Symposium on Composition Author(s): , Marc Battier, Clarence Barlow, John Bischoff, Herbert Brün, Joel Chadabe, Conrad Cummings, Giuseppe Englert, David Jaffe, Stephan Kaske, Otto Laske, Jean- Claude Risset, David Rosenboom, Kaija Saariaho, Horacio Vaggione Reviewed work(s): Source: Computer Music Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), pp. 40-63 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3680297 . Accessed: 19/02/2012 20:36

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http://www.jstor.org Editedby Curtis Roads, with Marc Battier, on ClarenceBarlow, John Bischoff, Herbert Symposium Computer Brun,Joel Chadabe, Conrad Cummings, Music Composition GiuseppeEnglert, David Jaffe, Stephan Kaske,Otto Laske, Jean=Claude Risset, DavidRosenboom, Kaija Saariaho, and HoracioVaggione

Introduction Otto Laske (Boston, Massachusetts USA) Jean-ClaudeRisset (Marseille, France) From the very first research in music composition David Rosenboom (Oakland,California USA) with computers carried out by LejarenHiller and KaijaSaariaho (Paris, France) his associates in the mid-1950s, the computer has Horacio Vaggione(Paris, France) offered enormous to the Com- potential composer. At the time of their the are the most malleable tools ever de- responses, composers ranged puters among in from 22 to 66 live in the human and in the three decades age (Kaske) (Brfin).They veloped by beings, and their since that hundreds of com- USA, France, Germany,although coun- early research, many tries of include have to their own musi- origin Italy, India, Argentina, and posers adapted computers as cal needs. Poland, well. The views representedhere cover a wide Articles in Computer Music Journaland other spec- trum of opinions and attitudes, edited for publications' point to the broad application of com- lightly publication. Because of the way the responses were puters in musical tasks, especially to sound syn- gathered (by written questionnaire), it is thesis, live performance,and algorithmic or proce- important to consider each reply itself, that is, not as a re- dural composition. by sponse to the previous composer's reply. No com- This symposium is the product of a questionnaire poser saw the responses of the other composers. sent in 1982, 1983, and 1984 to over 30 composers The orderof responses was determined by the editor. experienced in the computer medium. The ques- tionnaire contained 21 questions. Composers were asked to to at least five of them. The com- respond What was the most of musical posers were also invited to submit scores and other important part your graphics that describe their work. These fourteen training? composers responded to the challenge: David Jaffe:The most important parts of my tradi- Clarence Barlow (Cologne, West Germany) tional education were the practical experience of Marc Battier (Paris,France) playing and mandolin in both classical and John Bischoff (Oakland,California USA) improvisational contexts, conducting, and compos- Herbert Briin (Urbana,Illinois USA) ing and hearing my music. The music of eastern Joel Chadabe(Albany, New YorkUSA) Europe, particularlyJewish music, which I learned Conrad Cummings (Oberlin, Ohio USA) from my father, has had an important influence on Giuseppe Englert (Paris,France) my style, as have my many years as a bluegrass David Jaffe(Stanford, California USA) musician. Stephan Kaske (Munich, West Germany) As for my theoretical background,one experience stands out above the rest. At Bennington College, I had the opportunity of witnessing and participating Copyright ? 1985 by Curtis Roads. in the spatial and orchestrational experiments set Brant. The and 1. See Curtis Roads, ed., 1985, Composersand the Computer, up by Henry spatial orchestrational published by William Kaufmann,Inc. (LosAltos, California)for planning that has gone into my recent computer articles on nine prominent composers. music pieces can be traced back to this training.

40 Computer Music Journal Herbert Briin: Listening to music in concerts and Herbert Briin: The universally accepted, academi- on records in the company of friends. cally perpetuated, consumer-oriented routine of ac- Jean-ClaudeRisset: I consider my studies as cepting the consequences of composition as if they the most crucial part of my traditional music train- were the properties of the composed music. I had, ing. This may look paradoxicalfor a composer, es- alas, to suffer it, but I did not ever believe in it. pecially one who seldom uses real-time computer facilities. I shall explain why. The first reason is personal. I had a remarkable What was your most important educational piano teacher, Robert Trimaille, who demanded and experience? obtained very much from his piano students. With- out the intense musical experience and the secure Marc Battier: My most important educational ex- feeling of professionalism I received through his perience was the first computer music class in the training, I am not sure I would have dared to ven- music department at the University of Paris VIII, ture into the profession of music. Also, working on Vincennes. The class, taught by Patrick Greussay, the piano repertorywas a thorough and active intro- was mostly directed toward artificial intelligence duction to a large body of music. To be revived in techniques in music, using languages such as Lisp. performance,works have to be studied both in their details and their overall form. A great deal of musi- cianship is demanded of the teacher here. Robert Before you worked with computers, what was your Trimaille and Huguette Goullon were admirable main compositional medium? guides to me. Having to realize the pieces in sound-with ten Marc Battier: I had the chance to study computer fingers-implies deep learning (in both head and music early in my student days, back in 1969. Be- body) about phrasing, contrast, and the use of regis- fore that, however, I had intensive experience in the ters. One has to steer the sound, to understand the practice of traditional tape music, mostly musique correlates of musicality in performance,to realize concrete. Aside from working with computers, I illusions such as playing legato on a piano. Such have continued this electroacoustic activity. These knowhow is invaluable training for the realization days, I consider the two media as integrated with of pieces through computer synthesis, where all one another. these aspects must be handled by the composer. Herbert Briin: Instruments in chamber ensembles. But I must also mention that studying composi- David Jaffe:Before working with computers I wrote tion was very enlightening, especially orchestration for a wide variety of instrumental ensembles. I con- with Andre Jolivet, who had a deep feeling for the tinue to write instrumental music along with my idiosyncracies of the instruments. Studying har- computer music. I preferwriting for large groups. mony and counterpoint is very useful to gain a However, since performancecommitments from thorough understandingof western tonal music, large ensembles are difficult to procure, much of while offering the opportunity to try one's hand in a my music has of necessity been for chamber en- domain with explicit rules and criteria. Of course, sembles. I find that the two media-computer mu- these criteria correspondto styles of the past, and it sic and instrumental/vocal music-complement is debatable whether the study of harmony and each other. Instrumental music continually re- counterpoint is a must for the composer of today. It minds one of the depth and richness of expression does seem worth studying at least one established that is possible with real instruments played by musical language or system. skilled performers. Computer music allows expres- sion of compositional ideas that would be difficult to realize with performers. What was the least important part of your tradi- I have mixed feelings about the combination of tional musical training? live performers and computer sound. I have written

Roads 41 Fig. 1. Herbert Brfin'sMu- tatis Mutandis33, com- position for interpreters, with ink graphics drawn by a plotter under control of a computer programmed by the composer.

