O L I V I E R PA S Q U E T - 2 0 1 5
NOTES ON ELECTRONIC MUSIC COMPOSITION
UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
Contents
Electronic Music
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Two questions relative to electronic music Interpretation
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Stage and audience
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Generativity and non-linearity
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Concept and representation Score and reading
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Concept and materialization
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Computation, parametric composition and nano-composition Space, time and time-space Architecture
Composition
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Experimentations
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Formal vs automatic composing Noises
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Styles and signature
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Electronic Music The following text describes in a non exhaustive way the artistic context of my current research. The resulting situation and questions come from my personal experiences and inspirations. I set them in relation with some of my visual work because discussed subjects are identical. This gives a rough idea of the chosen aesthetics.
Two questions relative to electronic music Electronic music has a long historical path but it still has two main recurrent questions. The first question concerns the writing and the second, resulting from the first one, is the question of its materialization. The pertinence of these questions varies a lot depending on the social and historic field of diffusion. In any case, their deepening stays a rich source of experimentation for an artistic work. If one has to make categories, we are here talking about a media art in which the artistic subject concentrates on the medium and its diffusion. Like the theatre talking about theatre, this domain of experimentation could somehow look self-absorbed if the piece was not pure abstract experience totally sensory and intellectual without meaning or significance. Such a level of abstraction is based on questions of the need and existence of traditional elements such as stage or interpretation. Some of these elements have already been transformed with history. But it is here pertinent to survey some aspects which are involved with electronic music.
Interpretation The necessity of writing has no doubt for some instrumental musics, but the question stays real when it is about electronic music. The notion of interpretation from a written to piece is as shaken as it is for improvised music. Tripartite semiology adds a filter element between the interpreter and the listener in the diffusion chain. This element is interpreted differently for each of them. Only the listener has a sort of musical freedom in the case of music emerging from a machine. There is no other active human perturbation in between. Only other people, space and diffusion gear can possibly have a passive influence.
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This is a good occasion to directly explore limits of perception and the understanding without even thinking about the physiology and the sensibility of an interpreter. Many acousmatic or abstract techno music composers are already interested by this. Physiology is limited but the cultural and technical evolution are absolute so it will always be worth exploring further. The presence of interpretation and interpreters generate a social and economic micro-system. That is for now totally another culture in electronic music compared with classical music. This might be one reason (out of many) why classical music is more appealing to institutions and historical festivals.
Stage and audience Music is sometimes played with a visual and physical support. In such case, the piece always becomes synesthetic and goes beyond the purely sonic field. Instrumentalists on a stage never only create sonic music. They are part of a show in its entirety. A frontal and single video screen or speakers somehow solve the question of stage. Giving a material and visual direction thus satisfy the lack found in unique sound projections. This sometimes gives a reason of existence of a stage and consequently a sense of presence for music. Some electronic musicians use computers along with interfaces as a classical instrument. They consequently preserve symbols of traditional concerts. Performance art shows offer the possibility to create purely electronic sound pieces without asking the question of stage. Stage does not only concern purely musical considerations. Dance is an excellent case in which visual and physicality are not only sustained by music but also by gesture, physical reaction and many other elements.
Generativity and non-linearity Many purely musical pieces have gone beyond the traditional stage but they have always kept an audience. Visual arts or interactivity (realtime and physical computing) have truly desisted an audience. In the case of traditional score, the interpreter, the instrumentalist or the listener, manage time in a static and linear way. It becomes a dynamic interpreter in the case of installation or improvised performance. Musical composition can be created in a non-linear way for deterministic and written concert music. But its listening is read along an unswerving arrow of time. For instance, if the piece has several possible versions, listeners will only hear one version. They will have to
Figure 1: r136b2 - 2014 (ongoing) - white laser, wire installation. Laser mapping onto a metallic structure, thousands of reflexions create a dotted spatial composition points which the lighting is sometimes so weak one has to come closer from the structure.
