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Science, Technology, the Music Research Vanguard

Born Georgina

in Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde

This chapter focuses on the technological research projects of the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in the 1984, explaining that, during this time, computer music ... More

This chapter focuses on the technological research projects of the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in the 1984, explaining that, during this time, computer music was expected to enrich the quality of sound materials by its capacity to stimulate any unimaginable sound, as well as completely new timbres. It highlights the pivotal ideological position of psychoacoustics and music research within IRCAM, and the musicians' commitment to define the future areas of research that would be of maximum musical use to composers. The chapter also discusses the structure of opposition in IRCAM's intellectual work culture.Less

Introduction: Experimental Music in Buffalo

Renée Levine Packer

in This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo

The introduction traces the genesis of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts as a forum to remedy the growing disparity that existed between what musicians learned in the conservatories and ... More

The introduction traces the genesis of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts as a forum to remedy the growing disparity that existed between what musicians learned in the conservatories and the new compositional techniques and ideas being employed by composers including improvisation, chance processes, theater pieces, sound installations, mixed media, and electronic and computer music. It presents an overview of contemporary music groups in existence in the early 1960s and notes the changing nature of experimental art making. Lastly, Buffalo's tradition of embracing challenge and innovation is outlined.Less

The Foundations of Computer Music

Peter Manning

in Electronic and Computer Music

This chapter considers the synthesis and signal processing techniques that underpin the development of computer music. During the early phase of computer development, the only tools available to the ... More

This chapter considers the synthesis and signal processing techniques that underpin the development of computer music. During the early phase of computer development, the only tools available to the pioneers of computer music were mainframe machines, large and expensive items of equipment originally designed as self-contained systems for scientific and commercial data processing. By the end of the 1960s, however, advances in system design were encouraging the development of more compact and less expensive computers for an expanding market, thus widening the opportunities for access and engagement in creative research. This facilitated a trend toward self-sufficiency in the computer music sector, an activity that gathered considerable momentum during the 1970s in both Europe and America.Less

Tracking the Design Process

Giovan Francesco Lanzara

in Shifting Practices: Reflections on Technology, Practice, and Innovation

Chapter 1 tracks the design of the new computer music system in the computer music laboratory of the Institute. It presents the institutional setting of the Music LOGO project and tracks the early ... More

Chapter 1 tracks the design of the new computer music system in the computer music laboratory of the Institute. It presents the institutional setting of the Music LOGO project and tracks the early developments of the system carried out by the musician and the programmer. The design moves and transactions of the two developers are described in detail, focusing on their design conversations, the puzzles and problems they. Issues like the entry points to the music domain, the nature of the computer music interface, the making of new digital objects, multiple representations, and the design of a new computer music educational environment are dealt with.Less

From Computer Technology to Musical Creativity

Peter Manning

in Electronic and Computer Music

This chapter describes the development of computer music. By the middle of the 1970s, the development of computer music had expanded to embrace not only software synthesis and computer-assisted ... More

This chapter describes the development of computer music. By the middle of the 1970s, the development of computer music had expanded to embrace not only software synthesis and computer-assisted composition but also a variety of hybrid synthesis applications. However, the complexities of digital technology and the associated expense still concentrated activities in the hands of the few, for the most part enjoying support from well-endowed institutions and organizations. While this exclusivity was slowly beginning to erode, the longer-term development of the medium was still highly dependent on the activities of leading research institutions. Two of these are described: the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique.Less

The Microprocessor Revolution

Peter Manning

in Electronic and Computer Music

This chapter describes the advent of microprocessors and their impact on the development of computer music. Intel manufactured the first true microprocessor — the 4004 — in 1971. By today's ... More

This chapter describes the advent of microprocessors and their impact on the development of computer music. Intel manufactured the first true microprocessor — the 4004 — in 1971. By today's standards, this device was extremely slow and hard to program, difficulties in the latter context being compounded by the fact that only four bits of data or programming code could be handled at a time. Using early single-board microcomputers, a number of enthusiasts began to exploring applications of a musical nature, in particular the construction of elementary control systems for analog synthesizers, communicating data values via a simple low resolution digital-to-analog converter. In 1976, the 6502-based KIM-1 board manufactured by Commodore, attracted particular attention in this context.Less