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for such combinations, as in my piece May All cality allow a composer to add structure from the Your Children Be Acrobats, in which eight gui- ground up in making an instrument. Therefore, the tars, a soprano voice, and stereo computer sound composer has a chance to experience more clearly are combined. However, one factor plagues all at- the operation of those structures. For example, tempts at combining computer sound with tradi- Jim Horton in Berkeley,California has developed tional instruments: the discrepancy between the numerous melody-generatingsystems that he and projection of an unamplified instrument and of a others have listened to extensively over the past loudspeaker is so pronounced that the two seem in five years. One can almost hear melodic spinning completely different worlds. Many composers have wheels turning in these programs.They do not just handled this problem by amplifying the instru- simulate a broadly recognizable musicality (a se- ments. I consider this solution inadequate because quencer does this instantly), but rather they try to it is, in effect, lowering the instruments to the level build an original musical entity from the bottom of the speaker. I believe EdgardVarese may have had up. This is unique to music by computers. the right idea in his composition Deserts, in which Otto Laske: I turned to the computer because of an he avoids ever combining the taped and live sounds. inner necessity in my compositional thinking, ex- pecting to find new planning resources. There was also an outer necessity of having my ideas realized. Why have you turned to the computer? Actually I turned to computers before I had access to one, on account of the kind of precompositional Clarence Barlow: In 1971 I attempted to realize a work I was doing. I was always highly dissatisfied five-minute stochastic piece using an adding ma- with "writing music from left to right," a procedure chine and random number tables. Six months would that seemed to restrict my intuition to lower-level have been necessary but for my sudden idea of em- processes since it was predominantly bottom-up. In ploying a computer. Within a week of my first For- short, the computer permitted me to explore high- tran lesson, I had the piece. level planning as well as bottom-up (event-driven) John Bischoff: The power of the computer to carry elaboration of musical structure. Unfortunately, the out procedures and its general lack of innate musi- majority of programmedtools in existence today are

42 Computer Music Journal not sophisticated enough to support a fully interac- Kaija Saariaho:I had gradually started to work in tive way of working on all compositional levels. my compositions with independent processes asso- Joel Chadabe:Long ago I wrote instrumental ciated with different musical parameters.I became and vocal music, mostly chamber music. Then I increasingly interested in the nature of "process"as worked with analog electronic system. In about well as timbre as a musical parameter.In computers 1975 I started working with computers because I saw a means of entering inside sound concretely my interests at that time, as now, lie in performance in order to control timbre, and finding a vocabulary with electronic systems. Computers have the sig- for describing the different factors that comprise nificant advantage of exact repeatability from per- musical color. It was also a means of continuing my formance to performance,and the setup time, research on musical processes in an especially suit- because they do not require patching or tuning, able environment. is short. Stephan Kaske: The reason I thought it would be The main reason I like to work with computers necessary to use computers in my music was my when composing is that I can compose while in the despair about a composition for chamber ensemble. presence of sound, and, in my case, in the presence It became impossible to survey all the structural of the functioning system. Since my compositions lines or developments of the composition. I needed are functioning systems that operate with performer a helping hand that could keep the structural orga- interaction, I begin with a crude model of the fin- nization under my control. I realized that a com- ished system, something like a first draft of its puter programcould do the job for me, so I wrote operations as well as the sounds it makes, and then a very inefficient Pascal programon an Apple II I refine it until it's ready.If I had to work with a computer. Then I wanted to improve my computer non-real-time computer system, I am not sure I music programmingknowledge, so I attended a would want to use it. My primary motivation in course at M.I.T. My compositional problem was not composing is to be able to experiment with sound solved there either, but with digital sound synthesis and musical process, and the quick response of a I was seduced to think about an aspect of music real-time system is a prerequisite to successful and that I had tended to underestimate until then: tim- enjoyable experimentation. bre. Unfortunately, the composition for chamber Herbert Briin: I had been waiting for it. I turned ensemble was never completed. composer of music only after I barely surfaced Jean-ClaudeRisset: I always had a certain vivid in- from the helpless depression of a haunted victim in terest in timbre. I was intrigued by the potential of 1942. All my music attempts to reflect, by analogy, certain timbres to best express certain musical vir- social configurations and relations that I prefer to tualities. I enjoyed composing for traditional in- those I see. Soon, however, I discovered that my struments-and still do-but I was disappointed analogies kept referringto a "not yet reality" that by [analog]. I felt it opened a could only be reached if it were true that people wide sonic field, but it did not seem to me to offer have to change so that "our society as is" could enough control to composers, who had to, to some function better. While not denying the potential extent, rely on ready-madeobjects or processes. of that vision, I dislike it, because it would support I was fortunate to work with on fascism and totalitarianism. It is thus under the rig- developing the musical use of the computer in orous dialectics of a pregnant contradiction that I 1964-65 and 1967-69. Although it was not easy to continue writing for instruments. At last the com- explore the possibilities of computer synthesis of puter enables me to begin experimenting with com- sound, this exploration was rewardingbecause positions that by analogy point to social processes everything could be capitalized upon and replicated. where it is the structure that changes in order to The computer providedrefined control over sound. preserve the variety of human temperament by It also helped in the application of compositional guaranteeing the possibility of every human being's processes to sound structure. This was the answer contentedness. to my more or less conscious urge to compose the

Roads 43 Fig.2. Excerptfrom Jean- ClaudeRisset's Dialogues (1975)for instrumentsand computer-generatedtape.

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sounds and give a functional role to timbre. To state However, it can be said that I "turned away" from it more explicitly, these are the projects I wanted to analog electronic music. I had done work with tackle with the computer: analog electronics (an old Moog synthesizer) and had been frustrated the lack of with the of own con- by precise control Experiment design my both the individual sounds and the instead of to come to terms over progression straints, having of sounds. with instrumental or electronic constraints I was first introduced to music Assemble a tte of en- computer by Joel personal pa lively sounds, Chadabe. the to make dowed with some characteristic of but Computers provide potential identity, sound. must be able to that also ductile-thus to intimate any Thus, they produce very susceptible subset of those sounds that can be called "vital" transformationsthat preserve certain character- and "expressive."Realizing this potential is another istics and alter others (e.g., the inharmonic matter entirely. Generally speaking, it is quite diffi- tones in my piece Inharmonique) cult to synthesize electronic sounds that rival the Create a flexible sonic world that could diverge sounds of nature in complexity and interest. The from the instrumental world but also merge more I work with computers, the more I have come with it in subtle ways (I tried this in to appreciate the richness of acoustic instrument my pieces Dialogues, Mirages, Profils, Pas- sounds as well as the subtlety of phrasing and sages, and L'AutreFace) tone production imparted to those sounds by gifted Suggest an illusory world, as players. demonstrated so convincingly, by playing di- rectly, so to speak, on perceptual mechanisms, thus unveiling perceptual "primitives" (cf. Is music in composing computer significantly the decomposition of pitch and rhythm differentfrom traditionalvocal or Little and Mo- composing my pieces The Boy, Mutations, instrumental music? ments Newtoniens) David Jaffe:I would not say I "turned"to the com- Kaija Saariaho:Generally speaking, the computer puter since I continue to write instrumental music. is a tool for working out ideas, like a pencil. In any

44 Computer Music Journal Fig. 3. Page 10 from Kaija Saariaho's Verblendungen (1984) for 35 instruments and tape.

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Roads 45 case, the conditions under which people have to out on a piano back in your studio. Do we gain any- work with computers differ from the demands of thing by thinking of it as different?We only impov- composers with traditional instruments. For ex- erish our sense of connectness to the rest of music ample, the use of time is completely different when making. you are composing intensively with paper and pen- Giuseppe Englert: The specific exegencies of the cil, when you are dependent on your own motor fa- computer to the composer/programmerare: (1) in cilities, than when you are using a slow timeshared the case of loudspeaker music-the knowledge of computer system, in which the computer rules acoustical phenomena and their mechanism that your time. Under these conditions, composers can has to be created and (2) in the case of instrumen- very easily lose contact with their original inspira- tal/vocal music [composed using a computer]-the tion in the jungle of algorithms and bugs. knowledge of what has to be formalized with re- On the other hand, computers widen the working spect to interpretation by the performer. field and open up possibilities for contact with mu- sical material that can be more concrete and in- spiring than ever. Compare work with timbre using Whathave the practitionersof computer computers and using an orchestra. With computers, music learned from the practitioners of past composers can enter into the sound. Colors can be electroacoustic(electronic, musique concrete) built from the inside of a sound, and one can test music? mixings and change things very freely. When writ- ing experimental instrumentations for symphony Jean-ClaudeRisset: Not enough. I am thinking in orchestra, the composer is very happy if the first particular of the knowhow of musique concrete performancejust interprets the original idea. The concerning sound classification and transformation, time span between the moment of composition and textures, contrast, and sound distribution via loud- the performance(final listening) is at best several speakers. months. It is also much more difficult to main- Herbert Briin: Here I speak for myself only: (a) tain a searching mind within the confines of the a waveform is a sometime thing, (b)durations of orchestra as an institution and traditional music sound phenomena are of supreme importance, (c) circles in general than it is in computer music stu- any steady state is a risk, and (d)parallel motions dios, where a curious and open attitude is a basic of different parametersor components or attributes requirement. may easily turn musical events back into acoustical My work with computers includes much more events. planning than my work with instrumental music. John Bischoff: We have learned at least three things: The search for material takes a much longer time, (a) that musical sounds can be found in the unfore- since I try to understand the possibilities that the seen operating margins of a system; (b)that the computer offers and find musical ideas that are idi- imperfections of an electronic instrument may mu- omatic to this medium. My awareness of different sically parallel the involuntary noises of an acous- musical parametershas grown as well, since aspects tic instrument, and therefore will add to the music of performanceand interpretation must be included rather than detract from it; and (c) that a fruitful in the work, if living music is desired. Here I have approach to a new technology is to search for the noticed that the final mixing process replaces the qualities inherent in the technology itself. These interpretation of instrumentalists. Hence, I should qualities will emerge and gain meaning apartfrom have the same objective as they, namely an ana- any likeness to past musical conventions. lytical yet sensitive approach to my material. Horacio Vaggione: (including Conrad Cummings: It doesn't sound different. The concrkte and electronic music) has opened up a vast environment where composition goes on is differ- area of sound discoveries by means of direct manip- ent but there is also a difference between working ulation of tape. These discoveries were inaccessible in your notebook on a camping trip and pounding it and even unsuspected in the framework of tradi-