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listen the piece again to hear another version. On the other side, dynamic pieces include some kind of plasticity during their performance; they are liberated from the unidimensional arrow of time. They do not need a beginning or an ending; their entropy is freely variable. The listener is transported by something else than only physical time. This time is then explored in a physical space or a more abstract representation space. For instance, it is possible to interact in a space of possibles. Concert music sees then an evolution of its time in a fixed space. Spatial computing, computation and iterations then become important generative tools. They allow the construction of a piece of music rather than only a piece of unique music. Also, presented pieces are even more meaningful. Does such a generativity, apprehended by its concepts, leads toward an novel industrialization of music ? If it is the case, it is taking several decades and new questions about intellectual property will then rise and be comparable from software design.
Concept and representation The piece is both a sound and conceptual piece in the case of non-linear electronic music. It is then conceptual art and does not necessarily correspond to some formalization. At one time or another of the creative process, it nevertheless comes from some kind of writing or representation. This do not have to be explicitly algorithmic but it results from an idea which comes from beyond physical and esthetic properties of the piece.
Figure 2: zoom of Kaspar V 2011 - high definition screen One can here see the specific scale of a larger picture; different rules are applies to each scale. Virtual stones with specific forms and angles are traversed by a strong light ray. This builds this deconstructed caustic projection.
In conceptual art, the social positioning of artists is constantly shake up by the actual nature of the pieces which do not necessary need personal proficiency. This question is not always simple. One just has to observe the difficulty classical contemporary music encounters with social positioning of know-how; even for simple pieces using real-time processes and sound reproduction techniques. A conceptual piece can both be presented or represented. It exists by these two acts and constantly interact together with materialization and description. Description can be the consequence of an analysis of materialization. It can also be the source of interpretation of this materialization. Both directions merge with computing tools setting the timing into one only thing. Sound visualizations are the interpreted analyses of a piece. Many are very interesting but many also only follow the signal in a direct way. Other visual pieces are built with the same elements that construct the sound part. They then sometimes use symbols and represent some
Figure 3: Kaspar I - 2010 - ink, paper global view of a high resolution spatial composition. The audience can either read spatial permutations thanks to a lens or have a wide view from far. Levels of grey are given by the density of points. Kaspar is Kaspar from Peter Henke.
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constructive elements of the composition. Reading these elements, and their evolution, allow a better understanding of the piece and its concepts. Beyond all, the field of exploration is widened both for active and passive listeners.
Score and reading Representation can sometimes be a cause and a consequence for materialization because it is intended to the interpreter listener and not the interpreter instrumentalist. A symbolic reading can then be done at any moment of the diffusion; it can be the source of interpretation, a parallel reading when listening or an complementary element for the sound piece. Two material pieces, one audio, the other visual, are set in relation and interrelation. They can be represented at the same moment or at a totally separated timing but they are both compositions. The synesthetic relation between both resides in the interpretation of a reader at the moment of the decryption. Audio and visual signals definitively do not need a true relation. In opposition from technical instrumental technique, the reader faces such a level of abstraction he has the freedom to decide what he sees according to what he wants to understand. The possible mapping which links elements of one medium to another accentuates this abstraction. Also, the number of dimensions between the sound piece and the visual one are different. Trying to compare audio and visual signals consists on increasing or reducing the number of dimensions to read. For instance, time can lie on a single unique dimension which can be drawn on two dimensions onto paper. The reader has then the freedom to choose in which direction he define and reads the arrow of time. These projection of dimension allow a non linearity explained in this text. Reading and listening indeed both build a time from the point of view of the listener; the angle of view. The reading is done like one read an abstract poetry book in which symbols and layout are part of the information. Such a score can analyze and visualize possible and multiple timings contained in the initial concept. The combination of both types of diffusion, audio and visual, allow an abstract non-linear reading while keeping the immateriality of music. The visual part of such piece is a score because it constantly keep the function to be read. Nothing though prevent it from also having an esthetic thought. It has a function, but it is also a spatial composition as well as the sound part is a time composition. Invention of recording allowed the decorrellation of musical listening and the moment it is actually played and created. It is not a presen-
Figure 4: hr 8798 - 2014 - ink, paper (zoom please) unique and recurrent melodic line. Time is the one the reader takes to read that score. The form is defined by the eye of the reader.
Figure 5: zoom of hr 8795 2014 - ink, paper multiple and recurrent lines.
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tation to an audience or visitors. It is rather an individual listening in a context unique for everybody. For instance, there is no diffusion space when listening thru headphones, directly plugged to the ears. The only existing space is the one within the music. Space is truly part of the music in that particular case.
