Expanding the Horizon of Electroacoustic Music Analysis

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIERRE COUPRIE

When, in 1998, I began my research into the analysis of electroacoustic music, analysis and representation were two distinct disciplines. One was an integral part of music research and the other was just a possible option for publication.


2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuella Blackburn

Since its conception, Denis Smalley's spectromorphology has equipped listeners and practitioners of electroacoustic music with appropriate and relevant vocabulary to describe the sound-shapes, sensations and evocations associated with experiences of acousmatic sound. This liberation has facilitated and permitted much-needed discussion about sound events, structures and other significant sonic detail. More than 20 years on, it is safe to assume that within the electroacoustic music community there is an agreed and collective understanding of spectromorphological vocabulary and its descriptive application. Spectromorphology's influence has been far reaching, inciting approaches to electroacoustic music analysis (Thoresen 2007), notation (Patton 2007), composition and education through its flexible functionality and accessible pool of vocabulary.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-322
Author(s):  
Michael Gatt

Following Edgard Varèse’s influential lectures – translated and documented in ‘The Liberation of Sound’ – electroacoustic music has spawned many different styles and genres. His argument was for composers to follow their imagination and not be bound to the constraints of musical notation. This, arguably, was one of the catalysts for the emergence of electroacoustic musical works. With past and recent technological advancement, the varieties of genres and styles within electroacoustic music have only expanded, challenging the notion of how one could analyse such works. It is therefore unsurprising that there is no general consensus on analytical methodologies. But for an art form that celebrates all musical possibilities should the analysis of such musics be constraint to a set number of formalised analytical methodologies?Rather than propose a new all-encompassing methodology, this article will argue for a universal approach to electroacoustic music analysis and the liberation of sound analysis. The concept of an analytical community (a community that accepts multiple analyses whilst encouraging practitioners to find new and innovative ways to analyse such works) will be raised as a means to address the issues facing electroacoustic music analysis, using the OREMA (Online Repository for Electroacoustic Music Analysis) project as an example of such an initiative.


New Sound ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Jiří Kubíček

This paper aims to delineate changes in the approach to music analysis over the last decades of the nineteenth century and to examine different possibilities in analysing works which have a characteristic that virtually excludes the use of traditional methods. The starting point is Joseph Kerman's criticism of music analysis, formulated in the 1980s, which - together with successive discussions - reflects a tendency towards abandoning the excessively academic and formalizing approach to analysis, moving from an attempt at an objective analysis of a work towards an interpretation that also focuses on the listener. Since the mid-twentieth century, electroacoustic music has been one of the areas where the use of traditional analysis was inconvenient. Since electroacoustic music began to lose its exclusive, academic character in the 1990s in relation with the development of computer technologies, the question of its interpretation and finding suitable listener strategies has kept coming to the fore. This paper shows the possibilities of approach to this music in relation to its specificities. The last part of the paper focuses on a specific example from one fringe genre: noise music, specifically the subgenre japanoise. In its peak period in the 1990s, this sound production was probably the furthest away from what is usually associated with the term music. Based on an analysis of a selected composition, the inadequacy of the traditional approach and certain alternatives to grasping such music will be demonstrated. The very end of the paper features some current results which relate to, or result from, the study's conclusions.


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