CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
THE LIMITLESS POTENTIAL OF ELECTROACOUSTIC PERCUSSION:
AN EXPLORATION OF REPERTOIRE COMPOSED FOR SOLO PERCUSSION AND
ELECTRONICS
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Master of Music in Music, Performance
By
Greg Power
December 2018
The thesis of Greg Power is approved:
______John Magnussen Date
______A.J. McCaffrey, DMA Date
______John Roscigno, DMA, Chair Date
California State University, Northridge
ⅱ
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Signature Page………………………………………………………………………….…ii
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....v
Introduction………………………………………………………………..………………1
A Brief History of Chamber Music for Electronics and Percussion..…...... …………….3
Classification of Electroacoustic Works...…...…………...……...………….……..…….19
Solo Electroacoustic Performance Considerations....….…………………...……………23
Compositional Procedure and Performance Requirements for Antithesis....…..………..26
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….31
References……………………………………………………………….……………….32
ⅲ LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1…………………….…………………………………………………….....……16
Figure 2…………………….……………………………………….……………...…….17
Figure 3, Pearl EM1 Malletstation MIDI Controller Top View…....……...……….……26
Figure 4, Pearl EM1 Malletstation Side View….………………………………….…….26
Figure 5, FL Studio DAW, Project: Antithesis Backtrack………...... …………………..27
Figure 6, Creating a Click Track in Audacity...………………………...………………..28
Figure 7, Roland SPDsx, and 2000’s Audio In-Ear Wireless Monitor System………….29
Figure 8, Antithesis full setup excluding PA system EM1 Pearl Malletstation…...……..29
ⅳ
ABSTRACT
THE LIMITLESS POTENTIAL OF ELECTROACOUSTIC PERCUSSION:
AN EXPLORATION OF REPERTOIRE COMPOSED FOR SOLO PERCUSSION
AND ELECTRONICS
By
Greg Power
Master of Music in Music, Performance
With present-day technology, electronic music has become a much more accessible medium. Many new electroacoustic percussion works have been composed and performed in the year 2018, alone. The purpose of this thesis is to provide more academic context to this growing contemporary subgenre. Through my exploration of the short history of electroacoustic music, I found that electronics and percussion shared many analogous characteristics. Because of these foundational compatible musical properties, the integration of electronics and percussion became an ideal pairing for some of the most influential early electronic music composers, John Cage, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, and Edgard Varése. In this thesis, I attempt to define the nomenclature of electroacoustic music and discuss the unique performance practice challenges and considerations within the subgenre. I will outline the compositional process and performance requirements behind successfully creating and performing a modern work
ⅴ for percussion and electronics using my own composition as an example. The composition is entitled Antithesis for multiple percussion and electronic soundscape and was written for my graduate thesis and MM percussion recital.
ⅵ Introduction
In the modern era, electroacoustic music has developed into its own diverse discipline containing a myriad of genres. The discipline is defined as an individual or group of performers manipulating electronic technology to create sound. Composers use tape recorders, sound modules, synthesizers and computers to produce unique textures and colors. These electronic sounds are a conglomerate of timbres and cover the full range of human hearing frequency. Electronic compositions are not confined to chromatic instruments or acoustic sounds, allowing composers an infinite amount of possibilities in sound synthesis and design. Electronic composers can choose to free themselves of old tonal structures of the past and compose music without the inclusion of “traditional” music components like harmony, meter, and melody.
Avant garde composers Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen were pioneers in the development of electroacoustic compositional techniques. Their experimentation resulted in a radically unique soundscape, unlike any of the music that had come before their time. Stockhausen’s Kontakte, composed in 1958, was one of the first pieces composed for pre-recorded electronics and live instrumentalists. Due to the intriguing and innovative performance aesthetic of this composition, many composers followed suit and embraced the idea of composing for electronics and instrumentalists.
However the use of instruments meant composing within the boundaries of performer and tape synchronization. Live electroacoustic compositions would require either a resemblance of conventional meter or specialized notation for the performer to follow. In addition, the composer must decide whether or not to return to chromaticism when
1 writing for a chromatic instrument. Acoustic percussion became a viable solution for electroacoustic composers who were looking to incorporate a live performance aesthetic while allowing the music to still be free from the traditional conventions of the past.
2 A Brief History of Chamber Music for Electronics and Percussion
In the late nineteenth century, musical structures of the past were questioned. The world of Western art music was rapidly transforming. The Second Viennese School, led by Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, contested the compositional styles of the Romantic era. They rejected the status quo of the previous periods with new techniques such as serialism and atonality. Their movement emphasized freeing music from past rules and constraints, and was influential to the many innovative composers who succeeded them.
Some composers, like French composer Edgard Varése, believed atonality was passé.
