Yiorgos Vassilandonakis University of Virginia An Interview with Trevor McIntire Department of Music 112 Old Cabell Hall Wishart Charlottesville, Virginia 22903 USA [email protected]

Trevor Wishart (see Figures 1 and 2) has carved sound properties, his philosophy, and his wit, as well a distinct niche as a composer, author, educator, as his programming abilities, having watched him vocal improviser, software designer, and practitioner tweak or rewrite software on the spot to improve of sonic art and digital music creation. Born in or update functionality. I met him again in Paris 1946 in Leeds, England, Mr. Wishart studied at a few years later, when I got the chance to work Oxford, the University of Nottingham, and the closely with CDP. This interview took place in three University of York, where he earned his doctorate separate sessions, the first of which was conducted in composition in 1973. He became involved in live in Paris in June 2006, over a meal between Mr. the early stages of electronic music, which he Wishart’s teaching sessions at CCMIX; the remain- has actively researched and developed ever since, ing sessions were concluded over telephone and creating an impressive body of works that have electronic mail during the summer and fall of 2008. been commissioned by l’Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the Paris Biennale, and the BBC Promenade Concerts. (See Table 1.) He has also been awarded prizes such as Early Years and Socio-Political Context the Giga-Herz Grand Prize at Zentrum fur¨ Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), the Golden Nica at the Vassilandonakis: Most of your work has been as an Linz Ars Electronica, the Gaudeamus Award, and the independent composer. How have you managed to Euphonie d’Or at the Bourges Festival. Mr. Wishart pursue a career without the support of a teaching is also known for his works involving the human post or even a major research institution? voice, including improvisations using extended vocal techniques, as well as his musical theater Wishart: There seem to be ways for a performer pieces. Specializing in sound metamorphosis, he is of contemporary music to make a living in big a principal contributor to the Composers’ Desktop metropolises like London, Paris, or Berlin. But these Project (CDP), a set of software tools for multi- venues and their audiences seemed remote from faceted sound transformation. Mr. Wishart has the world I grew up in. And anyway, it seemed developed and maintained Sound Loom, a user that composers who were not performers needed an interface for CDP, since 2000. academic post to financially support their work. Further contributions include his books On Sonic Vassilandonakis: They still do. . . Art and Audible Design,aswellashisSounds Fun books of educational games, which have been Wishart: Absolutely, though it also depends on translated into Japanese. (See Table 2.) Mr. Wishart where you are. There are still places with remnants has held residencies in Australia, Canada, Holland, of financial resources for independent composers, Germany, and the United States, and at the Univer- though not many. At the time I was starting out, sities of York, Cambridge, and Birmingham. He is an the Arts Officer for our local region (Yorkshire) was honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York. a great supporter of the new medium known as I first met Trevor Wishart in June 2003 while “performance-art,” and many well-known perform- attending a summer program in Electronic Music ing groups moved to the region to live and work. at the Centre de Creation´ Musicale, Much of their experimental visual work happened in (CCMIX), in Paris. I was struck by his knowledge of the street or in small-town, small-scale venues (the now-defunct “Arts Labs”). I worked with several of these artists while I was still a doctoral student Journal, 33:2, pp. 8–23, Summer 2009 at York, and I was inspired by the idea of making c 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. your way in life by taking work out “on the road”

8 Computer Music Journal Figure 1. Trevor Wishart Figure 2. Presenting a performing at the Krikri seminar at the Trieste Festival in Ghent (2006). Music Conservatory in Trieste, Italy.

and being judged in front of a real audience. So I was lucky to find a niche for myself staging what I committed, in a youthfully idealistic way, to ideas called “environmental events” (we’d probably call of taking art out of the usual contexts and into the these “site-specific events” today), and multimedia community, without any realistic notion of how shows like Son et Lumiere` Domestic,whichwere this might be achieved. In particular, the death given Arts Council support as “performance art.” of my father while I was still a student made me I should also be honest and say that, without my reconsider what I was doing as a composer. The wife’s support, the first ten years of my independent post-Xenakis type orchestral work I was writing career would have been impossible, as I came from (based on seven intervallically distinct tone-rows a poor family with no resources to back me up. and random number tables) seemed irrelevant to his life, working in a factory in an industrial town, and Vassilandonakis: You have an academic composer’s this is what first inspired me to buy a tape recorder background, and yet your career has focused mainly and go out recording the sounds of industry around on electronic music. Was there a point at which you the region with some vague idea of making a piece consciously renounced or gravitated away from the of music out of it. traditional academic path? How did you make the transition to electronic music? Vassilandonakis: How familiar were you with the electronic genre of the times as you went in to Wishart: I was a student during the ferment of the manipulate those recordings? Was that project late 1960s and early 1970s when lots of alternative completed successfully? ideas were in the air. My friend and roommate went off to found Uncareers, an alternative approach to Wishart: Most of my university training had been entering the “real world” of employment. I became focused on composers in the instrumental tradition,

