for any musical piece. For example, if you have The movement aspect of a stage with musicians on Wave Field Synthesis is not it, then the most logical as advanced as it could situation is for the sounds be. Certain movements to be also on stage, in so could be made to acquire far as they aren’t electronic a meaning. I hear this to 5 I often bring up the layers and hierarchies, Aboriginal Australians subject of space with putting certain sounds thought of it already, but I my students. When I talk in certain dimensions. was struck by its potential. about creating space in You create a sense of a composition, I mean three-dimensional space I have always been creating a sense or feeling with the sounds, but it interested in the idea of of time within it. That’s a isn’t trying to assert this space within space, space metaphorical description multi-dimensionality with outside of space. I like the of space, related to how movement, because the destabilizing element of we experience music. music is changing, because inferring other spaces - it’s Regarding my own music, time is doing that for you. one of the things music I used to think of it as a and especially electronic space into which you can I remember, having done music does well. At the enter and move around the WFS piece, feeling moment I am involved in a freely. that we were at the very piece with musikFabrik and beginning of a new IOU theatre based on the Space and time are aesthetics. How do we idea of vortex, air rings and obviously linked. If you listen to WFS music? What vorticity. It’s fascinating to create an illusion of space information does it give us? learn about how velocity in your composition, it’s It is interesting that one of and pressure, and not only controlled with time, both the characteristic ways in time, affect the physical in a technical sense, as well which WFS defines itself creation of space. as in an artistic sense. You is with the moving sound create space by creating object. How do you take delay between things, or the sense of an object, the Yannis by relating things to each cause of a sound, out of the Kyriakides other in time, and between effect of sound, out of how the space of the music we listen to music? itself and the space of the listener. This relation is Space is really an important interesting, because you issue for me. I am can problematize it, set fascinated by the idea I put up questions between the into a recent composition, virtual compositional space Disco Debris, literally to and the actual space in map space directly onto which the music is being time. This is an interactive heard. installation where one walks through granulated, My approach has changed. or metaphorically speaking, I was never really into ‘frozen’ voices, and the moving sounds in space, movement of the listener but I tried something like in the space becomes that with my Wave Field the time element in the Synthesis piece, because composition. If the listener I thought: wow, you can stands still time is frozen; do that! I had wanted the if the listener moves, time piece I created for the changes. Acousmonium at GRM to So in this way even a be an immersive, spatial narrative can be mapped experience, but using a spatially. Of course strategy that is based on that’s not a new idea, the 7 Space is a kind of natural from the possibilities of two things touching each environment - so natural the loudspeaker system. other. By placing static that you forget it’s there. I can think of something sources in space that are Sound is so omnipresent in three dimensions, but I “touched” by a moving that many people don’t couldn’t realise it with WFS. force it’s possible to create really pay attention to Working with WFS to me movement without moving it and experience what means thinking of space the sources. In this way sound really is. Musical as a football field. Flatland. you can create a sense space for me is a question That’s the space you can of movement with its of exploring space in a play with. own integrity. In my next musical way: exploring piece I will combine these space with sound. Would it be possible to static sources touched by suggest a third dimension? moving forces once more As a kid I was already Perceptually, WFS is a kind with ideas about moving fascinated with sound of 2.5-dimensional system, sources. and with the construction because higher sounds of loudspeakers. It’s the sound higher and lower simple matter of touching sounds lower. You could Arthur something with your hand play with that. I’ve never Sauer and scraping, and thus done so myself, but it might producing a sound. I think be an interesting thing to that every child finds that do. phenomenon amazing, and that people often forget the How important space is for things they found amazing me depends on the subject as a child - they lose that matter. After working with degree of awareness. I like space for quite some time, to play with it and to bring I really feel a kind of longing some of that awareness for making flat music. If I back. Maybe that’s the returned to a really flat kind meaning of musical space of composition to me. – stereo for example – I’d still be incorporating My approach is still ideas developed through evolving, since spatiality thinking about space. So in electronic music I wouldn’t be making the always depends on your same sort of thing that I loudspeaker system. The would have done without Wave Field Synthesis that experience. system offers certain possibilities, but it isn’t the When I started with my system that will make all first WFS piece I regarded others obsolete. What I like each sound as a character about it is the possibility of which moved according to placing sound in space. Yet its particular nature. Thus it’s actually not a three- sound and movement dimensional space but a would act as one. In my last two-dimensional one, a flat piece, however, space, since the speakers I began from a different are in a horizontal plane. idea: if you hear sound, My imagination begins it’s always caused by 9 For me the idea