Rather than focus on harmonic structure, the influential avant garde composer shifted his attention to the “raw material of music,” sound. He believed that musical modernization was stagnant due to the restrictions of “instruments that have not changed for two centuries.”1 In 1936, Varése’s contemplations led him to write the manifesto, Liberation of Sound, which served not only as a personal mantra, but as the treatise of intent for the electroacoustic music movement. In Liberation of Sound, Varése desired for: liberation from the arbitrary paralyzing tempered system; the possibility of obtaining any number of cycles or, if still desired, subdivisions of the octave, and consequently the formation of any desired scale; unsuspected range in low and high registers; new harmonic splendors obtainable from the use of subharmonic combinations now impossible; the possibility of obtaining any differential of timbre, of sound-combinations, and new dynamics far beyond the present human-powered orchestra - all these in a given unit of measure of time which is humanly impossible to attain.2
1 Edgard Varèse, and Wen-chung Chou,"The Liberation of Sound" (Perspectives of New Music 5, no. 1 1966): 11. 2 Herbert Russcol, The Liberation of Sound : An Introduction to Electronic Music (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1972), pg 52. 3 Varése was calling for the use of electronic technology music creation, technology that became much more accessible in the mid- twentieth century with the birth of musique concréte and elektronische Musik. In 1948, French Radio engineer, Pierre Schaeffer, was credited with the invention of musique concréte, when he premiered his radical new music composed of the natural sounds of rocks, trains, pots/pans and instruments all recorded on magnetic tape.3
Schaeffer’s effort was to collect concrete sounds from nature adding edits, such as tape reversal, speed adjustment, and looping to create an entirely new soundscape. “Instead of notating musical ideas on paper with the symbols of solfège and entrusting their realization to well-known instruments, the question was to collect concrete sounds, wherever they came from, and to abstract the musical values that they were potentially containing.”4 A divergent German school began in 1949 focused on elektronische Musik, purely “electronically-derived” sine waves that could be altered, filtered, and gated, though they eventually included recorded sounds in their later works.5 In 1952 one of the lead enthusiasts of elektronishe Musik, Karlheinz Stockhausen worked with Shaeffer at the Studio für elektronische Musik des Westdeutschen Rundfunks and began to experiment with altering many properties and aspects of recorded tape sounds.6
Stockhausen's first and only application of musique concréte, Gersan der Jünglinge (1956), was a catalyst for further innovation in electronic music in the Western art world.
3 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 52. 4 Jean de Reydellet, “Pierre Schaeffer, 1910-1995: The Founder of Musique Concrète,” (Computer Music Journal 20, no. 2 1996): 10. 5 Lowell Cross, “Electronic Music, 1948-1953,” (Perspectives of New Music 7, no. 1 1968): 33. 6 Lowell Cross, “Electronic Music, 1948-1953,” (Perspectives of New Music 7, no. 1 1968): 34. 4 For this forty-nine minute work, Stockhausen combined just one recording of a boy singing the medieval canticle of King David and three electronically generated elements: sine tones, pulses and filtered white noise.7 Varése was invited to work at Schaeffer’s studio and to work at Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, learning to administer the technology he had longed for in his manifesto and subsequently produced his own electronic masterpiece, Poéme électronique in 1958. Perhaps the greatest irony of the electroacoustic music was that live performances of the avant garde medium were performed in traditional Western art music concert halls, a very ritualized and formal setting. Composers like Varése and Stockhausen were trained in the performance practice of the past and Western audiences had specific expectations of a performance; expectations that were contradictory to the practice of electronic playback through loudspeakers. Audiences have come to expect musicians that captivate their auditory and visual senses. While electronic music succeeds in providing every performance as a perfect realization of what the composer has prepared, there was no longer the excitement of witnessing a human risking error in the effort of a virtuosic performance.8 The listener had “no opportunity to associate the sounds being heard with gestures that might have produced them… This estrangement of sight from sound meant that even ordinary cues for silence and applause were absent, leaving the members of the audience feeling somewhat self-conscious and often perplexed.”9 In an interview with
7 Peter Manning, Electronic and Computer Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 41. 8 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 360. 9 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 361. 5 filmmaker Iara Lee, Stockhausen begrudgingly expressed, “It is true that the eyes dominate the ears in our time.”10
In an effort to make electronic music more engaging to a general audience,
Varése’s Poeme electronique was played with assistance of “visual media.”11 However, this method still lacked the organic human connection that art music audiences had grown accustomed to. The twentieth-century composers then happened upon a sensible solution. They formulated a popular new subgenre of electroacoustic music by incorporating a liver performer on the stage to perform with the recorded electronics.