46 Computer Music Journal Fig. 4. "These figures show axis for spectral energy order the transitions that the position of each sound and a horizontal axis for take place between the (symbolized by a letter) in onset attack. A system of timbres." From Fractal a timbral space defined by circular coordinates has (1983) by Horacio two coordinates: a vertical been superimposed to Vaggione.

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tional instrumental music. The analog voltage- various techniques are bridged so as to make the controlled techniques of the 1960s enlarged the current technological environment of composition possibilities of classic electronic studios by permit- extremely flexible. ting the definition of time-variant functions and by As examples of current development in this multiplying the means of access to analog modules. area, one could cite "intelligent audio editors" as Towardthe end of the 1950s, however, Max Math- well as the advent of digital modules that will ews began to develop digital sound synthesis. With quickly replace purely analog generating and sound- the exponential growth of computer technology, processing devices in studios and on stage. How- one was able to go further and further into the pos- ever, what urgently remains to be done to improve sibilities of composing sounds on the micro level. the effectiveness of the composing environment is Today,practically all sound manipulations relevant to attack the problem of the loudspeaker itself. to electroacoustics are possible with digital means. Loudspeakersremain far behind in their ability to It is even possible to transform concrete sounds produce audibly the timbral subtleties elaborated through analog-to-digital conversion and to do this by other elements in the audio processing chain. more thoroughly (through spectral analysis) than Marc Battier: Since electroacoustic music was any analog technique could do. This being the case, mostly good at processing sounds and has developed the most serious electroacoustic studios are now in many techniques for this purpose, computer music the process of acquiring digital technology. One has incorporatedthese tools. What electroacoustic should not speak of a "break"between electro- music gains is a flexibility unheard of before, the acoustic and computer music, but of continual ability to create sound-processing systems impos- growth of a generalized "loudspeakerart" in which sible to build with analog means. I am currently

Roads 47 Fig. 5. Block diagram of the system used to realize On BeingInvisible by David Rosenboom.

Runningcross- Gate:threshold and Stimulus correlationsystem level sense with short-term with timing filterAdaptive memory parameters

Response I Fourieranalysis

Associative Brain _ _ memory - Coordinating array . computer ,array

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working with banks of filters, up to 40 bandpass Clarence Barlow: I am able to allow myself to en- filters and banks of transposition devices (like visage more elaborate algorithmic compositional Harmonizers2)of several dozens of units, not to structures than formerly (providedthe musical con- mention banks of several hundred oscillators (not text demands these). only playing stored waveforms but also processing natural sound). This accumulation of resources brings new ideas into the practice of electroacous- Is any scientific branch (e.g., acoustics, tic music. psychoacoustics) relevant to your current compositional concerns?

How has your method of working changed since Marc Battier: I find many answers in the psycho- you began using computers? acoustics domain, as well as unexpected and ex- citing questions. We have both acousticians and Herbert Briin: My method of working with in- psychoacousticians at IRCAM.The link with musi- struments has not changed. There I continue to be cians is stronger with the latter, and several musi- the structure who stipulates the system whose cal pieces have been written after psychoacoustic changes of state I compose. I have, however, added a experiments have been carried out (for example, method of working with computers. Here I com- timbral studies and studies of spectral fusion). We pose the structure which generates the system know that the computer can play any sound, only whose changes of state it composes. we don't know how to describe them to the com- between musicians and 2. A Harmonizeris a commercially availabledevice that can per- puter. Cooperation acousti- I form time-rate changing--shifting the frequency of a signal up or cians is of the utmost importance in this activity. down without changing its duration.-Ed. am working on a piece that makes use of data from

48 Computer Music Journal spectral transposition and fusion studies, for tape cillators playing very close frequencies is a direct and brass quintet. transposition of multiple-ray interference in the Herbert Briin: Acoustics, cybernetics, economics, Fabry-Perotinterferometer. linguistics, information theory, some mathematics, Clarence Barlow: The sciences of acoustics and psy- and aesthetics are all relevant to my current work. choacoustics are valuable to me for increasing the Joel Chadabe:In the recent past, system theory has audible relevance of a composition (like a knowl- been a great interest of mine, indeed a necessary edge of good orchestration).I also often have to re- interest in developing the concepts of interactive sort to algebraand other branches of mathematics composing. At this point, artificial intelligence is in order to optimize (or indeed realize) my composi- of great interest to me, particularly as a route to tional processes. I am also interested in phonetics developing more interesting musician/machine and linguistics. interactions. David Rosenboom: Yes, especially psychoacoustics, information processing in the brain and nervous Is any aspectof contemporarymusic theory system, perception, cognitive modeling, mecha- relevantto yourwork? nisms of attention and states of consciousness, physiological aspects of performanceand musical HerbertBriin: Every one. proprioception, experimental aesthetics, and the ap- MarcBattier: Yes. Empirical research on new tech- plication of the methods of psychobiology to aes- niques of playing traditional music is useful to me thetic experience-these are all very important in sound synthesis, as well as the electroacoustic to my work. treatment of sound. The vocabulary of describing Jean-ClaudeRisset: The field of psychoacoustics sound (enhanced by Xenakis, Boulez, and others) is (relating to the physical structure of sound and its important in dealing with the new possibilities in aural effect) is relevant to computer synthesis of the creation and articulation of musical material. sound in general. It affects my compositional think- David Rosenboom: I am especially interested in ing in several ways. For instance, I am interested in those aspects of contemporary music theory that devising sonic structures so as to be able to bias attempt to achieve broaddescriptive and analytical perception to organize them in one way or another, power when applied to the "music of the whole both in the simultaneous and successive case, de- earth." By this I mean theories of music that are pending on the fine adjustment of certain param- stylistically nonspecific. These tend to emphasize eters. For example, one might adjust the parameters the scientific study of music from the point of view to favor analytic perception-analyzing and segre- of perception and what might be termed aesthetic gating, or synthetic perception-grouping and clus- information processing. I am particularly interested tering. This relates to a branch of psychoacoustics in the work of theorists like JamesTenney on tem- explored by Bregman,Warren, Wessel, McNabb, poral gestalt perception, David Wessel and John Chowning, and McAdams. I am also interested in Grey on timbre, Diana Deutsch on musical percep- the issue of categorical perception. Are established tion, D. E. Berlyne and Paul Vitz on experimental categories necessary to differentiation?If so, how aesthetics, Manfred Clynes on morphological con- can one teach (or learn) new categories? These are tour elements in expressive action, and numerous vital questions if one wants to develop music by others I cannot list here. structuring aspects of timbre. I also use the com- Otto Laske: I believe every composer is by neces- puter to set up illusory situations in my composi- sity also a "music theorist," but for the composer tions, as I did in the endless progression of "hot- this theorizing is highly procedural. Since tradi- fudge sundaes" of pitch and rhythm-a branch ex- tional (including twentieth-century) music theory plored by Shepard, Deutsch, Chowning, and myself. has been so consistently declarative, it has rarely I also want to use physical models that are unex- addressed itself to problems of real music. What ploited in sound. For example, "phasing" with os- happens when a primarily declarative theory is

Roads 49 Fig. 6. Opening of Psyche's Act I, Scene 2 aria in Con- rad Cummings's opera Eros and Psyche, for vo- calists, orchestra, and computer sound.