of musical the music, whereas in the electronic music, at the space is strongly related musique concrète tradition Institute of Sonology when to the ideas behind serial it was rather understood as it was still in Utrecht, the methods of composition, a performative aspect. main studio contained a where a parameter “space” I think it should be more four-channel loudspeaker is defined by its extremes, compositional than system, and concerts for instance the lowest performative. Of course were presented with four and the highest pitch, and there should be somebody loudspeakers. So it was not where the range between behind the mixing even a conscious decision; those extremes is a space desk who takes artistic I just did what everyone which has to be filled in responsibility for how a else did. I became a rational way. The range piece of music sounds in conscious of the inherent between the softest and the the performance space. problems of this medium loudest dynamics would Yet there is a non-real-time by working in it. I found it also be such a space, and element in composition, fascinating from the very that between the shortest allowing a degree of first moment, also because and the longest duration precision which is just not it leaves no reason for the would be another. It’s very possible in a live situation. audience to sit in rows and difficult to give one answer For me it is very important, look in the same direction. to the question of what in the course of developing Why should they? musical space is, since this a piece of music, to reflect depends entirely on the upon it outside the real- Wave Field Synthesis compositional approach time in which the music systems should in the or the compositional will be presented to an future be large enough problems that the audience; to listen to to accommodate large composer defines for sections and elements, audiences. himself. reconsider or change them, and so on. It’s a question The artistic challenge is I take much inspiration of design, basically. You to establish a “natural” from the electronic music wouldn’t build a cathedral relationship between the of the Cologne studio, and in real-time, you would creation of the sounds and perhaps even more from design it first. the way they are presented the music composed by in space. I am inspired and Gottfried Michael Koenig I think that the way one intrigued by that idea. subsequently to his time designs the spatial in Cologne. The idea of reproduction aspect of a arranging sounds in a piece of music should be Kees musical space or a sound- coherent with its overall Tazelaar reproduction space in compositional idea. the same way that one Therefore, my approach might arrange flowers in can also change from one a vase is not attractive piece to the next. There to me. I have my doubts will be some aspect of about live sound diffusion the music which should as an idea, although be clarified rather than even so I have heard very confused by the way it is convincing performances. projected in space. In the Cologne tradition, sound diffusion was Most of my work consists understood immediately as of multichannel pieces. a compositional aspect of When I began to make 11

Musical space is more a many circular movements the listener. Bad-sounding mental state than anything at different scales and rooms need either music else. Unlike most other different positions in which works together forms of art, instrumental the space both inside with all the problems, or a music especially can and outside the ring of great deal of treatment to decouple itself easily from loudspeakers. The second make the room effectively a predefined image or metaphor is the concept invisible. WFS relies meaning, just unfolding of swarming, where one on highly neutral, non- in time and allowing the element is followed by reverberant spaces. This recipients to fill it with others with some random in itself already contributes their own ideas. Musical deviation in location and to shaping the recipient’s spaces are very open to speed, as in the WFS expectations. Given the interpretation, and, even version of my piece Tau acoustic equivalent of a when working with spatial at the Berlin Technical white cube art gallery, we music, my ultimate goal as University. need to find music which a composer is to make the works in such a space. audience forget about the Music is always spatial: fact that they are listening every instrument is always We are acquiring a small to speakers, or even to a playing in conjunction WFS system at the Sound specific artificial or semi- with the room in which Studies department of real acoustic space, and we hear it, so we cannot the Berlin University of focus instead on their own avoid spatial experiences Arts, where I teach, and mental spaces. anyway. Given that fact, I am very much looking I would prefer to shape it forward to exploring it with I am a pragmatic composer as part of the composition, the students. I would like, - I try things out and use rather than omitting it and in terms of research, to whatever creates pleasing hoping that it will sound focus especially on real- results. In the context of good in a particular space. time interaction with the a Wave Field Synthesis I love the fact that we system in conjunction with system, I am very fond can hear and distinguish new interfaces; from my of the effect of placing sound from all directions: perspective as an artist, sources in front of the it’s highly satisfying to I would simply like to make loudspeakers. I like to move incorporate this dimension good music whose spatial sounds through people’s in music. component is more than heads. just a nice effect. In an ideal scenario, the Otherwise I’m concerned properties of a physical with finding strategies for performance space Robert making this happen most are such as to support Henke effectively in a musical the musical idea. As an context. So far I’ve come example, think of music for up with two metaphors organ in the environment which seem to work of a cathedral. The well. The first