However, using an instrumentalist meant that electroacoustic composers again faced the limitations of, in their view, outmoded tools of sound. This is why many early electroacoustic composers decided to bridge the gap between instrumental music and electronics by composing works for percussion and electronics.
Unlike other instruments, percussion provides electroacoustic composers with many unique advantages in the realization of their movement’s artistic intent. Varése wanted the freedom to create contemporary soundscapes uninhibited by the exhausted musical structures of the past. Ultimately, by composing for percussion and electronics, composers have the opportunity to establish a corporeal connection with the audience and transcend the compositional limitations of fixed timbre, equal temperament, and the harmonic series.
10 Karlheinz, Stockhausen, and Tannenbaum Mya, Conversations with Stockhausen, (New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1987), 102. 11 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 392. 6 The most important element in electroacoustic music is the exploration of timbre.
Essentially, sounds are basically a combination of frequencies and each component of has an independent envelope of amplitude. Timbre is the perception of these conglomerates of frequency components.12 Composers have inexhaustible options for sound cultivation in electronic sound synthesis because contemporary technology allows for precise control over frequency selection. Electroacoustic composers utilized this technology to combine oscillating sine waves of particular frequencies and intensities. This process was appropriately named additive synthesis and resulted in new complex vibrations that can achieve a variety of tone colors, that were impossible to produce with physical instruments. Instruments like the violin have a fixed amount of timbres that composers and audiences have come recognize. The strings can be manipulated by extended arco or pizzicato technique and are used sequentially with left hand manipulation to create many variations of sound. Despite the numerous tone colors the violin could create, it was miniscule in contrast to the endless possibility of additive synthesis. By the mid-twentieth century composers were thoroughly using extended techniques of traditional instruments and audiences were becoming aware of the symphony orchestra’s timbre threshold, with the exception of percussion.
Percussion is different than other families of instruments because it is defined in actions and not as a group of instruments. Modern percussionists manipulate, strike, scrape, shake and rub many different instruments to create sound. Because of this generalized requirement of classification, the percussion instrument being struck is
12 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 13. 7 abundantly interchangeable. Therefore, there are seemingly endless variations of idiophones, membranophones, aerophones and chordophones that are all considered part of percussion family. The family continues to progress as modern composers aspire to discover new tone colors and continue to invent new percussion instruments. Many of
Schaeffer’s musique concréte pieces are considered to be edited versions of idiophonic percussion. Percussion’s metamorphic timbre is a direct similarity to additive synthesis and proves to be persuasive in its overall compatibility with electronics.
Twentieth-century composers who desired to seek freedom from fixed timbre would find solace not only in electroacoustic music, but in percussion composition as well. In fact, many prominent electroacoustic composers including John Cage, Edgard Varése,
Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis composed important chamber works for percussion that were influential in legitimizing percussion as a solo instrument.
In The Future of Music: Credo, American electroacoustic and percussion composer John Cage declared that “percussion music is a contemporary transition from keyboard influenced music to the all-sound music of the future. Any sound is acceptable to the composer of percussion music.”13 Cage was a pioneer of sound, contesting the definition of the music with his thought-provoking works. He was known for his invention of the prepared piano, an exercise in developing new percussive timbres out of a traditional instrument. Cage was interested in extracting sound from new sources, and developing new musical colors, so naturally for most of his life, he was drawn to experimenting with electronics and percussion. In 1939, a year after completing his
13 John Cage and Kyle Gann, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2011), 27. 8 article, John Cage composed Imaginary Landscape No. 1, which is credited as the first known piece for solo percussion and electronics. It was scored for a prepared piano, cymbal, and two variable-speed turntables playing RCA Victor test recordings of fixed and variable frequencies.14 In 1942 Cage again experimented with percussion and electronic combined soundscape in Imaginary Landscape No.2 and No. 3. Imaginary Landscape No. 3 was composed for percussion sextet, tin cans, muted gong, audio frequency oscillators, variable-speed turntables, buzzer, amplified coil of wire and marimba amplified by a contact microphone.15 After completing the electronic piece,
Williams Mix in 1953 while working with the New York School (a group of experimental electronic music composers in New York City, formed by Cage and Morton Feldman),
Cage composed the literature’s first percussion and tape piece entitled, 27’10.554” for a Percussionist (1956) with graphic notation. In the piece he allowed the performer to decide whether or not to provide the recorded portion.16 Throughout his career, Cage has eloquently asserted the equal importance of percussion and electronics in going beyond the limitations of the music of the past. In an article that appeared in Dance Observer in
1939, Percussion Music and Its Relation to Modern Dance, he highlights the importance of both mediums of sound in the “emancipation” of music and makes a strong case for their symbiotic purpose:
Percussion music is revolution. Sound and rhythm have too long been submissive to the restrictions of nineteenth century music. Today we are fighting for their emancipation. Tomorrow, with electronic music in our ears, we will hear
14 Peter Manning, Electronic and Computer Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 15. 15 Peter Manning, Electronic and Computer Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 16.