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50 Computer Music Journal turned into a procedure is shown by the so-called of electronic music. (Now that was new!) Structural Princeton School of the 1960s. composition existed long before the advent of com- The aspect of American music theory that is rele- puters. In short, the computer enables us to do what vant to my work is strictly methodological-it is we did before but much more efficiently, as does the the insistence on explicitness. However, in a proce- printing press. dural approachto theory (as I have pursued it since John Bischoff: Applying computer technology to 1970), explicit means programmed. And what can music is bound to generate a new branch on the be programmedare procedures,not mere databases tree of musical traditions. It seems likely that com- (except where they are part of a knowledge base). In puters can aid us in creating new notions of what brief, there are aspects of (American)music theory it means to be musical. On the other hand, certain that are of methodological interest. Unfortunately, ideas absorbedfrom recent experimental music its protagonists are a little too afraid of their own practices are relevant to working with computers. courage and thus restrict the application of their John Cage's insights in regardto control in music methodology to safe topics, such as "goodold" pitch seem particularlyhelpful. The League of Automatic classes. Music Composers, of which I am a member, makes music that is startlingly original yet its organiza- tional structure is nonhierarchical and cooperative. How does computer music relate to the musical The group is organized as a network of microcom- tradition? Is it a continuum or is it a turning point? puters running simultaneous and independent mu- sic programs.These programscontinually exchange Conrad Cummings: I hope the scientific mystique information along various paths. The rich and of Modernism is passing in music as it has already unforeseen music that often arises from such a passed in architecture and the visual arts. The prem- situation deepens one's trust in democratic musical ise that music must be reinvented, free of its hin- arrangements. drance from the past, challenging its listeners to Joel Chadabe:For many composers, computer mu- enter a new and unprecedented world-I well re- sic seems to be an extension of the tradition, with member how exciting that was. Central to its im- the computer used as a surrogateperformer. For me, plementation was the notion that art must look to however, it makes possible a technique that I call science. Computer music came of age at the very interactive composing, that I consider a signifi- end of this premise's hegemony, in the early 1960s. cantly new and rewardingway of working. [See Like an incredible amphibian, it's been left on dry Computer Music Journal 8(1):22-27, 1984.] ground as Modernism crested and receded. We'reall Stephan Kaske: Computer music is both a turn- out here on the sand, finding a new life in an en- ing point and a continuation. On the one hand it vironment very different from the one that spawned is a logical succession of a musical tradition that us-and we're surviving splendidly! searched for more precise control of compositional Modernism has no use for the vernacular. What structure and timbre, and that tried to introduce a surprise that Modernism's child-computer mu- noninstrumental sounds into music. On the other sic-thumbs its nose at distinctions between high hand, certain streams of contemporarymusical art and popular art. Digital synthesis meets Star thought lead to the automation of musical process. Warsand reaches millions! This will be a turning point, even if traces of auto- No, computer music itself is not a turning point. mated composition can be found in music history, It is the late product of one era launched into and since the composer will have to say goodbye to the thriving in another. It's the knee joint. No better myth that creation is identical with the creator. place to see Modern becoming Post-modern. The composer's way of thinking will presumably Clarence Barlow: I do not think that computer mu- change dramatically. sic exists as a separate aesthetic entity. If you mean Jean-Claude Risset: A priori, computer music does digital electronic music, this is just a new subset not have to relate to musical tradition. The com-

Roads 51 puter is seemingly neutral, although some things tion in extremely important ways. The great Greek are easier to do than others. But tradition has great thinkers from the island of Samos did not have weight in music, where one deals with the fuzzy computers made of silicon. They did, no doubt, ma- norms of collective expression. Tradition is heavily nipulate symbols by whatever means were at their present in the Weltanschaung of everyone, includ- disposal and the computer is, let us not forget, pri- ing the composer-through the composer's train- marily a manipulator of symbols. It is the rest of ing-and in the skills and habits of performers.It is electronic and electromechanical technology present in the "history,"the "mindset" of the lis- that translates these symbols into some physical tener, who categorizes and discriminates (or does manifestation. not discriminate). The listener's mindset is espe- It has been said that Galileo changed astronomy cially present in the perception of pitch and timbre, through the development of the telescope. He must, where discrimination can be severely impaired however, have had an idea of what to do with it and by excessive reference to previously established he basically demonstrated the truth of Copernican categories. theory, created previously without telescopes. Yet I believe that computer music (at least in One is reminded again of Einstein's simple require- some of its many trends) is indeed a turning point. ments, merely for pencil and paper.The Futurists It helps escape some traditional constraints, espe- expanded our musical awareness to include the cially the constraints of mechanical systems for the realm of noise, and Cage helped us to understand production of sound. It also offers new ways of deal- silence. Neither requiredthe development of com- ing with inescapable tradition. Other aspects of puters. Computers have helped to expand human- computer music can be regressive, as I point out in ity's reach. It is up to human beings alone to expand my answers to some of the other questions. their minds. Giuseppe Englert: Computer music, to mark a turning point in musical tradition, has to satisfy two conditions: (1) the musical concept of a piece What new musical concerns have been introduced requires the use of a computer and (2) this necessity through your work with computers? is perceivable to the listener. We have already wit- nessed two events that have shaken tradition: the Horacio Vaggione:I am interested in generating appearanceof electricity and electronics-loud- timbral polyphonies: complex events produced by speaker music, and the introduction of new compo- many simultaneous sound sources. In my work, al- sitional categories, like indeterminacy,randomness, gorithms for sound synthesis create groups or fami- and probabilities. These two "revolutions" have lies of sound files that are digitally mixed so as to deeply affected musical life, and have partially produce complex textures, fused timbral entities, masked the influence of computers on musical stream segregation processes, or large constellations thinking. The presence of computers is not com- of tiny fragments of sound materials. Each sound pletely accepted on the musical scene. For a long synthesis algorithm contains instructions for ex- time, it had to be justified by the imitation of tradi- ecuting micrological procedures. For example, an tion. The "turning point" is, for most people, not algorithm can control the degree of fusion or of really visible yet, but it will be. spectral parsing. It can control the speed of transfor- David Rosenboom: I believe that the introduction mation of various sound parameters,or it can con- of computers to the world of music has changed trol the interpolation or exchange of values between and will change nothing that is fundamental to mu- several groups of parameters.In this way of work- sic as an art form. What changes music is ideas, not ing, the composition begins on the microspectral tools. It is true that the computer has provided us level. Once a network of sound sources is deter- with marvelous tools for thought development and mined, one proceeds to define logical models of in- has opened up a vast new sound palette for our ex- teraction between the sources. This is one of the ploitation. It will aid us in our growth and evolu- most interesting aspects of computer composition:

52 Computer Music Journal the creation by programmingof specific and highly Much of my subsequent work was devoted to the differentiated fields of relationships. These relation- realization of this goal. Though many of the early ships can be based on any kind of model: statistical, experiments were beautiful examples of artistic ergodic processes, arbitrary,psychoacoustic prin- manifestation, we are only now reaching the point ciples, etc. in the development of intelligent instruments that Herbert Briin: After the "mixtures" of timbres of allows the realization of a significant portion of instruments and the "composition" of timbres in that early vision. There is still much to do, but the the electronic music studios, the computer now in- results are encouraging and the vision is still intact. vites "transformations"of timbres. Not the concern The second area I mentioned previously, namely, is new, but its practical significance: in addition to extended musical interfaces to the human nervous changes of timbre we can now almost compose the system, is certainly related to real-time algorithmic timbre of changes and the timbre of change. composition. It could really be considered a sub- David Rosenboom: Two areas of my work with category, one in which the input structures include computers have opened up significant musical con- the intelligent processing of electrical signals re- cerns, at least for me. The first involves the use of corded from the brain or other parts of the nervous algorithmic compositional techniques in real time, system. live performance.The second involves extended Charles Ives said earlier in this century that musical interface with the human nervous system. someday music would be made by direct connec- Since my earliest work with computers I have tion to the human brain. In 1927, the physiologist been concerned with real-time algorithmic com- E. D. Adrian reported on the effects of listening to position. The great speed with which even early the audible manifestation of brainrhythms we came computers could execute instructions was an object to call alpha waves. In 1965, took the of great awe and inspiration. My interest in elec- next step by creating his Music for Solo Performer tronic music, beginning in the 1960s, has always using alpha waves. Since that time, many compos- emphasized live performance.During my student ers, kinetic artists, sculptors, performanceartists, days, access to electronic music facilities was lim- and others have explored the world of bioelectronic ited to the "classical" studio. Modular, voltage- signals. controlled synthesizers were on the horizon but These signals have been the subject of my re- were not yet widely available. I did, however, have search since 1968, and have, of course, revealed the good fortune to come in contact with the work an enormously rich and complex coding of human of LejarenHiller at the University of Illinois. activities. Perhapsmy most complex work in this This led me to an expansion of the notion of area is On Being Invisible. In it a feedback loop is performanceand improvisation to include what created wherein the performerand the performer's normally would be called compositional or "pre- nervous system become like complex circuit ele- compositional" activities. To be able to animate ments in a large system. Sometimes they play the compositional processes at will, as an option avail- role of initiator of actions, sometimes they play a able instantly to the performingmusician, seemed more passive processing role in a system with a life simply fantastic. To be sure, disciplined improvisa- of its own. tion involves the animation of compositional pro- In a performanceof On Being Invisible a com- cesses in the performer'smind and even in the puter begins by generating sound, either by means collective mind of the performinggroup. Adding of a stochastically controlled music programor a this new kind of process to the possibilities already stored, preprogrammedcomposition. Also inside available, however, was very exciting. Moreover, the computer is a model of perception. All the com- with suitable inputs, these processes could be made puter's sonic output is analyzed according to this to react to the activities of the performer,which model of perception, which attempts to make pre- might change from performanceto performance,or dictions about the structural significance of the to the internal workings of a performing group. sonic events as they will be perceived by the lis-

Roads 53 tener. Additionally, the computer records and ana- events-one after the other, be it with Cmusic, lyzes transient brain signal events, known as event- Music V, or Music 11. Only if there was an intelli- related potentials (ERPs)and coherent waves (alpha, gent computer music system that enabled me to beta, delta, theta, etc.). Recent research has indi- work out structural ideas interactively, would new cated that peaks contained in the ERPwaveform concerns be introduced into my music. and their trends of growth and decay are signifi- cantly correlated with the salience of the stimulus to the subject, as well as to other psychological pa- Traditionally, computer music synthesis has been rameters. Analysis of the coherent waves provides a a relatively difficult task for anything beyond the context for the interpretation of these events. The simplest of effects. New digital instruments make computer attempts to obtain confirming or noncon- synthesis much easier than it has been. Do you feel firming information from these brain signals as to this will have a positive or a negative effect on the its own predictions of the perceived structural sig- musical scene? nificance of given sonic events. In one mode of performance,a confirmation re- John Bischoff: This question brings up some com- sults in an increase in the probability that the kind mon computer music assumptions: (1) computer of sonic changes associated with the confirmation music should be primarily concerned with timbre will occur again. A nonconfirmation results in a de- (an idea that stems largely from Europeanserial crease in probability of such an event. music); (2) given an interest in timbre, one would The sonic events are dealt with on several hierar- necessarily turn to digital synthesis techniques. chically related levels of musical structure (remi- Will the greater availability of digital synthesis be niscent of the hierarchical Meta Hodos systems positive or negative? Who can tell? Any musical described by James Tenney). Changes in the sound feature that is made dominant and effortless by a parameters (pitch, loudness, timbre, etc.) occur new technological advance is the first thing one according to contextually sensitive weighting should reevaluate. schemes that take into account the recent history Herbert Briin: It will have a positive effect on the of the parameter,its rate of change, and other fac- musical scene. The more people can do what they tors. Since many of the relevant brain signals are want to do, the more dignified becomes the critical significantly affected by the performer'sshifts discussion of what they did. of attention, this work has been described by Jean-ClaudeRisset: Certainly making computer LarryPolansky as "an attention-dependent sonic music has, in the past, been a difficult task, and it environment." still is. However, there is always a risk in making Stephan Kaske: I have been fascinated by the con- tools "easier,"that of limiting their power and trol of timbre one has with digital techniques, and making them stereotyped. It is a difficult challenge this has extended into my instrumental works as to design digital instruments that are easy to use well. But the more I work with computers, I realize yet which preserve the diversity of possibilities in- that my actual way of thinking compositionally herent in the computer. Many digital synthesizers hasn't changed much. I still spend a great deal of are difficult to reconfigure, and they provide a lim- time figuring out musical structure without a com- ited palette of sonic possibilities that is hard to es- puter, in particularthe temporal organization of a cape-hence, sonic clich6s. Avoiding such clich6s piece. was one reason for going to the computer in the Programmedmusic that doesn't use a huge data- first place. base or knowledge base typically results in rather Real-time operation is hard to resist. It may entail boring compositions, since the overall organization a less thoughtful approach,and trial-and-erroron is very linear. That's partly because the user inter- real-time systems is not guaranteedto lead you face of many computer music systems forces one to where you want to go. The technical demands of punch in all those little notes and numbers-sound real-time synthesis still impose limits on sound

54 Computer Music Journal richness. Some synthesizers can record a natural truly great works being created. Some of the finest sound (e.g., a note from a trombone) and transpose composers, particularly younger ones, cannot afford it in pitch. While this makes it easy to generate or do not have access to the fruits of developments scales from a sound, such scales sound very me- in computer science. Of course, such proliferation chanical-a turnoff for many listeners. will also result in a great deal of boring and un- Hence, the effort to make synthesis easier may interesting work being created with these instru- lead to a musical regression-as was the case with ments. So what else is new? Nothing will change most uses of analog synthesizers compared with the in this regard.The proliferation of the piano has previous practice of electronic music before syn- resulted in great music and uninteresting music, thesizers were invented. It remains a tough but none of which can really be blamed on the piano worthwhile challenge to make the musical poten- itself. tial of the computer bloom. We must improve the In addition, I might point out that the creation of interactivity and real-time possibilities of comput- "great"works is not the only legitimate goal for the ers, but we must also improve our input languages use of these instruments. A vast amount of musical and information transmission. activity by the people of our culture is undertaken Conrad Cummings: It happened with the Moog for the personal edification of themselves as indi- synthesizer already.Composer X: "These sounds viduals or their social groups. The evaluation of that we worked so laboriously to generate-we musical works for their high cultural longevity is can't use them anymore because they're in every an irrelevant activity for these persons. Their musi- video game." Modernism was inherently elitist. We cal activity has its own legitimacy, even if its mean- knew the way of the future, and we would teach it ing is limited to a relatively small social sphere. until everyone else saw that it was right. Putting The people need rich and inexpensive resources for the music of Modernism in a video game is not their musical activity. This is an important point cheapening or perverting it, it is unselfconscious and should not be overlooked by those primarily guerilla warfareon the highest level. You want to concerned with "high" art. show us the right way to use your sounds? Well Giuseppe Englert: Devices that aid composers in thanks, but we'll use your sounds our own way! certain tasks enable them to concentrate on other Ease of access and ease of use lead more people to tasks that are more important to them. But such use the tools for more varied ends. Nothing could devices will impose limitations on composers or be healthier for the continuing vitality of our musi- pose unforeseen problems on them. Certainly musi- cal life. cians involved in performance Stephan Kaske: Did the introduction of the welcome digital modules. pianoforte have a negative effect on the musical Digital synthesizers and signal processors have scene? Or the first sine wave generator?If the only an extremely wide dynamic range with low noise, virtue of music produced using computers was the matching the capabilities of high-quality amplifiers capability of generating new timbres, then com- and loudspeakers. Analog tape is the weakest link puter music would be a poor show. The introduc- in the performancechain. Therefore, new tech- tion of inexpensive digital synthesizers like the niques that allow musicians to dispense with ana- YamahaDX series is releasing composers from the log tape will enhance the acoustical quality and add obsession of creating new timbres. I suppose it will liveliness to concert performances. have a positive effect on the scene in that it will Marc Battier: For a long time there have been works help many composers who had been seduced by the for tape and instruments, developing the idea of a rather peripheral aspect of sound synthesis to get mixed music, and there have also been works for back to the real thing called music. electronic instruments and orchestra (not to men- David Rosenboom: I feel this is a decidely positive tion pieces in which the older Ondes Martinot or development. The proliferation of accessible, power- Hammond organ has been used). At IRCAM we are ful new tools can only increase the probability of working toward an integration of traditional instru-