could be architecture of the space described as connected sets the pace for musical circular movements, development, for the like being inside a large reverb and the fusion of clockwork mechanism, as discrete musical elements, in my piece Iron Age for the and the architecture also WFS system of The Game encourages attentiveness of Life, which involves and the preconditioning of 15 The music of Funckarma of Sonology I was taught Synthesis system. involves a many-layered a different approach: Working with it was an approach to music, first write down a plan of awesome experience, although usually we everything you’re going which I’d like to explore play it through only two to do, then work it out to again. loudspeakers, because this completion, after which you is the situation with nine out can evaluate the difference of ten systems, and putting between your point of Roel all those layers through only departure and the eventual Funcken two speakers is actually result. I therefore have two a difficult matter. This different approaches, both problem ceases to exist of which I like very much. with the 192 loudspeakers Beats play an important of the Game of Life WFS part in Funckarma’s music, system, opening many while most “Sonology more possibilities. For music” is much more example, it’s possible abstract and has no beats to make music with a - at the Institute I learned frequency range from that everything is music. 20 to 20 000 Hz, but much Gradually, these two of the sophistication and approaches became for me detail of this is lost when the same thing. listening through inferior systems, as most people Space is very important to do, which is a shame - with me. Sometimes I’m blown sounds layered on one away by music using only another it always gives two speakers yet which a feeling that something uses space in a unique is masked and that way - this idea I find highly one sound is hidden by attractive, for instance in another, so that the musical the music of Clark, whose message becomes unclear. sounds are so wide, big With better speakers all and dynamic. the layers may be heard Its evolution will never stop. separately; and the You often have to fight WFS system offers the with your sounds to make opportunity to turn the them loud enough. For situation right around by example, if your waveform facilitating a much more looks like a brick, most of interesting division of the time it will sound like musical layers. shit. But still some people manage to make it loud, When I make music for but still maintaining all the myself, I’m concerned dynamics, even when only with feelings and emotions in stereo. The possibilities only, and that’s my point become much greater on of departure - I can make four speakers, and so on. music without thinking I find this greatly inspiring. about anything in particular, and just start collecting I would love to create more sounds. At the Institute work with the Wave Field 17 Musical space can be Field Synthesis. Changes compose using sounds related both to abstract in the content of each of spread out over a large notions of musical the sources relative to its surface, in this case a elements (such as pitch or neighbours creates shifting sphere. In this system, harmonic spectra, analyzed textures. I would like the by default each sound is using a spatial paradigm, listener to have the feeling played everywhere in this as in “pitch space” and of being “inside” the sound, sphere, using a grid of so on), and to the spatial to make the volume of the static sound sources. The placement of sounds. musical space audible. same synthesis process When describing pitch is executed at each point relations, we still use spatial When creating a work on the grid, but each metaphors (up, down, the spatial component of parameter changes in time higher, lower, etc.) even sound is as important to in a different way for each though they are actually me, as other parameters, point (if necessary a sound time-based relations. if not more so. I try to take source is first decorrelated the spatial component of before being processed). The physical process of a piece or performance The definition of how the listening to music requires into consideration from parameters change at each sound to propagate the earliest stages, rather point of the sphere is given through a physical medium than producing sound by mathematical functions (usually air), and this is material which is then defined on the sphere inherently a spatial process. placed in space as the (therefore independent of Therefore all music is second step of a two-step the grid used), by iterative spatial, either intentionally process. I like to connect processes or using data or not. Even pitch is related spatial parameters with sets (for example the to space, since a certain other synthesis parameters movement of buoys in frequency entails a certain in such a way that they the ocean or the colour of wavelength which has an influence each other. For pixels in a video). extent in space, and in the instance, in the piece case of standing waves this Do sine waves dream of becomes clearly audible electric fields? each sine Miguel (indeed there exist several wave is moved through Negrão pieces of music which are space, its frequency based on the size of rooms changing according to a and the standing waves global mapping of space which can be produced to frequency - changes in in them). When one frequency are thus caused consciously takes space by changes in spatial into account when making position. music, thinking creatively about the spatial aspect of Currently I’m working on music, then one is dealing a PhD project which uses with musical space. the Sonic Arts Research Center’s Sonic Lab with I tend to use a large number 32 speakers in a quasi- of static virtual sound spherical configuration sources distributed through surrounding the listener, the space, including in including underneath the between the listeners, floor, and investigating each with similar sonic the use of “surfaces of content, when using Wave sound” as