Concept and materialization Leaving a material and perennial trace is socially rewarding for the ones who give a particular value to traditional writing. In instrumental classical music, tradition of writing on paper score widely give the image of a intellectual and literate composer. Materializing music in a perennial way makes it even more unique and valuable. This unicity is cumulated by the easy reproducibility of music. Space composition can be materialized in diverse forms. For instance, video and sound are both physical supports. But transported information does not go to the same physiologic senses. Perception, interpretation and therefore culture all differ according to the used physical medium. The correlation of both media specifies understanding and can transport imagination beyond what could one medium bring. The reading from one unique medium is another interpretation of a same conceptual piece. Materialization needs in any case a construction on a physical support such as paper, electronic paper, a sculpture, an electronic memory etc. This construction then represents the composition and can then become a readable score. In that case, musical composition is applied to other art forms and they are both scores and true art pieces. Compositional techniques are confronted to other techniques which are not obligatory linked with sound or instrumental techniques. The knowledge of the music composer thus widens to other methods and aesthetics in relation with the global concept of the piece. The composer then becomes a real artist who has to construct his own instrumentarium himself in order to build his piece. The place for traditional music is consequently radically remodeled. It can be conserved, partly or entirely disappear. It can also be part of a wider group of writings more specific to style and interpretation. Sound installations are a good example. They are all special cases both for music, space of diffusion, disposition and other elements. The path taken by visitors has to be taken into account and has to be thought as much as the content itself. An extra time component is added to the piece when visitors physically move or change their view. It can either be abstract by following the time of visitants or real by imposing a natural time.
Figure 6: hr 8795 - 2014 - ink, paper this structure is composed of many lines which rhythm of translations and rotations are making levels of grey.
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Computation, parametric composition and nano-composition Composition is the result of a multi-scale construction. The composer controls it or not but there are always ratios between quantitative, qualitative alongside the evolution of these compositional components. This dynamics is one strong characterization for composition. Those ratios for comparison are defined by iterations at a particular moment or position. One of the most obvious example are cellular automata. But these ratios are also done at various levels, specific scales. These multiple scales are also directly linked with those iterations. There is no obligation these iterations have to be formalized or formal. They can for instance just spring from inspiration. Synthesis allows the construction of elements from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale. There is a continuum (although quantified too) between the forme of a piece and its sound. These scale relations are close from laws of nature; in quantum physics for instance. It is then possible to propagate the composition act from one particular scales to others. Nano-technologies and synthetic biology reiterate a large amount of microscopic processes to create macroscopic materials. They are then predilection tools for the composition of musical scores in the form of sculptures. It is in that case a cultural necessity, it is a precision an instrumentalist cannot reach two times in a raw. The complexity of such structures can only be observed from very close. It is the same with a sound form which one only hear the acoustic smoothing of a more complex granularity. It is the same thing with screen pixels close enough from one another to create the illusion of a continuous and non quantified image. At a larger scale, the piece can look uniform and certainly minimalistic. The piece at a larger scale can look so complex it becomes aleatoric for the eyes or ears. The point of view and the angle of view are once again defining the reading for the interpreter public. They are totally subjective and non obligatory formalized choices.
Space, time and time-space An electronic piece and its representation can be analogous when time, space and other compositional dimensions are a same and unique concept. Formal tools and moreover computer science work by representation and strongly use this amalgamation in an abstract way. The confrontation with reality deploys the artistic concept in natural time and space. This confrontation implies the audience and its perception. Time and space only exist with the audience. Their separation is only done at the moment of observation; the moment of interpre-
Figure 7: 完 璧 な 回 。 - 2011 laser print on plexiglas (please zoom) this piece represents a map of Japan after the March 11 2011 Tohoku.