Roads 55 ments and electronics. In order to achieve integra- Herbert Briin: The question ought to be investi- tion, we use several modes of interrelation between gated and politically analyzed. For example, is the two worlds. We use digital sound processors, ca- artificial intelligence desirable if it triumphantly pable of sound synthesis and natural sound treat- simulates the human moron's submissive obedience ment in real time. The real-time processors can and ruthless efficiency? Furthermore,I cannot sim- respond to commands from a performeror conduc- ulate compositional processes. I can, however, com- tor, and more generally to cues from a traditional pose automated processes or processing automata. instrument. Thus it is responsive to gestures. Its ac- Giuseppe Englert: Algorithms have been intro- tivities can also be triggeredby sounds, after some duced by many composers at all times. There are sort of pitch, octave, or amplitude threshold detec- also compositions for which all attempts to dis- tion. More importantly, the sound quality and capa- cover rules or formulas have failed. Composition bilities of modern sound processors are such that it rules are algorithms that can be traced in works of is not so much an instrument as it is a network of more than one composer in a specific historical pe- sound activities. The positive aspect on the musical riod. More interesting are individual algorithms scene can be viewed as a better connection between that a composer invents, eventually for only one the electronics and the instrumental performers, piece. The research made by Andr6 Riotte on com- the conductor, and the composer. positions of J. S. Bach, Stravinsky,and Bartok reveals astonishing facts. For some of my works like the cantata Au jour What do you think of attempts to automate or ultime liesse (1963) and the string quartet La simulate compositional processes? joute des lierres (1966) I have built strict rules and mechanisms. These are algorithmic compositions Otto Laske: This question concerns a much ma- written long before I became interested in com- ligned and even more misunderstood topic. The puters. My recent compositions are automated issue is human musical planning. For me, computer to a large extent: Mutations Ocre-Violet (1982) programsfor composition are planning aids, re- for NEDCO digital synthesizer lasts 30 minutes gardless of whether they "automate" or "simulate" and requires only a few manual interventions dur- cognitive processes. It is always the human com- ing performance.Babel (1981) for orchestra and poser who develops the meta-plan for the use of Ecorces (1982) for five instruments are pieces in such tools. which pitch, duration, and articulation are cal- Although an individual's compositional processes culated and printed by computer, with dynamics are, by nature, highly idiosyncratic, one would have added by hand afterward. to be a solipsist in the sense of Schopenhauer to The myth of automation (for power) has accom- deny that composers share a common cultural panied the intellectual life of mankind a long time. context, including certain scripts and procedures. Adam eating the Apple (Ho-ho! Coincidence?)Pro- (Schopenhauer,in good German fashion, recom- metheus, Rabbi Loew-Golem, Faust-Homun- mended a beating as the only way to cure solipsism. culus, etc. The logical scheme behind the myth, I don't know what the musical equivalent would simplified, is as follows: "What I know I can de- be.) The question is: How can we transfer human scribe. What I can describe I can reproduce (or sim- musical expertise to a computer and represent it ulate)." This represents three stages: knowledge within the machine? How can we construct musi- acquisition, description, and formalization. To fully cal knowledge bases incrementally? How can we get automate a composition process we have to know the machine to explain its musical reasoning to a all about what goes on in a composer's brain (and human being? There is nothing peculiar about mu- other interior organs) in a given cultural context. sical expertise that would force us to use different For the moment we have only partial knowledge of methods from those used in artificial intelligence the problems involved, which limits present expec- applications today to solve these very legitimate tations in automated composition. A final remark: problems. in all traditions or legends related to the myth of

56 Computer Music Journal Fig. 7. Page 1 of Ecorces (1982) for five instruments by Giuseppe Englert.

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automation, the simulation of man by artificial David Jaffe:A goodcomposer draws on a wealth means is finally condemned and punished. This of practicalexperience with musicalmaterials and could explain why some of our colleagues become is versatilein a numberof techniques.For a given irrationally angry when discussion turns to musical piece, a composerdevelops whatever techniques automation. are neededto producethe desiredexpression. When David Rosenboom: I am very concerned with par- workingwith a computer,a composerwho can pro- ticular kinds of applications of these processes. I be- gramcan depicta musicalidea in termsof a pro- lieve this to be an absolutely valid and interesting gram.The programcan be completelydeterministic pursuit and possibly, a new kind of music that can or have probabilisticelements. Even if it is deter- be listened to with new ears and a new type of mu- ministic, it maybe sufficientlycomplex that the sical attention. exact details of the outputcannot be imaginedin

Roads 57 advance. However, this does not imply that the problems like the musician/machine interface. In composer does not have a clear general conception an improved music programmingenvironment, it of the result. would certainly be useful to automate specific com- On the other hand, automation is not a prere- positional procedures, depending on the composi- quisite for quality, nor does it guarantee quality. tion technique being used. For example, if one is a It is neutral. It is just a technique that can be used friend of stochastic music, why not have the com- toward artistic ends by an imaginative composer. In puter generate the random numbers rather than my computer music, I have used a variety of tech- throwing dice or coins, like composers did in the niques within a single piece that span a landscape 1950s? Or if one is obsessed by patterns, why not from completely automated to completely manual have the computer generate them ad infinitum ac- composition. Automation can be implemented on cording to the composer's rules? any level of the compositional process. Often I will A complete automation of the composition pro- specify exact pitch and rhythmic material but have cess is of merely scientific interest. Among other automated systems controlling how these are used. things, composition involves emotions, and for Sometimes automated systems can produce re- some it is pure emotion. So complete automation of sults that could not be attained with manual tech- the composing process calls for a computer with niques. For example, in Silicon Valley Breakdown, feelings. I would not object to listening to a com- tempo, rubato, and phrasing are automated such puter composition created from a programmed that groups of instruments can have wildly varying model of emotions. Let's hear what Maestro Com- rubatos but still "understand"where they are in the puter wants to tell us! music. Several schemes are used, depending on the Marc Battier: Automated musical processes are a musical context. One scheme involves ensembles of general part of contemporary musical thought. The pseudo-instrumentalists, called voices. Each voice concept has been applied in instrumental music follows its own tempo and rubato trajectory,yet (for example, Michel Philippot) and in electro- within the context of this high level of contrapun- acoustic music studios (more evidently in Ameri- tal independence, keeps track, from moment to can and Belgian studios). Computers offer a syste- moment, of the resulting harmonic combinations. matic way of investigating this subject. Based on what it "hears,"each voice or ensemble Horacio Vaggione:The role of the composer in of voices can alter its own or another voice's pre- working with computers is to produce new musical planned behavior. (This intervoice communication situations by programming.Automated processes is implemented via message-passing in the Pla pro- are an important part of this approach.However, gramming language.) In this manner, a responsive the composer is not limited to strategies like pure improvisational ensemble is created that neverthe- determinism or pure stochastic processes. I am very less remains faithful to the precomposed plan. interested in creating compositional systems in Stephan Kaske: Every composer should know a which the software is based on collections of au- little about how he or she works, since intuition is tonomous musical objects, that is, modules that too nebulous a term for describing the composi- contain some kind of specific knowledge and are tional process. So a simulation of creative phenom- thus able to execute well-defined tasks. These mod- ena is definitely worth profound scientific inves- ules can be made available permanently so they are tigation. But I wonder if I would be interested in available to form various networks of functions. A automating composition to such an extent that I single message can activate any module, and the would be only peripherally involved in the com- module must respond by sending messages to all position process. relevant modules. Activating a module by sending We have to determine which processes of com- it a message accomplishes a specific musical task. positional design could profit from automation. For example, one module might distribute sounds Taking the most recent compositional resources in time according to a law of evolution on another into account, we might best concentrate on urgent level, or direct the flux of sounds toward the inputs