Vassilandonakis 9 so although I had come across the electronic works see this unbridgeable gulf between improvisers and of Xenakis, Stockhausen, and Berio, and I knew of composers (especially studio composers) that some the existence of musique concrete` , I had no existing musicians seem to want to erect. models to relate to when I began my studio work. Vassilandonakis: Yet there are some fundamental I eventually generated the piece Machine...an differences in these two ways of musical creation. Electronically-Preserved Dream, which combined Since you have also been active as an improviser, those industrial recordings with semi-improvised how does one inform the other in your own thinking? sound materials for singers or speaking voices and cutups of media clips and of my own voice in a Wishart: It’s good to improvise (I still do live radical ad hoc approach I called “music montage.” vocal performances with no more electronics than a microphone and amplifier), but it’s also good Vassilandonakis: How did it feel to have access to to spend time working over materials in a very all these new studio tools back then? intensive way, making decisions about long time- Wishart: Working with sound in the studio was scale relationships which are not so accessible in a revelatory experience for me. With my strong the heat of a live performance. I’ve done some academic background in composing, and a particular pretty exciting live vocal performances, but I interest in musical form, it was shocking to discover would never have come up with the “ocean” that sounds had their own agenda; one couldn’t just sound transformations in Imago in a live situation. transfer idealized notions of proportions to the pre- Curiously, it can be the unpredictability of the recorded sound-materials one had collected. They studio work that leads to discoveries that are not seemed to have a life and demands of their own. I going to happen in the live situation: A complex have to admit that I find mathematics beautiful, and patch applied to a complex source often leads to I read mathematics books for entertainment, but sound results which can’t have been foreseen. Many musical beauty is more than mathematical form, of them are average (or just plain uninteresting), but as it also has to function effectively in time, unlike you can take the best of the unforeseen results and a mathematical argument. I’m always concerned apply a new, unpredictable process, leading to new therefore with shaping materials in a way consistent sounds from which you can make a choice, and so with their particular nature. on. This process of progressive selection (weeding out) and development is not easily applied in a live Vassilandonakis: . . . a fact that can throw out all situation. pre-composition calculations at times. Vassilandonakis: It must have been hard to follow Wishart: Absolutely. An obvious example I often this approach of “slow improvisation” in the analog use is that a sound-morph usually has to take a studio with tape machines and filters, in the sense certain minimum time to register with the listener. that it takes so much physical work to realize these There’s time required to recognize the initial sound, processes, and it is a long time before you can listen time to recognize the final sound, and time to accept to what you’ve done. Was your approach then less that a morphing (rather than an edit-switch or a improvisatory? I’m sure it must have honed your crossfade) has taken place. You can’t demand, for skills a great deal. some grand aesthetic reason, that such an event take up less time. In general, all the time proportions Wishart: It’s just that the improvisation took place in my work are “calculated” by listening; a typical at a different place in the compositional chain. In experience is to create a musical phrase which feels the analog studio, the improvisation lay mainly in (after continued listening, reworking, etc.) just the generating the material, which for me was done right length, only to have to cut it down (or even through controlled-improvised live performances, reject it altogether) when it is placed in its musical always ending up being much more than I would context in a piece I’m building. I sometimes describe finally use. I would then select from the recorded this process as “slow improvisation,” as I don’t materials to work on for a piece. In Red Bird,

10 Computer Music Journal for example, I asked two performers to speak the free improvisation, which perhaps explains why the phrases “reasonable” and “listen to reason” in a sound materials for many of my earlier pieces were host of different ways. (I provided a very, very long recorded from improvisation sessions with voices or list of adverbs describing speech or emotional states found objects. The work with Interplay spawned the and insisted on recording every version.) I then creative musical games I later published as Sounds selected and classified the materials according to Fun, and this and related work fed into the Schools how they sounded (not how they were necessarily Council Music Project run by John Paynter, which intended to sound). All these sounds existed as sought to make composing the center of classroom physical bits of tape, separated by colored plastic activities in school music in the UK. At the time, splicing tape on numerous plastic reels. In the this was a radical new idea. As a result, I found computer studio, a lot of the “improvisation” myself devising workshop projects for teachers and takes place in the transformation process, where for classroom situations. Twenty years on, all these I am experimenting with transformations (and activities have become standard practice in British transformations of transformations) of the original schools, but at that time they were a completely materials, with my existing software instruments, new way for a composer to make a living. or new instruments I develop as I compose. Now Vassilandonakis: There are several direct references that I mention it—this approach of generating to socio-political issues in your work, though. For lots of possibilities and carefully cataloguing the example, when you use the recorded voices of materials—is something I’ve actually carried over Margaret Thatcher and Lady Di (in Two Women)as into the digital domain, where these kinds of source material, you cannot avoid the connection management tasks are much easier. between the sonic material itself and the public Vassilandonakis: Did you ever feel that this new persona delivering the material. electronic genre was more in touch with the times Wishart: I’ve tended to select sound materials with and the current socio-political situation? some extra-musical idea in mind, particularly in, Wishart: Ever since this early work in the studio, say, Red Bird (sounds of birds, animals, words, part of the attraction of sonic art has been the and machines in a kind of mythic sound-drama) or connection with the “real world.” I know this The Division of Labour (a text from Adam Smith’s is an odd idea for many musicians, as studio The Wealth of Nations). But there are two caveats. composers seem a detached bunch compared with First, the materials themselves have to be sonically instrumentalists or laptop performers who are doing interesting. One reason I’ve worked a great deal with their thing out there in public. But this standoff the human speaking voice is because the speech between live/real-time and studio composition is stream is spectrally complex and varying rapidly in not a real issue. No one thinks novelists are sad time. It’s always a rich mine of data from a purely because, unlike standup comics or stage actors, they sonic point of view. Some “political” works I’ve don’t do it live. It’s simply a different way of working heard tend to rely too much on the content or with materials. “meaning” of the sounds they use, forgetting that these have also to be malleable as sound objects Vassilandonakis: You also worked on educational if you’re to do exciting musical work with them. projects and music for the community at that time. Secondly, once I’ve got my extra-musical bearings, Wishart: The leap into sonic art was just part of a so to speak, I want to build a formal structure that larger picture for me, and I became involved with works as music. I feel that music (you could say other groups with a more direct approach. I worked this about mathematics too) is a separate universe for some time with Interplay, a Leeds-based offshoot of discourse from language. You have to understand of Ed Berman’s Interaction, which was taking how to navigate this particular universe to build alternative theatre and creative play into local pieces, even where you’re using representational deprived communities. I also became involved in materials. So any extra-musical agenda I may have