16 Steven Johnson, The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts: John Cage, Morton Feldman (New York: Routledge, 2002), 2-12. 9 freedom. Instead of giving us new sounds, the nineteenth-century composers have given us endless arrangements of the old sounds. At the present stage of revolution, a healthy lawlessness is warranted. Experiment must necessarily be carried on by hitting anything-tin pans, rice bowls, iron pipes-anything we can lay our hands on. Not only hitting, but rubbing, scraping, making sound in every possible way...What we can't do ourselves will be done by machines which we will invent.17
Edgard Varése became known as the “Father of Electronic Music” for his electroacoustic work, but he also had a great deal of influence in the world of percussion.
Varése was responsible for the first chamber piece that truly inspired contemporary exploration of percussion when he composed a Ionisation (1931). Ionisation was fitting to Varese’s desire to create new sounds from the instruments at his disposal. He composed the piece for thirty-seven percussion instruments played by thirteen percussionists. The piece was premiered in 1933 in New York City with the following instrumentation: three bass drums (medium, large, very large), two tenor drums, two snare drums, piccolo snare drum, two bongos, tambourine, field drum, crash cymbal, suspended cymbals, three tam-tams, gong, two anvils, two triangles, sleigh bells, cowbell, chimes, glockenspiel, piano, three temple blocks, claves, maracas, castanets, whip, güiro, high & low sirens, and a lion's roar. When observing the full instrumentation of the piece, one can conclude the versatility of percussion instruments in regard to timber, texture, density, and frequency range. The piece was composed with a plethora of complex rhythms that took precedent over harmony and melody. This was because Varése expressed a desire for “liberation from the arbitrary paralyzing tempered system” and
17 John Cage and Kyle Gann, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2011), 87. 10 composing for membranophones and idiophones with indeterminate pitch and irregular overtones allowed him the freedom to do so (to be further discussed later in this paper).18
In similarity to Cage, Varése also was an early influence of electronics and instrumentalists sharing the stage with his piece, Deserts (1954) for fourteen winds, five percussionists, piano and electronic tape. In contrast to Cage’s electroacoustic work, the ensemble and electronics did not play at the same time. Varése included interludes of tape music throughout the score where the live ensemble would stay silent and resume playing the next section after the electronics had subsided.19 While the electronic interludes were not as complex as the sounds of Poéme électronique, Varése did use a collection of percussion and percussion-like sounds in the piece, confirming that percussion contains valuable timbres that can be used as a resource in electronic synthesis.
Stockhausen’s Kontakte (1958-1960) was considered to be the first major work for electronic tape and percussion. Stockhausen describes the form of the piece in the program notes as, “each structured moment is to be structured for their individual qualities rather than understood as links in a chain of music argument.”20 Instead of leading the listener through a formal structure, the composer’s intent was to explore sound relationships between the electronic and instrumental timbres. Kontakte is considered a masterpiece in timbre composition and total serialization, and was appropriately composed for tape and two live performers, a pianist and percussionist.
18 Herbert Russcol, The Liberation of Sound : An Introduction to Electronic Music (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1972), pg 43. 19 Peter Manning, Electronic and Computer Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 158. 20 Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kontakte, Nr. 12 (London: Universal Edition, 1966), 3. 11 Stockhausen was able to utilize the performers and the calculated placement of the four loudspeakers to create a new spatial experiment. He utilized the integrating sounds of percussion to blend and layer with the electronics. In similarity to Ionisation, the percussion instrumentation was extremely varied. The percussionist had two African drums, a marimba, 3 tom-toms which were altered to have plywood glued on in place of the membrane to create a dryer sound, a guiro, bamboo wind chimes, two wood blocks, four cowbells, crotales, one small tamtam, one cymbal, one hihat, a bundle of small indian bells, one bongo and three to four tom-toms without alterations, a bongo turned upside down with beans inside to roll around when shaken, one side drum with snares, and one large tamtam and gong.21 Kontakte was a catalyst in percussion and tape literature, because of its specific challenges and interesting sound, more percussionists became interested in the idea of multiple percussion and electronics.