58 Computer Music Journal Fig. 8. A graphic represen- fled to the left. The vertical rameters within the sound tation (not a score) of two lines indicate simultane- of a chord, e.g., waveform sample phrases from John ous chords. Lines with or filter changes. The Bischoff'sNext Tone, arrows indicate nearly tempo is slow; for ex- Please (1985). Each circle simultaneous chords. The ample, the first chord's represents a three-tone "v" symbols represent duration is about four chord in the range speci- regularly modulated pa- seconds.

"NEXT TONE, PLEASE" John Bischoff

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Bass 1 2

of an automatic digital mixer according to messages point is important because traditionally, making received from other modules. music has involved repeated playing and listening. I don't see why it would be any different for com- puter music. How does one try out ideas for a piece What are the dangers of computer music? without actually defining and building the piece? In computer music, once design decisions are made, Giuseppe Engelert: There was a time when, by sing- they are harderto change because of the large ing Verdi'snewest arias in the streets, people mani- amount of development time invested in them. A fested their sympathy with the Italian independence related danger is to get stuck in a perpetual design movement and gave moral support to the activists, state and never make it to reviewing or testing the the Carbonari. Verdi'soperas constituted a danger aesthetic assumptions one's work is based on. to the Austrian power. Times have changed; music Joel Chadabe: Computer music is dangerous to per- does not triggerrevolutions anymore. We have to forming musicians who depend on commercial jobs admit that computer music is not dangerous. for living, because computers can produce accept- Marc Battier: The time when computer music able orchestral sounds relatively inexpensively. The sounded more computer than music has gone. I see same could be said of set designers who were put no danger, except the dangerof being totally ab- out of work by computer graphics used in film- sorbed by computer programming.However, pro- making. Overall, we're entering an age when gramming will be less and less associated with people's ideas of what is amusing is changing, and I computer music in the future, in that musical tools fear that the music literature that I grew up with, will be offered to composers. These will partly fill and the method of its delivery (i.e., performancesin the gap between the composer's intentions and the concert halls) will seem increasingly less rewarding. means of realizing them. The dangerwould be to lose control of the development of these tools, and as Phillipe M6nardused to say, let Radio Shack do What are the worst cliches of computer music? it all. John Bischoff: Computer music systems of any Herbert Briin: The drone and the loop. It is not kind are so much more complicated than musical enough that they are the cheapest brag of "can-do- instruments of the past that there is a tendency for ism," they play a hapless tribute to just that which a composer to spend increasingly more time de- holds them in freezing contempt: well-tempered signing a piece and much less time playing it. This tonality.

Roads 59 Kaija Saariaho:Quite often computer music com- more portable, so that we could use them in my posers focus their ambitions on purely technical as- remote province. pects, for example extremely complex algorithms Otto Laske: The most important aspect I would for composition or synthesis. Little attention is want to change is the way in which computer mu- paid to the fundamentally musical elements. This sic is taught today. I would like to see the notion of lack of attention does not stem from a radical ap- a "computer"interpreted more broad-mindedly.A proach that searches for musical solutions for new comprehensive computer music curriculum that directions, but rather stems from a lack of interest. deserves the name would have to include cognitive, The consequence is that what is heard is often mu- historical, technological, and scientific topics. It sically conventional, and the solutions are banal. would also have to include a "composition theory" Too many computer pieces are like audible games, that discusses musical planning, as well as topics without any artistic content or depth. The worst relating to sonology (i.e., systematic orchestration clich6 is a cold, technologically meaningless and based on insights into the score). Artificial intel- boring-soundingpiece that supposedly is made with ligence topics such as planning paradigms,expert ingenious algorithms. This strongly contradicts the systems, and knowledge representations should be searching spirit that is usual among computer mu- included as a matter of course, on a par with digital sic composers. Maybe the equipment has been too signal processing and software engineering. elementary to enable composers to save their en- At the present time, the limitations of "computer ergy for composition after the tiring programming. music" in the very narrowsense are becoming quite Probablyalso many computer music composers apparent.One knows a bunch of very idiosyncratic have until now been more interested in technologi- sound-synthesis techniques, displayed in overlong cal aspects than music itself. pieces, and they are giveaways. They classify a work David Jaffe:The assumption that loudspeakerplace- based on the techniques it uses. But that is why we ment is irrelevant and unimportant is counterpro- abandoned "electronic music"! ductive to the advancement of computer music. There is very little interest today in teaching Although there have been composers such as [D.] computer music in the broad sense of a computer Scarlatti who have written for only one instrument, as a symbol manipulator (ratherthan a data proces- most composers since the seventeenth century have sor), which would introduce a broad spectrum of re- written for a variety of musical forces. It will be a lated disciplines. This I would like to change. pity if computer musicians forget this and write all Clarence Barlow: I would not want to change any- their music for four speakers in a square or two thing, but I wish all the same that I could be con- speakers in the front of a room. I would like to see fronted with less music resulting from inscrutably more experimentation with nonstandardspeaker abstract, extramusically autonomous processes in- placements and nonstandardspeakers. The idea audible to me as a listener. I want to hear more mu- that speakers should be completely general is also sic resulting in an obvious way from a musically counterproductive. I would like to see idiosyncratic powerful idea, such as was desirable as a matter of "speaker-instruments"built to have a certain desir- course before computers entered the scene. able sound and projection, in a manner analogous to a fine violin. Perhapscomputer musicians will have to become loudspeaker artisans. What is your assessment of the state of computer music in today's society?