Vassilandonakis 11 usually just sets a frame or context for the musical a theoretical point of view, was to see sound thinking that follows. A simple example is The transformation as the sonic equivalent of motivic or Division of Labour, where the Adam Smith text harmonic development, enabling standard notions (about the production of a pin, divided into 18 of musical form to be generalized into the sonic distinct operations, the classic description of the domain. advantages of the factory system) provides the Vassilandonakis: What are some of the approaches stimulus for the musical idea (sonic variations of you follow to generate material? Is there a conscious the text-material), while the eventual degradation of work process you follow? the text (in the penultimate variation, and the tail of the piece) is the closest the form comes to direct Wishart: The way I work falls into three main political comment. stages. The first stage is the idea itself. To start a piece, I need to link together a set of sounds (it could be just one sound, as in Imago, or over 8,000 Compositional Process sounds, as in Globalalia) and some general over- arching idea (in these cases, respectively, surprising Vassilandonakis: You seem to work with material metamorphosis, and the universality of the sounds that undergoes a continuous transformation and of human discourse). This is often the hardest part sonic development. of composing for me. It’s not so much a problem to work with sounds, and to make successful or even Wishart: In my first studio piece, Machine . . . an spectacular sound events. The main problem is why Electronically-Preserved Dream, I set up an improvi- start on a piece at all? sation situation for a choir with eight “conductors.” The second stage is to transform the sounds. With The choir imitated tape loops of machine sounds pieces like Tongues of Fire and Imago, I subject the I’d recorded, and then, using some pretty general- source material to transformation using all the tools ized instructions, were asked to transform these, in the CDP armory. From these transformations, gradually, into something “more human.” (Okay, I select the most interesting or potentially useful I’d want to be more specific these days ...)Sothe sounds, and then I transform those sounds further. idea of transformation grew out of some fairly naive In this way, I build up a tree of related sounds. A socio-political ideas. But, by the time I got to Red sound may be “useful,” for example, if a harmonic Bird, I’d refined the notion of transformation (and (pitched) sound comes to be strongly inharmonic, of sound representation) and was looking at an alto- or a strongly attacked sound loses those attack gether more sophisticated way of structuring a piece characteristics. This means that it will develop of sonic art. Red Bird is interesting partly because in some completely new direction when further it still (I think) succeeds, even though many of the transformations are applied. (It’s like modulating desired transformations either proved impossible (in to some distant key in traditional pitch space.) the analog studio), or were only semi-successful, but Some sounds also need to be retained because they mainly because it predates my access to computers establish an audible link between (say) a harmonic for music making. Having struggled with the analog and an inharmonic variant. These linking sounds possibilities for four years to make that piece, I are important in the structure of the piece to instantly recognized that computers should make ensure the sonic coherence of the materials. Some sound transformation a truly practical proposition. of these materials will become long enough (e.g., So the idea of working with sound transforma- via time-stretching, or creating textures of many tion in music for me predates the digital tools I individual events, or “zig-zag,” or “drunken-walk later used (and very largely made) for achieving reading”) to become the basis of musical phrases this. in their own right. Combining these with other VOX5 took the transformational idea into the events, I’ll work up materials into phrase-length digital world. But a more important step, from structures.

