Music and Sonic Art
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Music and Sonic Art Music and Sonic Art: Theories and Practices Edited by Mine Doğantan-Dack and John Dack Music and Sonic Art: Theories and Practices Edited by Mine Doğantan-Dack and John Dack This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Mine Doğantan-Dack, John Dack and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-1353-X ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-1353-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables ......................................................................... vii List of Examples ......................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... x Foreword .................................................................................................... xi Mine Doğantan-Dack and John Dack Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Beyond the Fixity Fallacy: Rethinking the Work Concept in the Age of Electronic Music Adam Stanović Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 23 The Listener’s Perspective Per Dahl Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 45 A Sketch for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Piano Mine Doğantan-Dack Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 59 Hugh Davies’ Shozyg I Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 78 The Sound World of Guitar Multiphonics Rita Torres and Paulo Ferreira-Lopes Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 95 Feldman, Sonic Art and the Aesthetics of Surface Francis Heery vi Table of Contents Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 109 Multimodal References in Schaeffer’s Treatise on Musical Objects John Dack Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 122 Composing and Performing as Problem Solving Charise Hastings Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 139 An Experimental Turn: A Composer’s Perspective on a Changing Practice Tom Armstrong Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 160 From the Scientific to the Sonic: Vera Rubin and the Sound of Dark Matter Nina Whiteman Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 184 Artistic Research in Jazz: A Case Study and Potential Developments Michael Kahr Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 200 Negotiating Sonic Space for Group Electronics Owen Green and Sean Williams Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 218 Sound Practices: The Sonic and the Musical in Interdisciplinary Improvisation James Andean and Alejandro Olarte Contributors ............................................................................................. 233 Index ........................................................................................................ 239 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures 2-1 The musical work 2-2 The model of communication 4-1 Shozyg I 4-2 The objects in Shozyg I 7-1 Summary Diagram of Typology 10-1 Rubin’s description of the diagram: “Contours of equal intensity for red image; quarter-magnitude levels are drawn. The position angles of the four spectra are indicated; the extent of the strong emission is shown. Weak emission extends beyond this point for most spectra.” (Rubin 1994a: 175) 10-2 Rubin’s rotation curve for M31, featuring data collected in 1970 (Rubin 1994b: 457) Tables 5-1 Scientific literature by other authors dealing with guitar multiphonics 5-2 Artistic literature from 1832 to 1987, featuring classical guitar multiphonics (from Torres 2015a) 5-3 Artistic literature from 1998 to present, featuring classical guitar multiphonics, excluding the pieces composed in the context of this research (from Torres 2015a; guit.: guitar) 5-4 General information descriptors and respective attributes for the characterisation and categorisation of the production of multiphonics and harmonics sounds 5-5 Specific information descriptors and respective attributes for the characterisation and categorisation of the production of multiphonics and harmonics sounds (cvt.: conventional) viii List of Figures and Tables 5-6 Specific information descriptors and respective attributes for the characterisation and categorisation of the sounds of multiphonics LIST OF EXAMPLES Examples 5-1 Gesture using guitar multiphonics with plectrum-played tremolato (t.p: touch pressure). Reprinted from “Si Amanece, nos Vamos” (p. 2) by Rita Torres, 2015, Karlsruhe: The composer 5-2 Gestures using guitar multiphonics conventionally (slow tempo). Reprinted form “The Fireflies, Twinkling Among Leaves, Make the Stars Wonder” (p. 8), by Rita Torres, 2018, Lisboa: The composer 8-1 “Arethusa” from Oxen of the Sun by Stephen Goss, bb. 1-28. 9-1 Capriccio bb. 1-9 9-2 Morning Music bb. 1-4 9-3 Lydian Charlatan (refrain and lines 1-2) from Araxne 9-4 96 Beats from Albumleaves 9-5 Nine Long Notes (top half of page) from Albumleaves 10-1 Dark Matter Sounding, bb. 8-9, brass instruments 10-2 Dark Matter Sounding, bb. 14-15, woodwind and brass instruments 10-3 Data and frequencies for NGC3067 and UGC 2885 (to nearest quarter tone) 10-4 Bass clarinet line at letter A in The Galaxy Rotation Problem 10-5 Frequencies generated for the M87 galaxy 10-6 Instrumental parts at the opening of The Galaxy Rotation Problem 10-7 Pages 4-5, The Galaxy Rotation Problem 10-8 Simultaneous violin and bassoon soli at letter B in Dark Matter Sounding ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the authors for their contributions to this volume, and for their presentations at the Music and Sonic Art Conference held at Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikinformatik (IMWI), Karlsruhe, in 2012 and 2013, which provided the initial impetus for this project. Special thanks to Professor Thomas Troge, Director of IMWI, who has been co-organising and hosting the MuSA Conference since 2011. FOREWORD Since its emergence as a distinct contemporary art form in the 1980s (though precedents can be traced to Russolo, Duchamp and the Fluxus “happenings”) Sonic Art has evolved to become an academic discipline with a growing body of theoretical and critical discourses that articulate its individual characteristics and perspectives. Although the first book to use the term “Sonic Art” developed from Trevor Wishart’s practice as an electroaoustic composer (On Sonic Art 1985/1996), a recent tendency can be identified to distance Sonic Art from Music both as an academic discipline as a practice (Voeglin 2010; Gibbs 2007; Licht 2007; LaBelle 2006; Kim-Cohen, 2006). Frequently, Sonic Art is promoted as providing a perspective on sound, hearing and listening that is categorically different from the perspective presented by Music. There is often a social-political agenda to separate Sonic Art practices from historical and contemporary musical practices and an on-going debate whether it should be regarded as in essence a visual arts practice within Fine Art. We initiated the annual international “Music and Sonic Art: Practice and Theories” conference in 2009 specifically to explore and build on the historical, theoretical and practical connections and similarities between Music and Sonic Art: we wanted to bring a different perspective to the relationship between the two areas, one that thrives on regarding them as displaying continuities and links, along a broad spectrum of hearing and listening practices and art-making that use sound. We noted that research in Music and in Sonic Art are both interdisciplinary by nature, and that the theoretical and aesthetic concerns of contemporary practitioners in the two domains might be more similar than is currently assumed. The nine MuSA conferences we organized since 2009 have indeed confirmed our assumption that practitioners and researchers in Music and Sonic Art share many methodological, creative, theoretical concerns and approaches— that it is infinitely more productive to consider Music and Sonic Art not as clearly delineated, separate disciplines but rather the manifestations of one discipline along a continuous spectrum of theories and practices. The chapters in this volume all have their origins in presentations given during MuSA 2012 and MuSA 2013. The topics covered include: philosophies of listening and of the art work; the role of the instrument in xii Foreword performance; critical perspectives on performance; strategies for compositional analysis; collaborative practices; artistic research; technology and creativity; interdisciplinarity;