In the 1958, Stockhausen completed Zyklus; a piece for solo percussionist surrounded in a circle with the multiple percussion setup.22 This was Stockhausen’s only solo percussion work but was also one of the first multiple percussion solos ever composed. Many composers still did not see percussion as a stand-alone instrument and categorized it as more of an auxiliary effect in symphonies. Solo percussion literature was undoubtedly changed by this textured work on percussion, contrasting to percussion’s role in a symphonic nature. Stockhausen, having experimented with additive and analog synthesis and electronic music first, then looked for instruments in which he could create new sounds that had properties in which he could shift the sound quickly from one
21 Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kontakte, Nr. 12 (London: Universal Edition, 1966), 4. 22 Franklin Zimmerman, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, Nr. 9, Zyklus. for 1 Percussionist. Notes (21, no. 1/2, 1963), 241. 12 contrasting instrument to the next. After successfully finding sounds he wanted on percussion in the process of composing Zyklus, he decided to utilize a similar percussion set-up in his future electronic piece, Kontakte. Contrary to his counterparts, Iannis Xenakis created electroacoustic works before he made a lasting impact in percussion repertoire. Xenakis’s composed a number of electroacoustic works before composing a total of nine significant percussion works. He arrived in Paris in 1947, and after years of study under composer Olivier Messiaen and
Schaeffer, he completed his first musique concréte piece in 1957, entitled Diamorphoses. 23 In Diamorphoses, Xenakis created heavy and noisy textures and violent sounds of jet engines, trains and high bell-like sounds. Just as the avant garde composers that came before him, Xenakis became interested in creating soundscapes of new and uncommon combinations.24 These dynamic works influenced his bombastic solo percussion pieces,
Psappha (1975) and Rebonds (1989). He prefered writing for percussion and electronics because he found it easy to apply mathematical properties to both mediums. Psappha and Rebonds are considered classic masterpieces that set the precedent for what is physically possible by a single percussionist on a multi-percussion setup.
Following his experience creating electroacoustic music, Xenakis was very interested in the different timbres that a percussionist could achieve. The score for
Psappha calls for the use of three groups of instruments, skins, metal and wood allowing
23 James Harley, “The Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis,” (Computer Music Journal vol 26, No. 1, Spring 2002): 33. 24 James Harley, “The Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis,” (Computer Music Journal vol 26, No. 1, Spring 2002): 33. 13 for the percussionist to select the desired instruments for each group.25 Psappha is full of difficult interlocking timbral and rhythmic patterns, with no written time signature or any indication of meter. The indeterminacy and unique sound of Psappha seems to take the character of his dense electroacoustic pieces. Both pieces call for only percussion instruments that are indeterminate in pitch and shape the piece through their variety in tone color. While Xenakis never composed a piece for simultaneous performance of electronics and percussionist, his multiple percussion pieces drew more parallels between the sounds of tape music and solo percussion and inspired other composers to create large percussion setups to make use of many different sounds in performance with electronics.
Upon detailing the highlights of four composers that influenced the establishment of a new subgenre, it is certainly clear to see that early electronic music composers possessed a remarkable amount of ingenuity and acumen to pursue this new discipline.
Cage,Varése, Stockhausen, and Xenakis all possessed a want for new textures, colors, and timbres, and realized their artistic desire through electronic synthesis and a variety of percussion instruments.
It should be noted that when reviewing the instrumentation of Ionisation, Kontakte, and Psappha, most percussion instruments have indeterminate pitch and do not follow the harmonic series. This is the predominant advantage of composing for percussion and electronics in the succession from past musical structures. Unlike other instruments such as strings and winds, percussion’s overtones are not related by a
25 H, Gimbel,“Xenakis: Okho; Rebonds; Psappha,” (American Record Guide. 68, no. 6, 2005): 226. 14 common factor and have an inharmonic frequency spectrum.26 The variation in percussion instruments timbre is relative to its inharmonic resonance. Each sub-classification of percussion reacts differently to manipulation, and in turn each sub-classification projects different inharmonic frequencies. Even though percussion is unique in its timbre and pitch it shares a surprising amount of commonality to the prefered additive synthesis of “noise.”27
The process of additive synthesis outside of harmonic spectrum is labeled as
“noise” by acousticians. The selection of multiple frequencies that the human brain can’t quite differentiate between is called “white noise”. Noise can be utilized in many different effects in the electroacoustic medium. Cymbals produce a noise effect due to the immense amount of irregular frequencies and overtones. The many cuts of metal resonate in different directions and at different envelopes. One can see the spectrum differences in figure 1 below.
26 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 211. 27 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 211. 15
Figure 128
Thomas Rossing describes the membranophone as two dimensional string, it has four fundamental modes of resonance and produces many indeterminate frequencies outside of the harmonic spectrum.29 The membranes resonante from the nodes in 21 different directions masking the definite frequencies and causing an effect similar to the
28 Samuel Pellman, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1994), 213 29 Rossing, Thomas D. Science of Percussion Instruments. (River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific, 2000):pg 6. 16 cymbal above. [Modes Shown in Figure 2.]