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tation of the piece. There may be similarities with Schrödinger’s cat. For immaterial music at a microscopic scale, time and space are both information and what transports this information. This is only true at a microscopic scale close from the smallest possible quantic grain of perception. At a larger scale, timbre could be associated with matter. Music is therefore not immaterial; it is just not tangible. Time and space would then not be the only concepts. There are compositions conceived for time and for space, but there are also pieces designed for both at the same time. For instance, many contemporary classical music composers take space into account in their temporal piece. Instrument disposal is decisive in the writing of a string quartet for instance. The inverse is also true : some visual artists consider the time dimension in their work. This is the case of Pollock which work and gestures can be analyzed using chaos. Many times and spaces spring from the moment of materialization. They depend on the referential system we are looking at. For example, time taken by somebody reading a score is one different time than the one written in the score ; one can be more abstract than the other. The confrontation of these various times brings many questions for instrumental music. It successfully explores the possibilities both in artist and technical ways. These are the eternal questions about realtime. In a similar way, each visitor in an exhibition conceives space in a personal way depending on his position, physiology etc. The real-space is also a subject for the exploration of art, science and technique. Is it then possible to keep time and space unique after materialization? In other words, at a macroscopic scale, it is possible to represent all possible components of a pice, all the axes of its parametric space, independently from the human perception which dispatches it ? Electronic music, which allows the exploration of perception limits, could avoid aleatoric natural components. It would then represent its concept in its entirety. The Minkowski’s space is a four dimensional mathematical space which modelizes time-space in special relativity since the early XXth century. It allows the materialization of time and space from a composition into one single and unique object. In a similar way as for light cones, this object would spring from the concept of a four dimensional space. It frames a representation of the space and time perceptive limits for the listener. Beyond those four perceptions limits, there are as many dimensions as there are compositional parameters. They are linked to time components which can be different for each dimension. Space could thus contain various conceptual objects depending on necessities and inspirations. String theory could be one of these inspirational
Figure 8: Kaspar VI - 2013 - ink, paper Genetic series are created at both macroscopic and microscopic scale. They can be considered as cellular automata. A visible moiré effect build up rhythms.
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source fitting the multi-scale and multi-dimensional idea. It would also be interesting to focus the work on nature, less abstract, by using biological complex systems and thus keep physiological considerations. There also are powerful intellectual tools for economics or sociology which would take human and sociological factors into account.
Architecture When listening to electronic music, there is no parasite human factor when there are no interpreters. The physical and social environments are nevertheless present in the resulting art piece. Diffusion space indeed generates another time and space which interfere with the uniqueness of the piece. Time and space conceived inside the piece are dissociated. The interpretation of the listener is necessary influenced by his own personality. The diffusion space, possible neighborhood, light also effect the perception of the piece. There are also stimuli from the social context and behavior from others. A painting offers a physical and social frame, an art piece inside a context which is outside. It is a pretty different situation with sound, which is still hard to contain it in a defined frame. In acoustics it is nevertheless possible to get closer to a neutral or controlled space by adding a consequent amount of speakers. Their positions would be equally so paced in order to get homogenous synthesized spaces and spaces. This rudimentary method is used with visual immersive systems. For instance, organ music is played in a church which is both a hall and the body of the instrument. emphArchitecture defines spatial and time variations inside a diffusion space. Acousticians and sound engineers often simulate space in order to optimize speakers position and settings. Those methods are only used when rendering the best fitted diffusion at the service of music. It would be interesting to do the opposite: use architectural characteristics as a true part of composition. Speakers are indeed placed at specific positions in order to use the hall and generate particular reverberations. But it is always considered as one sound source in a space; a temporal variation inside a fixed space. The idea is far to be new but there is still a lot to explore in the composition of space in its entirety, at any time, any listening position in the hall and any scale. Sound diffusion, analysis, and rendering tools exists and are just waiting to be used for that. Architecture with the time and space it generates is fully part of composition. Such materialization of music really becomes plastic, invisible but also readable inside space. Artistic consequences are important
Figure 9: r136b1 - 2014 - screen or ink, paper video film from a slow rotating structure radiated by a strong light.
Figure 10: hr 8799 - 2014-2015 screen film video.
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since the 1950-1960’s with the emergence of new forms of listening, peculiar diffusion environments, graphic scores and most importantly a new public. The last decades have unfortunately been retrograde in that direction. Composing by concept also allows contextualization of the piece as it would be done for an architectural project. It takes into account a technical, esthetic, social, historic and ecological context all together. The final project results on the integration of all these studies and researches. Contemporary electronic music has surely not the same consequences as architecture; budgets and social consequences are far different. But a musical piece is nevertheless a piece of art; it also has a social existence and consequently a rich and interesting context worth sharing. The composer is not always a musicologist or a pedagogue. His work can nevertheless be part of a wider social context than simply techniques and art of composition. Fields of popular music and contemporary art have understood this for a while but it is not the case for "experimental" music.