If you could change some aspect of current Marc Battier: The French state radio has two pro- computer music practice, what would that be? grams devoted to culture and music. Computer mu- sic is often played on these programs, and also on Jean-ClaudeRisset: I would want to have the won- other private stations. There have also been several derful programsthat exist or are being developed be educational programs. We may regret that these pro-

60 Computer Music Journal grams spend more time talking about the music sell insurance, and some programcomputers. The than playing new pieces. Also, due to the fact that most valuable commodity for a composer is time, we have several music research centers in France, enough time to compose. The time must be steady computer music can often be heard in concert. and must continue for a lifetime if the composer is Herbert Briin: Not being a fame-backed composer I to have a chance of developing a mature style. can only assert with some evidence and full convic- Horacio Vaggione:Apropos the subject of the "com- tion that my six pieces in SAWDUSTare (a) credible poser seduced into programming"I recommend the complimentary acknowledgments of the immense readerto the article by Gareth Loy that appearedin gift presented to me by technology, (b) the most Perspectives of New Music 1980-81. Before offer- radical display of "computer age composition" to ing a well-articulated panoramaof the dangers and date, and (c) one of the successful attempts to re- advantages, and of the technical and subjective store living interest in the function of composed changes that can result from the interaction of the music to contemporary listener's society. composer and the machine, Loy cites this statement by Harry Partch: "I am not an instrument builder, but a philosophic music-man seduced into carpen- Manymusicians involved in the new musical try." Of course, Loy speaks of positive seduction, technologieshave noticedthe dangerof being like that music students experience for their instru- "seduced"into programmingor another ments. He also points out the aesthetic aspects of extramusicalagenda. Do you see this as a the practice of programming.Composers were the problemfor yourself? first to use the computer for artistic purposes. The resemblance of composing and programmingis ob- Giuseppe Englert: Some extraordinarypianists have vious, since both deal with processes that evolve in been "seduced"into becoming composers. Percus- time defined by specific constraints. From a musi- sionists have become conductors. This is not to cal point of view, however, the finality of program- speak of composers who become managers or ma- ming does not rest in itself, but in the musical nipulators. How comforting that in the fast field in results that the composer can produce with his and around music, where so many disciplines inter- digital partner. mingle, one can be seduced by one activity rather Composers "seduced"into programmingin the than by others! In my case, I still compose and per- negative sense are people who lose their need to form music, and love programming. produce music in order to dedicate themselves ex- David Rosenboom: I don't see this as a problem par- clusively to the exploration of communication with ticularly. I am often frustrated by the drudgeryof the machine. At this moment, we can say they are programming,as I am by the drudgeryof copying no longer musicians. But they can become good parts from a score. I have learned, however, to ac- programmersif their interest takes them that far. In cept both as necessary parts of musical activity. I the same way, this ex-musician programmercan be- can, at times, even transformboth into almost medi- come a fine collaboratorfor a composer that doesn't tative, creative disciplines. I enjoy very much the understand computer science but who desires to creative aspects of programmingand creation of cir- work on certain ideas and musical images whose cuitry, for both have led to many new musical con- characteristics (e.g., complexity) could only be ac- cepts and methods. complished by means of computers. David Jaffe:The problem is not a danger of being Herbert Briin: I wish I were a brilliant programmer. "seduced."The problem is that being a "composer" My respect for those who are good programmersis is still not considered an honest profession in the deep and affectionate. Nothing whatever can belong United States of America, although in some circles to an "extramusical agenda" once I have used it for it is a fashionable hobby. Nearly all American com- the composition and realization and implementa- posers have to support themselves doing something tion of a "piece of music." other than music composition. Some teach, some Marc Battier: Generally speaking, I notice that those

Roads 61 composers who have had to write programsin order computer/synthesizer. The relation between image to compose have a different view of computer mu- and music was improvised and not strict. sic. At IRCAM,we have composers who program, Since 1981 visual artists have become more am- others who don't, and in between those who can bitious concerning resolution and color, and they transcribe traditional scores into data for a program are no longer satisfied with portable equipment. such as the SCOREinput language. However, we all The very high cost of renting video equipment for know of musicians who have been completely concert spaces has become an obstacle to our com- eaten up by the computer, and who have com- bined performances. pletely quit their musical activities. The other side The fact that the performanceof computer music of the problem is the composer who only works is not visually spectacular has deprivedus of the with tools developed by another composer, and is support of television. This may partially account thereby limited. Nevertheless, programmingis a for the difficulty of inserting computer music into natural aspect of computing, and music is a field in general musical life. progress, so programmingnew musical models Joel Chadabe:The idea of interactive composing is seems now a part of contemporary musical easily extendible to video, computer graphics, and thought. dance. Video images can be used in parallel with Joel Chadabe:I do not think composers have a mo- the music. Since the performancedevice in an in- nopoly on creativity. I know researchersand equip- teractive composing system can be freely chosen, a ment designers who are more creative than many device that translates physical dance motions into composers. It is understandablethat at this point in music information can allow dancers to be perform- the development of computer music, the design of ers of music. the instruments themselves is a primary concern. David Rosenboom: I have been involved with mul- Many people are likely to become involved in this, timedia work a long time, certainly before my first including composers. It is fascinating, and should work with computers. Most recently, I have created not be derided. In my own case, writing the PLAY two works in this category. In the Beginning (The program,I have noted the satisfaction one feels in Story) was written in 1980 for chamber orchestra, doing something that others might find useful. But film, and synthetic speech. A complex fabric of outside of that excursion into general-purposesoft- music created with a model of proportionalstruc- ware development, I have not been tempted by tures (pitch and rhythm), melodic shape contours, general-purposework. That might well change, stochastic selection processes, and other subjective however, in the future. musical concerns was created in part with the aid of a computer. This music was combined with a text, a dialogue Are you interested in combining your musical of synthetic speech, and a film (photographedby works with other media? George Manupelli). The film depicted surreal scenes of clay-coveredfigures acting in relation to the text. Giuseppe Englert: Between 1976 and 1981 our The artistic subject concerns modeling behavior, Groupe Art et Informatiquede Vincennes gave many evolution, and the development of global human concerts, with great success. In these concerts, vi- consciousness. sual artists (Bret,Huitric, Nahas) displayed on a The second work, Daytime Viewing, was created video screen animated images realized in real time over the period from 1979 to 1982 in collaboration by the COLORXsystem (L. Audoire) controlled by with the artist JacquelineHumbert. It involves mu- a DEC LSI-11 computer. Accompanying the visuals sic performedwith computer-aidedinstruments, were musicians (M. Battier, G. Dalmasso, Holle- visual material created by mixing photographic, ville, Hunstiger, and me) playing on hybrid com- drawing, and computer graphics processes, elec- puter/synthesizers (computer-controlled analog tronic processing of sung and spoken text, video, synthesizers), and then on the I digital fashion and costume design, and theatrical perfor-

62 Computer Music Journal mance. The work is concerned with modern com- Otto Laske: Since 1980 I have repeatedly collabo- munication media, television, and images of women rated with a modern dance choreographer(my wife, in contemporary society. Peggy Brightman),and have come to appreciatethe Kaija Saariaho:In my piece Study for Life (1980) I more than musical concerns that enter into such a combined white light and dancer with electronic collaboration. I am particularlyinterested in works tape and soprano. The light part is very precisely where choreographerand composer use a common scored. It represents in my mind a visual parameter plan but different computer programs(planning for some musical ideas in the piece, since all the aids) to accomplish it. An example of this way of material on tape consists of sounds made with glass, working is Windshadows (1982) for , dancer, which in turn gave me associations of reflections, and mobile, with Peggy Brightman. different intensities, and shadings. After this piece I In Windshadows, the choreographyis based on have had many plans to continue work in this direc- output from G. M. Koenig's Project One program, tion. For example, I would like to try to realize my and the music is based on output from Iannis Xena- formal ideas with video. I see in video and in music kis's ST program.These programsact as planning many common factors, the most important being aids for designing and realizing a form. In Wind- that they are both arts in time. In my composi- shadows, both the dance and the music are based tional work I use much drawing, and I would also on the idea of a sequence of events whose distri- like to try to realize these ideas in visual form. bution in time and space increases up to a mid- Artistic experience can be used to enlarge several point, and then returns to its initial state. To realize senses, and the senses are naturally intertwined. In this idea musically, I defined a form in five sections my score for Study for Life I ask that the room be for solo flute with the aid of the ST program.Peggy filled with scents. I am also interested in multi- Brightmanused Koenig'sprogram to yield a blue- dimensional works of art, but in the abstract, strict print for each section that would correspondin sense. Right now I am working with a spectacle, certain ways to my structure. This blueprint was where music is connected to actors' movements. interpreted by the choreographer/dancerteam in The amplified, well-controlled breathing of the terms of Rudolf Laban'sEffort/Shape theory of actors is part of the music, which also consists of movement. tapes and live processing of sound.

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