scholarly journals The Terminology of Borrowing

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (02) ◽  
pp. 139-156
Author(s):  
Manuella Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Sound Sources ◽  
Theme And Variations ◽  
Recorded Sound ◽  
Cover Songs ◽  
New Framework

This article specifically addresses electroacoustic music compositions that borrow from existing musical and sound resources. Investigating works that borrow and thrive upon existing sound sources presents an array of issues regarding terminology, authorship and creativity. Embedding borrowed elements into new electroacoustic music goes beyond the simplicity of ‘cut and paste’ as composers approach this practice with new and novel techniques. Musical borrowings have been widely studied in fields of popular and classical music, from cover songs to quotations and from pastiches to theme and variations; however, borrowings that take place within the field of electroacoustic music can be less clear or defined, and demand a closer look. Because the components and building blocks of electroacoustic music are often recorded sound, the categories of borrowing become vast; thus incidences of borrowing, in some shape or form, can appear inevitable or unavoidable when composing. The author takes on this issue and proposes a new framework for categorising borrowings as a helpful aid for others looking to sample in new compositional work, as well as for further musicological study. The article will consider the compositional process of integration and reworking of borrowed material, using a repertoire study to showcase the variety of techniques in play when sound materials change hands, composer to composer. Terminology already in use by others to describe sound borrowing in electroacoustic music will be investigated in an effort to show the multitude of considerations and components in action when borrowing takes place. Motivations for borrowing, borrowing types, borrowing durations, copying as imitation, and composers’ reflections upon borrowing will all be considered within the article, along with discussions on programmatic development and embedding techniques. At the heart of this article, the author aims to show how widespread and pervasive borrowing is within the electroacoustic repertoire by drawing attention to varieties of sound transplants, all considered as acts of borrowing.

scholarly journals The Ontological Status of Sound Recording: An Artistic Blend between Documentation and Sonic Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
gaute barlindhau
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Sound Recording ◽  
Sound Sources ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Recorded Sound ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The 1960S

This paper discusses how different ways of defining the ontological status of recorded sound have developed throughout the 20th century. My claim is that even within the period of analog technology, sound recording was moving away from its purposes of preserving and documenting real life musical performances. I will illustrate this by using three different examples. First, I will look at how John and Alan Lomax´s folkloristic documentation of blues music in the 1930s changed the very culture they documented by introducing a new medium that enabled the sharing and dissemination of music beyond the word of mouth. Secondly, I will look at how the producer John Culshaw redefined the recording of classical music in the 1960s by moving away from the ideal of documenting an actual performance and towards the use of technology to brake previous constraints imposed on the musicians and create an improved version of the musical work. Lastly, I will look at Brian Eno and David Byrne´s My life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), which utilized tape splicing technology to create a blend of western funk and pop with field recordings of non-western folk music and various other sound sources.

scholarly journals The writing technique as a component of the compositional process (on the examples of creative practice of the second half of the 20th – 21st centuries)

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (59) ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
Dmytro Malyi
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Mathematical Thinking ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Algorithmic Composition ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Cultural Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Composers ◽  
Stochastic Music