Figure 2.30
There are other advantages in adding a percussionist to a live electronics performance besides the instruments’ timbre and frequency variation. When an electroacoustic composer writes for electronics and percussion they can also expect the following advantages unique to this instrumental family: dramatic visual stimulation through gestural intent, natural synchronization, balance, and live manipulation of electronics. One can find these advantages (now prevalent today) at the beginning of the collaboration between percussion performers and electronics composers. Stockhausen's piece Kontakte was entitled because of the element of performance that Stockhausen referred to as “musical theater.”31 The gong and tam tam were placed in the center of the stage and during the piece both the percussionist and pianist play the two middle idiophones and metaphorically make “contact.” While the gestural component seems obvious in percussion, it is a new and enticing element of the subgenre of electroacoustics. Stockhausen also mentions that the visual structure is an interesting
30 Rossing, Thomas D. Science of Percussion Instruments. (River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific, 2000):pg 7. 31 Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Electroacoustic Performance Practice.” (Perspectives of New Music vol 34, No.1, Winter, 1996): pg. 93 17 effect. The audience may become distracted by visual components only to be surprised by sounds from the loudspeakers. “If you are experiencing the movements for the first time, you will be diverted to a large extent from a real immersion in the fine structure of the music, then you may be fascinated by the physical effect of flying sounds. Just as you might be amazed at what all the familiar instruments produce during a performance of
Kontakte with piano and percussion.”32 Percussion instruments have natural decay and have always been used for complex rhythmic patterns. Electroacoustic composers see sustain as one less variable in the practical application of synchronization between performer and electronics.
Electroacoustic composers have also been proponents of artificial range in dynamics from extremely soft to loud. The instrument family with the largest overall dynamic range happens to be percussion and can be utilized to balance the transformative dynamics of the electronics.
Percussion performers can also manipulate electronics in a live setting. In
Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I (1964), two percussionists submit a tam tam to many different implements and materials. As they strike, rub and scratch the tam tam; two other performers deploy directional microphones at the tam-tam and run the sound picked up through an electrical filter, emitting an entirely new hybrid timbre out of the loudspeakers.
32 Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Electroacoustic Performance Practice.” (Perspectives of New Music vol 34, No.1, Winter, 1996): pg. 93 18 Classification of Electroacoustic Works
In modern-day chamber music, pieces for electronic soundscape and instrumentalist are still commonly referred to as pieces for “live instrumentalists and tape”. This label is a present-day misnomer, as most electroacoustic works are no longer played through a magnetic tape-reel machine. There are now many different options for electronic music playback and electronic integration into live performance. But, because there are so many unique music playback alternatives, the categories within the subgenre are unclear and undefined. I believe it is helpful to classify electroacoustic music repertoire performed within a concert hall into three distinct categories. These categories are based on the orchestration and the equipment required for the performance.
1. Predetermined Electronic Music Played through an Audio Output
Also known as Acousmatic music, this category of electroacoustics is defined as music that has been composed electronically or prerecorded and does not call for a live musician. At acousmatic music concerts, the predetermined music is presented through loudspeakers or any other audio output to a live concert audience. Acousmatic composers experimented with concepts of sound spacilization by determining the location and specifications of each audio output. They also experimented with alternative forms of visual stimulation like paintings, lights and animation. A few influential examples of this classicfication of electroacoustic music include: Schaeffer, Etude aux chemins de fer (1948), Stockhausen, Gersan der Jünglinge (1956) Varése, Poéme électronique (1958) and Iannis Xenakis, Persepolis (1971).
19 2. A Musician or Musicians Performing Live with Fixed Electronic Accompaniment
The compositions that fall into this category involve two key characteristics. Firstly, performer and fixed media compositions require a musician or musicians to perform with a synchronized predetermined electronic soundscape, also known as an
“electronic backtrack”. Also, the musicians play acoustic instruments in coordination with an electronic backtrack that is played simultaneously through loudspeakers. As aforementioned in my research of electroacoustic history, this category of electronic music combines two older existing genres, live musician chamber music and acousmatic music. Notable and important percussion and electronic backtrack works include:
Stockhausen, Kontakte, (1958), Mario Davidovsky, Synchronism No. 5, Javier Alvarez, Temazcal (1984) and John Psathas, One Study One Summary (2005)
3. A Musician or Musicians Conducting Live Interaction with Electronics
This third category of electroacoustic music is still somewhat generalized. The category covers a large variety of different types of electroacoustic performance. As modern technology advances, we continue to see an expansion of the number of ways humans can interact with electronics in a live setting. This category pertains to any live manipulation of sound with use of electronic equipment. There may still be predetermined and prerecorded electronic events included within this class of electroacoustic composition. But, for a piece to be considered a part of of this category, the composition must include a human performer that interacts with electronic equipment in a live performance. The human performer could choose to create electronic music
20 through the use of live electronic instruments. Common methods of live electronic music interaction include the use of synthesizers and the manipulation of amplification equipment. A composer could also consider the looping of a live-recorded musical phrase or require the performer to trigger pre-recorded events. Listed below are a few important examples of a musician or group of musicians using electronic equipment and the manipulation of amplification equipment to make electroacoustic music: Milton Babbit,
Composition for Synthesizer (1961), Stockhausen, Mikrophonie I (1964) and Kaija Saariaho, Six Japanese Gardens (1994).