12 Computer Music Journal The third stage is to determine the structure of Use of Voice and Instruments the piece. Eventually, I will make some phrases that are particularly striking and select these as Vassilandonakis: Let’s talk more about your long the nodal events of the entire piece to be placed at relationship with the voice and vocal improvisation. particular points in time in the whole structure. This also implies that the sounds from which they Wishart: I first became interested in new vocal evolve can be placed somewhere in that structure to possibilities in the very early 1970s when Richard prepare for the nodal events, or to act as memories Orton introduced me to the singing of harmonics in of them (perhaps codas). As this process continues, Stockhausen’s Stimmung. In my struggle to make the options for placing further materials become Red Bird in the analog studio, I found the most more and more restricted until the large-scale form useful tool I had was my voice. Without computer of the piece almost “crystallizes out.” It’s at this analysis and transformation, I was forced to rely on stage that materials that seemed ideal when they the malleability of the voice to achieve many of the were first made get trimmed, occasionally extended, sound transformations I wanted. I also met Warren or entirely rejected, because of the surrounding Burt, who’d been working with extended vocal context. I want to end up with a formal structure techniques groups in California, and we exchanged that has the feeling (as I’m listening to it) of some vocal sounds. kind of musical “necessity” in the way it moves Vassilandonakis: You obviously like the sonic from one section to the next. possibilities of the voice. What about the extra layer However, with a multi-source piece like of language and meaning that is attached to vocal Globalalia, there was a long pre-composition phase sound? where I edited my materials (speaking voices from radio or TV in many languages) into syllables, clean- Wishart: I’m not so interested in conventional ing them up as best I could, and entering them into linguistics, as my focus is on the sonic objects in a database facility (which I wrote for Sound Loom). speech, and their sonic relations, rather than their The database enabled me to select sounds for their meaning-based combinations. But the speaking pitch, pitch-motion, consonant-vowel-(motion), voice provides an interesting model for sonic art, gender, language, etc. for subsequent compositional as speech is primarily the detailed articulation of work. The piece is in the form of a frame tale (a story timbre, whereas traditional music relies on the used for telling stories, like Sheherazade (or The detailed articulation of pitch or rhythm. The mere Arabian Nights)), so it has a theme that “repeats” at existence of speech demonstrates that an articulate various points and a set of variations on particular music-of-sound can exist. syllable-groups taken from the theme. Here, the ma- Vassilandonakis: Have you ever gone back to terials were worked in a slightly different way: Spe- composing for instrumental ensembles, applying cific items were selected (using the database) with your knowledge of sound from the electronic particular properties, and a section was developed medium? Or does it seem less satisfying to you? around the particular properties of those materials— for example, the syllable “ma” can be time-stretched Wishart: Ithinkit’smoreamatterofhowIwant (as “m” still sounds like “m” when stretched) in to work with sounds. Roughly speaking, musical a way that “ka” cannot (as “k” is destroyed as a instruments present you with a take-it-or-leave-it set “k” if it’s time-stretched). However, “r” (of the of available “timbres,” as they are designed with this Scottish or Dutch variety) has to be time-extended in mind, i.e., to hold timbre constant while they play in a completely different way, leading to different skillfully with pitch and duration. Of course you can sonic possibilities (a good “water” transformation explore a vast range of extended possibilities on any for example). This all sounds terribly rational, but instrument (key tapping, slapping the body of hollow there’s a good deal of pure “play” involved in finding string instruments, etc.), but in this way you get a out what works best for each set of sounds. slightly arbitrary bag of spectra for each instrument,

Vassilandonakis 13 rather than having that complete control of the musical formal relations must be based on what can spectral space one has in the studio. And, in a sense, be heard, and not merely on what composers say you’re fighting against the grain—against what the ought to be heard. This was a big issue at the time, as instrument has been designed for. With the voice, the “New Complexity” school was quite dominant, timbral flexibility is intrinsic to human speaking, so and some composers were prone to the “intellectual working seamlessly in the timbral domain is not a terrorism” approach that Sokal lambasted in his problem. The sounds in our everyday environment famous attack on post-modernism (i.e., if you can’t are, similarly, not honed to some pre-ordained hear what’s written in the score, that’s due to musical purpose, and for that reason they may be either your lack of musical ability or that of the sonically rich and internally evolving in ways we performers). often try to avoid when designing a pitch-playing instrument. But even more importantly, musical Vassilandonakis: Sounds like a creed from a distant instruments have been specifically designed to musical past, yet it’s not really that long ago. function in the traditional musics of their cultures; Most composers today consciously try to engage they are machines for making music. The reason the listener, even if that doesn’t mean flattering I continue to do non-electronic extended vocal the listener. They at least seem to “care if you improvisation is that the voice has that spectral listen.” flexibility I’ve tried to develop and master in the Wishart: I think so, too. My own approach is simply world of recorded sound. The voice predates music, that if a reasonably competent musical listener can’t and we use it constantly when we’re not making hear a purported musical event or relationship, then music at all; it’s more like a sound recorded from it doesn’t exist as a musical entity. No amount our natural environment. And it’s this link with the of special pleading from the composer makes any larger world, the world of sound beyond what we difference. I apply this strictly in my own work. traditionally think of as music, which also interests Even though there are often three (but rarely more me. In a studio work, as in a film, you can generate than three) threads developing at the same time in a whole new imaginary world, or parse the real my music, they must all be audible. (Sometimes you world in unexpected or surreal ways. I particularly may need several playbacks to hear everything.) And like the collision of this semi-cinematic view with what you hear is what you get; music is concrete, pure musical thinking. However, I’m certainly not not abstract. ruling out composing pieces for instruments in the future. Vassilandonakis: You talk about the importance of the perceived physicality of sound, and the constant tendency of the ear to attach a perceived source to Perception and Cognition any sound. Could you share your views on this? Wishart: Unfortunately, here I have no scientific Vassilandonakis: Your music is very aware of, evidence to back up my case, but long experience and, I’d dare argue, even dependent at times upon, suggests to me that we have listening templates, principles and issues in perception and cognition. similar to those in the visual field where certain How did that aspect of your work develop, and how cells are sensitive to edges, or parallel lines; we do you approach it? don’t just see an array of pixels. I would propose Wishart: When I attended the IRCAM induction that we tend to recognize or construct the physi- course in 1981 the most interesting lectures were cality and causality of sounds, even where those those on psychoacoustics by Steve McAdams. As a sounds are produced entirely synthetically. We lapsed scientist (I started my university days study- will subconsciously classify sounds as struck or ing chemistry), I shared his scientific perspective stroked (causality); as solid-resonant, rigid, elastic, on musical perception—most importantly, that granular, etc. (physicality); and these pre-conscious