Background, objectives and methodology of the research. The social and cultural paradigm of the 20th century has given rise to a type of composing thinking that did not exist before – a scientific one. Thus, the evolution of the composer’s writing can be defined as a path from thinking by perfect consonance, emancipated dissonance to thinking by deterministic sound and its parameters (height, duration, dynamics, timbre, and articulation). The term of the «composer’s writing technique» means a set of techniques and methods of working with the musical material as a result of the activity of thinking/awareness. Therefore, the aim of this article is an attempt to explore the relationship between the compositional process and writing techniques of the 20th – 21st centuries (pointillism, aleatorysonorous, algorithmic composition), as well as the specifics of polyphonic, homophonic writing in a new context. The methodology of the study includes references to the scientific works by P. Boulez (1971), K. Stockhausen (1963), V. Medushevsky (1984), M. Bonfeld (2006), I. Beckman (2010), I. Kuznetsov (2011), K. Maidenberg-Todorova (2013), M. Vysotska and G. Grigoryeva (2014). Presentation of research results. The phenomenon of writing techniques is very important in the study of the specifics of the compositional process, as it is the technique, for the most part, becomes the goal of creation for many composers of the 20th century. In addition to new techniques, polyphonic and homophonic writing have undergone some changes. The polyphonic one has specific features that are manifested in linearity, part-writing, etc. Examples can be found in the works by D. Ligeti (micro-polyphony), R. Shchedrin, V. Bibik, V. Ptushkin, V. Sylvestrov, and O. Shchetynsky. Regarding the homophonic writing, we shall note that, first of all, it is an indicator of style and conceptual thinking of a composer (works by A. Pyart, J. Tavener, and L. Sumera). In pointillism, the sound is thought of as a deterministic, isolated structure, which is expressed by its various parameters. Here are the examples from the creative work by A. Webern («The Variations for the Piano»; «The Variations for the Orchestra»), by E. Denysov «DSCH». The aleatory-sonorous technique is associated with the operation of timbre sonorities, according to their specific patterns, and developed in the 50–60s of the 20th century in the works by I. Xenakis, V. Lyutoslavsky, Ksh. Penderetsky, and D. Ligeti. The algorithmic composition is an indicator of scientific and mathematical thinking, and is divided into: fractal, stochastic, spectral, concrete and electroacoustic music. The first was formed within the framework of the works by C. Dodge, G. li Nelson, D. Ligeti, and others (I. Beckman, 2010). Stochastic music is associated with the name of I. Xenakis, and the ancestors of the spectral school are the French composers G. Grisey and T. Murray. Conclusions. The article considers the writing techniques of the 20th–21st centuries as components of the compositional process. It can be concluded that the studied techniques are fundamentally interconnected, revealing the nature of the composer’s thinking/consciousness from different positions. The presented techniques are: the objectification of sound forms, the method of creation; the fact of the composer’s consciousness; the consequence of the historical and cultural evolution of the musical language and communication.

Mixing a DJ Set (Intermediate)

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-42
Author(s):  
Mark E. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Music Students ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Electronic Dance Music ◽  
Sound Sources ◽  
Recorded Music ◽  
Recorded Sound

This chapter describes an activity that takes place over a semester, where students learn to mix a DJ set of electronic dance music (EDM). No previous musical experience is necessary, only the ability to recognize the beat in dance music. DJs utilize multiple sound sources in conjunction with a mixer to create continuous dance music. Students create a DJ set by mixing previously recorded music, which is not simply playback. By adjusting track selection in the course of performance, aspiring DJs learn how to make musical decisions and manipulate pre-recorded sound to construct continuous dance music, crafting a musical set.

scholarly journals A unified view of density-based methods for semi-supervised clustering and classification

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 1894-1952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadson Castro Gertrudes ◽  
Arthur Zimek ◽  
Jörg Sander ◽  
Ricardo J. G. B. Campello
Keyword(s):  
Supervised Classification ◽  
Clustering Algorithms ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Large Collection ◽  
Supervised Clustering ◽  
The Core ◽  
Density Based Clustering ◽  
Clustering And Classification ◽  
Unified View ◽  
New Framework

Abstract Semi-supervised learning is drawing increasing attention in the era of big data, as the gap between the abundance of cheap, automatically collected unlabeled data and the scarcity of labeled data that are laborious and expensive to obtain is dramatically increasing. In this paper, we first introduce a unified view of density-based clustering algorithms. We then build upon this view and bridge the areas of semi-supervised clustering and classification under a common umbrella of density-based techniques. We show that there are close relations between density-based clustering algorithms and the graph-based approach for transductive classification. These relations are then used as a basis for a new framework for semi-supervised classification based on building-blocks from density-based clustering. This framework is not only efficient and effective, but it is also statistically sound. In addition, we generalize the core algorithm in our framework, HDBSCAN*, so that it can also perform semi-supervised clustering by directly taking advantage of any fraction of labeled data that may be available. Experimental results on a large collection of datasets show the advantages of the proposed approach both for semi-supervised classification as well as for semi-supervised clustering.

Sounds and sources in Powers of Two: towards a contemporary myth

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
BARRY TRUAX
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Sound Sources ◽  
Environmental Sounds

Within the context of discussing contemporary music the European tendency to overvalue abstraction is questioned. The use of environmental sounds in electroacoustic music is highlighted as an example of the questionable value of abstraction. Attention is then focused on a recent Truax composition, Powers of Two (1995) as a work of electroacoustic music theatre. The historical musical and poetic references, as well as the sound sources adopted for the work, are discussed, and placed within the human framework of relationship embodied in the piece. A concluding section summarises the work as an attempt to create a contemporary myth from historical sources, and as a dramatic expression employing electroacoustic forces.