3a. MIDI Percussion Controllers
MIDI controllers have become an accessible source of live human interaction with electronics. The invention of MIDI controller percussive pads inspired a wave of contemporary percussion and electronic compositions. These percussive MIDI pads could be easily incorporated into any acoustic percussion setup. The MIDI pads connect to an external database of pre-programmed events or sounds. A percussionist can activate the database of events or sounds through the percussive striking of the MIDI pad’s various surfaces. These pads can accurately read velocity, register dynamic contrast, and trigger the computer sounds almost instantly, providing the audience with a visual and auditory stimulation similar to act of striking a acoustic percussion instrument. Because these pads can be struck in the same manner as acoustic percussion and can be hit with the same implements, percussive MIDI pads facilitate an effortless transition between acoustic and electronic sounds in a live electroacoustic percussion performance. In an article for
Computer Music Journal in 1992, percussionist Amy Knoles, now current Director of
21 Electronic Percussion Studios at California Institute of the Arts, describes her first experience with a percussion MIDI controller on Broadway:
If I strike a pad on a MIDI percussion controller and it is routed to a computer running an interactive program such as Peter Otto's Delicate Switches/Mallet Vectors (1988) written on the Carnegie-Mellon MIDI Tool Kit, I may hear an ascending zipper effect made up of 16 different timbres that would impossible for me to play. Some purists may say that this is "copping out," but I believe that it is the logical progression of the music of our time and brings to the forefront the potential virtuosity of electronic music, the voice of many of today's composers. Human interaction with computers is an everyday experience (ready tellers, etc.). The interactive musical environment is one of the most exciting forms of new music being written today.33
33 Amy Knoles, “A View from the Electroacoustic Percussion World” (Computer Music Journal vol 16, no. 2, Summer, 1992):pg 22 Solo Electroacoustic Performance Considerations
In order to execute a successful electroacoustic performance or compose a electroacoustic piece, a musician or composer must consider the primary challenges that arise when attempting to combine electronic music and live performers in a concert hall.
In a similar vein with period music and genres of the past, electroacoustic literature has its own set of performance practice and considerations in order to achieve its desired performance aesthetic.
1. Coordination between Electronics and Performer
The synchronization of electronic music and musician is perhaps the most crucial challenge that a performer or composer will face. This issue is common within the electroacoustic music category, “a musician or musicians performing live with fixed electronic accompaniment”. The issue of coordination is only prevalent if the performer is playing an instrument that is independent from the electronic track and if the track itself is written with a set tempo and meter. Past composers and performers have found many creative solutions to this issue. Composers, like Davidovsky in Synchronisms, have notated important cues from the electronic part in the performer’s score. The performer will be able to listen and react to the cues in the electronic part. John Cage has composed pieces where the performer must keep tracking of seconds. In many cases Cage sketches out a basic outline of the electronics and what the performer must do at certain time cues in the scores. In pieces like Attraction (2017), by Emmanuel Séjourné, the work’s backtrack contains numerous cues, isolated clicks and rhythmic percussive sections to
23 help provide the performer with a stream of constant information and feedback on the backtrack’s consistent tempo and meter.
A popular modern method in the synchronization of human and electronic backtrack is to give the performer a “click track.” This click track is a metronome sent to the performers headphones or in-ears that will provide the musician or musicians with the tempo or cues to stay vertically aligned with the electronic music backtrack. In order for the click track to work effectively, the two seperate audio files (the click track and the backtrack) must be triggered at the same time.
2. Balance
Just as orchestras develop the correct balance between the soloist and the ensemble during the performance of a concerto, the electroacoustic performer must do the same when performing with an electronic audio output or PA system. Depending on their size, loudspeakers can easily overbalance an acoustic instrument or a group of musicians. A possible solution in finding the correct balance between performer and track would be to have an audio engineer or another trained musician out in the hall to balance the audio output through a mixer. The performer could also consider changing the position and location of the loudspeakers. It is important to also consider the size of the hall, the quality or size of loudspeakers and the relationship between the musician and electronic part (which part is accompanimental, the melody, etc.)
