aarhus seminar slides

School of Electronic Music A.Y. 2011-12

Electroacoustic Music Composition: a personal approach to Acousmatic

and Live Electronics works.

Erasmus exchange A.Y. 2011-2012: The Royal Accademy of Music in Aarhus/Conservatory of Frosinone Prof. A. Chiaramonte

  Which is the best way for a musician to present his own work?

  What does it really mean to present his own musical work?

with no doubts this is an hard task…

Introduction (1/3)

  What is the meaning of being a musician today?

  How many people among our parents and close friends understand what are we doing?

  Are you “art for art’s sake” supporters?

Introduction (2/3)

“I had an obsession: a new instrument that would free music from the tempered system.” (E. Varese)

ORGANIZED SOUND

Introduction (3/3)

  An overview of Edgard Varese fundamental ideas.

  My compositional language key points.   The fascination of sound: an Electroacoustic

trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento.   ..:Electroshop:.. and Etheric Bodies: a personal

approach to live electronics.   Falling, a Video-art-music work: electroacoustic

music and the moving image.

Summary

  Very few compositions which have strongly contributed to the evolution of music language.

  Sound as living a matter, the primary material of his musical language.

  Electronic music for natural instruments.   Musicians as sound generators.   To listen with unadulterated ears.

Edgard Varese fundamentals (1/16)

  Rhythmic complexity and tonal diversity.

  Indefinite pitched percussion, free atonality, musical forms which exist independent of tradition.

  Ques t i ng f o r new t imb ra l sound possibilities.

“I had an obsession: a new instrument that would free music from the tempered system.” “The instruments that the electronic engineers must perfect, with the collaboration of musicians, will make possible the use of all sounds - not only arbitrary ones - and also, in consequence, the performance of any tempered scale music. They will be able to reproduce all existing sounds and collaborate in the creation of new timbres.”

  Desert (1950-54): for Orchestra and magnetic tape.

  Poeme Electronique (1957-58): for magnetic tape. The first multimedia work of art.

“The corporealization of the intelligence that is in sounds.” “It was a new and exciting conception and to me as spatial - as moving bodies of sound in space, a conception I gradually made my own.”

“We have actually three dimensions in music: horizontal, vertical, and dynamic swelling or decreasing. I shall add a fourth, sound projection - that feeling that sound is leaving us with no hope of being reflected back.”

“The music [on tape] was distributed by 425 loudspeakers; there were twenty amplifier combinations... the loudspeakers were mounted in groups and in what is called “sound routes” to achieve various effects such as that of the music running around the pavilion, as well as coming from different directions... etc. For the first time I heard my music literally projected into space.”

“Rhythm is too often confused with metrics. Cadence or the regular succession of beats and accents has little to do with the rhythm of composition. Rhythm is the element in music that gives life to the work and holds it together. It is the element of stability, the generator of form. In my works, for instance, rhythm derives from the simultaneous interplay of unrelated elements that intervene at calculated, but not regular, time lapses. This corresponds more nearly to the definition of rhythm in physics and philosophy.”

“One of the greatest assets that electronics has added to musical composition is that of metric simultaneity. My music being based on movements of unrelated sound masses I have long felt the need, and anticipated the effect, of having them move simultaneously at different speeds.”

“There will no longer be the old concept of melody or interplay of melodies. The entire work will be a melodic totality.”

•  Music is a spatial phenomenon and therefore fuctions in three dimensions.

•  Rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic material undergo constant variation. This material is linked to form "sound masses" with connecting strands of melodic material.

•  Rhythm is “the generator of form”, that which holds the work together.

•  Vertical and horizontal material are interchangeable. •  Timbre is as important as pitch and will distinguish one sound

mass from another.

•  Sound possesses inherent intelligence.

“When new instruments will allow me to write music as I conceive it, the movement of sound masses, of shifting planes, will be clearly perceived, taking the place of linear counterpoint. When these sound masses collide the phenomena of penetration or repulsion will seem to occur. Certain transmutations taking place on certain planes will seem to be projected onto other planes, moving at different speeds and at different angles… In the moving masses you wou ld be consc ious o f the i r transmutations when they pass over different layers, when they penetrate certain opacities, or are dilated in certain rarefactions.”

Sound-mass Refers to a body of sound with certain specific attributes in interval content, register, contour, timbre, intensity, attack, and decay.

Idea A motivic fragment in either the winds or percussion.

Expansion of an idea Sound masses seem to emerge out of the expansion of an "idea" based on an internal structure and may continue into sonic space.

Projection of sound masses

The sense of projection of sound-masses depends on the source location as well as the independent movement of each sound-mass as opposed to the others.

Penetration When "sound masses" collide, the interaction tends to bring about "penetration", during which certain attributes of one "sound-mass" are transformed to another.

Transmutation When the attributes of a sound or sound-mass are transferred (penetration) to another, changing the attributes of each sound or sound-mass. With a single pitch it describes the change of color by degrees over a wide range (which electronic machinery made possible in a very perfected manner).

Rhythm The simultaneous interplay of unrelated elements that intervene at calculted, but not regular, time lapses.