Creativity in Seventeenth-Century Music

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Herissone
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Professional Musicians ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Constant State ◽  
Inner Parts

The early modern period witnessed important societal shifts that eventually affected both the employment status of professional musicians and their creative approaches. Throughout the seventeenth century, however, most composition continued to be carried out by musicians employed within the traditional patronage system according to long-established creative principles often unfamiliar to us today. Apprentice composers learned by modeling new pieces on preexisting works by esteemed authority figures and through improvisation techniques, using standard formulae as building blocks. Both this improvisatory foundation and the simple melody-plus-bass style of many genres meant that notation was frequently unnecessary in the initial creative stages—although erasable materials were sometimes used by inexperienced composers and for complex, erudite music—and there was no direct relationship between the creation of a notated source and stages in the compositional process. Creativity was also frequently a collaborative endeavor, involving numerous contributors: the named composer might compose only the core melody and bass, with inner parts either provided by musicians employed to “set” the composition for the required ensemble or filled in by a continuo player. It was also a graduated process, with works often being subjected to successive bouts of reworking by multiple musicians, not only revising and adapting the music to suit new performing contexts but also making changes as a matter of course, in a process of “serial recomposition.” The result was a creative culture in which works were in a constant state of flux, as they were perpetually renewed and reinvigorated by a multilayered creative community.

The aesthetics of animated sound: François Bayle, Bernard Parmegiani and the Service de la recherche de l’ORTF

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Ridout
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Meeting Point ◽  
Technical Developments ◽  
Recorded Sound ◽  
Short Films ◽  
French Composers ◽  
The 1960S

Founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1960, the Service de la recherche at Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française sought to incubate technical and aesthetic research in television and radio, supporting the development of novel animation techniques, pedagogical films for television and experimental short films. As such, the Service served as a fertile meeting point for composers and filmmakers, playing a significant role in the early careers of a number of well-known French composers of electroacoustic music. The early work of both François Bayle and Bernard Parmegiani principally consisted of music and sound for the moving image – and in particular for experimental animated shorts by filmmakers including Robert Lapoujade and Piotr Kamler – created with the support of the Service de la recherche. In attending to the particular configurations of sound and image worked out in these collaborations, the idea of ‘animation’ emerges as a recurring concern in the electroacoustic music of the period, underwriting both a general approach to recorded sound and, I argue, particular formal and technical developments in the aesthetics of French electroacoustic music in the 1960s and beyond.

Understanding Turkish Classical Makam: Identifying Modes Through Characteristic Melodies

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adem Merter Birson ◽  
Ahmet Erdoğdular
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Modal System ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
Idiomatic Expression ◽  
Oral Form ◽  
Extended Interaction

In Turkish classical music, characteristic melodies known as “çeşni-s” form essential building blocks in makam, the modal system of the Middle East. Since around the beginning of the Turkish Republic (1923), Turkish musicologists adapted the makam system for Western staff notation and devised an approach to music theory based on scales. This modern approach, while currently widespread, has its limitations; in particular, the makam scales do not reflect the characteristic melodies that are often so important to the idiomatic expression of makam. For this reason, one needs extended interaction with experienced musicians in order to learn how to interpret the scores, via an oral form of pedagogy traditionally known as “meşk.”

The control of acoustic intensity during jazz and free improvisation performance

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Thornton Dean ◽  
Freya Anne Bailes
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Expressive Power ◽  
Electroacoustic Music ◽  
Intensity Change ◽  
Acoustic Intensity ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Acoustic Instruments ◽  
Improvised Music

The paper demonstrates the predominance of a pattern of acoustic intensity change in recorded improvisations in which intensity rises are shorter than falls and in which the rate of intensity change is greater in the rises than in the falls. A wide range of Western improvised music is studied, and the analyses are conducted by measuring intensity in moving windows across each piece. The windows used are 0.04 sec, 0.5 sec, 5 sec and 10 sec, chosen to sample a range of important musical structures such as patterns, phrases and phrase groups. In addition, a comparative analysis using detected rhythmic beats as the window, with slightly variable lengths, is presented. The recurrent pattern is interpreted in terms of a hypothesised Force-Effort-Energy-Loudness-Affect chain, linking performer (or composer) with listeners and with other performers. Partial experimental investigation of this chain in other work has been consistent with the theory in supporting a major role of acoustic intensity in the perception of both musical change and affect. It seems that improvisers share this patterning of acoustic intensity with interpreters of classical music, and composers of electroacoustic music. Thus we suggest that music made without acoustic instruments, that is without the physical intervention of performers providing the energy to activate a sounding instrument, has developed the same pattern because composers recognise its expressive power as a statistical archetype. It remains to be seen whether this statistical feature could have been assimilated from environmental and/or speech sounds.

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