a metaphor to 19 I think space is of the same the music is always the spatial music, which has nature as all the other same as the idea, though. more disadvantages than musical parameters. It’s To clarify this, let’s take advantages because the the body of the sound. melody as an example. screen is flat, making it Space is everywhere - as I may have an idea of impossible to match the something natural, it can the spatial quality of my two worlds of flat vision easily be forgotten, and melody, how it will sound, and spatial sound together. this is also the case in but then at the last moment Games involve a more music. We concentrate on I’ll find something that abstract view of reality for all the other parameters creates a balance between the player. I think this has like rhythm, time, sound, this idea, the melody, the musical possibilities. and pitch. What about other sounds and the whole the environment the piece. instrument is in? Sound Ji Youn is everywhere. Yet when I don’t really believe in the Kang I listen to contemporary phenomenon of spatial music it often feels far music. All music is spatial. away. What I am trying I think that’s the answer. to do is to create a reality It’s not a particular genre or that we always have, but style of music. using different media, and different materials, of which Music made with help of space is one. Wave Field Synthesis may be a way for so-called My approach is quite “difficult” music to be more simple. If one is making accessible to people, since an electronic music track, they can have fun with its or even orchestral or listener-friendly aspects. In ensemble music, and there this sense it constitutes a are two ore more elements very attractive performing to be put together, one environment. is thinking in terms of balance; and, for me, Furthermore, WFS spatialization is about could be added to new balance, about searching environments. Recently for a balance between I was thinking about game elements. music, which could be much more artistic than Space is already there. it usually is, and could Therefore I don’t really add new dimensions to think about it as such, the playing experience. but instead ask myself It could then be not only questions such as: where a game, concerned with am I going to put more scoring points or winning, pressure into my music? but also an interaction with where am I going to make composed or generative it more pure, or more sound. Spatialization complex? I’m thinking has much to do with the about some kind of music game-playing environment. which is already there. This is different from That doesn’t mean that watching a movie with 21 Throughout the time listener with messages functional musical forms. that this topic has been whose relevance is less on In other words, this was discussed in music history, one side than on the other. a very intelligent method there has been a gigantic of dealing with musical confusion between musical The second problem is a “space”, which finally led space and musical place. musical one: how to justify to a new conception of There are composers who composing for several musical sound. think that just by using loudspeakers. What multiple loudspeakers kind of message is it that We should be thinking they create musical space, can’t be communicated about ways to approach whereas in reality they are monophonically? new dimensions of filling up musical places. electronic composition, I like to use loudspeakers whether using 2 or 200 Space is infinite and cannot set up in such a way that loudspeakers. A new music be located, whereas place the listener doesn’t lose will arise, and although we is something which can be left-right orientation, don’t yet know how it will determined. The question enabling me therefore to sound, we do know that it is how to spread out compose a panorama won’t be concert music, different musical textures which can be structurally but a new type of musical in such a way that they rich and playful. The performance within a larger create at least an illusion of problem of spatial context. We have ears and musical space. Any attempt composition is very simple. eyes, and a soul, and we to do this is fraught with Composing for two flutes all desire such kinds of problems. is a different matter from satisfaction as were once composing for a single provided by opera. It’s not The first problem is the flute. Whatever one uses just legitimate but actually construction of the human in music must be given necessary to search out a ear. We perceive sounds an active role in the new medium, to expose that come from behind us composition. its inner new qualities and in a much less precise way reach new dimensions of than sounds that occur To take a historical the psychic range of human front of us. Every dog, cat example: when, in the 16th perception. If I ever went or donkey can turn its ears century, composers started back to electronic music, around. That’s why they to experiment with the this is what I would try to can listen to Stockhausen’s acoustics of the Basilica achieve. Kontakte in a much more di San Marco in Venice, precise way than human this was at a time when a beings can. We have to turn new vertical conception of Konrad our heads around. music was emerging, and We feel uneasy with a new superstructure was Boehmer anything coming from needed for the new musical behind us. The entire material. Composing psychosomatic system for different choirs and of human beings has instrumental ensembles developed in a way that distributed throughout San doesn’t suit them to Marco was a search for this listening to all-round spatial new superstructure, which music. Composers should would articulate the new take this into consideration, material in a newly dramatic and shouldn’t attack the way, resulting in a variety of foto: Jeroen van Aken van Jeroen foto: 23 publisher: The Game of Life editor: Erwin Roebroeks english editor: Richard Barrett production: Gilles Huygen design: Monique Voorhout © 2013 The Game of Life Foundation www.gameoflife.nl [email protected]