3. Electronic Music Production and Audio Engineering
In order for a musician to accurately and successfully perform with electronics, the musician must have a prior understanding of all the electronic equipment that they are
24 using for the performance. Learning about the details and equipment of the electronic music genre is becoming easier as universities and third parties are now providing education within the medium. Musicians and composers may also want to consider collaborating with a trained electronic audio technician or engineer.
25 Compositional Procedure and Performance Requirements for Antithesis, a Piece for Multiple Percussion and Electronics, by Greg Power
Antithesis is a contemporary piece that makes use of many different electronic and acoustic elements. The piece requires the performer to play acoustic percussion, trigger pre-recorded samples on a Roland SPDsx as well as trigger synthesizer sounds through striking the pads on a MIDI controller, the Pearl EM1 Malletstation (shown in Figure 3 and 4), over a fixed pre-recorded electronic backtrack.
Figure 3, Pearl EM1 Malletstation MIDI Controller Top View
Figure 4, Pearl EM1 Malletstation Side View
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The main structure of the piece is based around a 12 minute backtrack that I composed first using a digital audio workstation (DAW) on a Dell Studio laptop. The
DAW I used for this project was FL Studio 8 by Image-Line Software. A digital audio workstation is an electronic device or music software program used for recording, editing, or producing audio. The backtrack is made up of an arrangement of many different recorded sounds including the sounds of traffic, the ocean, drums, and mallet instruments. I edited parameters of the recorded sounds throughout the backtrack. I cut and reordered audio segments, reversed audio files, edited the pitch and frequencies of each sound and added DSP, digital signal processing. The backtrack also consists of
VSTs, virtual studio technologies, such as completely digital software synthesizers that have been designed to resemble analog synthesizers and other digital effects. A screenshot of my DAW workspace is shown below in Figure 5.
Figure 5, FL Studio DAW, Project: Antithesis Backtrack
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Figure 6, Creating a Click Track in Audacity
Seen in Figure 6, I created a click track using the free audio software, Audacity. I edited the BPM to match the tempo changes throughout the backtrack. To start the backtrack and click track simultaneously, I programed the two audio files to initiate on seperate channels when I activated a single footswitch connected to the Roland SPDsx.
The SPDsx is connected to the PA system mixer and houses both the fixed electronic soundscape and the click track. The click track is sent only to my wireless in-ears through my “2000 Audio” wireless in-ear system while the stereo backtrack is sent out through the loudspeakers. Figure 7
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Figure 7, Roland SPDsx, and 2000’s Audio In-Ear Wireless Monitor System
Figure 8, Antithesis full setup excluding PA system and EM1 Pearl Malletstation
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The piece calls for a set up of: Crotales, Vibraphone, 5 Octave Marimba, EM1
Pearl Malletstation, Roland SPDsx, Suspended Cymbal, Ride Cymbal, Crash or China
Crash Cymbal, Thin Crash of Splash Cymbal, Snare Drum, Djembe and Djembe Stand,
Multiple Percussion Bass Drum, 3 Tom-Toms (High, Medium, and Low) The full setup is featured in Figure 8. The piece was composed with the intention of highlighting the compatibility of solo percussion and electronics by exploring a wide range of percussive timbres, synthesizer driven soundscapes, rhythmic ostinatos and motives. The performance of this pieces requires the solo musician to interact and trigger prerecorded electronics with percussion specific midi controller pads. This interaction between the acoustic percussion instruments, electronic percussion instruments and electronic backtrack, yields a unique visual and auditory experience.
30 Conclusion
Varése craved for the technology we now have today. In the present day subgenre of percussion and electronics, composers have virtually unlimited resources of timbres, effects, and colors tones. Percussionists can easily synchronize through click tracks, dramatize with visual gestures and even manipulate the electronics in a live setting.
Composers no longer need a room full of analog machines. All they need are applications and software on their computer. Thanks to the technology boom of digital computers and new electronic instrument technology, we are witnessing the beginning of new era of acoustic and electronic percussion performance.
31 References
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Harley, James. “The Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis.” Computer Music Journal vol 26, No. 1 (Spring 2002): 33-57.
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32 Russcol, Herbert, The Liberation of Sound : An Introduction to Electronic Music. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, (1972).
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Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Kontakte, Nr. 12. London: Universal Edition, (1966).
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. “Electroacoustic Performance Practice.” Perspectives of New Music vol 34, No.1 (Winter, 1996): 74-105
Varèse, Edgard, and Chou Wen-chung. "The Liberation of Sound." Perspectives of New Music 5, no. 1 (1966): 11-19.
Zimmerman, Franklin, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Nr. 9, Zyklus. for 1 Percussionist. Notes. 21, no. 1/2:(1963).
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