14 Computer Music Journal categorizations inform the way we listen and tape-style techniques, and also waveform-related, whether we hear sounds as related to one another. and time-varying spectrum processes. How did you Vassilandonakis: I don’t think you need to go too discover and develop things like waveset distortion, far to find evidence to support this argument. Isn’t brassage, end-synced delay, and others? it a survival skill to be able to identify the identity Wishart: While I’m composing, I develop new in- and spatial location of a (potentially threatening) struments [Interviewer’s note: in CDP, several tools sound very quickly? Hence the importance of attack or processes can be combined into an “instrument” characteristics in identifying any sound. that automates a series of actions into one]—though Wishart: We can defeat these preconceptions of less and less these days. Sometimes, I create high- course, but we have to work hard to do it. There level tools, like the Interpolation Workshop in Sound are some very interesting features of natural sounds Loom (see Figure 3) that make it easier to use an related to their variability. For example, if you take existing tool (in this case, CDP’s “mix in-between,” a single tongue-flap from a rolled “r” and make a which creates interpolated mixes)—usually when I regular-timed loop with the same repetition rate notice that I’m using some procedure a great deal but as the original, the new sound sounds not even I could be using it more efficiently. In some cases, I remotely like the original. The brain seems to decide to extend the possibilities of existing instru- pick up a whole qualitative “aura” from “natural ments. For example, the Varibank Filter (see Figure 4) variability” that the reconstituted regular loop does uses the existing CDP filter routines to build a bank not possess. of filters on pitches specified by the user, as well as the harmonics of those pitches, where the pitches (and the filter Q) can all vary continuously through Electronic Techniques time. I developed this instrument while working on Fabulous Paris, starting by extending the existing filterbank, then rationalizing the approach. Vassilandonakis: Who were your influences when The whole collection derives from a single band, it comes to computer music? non-time-variable filter module. Part of the develop- Wishart: That’s a difficult question to answer, as I ment is rational (“I would like this”) and part spec- tend to plough my own furrow, particularly since ulative (“I wonder what would happen if ...”).The getting into the recorded-sound medium. I’ve had rr-extend program (see Figure 5), one of the most re- lots of help from formal teachers (like Richard Orton cent programs, fits the first category, and is the result in York) and expert friends like Martin Atkins and of many years thought about how to time-stretch (brushing up against their expertise iterative sounds (like a rolled “r”). Once the program has helped hone my much less accomplished is created, one can start to do crazy things with the programming skills). Also, I never thought of myself parameters to produce results one wouldn’t have as getting into “computer music.” It was just that dreamed of. Waveset Distortion fits completely the computers came along and made what I’d been second category. I was speculating about ways to pro- attempting to do in the analog studio a lot easier, duce ugly digital sounds (there were too many “beau- as well as vastly expanding the possibilities. My tiful” digital bells around at the time, and I felt the concerns have always been to make music with need for a little grit in the system). I simply decided sounds from the real world, and to devise (software) to try out a procedure that was rational in one sense instruments to make that possible in a detailed (it produces a continuous waveform with no clicks) and sophisticated manner, treating complex sounds but physically irrational (it ignores the positioning with the rigor a traditional composer might apply to of wave cycles in the source), and listen to the result. motivic development or harmonic structure. Having made one version of a procedure, it is Vassilandonakis: Could you talk more about your not difficult to make many related versions, so electronic techniques? There seem to be some “waveset repetition” led to “waveset averaging”

Vassilandonakis 15 Figure 3. Interpolation Workshop in Sound Loom.

16 Computer Music Journal Figure 4. Varibank Filter.

to “waveset enveloping” to “waveset omission.” outcome of what I do, not in the means I use And these are interesting processes because they to achieve it. I will often explore materials by are highly source-dependent (i.e., unpredictable applying different transformations to discover the with complex sources); they are ideal for studio most fruitful processes for that particular sound. composing, as you can apply them, listen to the I also tend to combine many processes to shape surprising results you get, select anything that is a sound. For example, I am currently working on interesting, and reject everything else. a piece that extends the pitch characteristics of In my musical composition, I normally use lots short vocal utterances. Each utterance is treated of sound-transformation tools, rather than to focus differently, depending on what I discover works on any particular one, though the occasional piece best. One particular phrase consists of repetitions of (e.g., the second movement of Two Women)ismore an utterance in which the language-like character process-focused. I am interested in the sonic/musical dissolves away.

Vassilandonakis 17 Figure 5. The rr-extend program.

This was made in several stages. At the first stage, data was used to construct a pitch-changing filter the pitch of the spoken phrase was extracted, quan- that follows the extracted pitch of the source. This tized onto the tempered scale, and then corrected was applied, with various Q-values (and various by hand. (I’m listening for a best fit on the tempered numbers of harmonics), to the previous sound, scale.) These data were used to create two sine tones so that the output sounds became “focused” on that track the pitch—one at the original pitch, the these tempered-scale pitches. (The consonants get other an octave higher. These were then cross-faded “swallowed up.”) in a way that related to the brightness of the vowels These various variants were then used to make a used in the original voice. The resulting sound was texture (irregular repetitions of these events, of a spe- then given the loudness envelope of the original cific time “density”) that passes from the more rec- speech; it was then mixed, at a low level, with ognizable variants to the less recognizable. (Hence, the original speech, underlining the “focused-on” the consonants gradually dissolve.) This texture pitches. At the second stage, the same pitch-line was then (fourth stage) sound-shredded to produce