Composition I have been working, testing and using, the generative system I have been working on for a while. It consists on building structures, mostly rhythmic, that spread over scales, from microscopic timbre to a macroscopic whole composition: a nano-composition. Time is only considered as another factor. The inspiration source is the astro-physician’s structural simulation of the universe which I would consider as the ultimate composition. I definitely know the naivety and the trap of willing to generalize a piece of art, and moreover doing so only by the way it is composed. I nevertheless think it is a beautiful graal if it aims towards the artistic construction, the inner artistic universe of the artist. This research is not purely formal because I implement it in the musics I have composed this season. This also means I have not yet totally archived my wish to build music and electronic musical scores only with the current research and make the expected esthetical turn. This rises the question of necessity and importance of a new formalization in an artistic process which already exists and which is very empirical.
Experimentations I ended up using several tools that would eventually merge together and make a series of pieces. Each one would be conceptual and represented by two similar sound pieces; one rather minimalistic playing only the skeleton and one also playing what could be attached to its structure: timbres, articulations etc. The software Rhino is not only a tool for architecture, it is very convenient for generating forms over space. It is pretty interesting to map spatial dimensions to compositional ones. The simplest but the most effective and understandable for the ear consists on creating sonograms. One dimension is dedicated to time and two chosen others are used for pitch and amplitude. That means the resulting music is often pitched but with no particular temperament or vertical segmentation of the spectrum. For convenience in the work, I also used the JTOL.bach library (in Max) and a completely re-adapted version of AthenaCL in Python. They can both be additional apparatus to the Rhino construction machine. They also can later be used in Ableton Live, which has all the needed tools for production and post-production. Many experiments showed they are very powerful and they exactly fit the needs for nano-composition. Unfortunately I could until now
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never really reach the expected musical level I wanted. Making visually beautiful or geometric sonograms do not lead anywhere else than pure concept if they are not properly connected to true auditory factors. I have used two main experimental methods: one constructive using cellular automata and one using phases and interferences. They are both beautiful and instinctually musical because they both make heavy use of inference. This would be one way music is thought and listened. Procedural processes such as multilayered cellular automata or multiagent systems generate expending patterns sometimes from a random initial state or element. This is the initial spark defining the rest of the composition’s universe. Like all traditional composition techniques (permutations etc), such grammar-based techniques find a true reason to be used when we are dealing with isolated elements or symbols. It does not work so well with continuous or short musical events; when building sonograms. In the case of short and very fast iterations, these evolutions do not generate anything more interesting than "controlled" randomness (sieves). It becomes either too simple or too complex. The chances it works are very thin. The same questions rises when using interferences; I could not yet get anything that would justify its use. A "controlled" random shifting and folding (origami) gives better results. It is possible to distinguish a white noise melody, or even signal, from a pink one. But it is much harder to assimilate their composition. You would then eventually always get roughly the same musical result. Am I thinking the same way as some neo-tonal composers ? Some believe not remembering the melody of atonal music is a problem. It would be reductive to define music only by some necessary tonality or harmony. Nothing is necessary and there are many other dimensions, apprehended together, that would make music the music.