Form The consequence of the interaction of attractive and repulsive forces evolved out of an “idea”. (form is the result of process)

  Sound as living matter.   Sound as an object.   Projection of sound-masses

moving into sonic space.   Form as consequence of a

process.

“I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena.”

●  Fragmentation ●  Segmentation ●  Reflection ●  Soundscape and its possible perspectives and layers ●  Foreground (figure) and background (texture)

processing ●  Gestural vs. textural ●  Re-construction of a meaning, other than the original

Personal compositional language key points

  Year 2000: the encounter with a popular tradition.

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (1/11)

  “Ammaraciccappa”: Ecstatic Rhythms of South Italy, Desert Voices and Metropolitan Sounds.

  “Al Qantarah”: Electro-World Music from Salento and Maghreb.

Electroacoustic trilogy: - Canaja Canaja - Moroloja - Envoys

Canaja Canaja An Electroacoustic song based on

a popular detention song

Moroloja Is inspired by one of the funeral dirges collected by Brizio Montinaro in the late 1970s in the strip of land known as Grecìa salentina, a small area in the South of the Apulian region where griko, a hellenic dialect, is still spoken.

Example of the original chant

Beddha ci stai luntanu

Dolce lo mio drudo

SICILIAN, attributed to

FREDERICK II [1194 - 1250]

source: Codex Reina 6771 (Paris)

Envoys Amsterdam 08/09/2007 International Gaudeamus Music Week

ECPNM Live Electronics Contest Final Concert

  ..::Electroshop::.. is a “concrete” sound workshop.

  Sounding artworks (“concrete” musical instruments).

  Original audio-video processing software (Max/MSP/Jitter).

  Musical composition, together with artworks, conforms to the concept of a “unique work of art”.

  Audio tactile principle ➡ Performative actions on sounding artworks.

  Video source is used as an input for live sound processing.

..::Electroshop::.. and Etheric Bodies (1/7)

  Appropriate technological environment ➡ aestethics.

  Aesthetics is strongly influenced by a subject that is fundamental to me:

Communication and interaction between humans

Etheric Bodies for sounding sculptures, theremin, trumpet, bass clarinet, audio sequencing and live electronics.

Composed and produced at ICCMR in Plymouth (UK)

ETHERIC BODIESSCORE TIMING

0 2.5 12 22 30 50 55 1 01.08

SEQ. 1 TR TR TR G1=ONSC1+LE

CL TR CL G2=ONCL

01.14 01.23 01.27 01.36 01.42 01.47 01.50 02.00 02.12

SC2+LETR

CL TR CL TR CL SC1=FOUT TR TR+CL=OFF

02.17 02.27 02.53 02.56 03.05 03.10 03.16 03.22 03.28

SC1=FIN CL+TR TRCL=OFF

CL CL TR CL TR CL

03.42 03.52 04.00 04.07 04.12 04.19 04.29 04.40 04.53

ALL=FOUT ALL=OFF SEQ. 2 CL THER=ON CL CL G3=ONLE

05.03 05.13 05.18 05.23 05.28 05.43 05.48 06.03 06.08

G4=ONLE

THER=OFF SC3&4 TR CL TR CL TR CL

06.15 06.23 06.35 06.43 07.01 07.08 07.11 07.15 07.21

TR CL THER=ON SC3&4=FOUT

TR+CL TR THER=OFF SC3&4=FIN

CL TR CL

07.25 07.29 07.31 07.33 07.38 07.51 08.03 08.16 08.21

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Etheric BodiesA. Chiaramonte

PERM2-1

PERM4-1

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PERM5-1

PERM7-1

PERM2-2

PERM4-2

PERM6-2

PERM1-2

PERM3-2

PERM5-2

PERM7-2

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# # # #$ # # # #" % % % % # # # # # # # # #$ # # # # # # #

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" # #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ #& # #& # % % % %" #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ # # #& # #& % % % %" # #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ #& # #& # % % % %" #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ # # #& # #& % % % %" % % % % # #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ #& # #& #" % % % % #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ # # #& # #&" % % % % # #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ # # #& #" % % % % #& # #& # #& # #& # #$ # #$ # # #& # #&

Etheric Bodies EMUFest 2010 S. Cecilia Conservatoire - Rome

Falling: a Video-Art-Music work (1/2)

Falling: a Video-Art-Music work (2/2)

Thank you for your kind attention Antonino Chiaramonte’s contacts E-mail: antonin.chiaramonte@gmail.com Web: www.antoninochiaramonte.eu

Varese, Edgard. "The Liberation of Sound - 1936 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 196-198. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

"Rhythm, Form and Content - 1959 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 202-204. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

"Music as Art and Science - 1939 Lecture," Varese, Edgard. In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 198-201. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

"Spatial Music - 1959 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 204-207. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

"The Electronic Medium - 1962 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 207-208. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Varese, Louise. Varese: A Looking Glass Diary. New York: Norton, 1972.

Edgard Varèse, "Il suono organizzato", scritti sulla Musica, Milano, Ricordi-Unicopli, 1985.

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