18 Computer Music Journal material with a slightly plucked feel. Using the One question I have to ask in this case is, “Why “grain repetition” process on each channel of the are the voices being transformed?” In a studio new sound (this recognizes attacked events within piece, we are already in an imaginary world where a stream and treats them each separately), each anything is possible. In the real-time situation, we attack was repeated with a short rhythmic pattern. have the contrast between the physical presence The original texture was then made to slowly of the performers on the stage and the possible cross-fade into the plucked texture. At the fifth disembodiment of their voices. What is the theatrical stage, progressive spectral blurring was applied or symbolic significance of this? I’ve tried to deal to the end of the texture, so the event-detail was with this issue a few times. lost, and the sound smeared out. The pre-treated Vassilandonakis: Your tools are very refined, per- texture was then cross-faded into the blurred sonal, and continuously evolving. version. The sixth stage involves an octave-higher version (brassage transposition, in this case) of this Wishart: I don’t regard my tools as personal. My whole event, which was made without changing aim has always been to make the tools as available the timing. This was then slowly faded into the as possible so anyone can use them. The main non-transposed version. Next (seventh stage), the motivation behind this is to enable other people resulting event was passed through another filter to participate fully in the new music making. My tuned to all of the tempered pitches. The pre-filtered lucky break in life was to be born into a house with sound was made to slowly cross-fade to the filtered a piano in it. This was a family heirloom; there was version. Finally, the resultant sound was given a no way my family could have bought a piano. But long dovetail, fading slowly to zero level at its end. this magical object launched me on my career as a In this way, I produce an event in which the composer. I later got into writing software because I pitch characteristics of the original are preserved in simply couldn’t afford the endless train of updated a texture where the original vocal phrase dissolves black boxes that university and commercial studios away. I select these particular processes by trial and could buy out of their equipment budgets. (Writing error (informed by experience). Often my choice of software takes time, but once written, it’s free, and process does not work, or I have to fine-tune the you can upgrade it without asking.) So I’m deeply parameters to get a musically worthwhile result. The committed to access! final event is no more than 30 seconds long, of which Vassilandonakis: By “personal,” I meant they’re perhaps 20 seconds will be heard in the final piece. created to solve a specific problem or fill a need you Vassilandonakis: You create mainly fixed-media were facing while creating a specific piece. In that music. Have you tried real-time processes? sense, you can’t deny that your personal method of working is reflected upon them. Consequently, Wishart: I’ll make a distinction between real-time you do influence the way other composers will processes and real-time pieces: if one is making work, even if there are limitless possibilities. What a fixed-media piece, then the advantage of using I’m leading to is the fact that all the CDP tools real-time processes is that you can explore the I’ve played with are extremely composer-oriented, output of a process through physical gesture before and they yield very musical results right away. I deciding what you want to use. I’ve not worked in think it’s really important that they’re created out this way simply because I never got into real-time of necessity by a composer working on a piece, not programming. Most of the processes I use work a software engineer trying to satisfy the marketing faster than real time, and I don’t have a problem department of a company that is geared toward the with drawing graphs or typing tables, so I don’t amateur songwriter. miss this. However, for a real-time piece, one has to use real-time processes, and I’ve been working on a Wishart: Yes, that’s true. In particular, I hone my real-time piece with voices for the past 2–3 years, instruments through the experience of using them— with varying degrees of success. I usually start with a basic design and then improve

Vassilandonakis 19 on it as I continue to use it and discover the best When multitasking machines came about, we way to use it, or discover its limitations, and see graduated to the PC platform in 1994, which how it can be extended. I have a number of ways of was cheaper and more available in the UK than the approaching the development of new instruments: Macintosh. The group was a composers’ cooperative, In some cases, I become aware while composing and it expanded and contracted at various times, that a particular instrument could be developed morphed into a small business, then back into a further, or that it has limitations that are not cooperative. It struggled financially for many years necessary, or that I am very often using particular as it was not viewed primarily as a commercial processes in combination, or in slow succession. For enterprise but a resource for composers, and, being example, the “varibank” filter, which allows you PC-based until recently, it was largely spurned by to define filterbanks of time-changing harmonies the academy (who opted to use Macintosh). By now, (without restricting you to the tempered scale), however, the CDP is a vast collection of non-real- was developed after I’d been using individual static time signal processing software. It’s difficult to filter banks in sequence, in Fabulous Paris.Inother think of anything you can’t do with the CDP. cases, I speculate that a certain process might be I wrote the Sound Loom graphic interface (using interesting and just go for it and try it out. I might Tcl/Tk) in Berlin in 1998. (There’s also an alternative even develop an initial instrument into a family graphic interface, SoundShaper.) More recently of related processes (like the “distort” family of (2005), the software and interface have been ported waveset distortion instruments). to the Macintosh, and there are several other CDP Like many composers, I also have slightly obses- outputs (real-time plug-ins, sive tendencies, so I try to think of every possible tools, etc.). And the CDP is responsive to its way a process might be developed. This can lead to users as we are using it too, so if another user strange problems, like CDP users asking my advice has a problem, we need to fix it. The Sound about some process I wrote a long time ago but have Loom interface, available for free on my Web site never used! (www.trevorwishart.co.uk) is updated about every 2–3 weeks, and the signal-processing software is updated approximately each six months. The Composers’ Desktop Project Vassilandonakis: What’s the CDP community like? Wishart: One important aspect of the CDP’s phi- losophy is the availability of these tools. There’s a Vassilandonakis: Could you talk a little more about natural tendency in large institutions to compete how CDP came about? to have the best, the biggest, the fastest, the most Wishart: The Composers’ Desktop Project grew out advanced technical system. But music is by nature of a group of studio composers based in York in a social activity. Not everyone can afford or access the early 1980s. We had all worked in the analog these advanced systems, so we run the risk of creat- studio, and understood the potential of computers, ing a “ghetto” of superheroes showing off a technical which were, at the time, largely inaccessible for prowess to which no one else can aspire. To ensure musical use. There was a minicomputer running that the music itself develops, we need to share at the University, but this was difficult the tools and the knowledge about how to work to use and to share (students clearly had to take with sounds. In this way, the musical language will precedence). With the arrival of the Atari ST in develop, and the music itself (rather than merely 1986, we calculated that we could run the software the machinery) will evolve. At the same time, I’ve on this desktop machine with a little technical help never regarded CDP/Sound Loom as a commercial (getting data out of the ROM port, and building a exercise. I’m not trying to sell anything, so there are buffering device). We proceeded to port Cmusic, and no flashy graphics to make the tools “attractive” later Csound, and then we wrote our own code in C. in some marketing sense. The CDP is just very