Formal vs automatic composing The current problem is that I use a personal formalization that intends to generalize my music from all available dimensions. This is exactly what I was describing as a beautiful but naive approach. It is another level but the problem still remains; although I have no intention to generalize music as a whole, I am in a way trying to generalize one single piece of music. Some composers like Brian Ferneyhough are confronted to a similar problem. Even after years of experience, he uses the term complexity as if it was a black box, something on the side he can deal with and pick data from. The algorithm is used as a calculator. He nevertheless succeeds in transcendenting his monster by tweaking it or by using other simpler musical characteristics besides complexity. Alan Berg was doing that. His music both combines Gustav Mahler’s
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romanticism and Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone techniques. He also uses accentuation in an traditional, or expected, way in order to give an ordered notion to dodecaphonism. Human touch and subconscience are still very important factors in composition. Intervention, which can also be a choice, is happening at one variable moment of the creation but it eventually happens. Until now, I still do not precisely know to what extend and at which level it is placed for me. It varies and this is one reason I have the impression to recreate everything from scratch when I start a new piece. Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay pointed out the difference between the way I wish to formalize my pieces and how they actually have been made in an intuitive way. The fact I eventually always come back to my reflexes and stylistic habits would mean I have a certain experience, or I am always in a hurry. Maybe I also subconsciously know it is the workflow that fits me the best and also the most efficient I use for theatre and dance. The change I am trying to do would only bring me an additional layer of composition and precision. It would perhaps not really be a radical change. Jackson Pollock was doing automatic painting (or surrealist painting) by following his instincts and huge experience to express his subconscious. I previously used the term "controlled" randomness to describe something similar. For now, I have not found anything better than a manually tweaked Monte Carlo method or other probabilistic techniques to get interesting time-based patterns. Patterns that are nor too repetitive and nor too random. Randomness and sieves are also achieved by the human touch I was describing earlier. Humans can provide nor true randomness, nor perfect repetition. I am probably too "classical"; traditional musical forms and articulations are culturally more important than I would like them to be. I am aware that this strong background would explain why I still have not found any acceptable musical result that could lead me to the context described earlier. I now have the tools, the knowledge and the ideas. All the new pieces I did up to now make use of them. But I found out the missing link to get to the radical change I am after: a subconscience that would transcend what I have build and allow me to create something musically interesting. The way I see automatic composition is linked with artificial intelligence. Should I then call it artificial composition? Classical culture has the strong tendency to keep total control from the early creative sparks and algorithms are good for that task. But this is not enough, it needs conscience (artificial or not), an independent intuition at one level or another of the process. I will get it over time or I will realize this is just a strong inspiration necessary for the pieces.
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Noises Yannis Xenakis used sieves and probability distributions both for symbolic composition and synthesis (Gendy). He also did some experiments with cellular automata. The fact I am using several dimensions and scales lead me toward gradient and fractal noise in order to create procedural textures that would become sonograms. Perlin Noise (Simplex) and Worley noise are good candidates because they provide a notion of harmonics and are easy to manipulate.
Styles and signature I used to do a lot of glitch music. I used sounds and esthetics from many digital sources to create rhythms. I then naturally dived into post-modernism, dadaism and break-core using various concatenative syntheses and hand-made collages. I finally decided to become much more interested by the beauty of measure with minimalism. But I do not see this minimalism as pure, I see it as rich and complex when listening at a closer scale (grain). This is why I keep talking about construction with scales. From this stylistic background often results the tendency toward binary rhythms alongside rich syntheses controlled in a very conceptual way at a macroscopic scale.
——————————————————– Olivier Pasquet - June 2015
List of Figures
r136b2 - 2014 (ongoing) - white laser, wire installation. Laser mapping onto a metallic structure, thousands of reflexions create a dotted spatial composition points which the lighting is sometimes so weak one has to come closer from the structure. 6 2 zoom of Kaspar V - 2011 - high definition screen One can here see the specific scale of a larger picture; different rules are applies to each scale. Virtual stones with specific forms and angles are traversed by a strong light ray. This builds this deconstructed caustic projection. 7 3 Kaspar I - 2010 - ink, paper global view of a high resolution spatial composition. The audience can either read spatial permutations thanks to a lens or have a wide view from far. Levels of grey are given by the density of points. Kaspar is Kaspar from Peter Henke. 7 4 hr 8798 - 2014 - ink, paper (zoom please) unique and recurrent melodic line. Time is the one the reader takes to read that score. The form is defined by the eye of the reader. 8 5 zoom of hr 8795 - 2014 - ink, paper multiple and recurrent lines. 8 6 hr 8795 - 2014 - ink, paper this structure is composed of many lines which rhythm of translations and rotations are making levels of grey. 9 7 - 2011 - laser print on plexiglas (please zoom) this piece represents a map of Japan after the March 11 2011 Tohoku. 10 8 Kaspar VI - 2013 - ink, paper Genetic series are created at both macroscopic and microscopic scale. They can be considered as cellular automata. A visible moiré effect build up rhythms. 11 9 r136b1 - 2014 - screen or ink, paper video film from a slow rotating structure radiated by a strong light. 12 10 hr 8799 - 2014-2015 - screen film video. 12
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