20 Computer Music Journal powerful. You may take some time to get to grips processes might be used with what sounds—for with all its possibilities, but we’ve gone to great example, how you can time-extend a sound, and lengths to make everything as clear and accessible the advantages or drawbacks (artifacts) of different as possible. procedures. It also deals with more general issues, like the perception of “physicality” and “causality” of sounds, the nature of pitch (for example, does a Books portamento sound have a pitch in the traditional sense, even if it has a harmonic spectrum?), or the limits of temporal complexity in music. Vassilandonakis: Although you never held a long- term academic post, you have lectured widely and Vassilandonakis: It has a highly stylized presen- you have published two books that deal with sound tation, with hand-drawn diagrams—a very useful composition, each from a different perspective. First reference, and great sound examples. came On Sonic Art (Wishart 1985). Wishart: Incidentally, after parodying the cover Wishart: I had proposed the piece that became and title of Thomas Morley’s 16th-century treatise VOX5 as a project to IRCAM in 1979. I was invited for this book, I discovered that he, in turn, had onto their course in 1981, and at the end of the borrowed it from an earlier book of John Dowland. course I was offered the opportunity to realize I’m currently putting together a third book, which my piece. But then, the entire hardware setup will deal with formal procedures in my sound-art was changed, and it was five years before I got pieces. I’ve been lecturing about these for some back to IRCAM. In the intervening years, I began years, but this seems a good moment to assemble all writing the VOX cycle. Without access to IRCAM’s this information between two covers. I don’t have spectacular technology, I ended up writing On Sonic a title for it yet (Sound Form is all I have come up Art on the assumption that I would never be able with so far, which is much too boring), but I have to realize the ideas I had imagined. This book deals much of the material for the book already written, with the aesthetic implications of recording and and the sound examples prepared. I need a space sound analysis technology for the future of music when I’m not composing or performing in which to and ranges over many aspects of music making, put it all together. including sound in space and the possibilities of the human voice. Next Steps Vassilandonakis: ...a veryinterestingtext,with ideas that are still very valid today, despite the in- termediate advance of technology. I would compare Vassilandonakis: Where do you see computer music it to Xenakis’s , in the sense that heading? Is there a future outside institutional it manifests a visionary approach—if I may say so— support? and it is inspired by science and technology, applied Wishart: I don’t think of computer music as a to art in new ways. Your second book, Audible category separate from music, so I have to answer Design, is a more specialized textbook of sorts on the question “Where is music heading?” And I how to work on sound with a computer, regardless certainly can’t claim to predict the future. Technical of what tools (software/hardware) one may have advances will make many new things possible, access to (Wishart 1994). How did it come about? particularly in the sphere of live interaction with Wishart: Audible Design was written some years sounds and performers, and more realistic capture later as a craft text, so to speak—a how-to book, of real-world sound environments. So long as there explaining all the then-existing signal processing are strong musical ideas to match these technical processes using diagrams (rather than mathematics), developments, I welcome this, but I’m not so and discussing, with musical examples, what interested in technical development for its own

Vassilandonakis 21 sake. Computers made possible for me certain the quality of their speech). However, this meant musical possibilities I was already interested in. that year two was taken up partly with detailed The musical ideas should always lead the technical cleaning of these recorded sources. realizations, or music becomes merely a kind of The aim is to produce a work of around one demo-medium for technical innovation. Where hour (probably in four separate “acts”) representing music goes depends on where composers decide to (and abstracting) the unique qualities of individual take it. It’s even possible, though highly unlikely, that composers and performers could decide that Table 1. Trevor Wishart’s Works with Electronics electronics in music is a dead end. However, I hope that the idea of sound transformation as a means of Year of Composition Work Notes structuring musical form will become part of the repertoire of composers’ tools in the future. Mixed-Media Works (Voice or Instruments with Electronics) I also think one legacy of the development of 2000 Machine 2 choir and machine sounds the personal computer, the recordable CD, and the 1990 Dance Music orchestra with click tracks Internet has been to democratize access to com- 1989 VOX 6 four amplified voices and posing with sound. The CDP philosophy of making tape powerful tools available as cheaply as possible has, 1988 VOX 4 four amplified voices and I hope, contributed to this democratization process; computer-generated click one can compose the music without being attached tracks to an institution, though support from other musi- 1985 VOX 3 four amplified voices and cians is still important if you want to really develop quad click-track tape your skills, rather than just engage in solipsistic 1984 VOX 2 four amplified voices and sound-doodling. Membership-led organizations, like stereo tape 1982 VOX 1 four amplified voices and the Sonic Arts Network in the UK, should allow quadraphonic tape good music to see the light of day, wherever it is 1979 Pastorale Walden-2 flute, tuba, props, and stereo produced. tape Vassilandonakis: What is next for you, composi- Fixed-Media Works tionally? 2007 Angel stereo 2004 Globalalia stereo Wishart: I’m in the middle of a long-range project, 2002 Imago stereo part of a three-year residency, based at the University 2001 The Division of stereo of Durham, and supported by the Arts Council of Labour England, in which I’m combining my community- 2000 American Triptych stereo arts and workshop skills with children and amateur 1997 Fabulous Paris stereo 1994 Blue Tulips stereo musicians, with location recording and software de- 1994 Tongues of Fire stereo velopment to make a large piece reflecting the com- 1988 Two Women stereo munity and environment of Northeast England—the 1986 VOX 5 quadraphonic area stretching from Stockton and Darlington (of 1982 Anna’s Magic Garden stereo railway fame) on the Tees, to the Scottish border. In 1980 Beach Double stereo the first year, I went out making contacts, meeting 1977 Red Bird stereo people and making recordings of individuals of 1976 Fanfare & stereo that region in schools, old-people’s meeting-places, Contrapunctus homes, and pubs. Because I am interested in natural 1976 Menagerie stereo speech (not staged or professional speech), I tried to 1972 Journey-into-Space stereo record people in relaxed settings, rather than in a 1970 Machine...an stereo Electronically recording studio where people often feel they have Preserved Dream to present themselves in a particular way (altering

22 Computer Music Journal speaking voices, but also organizing the collective Table 2. Continued of voices in many different ways. So the second very time-consuming task has been dividing Publications Gottstein, B., ed. 2006. Musik Als Scientia: The Edgard the recorded speech into musically manageable Varese` DAAD Guest Professors at the TU Berlin phrases, and then cataloguing these in ways that studio. Berlin: Pfau-Verlag Saarbrucken.¨ capture their sonic characteristics (e.g., tempo Wishart, T. 1994. Audible Design. York, UK: Orpheus the Pantomime. Table 2. List of Recordings and Publications by Wishart, T. 1985. On Sonic Art. London: Hardwood. Trevor Wishart Shepherd, J., et al. 1980. Whose Music: A Sociology of Musical Languages. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Commercially Available Recordings Transaction Publishers. Wishart, T. Forthcoming. Metafonie: Cinquanta anni di Wishart, T. 1977. Sounds Fun Book 2. London: musica elettroacustica. DVD. Milan: LIMEN Universal Edition. DVD01-AV001. Wishart, T. 1975. Sounds Fun: A Book of Musical Wishart, T. 2008. Machine. London: Paradigm Records Games. York, UK: Schools Council. PD 25. Wishart, T. 1974. Sun, A Creative Philosophy. London: Wishart, T. 2008. Composition 3. Audio compact disc. Universal Edition. Osaka: Flying Swimming fs 00005. Wishart, T. 1974. Sun, Creativity and Environment. Wishart, T. 2007. Fabulous Paris—A Virtual Oratorio. London: Universal Edition. Audio compact disc. Albany, New York: Electronic Note: Compact discs are self-published by the composer (in Music Foundation OT 103. some cases in collaboration with the Electronic Music Wishart, T. 2006. Cultures Electroniques:´ Bourges 2006. Foundation, or EMF) and distributed via EMF, DMA, Integrated Audio compact disc. Bourges, France: GMEB LDC Circuit Records. 2781131/32. Wishart, T. 2004. 50 Years Studio TU Berlin. Audio compact disc. Albany, New York: Electronic Music and rhythm, pitch contour, vocal quality). I’ve Foundation EM159. also written various new “meta-programs” that Wishart, T. 2003. Das Dreidimensionale Mobiusband.¨ combine existing CDP signal-processing tools to Audio compact disc. Osaka: Flying Swimming fs do more specialized tasks (e.g., emphasizing or 00001. replacing accentuation in a vocal phrase). I’m also Wishart, T. 2002. ETC. Audio compact disc. Albany, thinking of producing a multi-channel work, but New York: Electronic Music Foundation EM153. this must be portable to the schools and other Wishart, T. 2002. Journey-into-Space. Audio compact places where I made the original recordings so the disc. London: Paradigm Records PD 18. local community can hear the results of my efforts. Wishart, T. 1999. Or Some Computer Music. Audio At the same time, the piece must be musically compact disc. London: Or Records. Wishart, T. 1999. Voiceprints. Audio compact disc. comprehensible to people who speak not a word Albany, New York: Electronic Music Foundation EM of English, and performable in grand venues with 129. sophisticated sound-spatialization facilities. I’ve not Wishart, T. 1992. Red Bird / Anticredos. Audio compact fully resolved this issue yet. Problem solving is part disc. Albany, New York: Electronic Music Foundation of the excitement of composing for me. EM 122. Wishart, T. 1990. Vox Cycle. Audio compact disc. London: Virgin Classics VC 7 91108-2. References Wishart, T. 1980. Miniatures. Audio compact disc. London: Cherry Red Records. Wishart, T. 1994. Audible Design. York, UK: Orpheus the Wishart, T. 1979. Beach Singularity / Menagerie. Audio Pantomime. compact disc. London: Paradigm Records PD 03. Wishart, T. 1985. On Sonic Art. London: Hardwood.

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