Computer synthesis of music performance

Johan Sundberg

in Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition

This chapter describes some ingenious studies where a computer ‘learns’ to play expressively by being supplied with a set of rules for modulating timing and loudness in certain musical contexts. ... More

This chapter describes some ingenious studies where a computer ‘learns’ to play expressively by being supplied with a set of rules for modulating timing and loudness in certain musical contexts. These rules are modified by playing the results to a panel of human judges and asking for judgements of appropriateness. In summary, it seems that analysis of music performance is beginning to reveal what exactly it is that musicians add to written music, what the code they use is, and from where this code is taken. Therefore, this chapter proposes that analysis of music performance can shed light on basic aspects of music communication.Less

The Internet

Peter Manning

in Electronic and Computer Music

The Internet has extended its influence in recent years to embrace a significant proportion of the activities associated with everyday life. Whereas many of the functional characteristics of this ... More

The Internet has extended its influence in recent years to embrace a significant proportion of the activities associated with everyday life. Whereas many of the functional characteristics of this ubiquitous communications facility will be familiar to readers, their specific impact on the world of computer music may not be immediately evident. In order to understand the true nature and scope of this intersection of digital engineering and creativity it is necessary to understand the true nature of the functional characteristics that determine and ultimately constrain its use in this context. The true significance of the Internet for the future development of the medium has yet to unfold, and this chapter highlights key issues that have yet to be fully addressed.Less

The Characteristics of Digital Audio

Peter Manning

in Electronic and Computer Music

This chapter discusses the development of digital audio. It shows that the ultimate constraints to fidelity are determined by two primary factors: first, the sampling rate, which determines the audio ... More

This chapter discusses the development of digital audio. It shows that the ultimate constraints to fidelity are determined by two primary factors: first, the sampling rate, which determines the audio bandwidth; and, second, the quantizing accuracy of the individual samples, which determines the signal purity in terms of audible distortion. The consequences of increasing the specifications on either count are a proportional increase in the amount of digital data that is required to code this higher resolution information.Less

Computer music

Jack Copeland and Jason Long

in The Turing Guide

One of Turing’s contributions to the digital age that has largely been overlooked is his groundbreaking work on transforming the computer into a musical ... More

One of Turing’s contributions to the digital age that has largely been overlooked is his groundbreaking work on transforming the computer into a musical instrument. It is an urban myth of the music world that the first computer-generated musical notes were heard in 1957, at the Bell Laboratories in the United States. In fact, computer-generated notes were heard in Turing’s Computing Machine Laboratory at Manchester University about nine years previously. This chapter establishes Turing’s pioneering role in the history of computer music. We also describe how Christopher Strachey, later Oxford University’s first professor of computing, used and extended Turing’s note-playing subroutines so as to create some of the earliest computer-generated melodies. A few weeks after Baby ran its first program (see Chapter 20) Turing accepted a job at Manchester University. He improved on Baby’s bare-bones facilities, designing an input–output system based on wartime cryptographic equipment (see Chapter 6). His tape reader, which used the same teleprinter tape that ran through Colossus, converted the patterns of holes punched across the tape into electrical pulses and fed these to the computer. The reader incorporated a row of light-sensitive cells that read the holes in the moving tape—the same technology that Colossus had used. As the months passed, a large-scale computer took shape in the Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory. Turing called it the ‘Manchester Electronic Computer Mark I’ (Fig. 23.1). A broad division of labour developed that saw Kilburn and Williams working on the hardware and Turing on the software. Williams concentrated his efforts on developing a new form of supplementary memory, a rotating magnetic drum, while Kilburn took the leading role in developing the other hardware. Turing designed the Mark I’s programming system, and went on to write the world’s first programming manual. The Mark I was operational in April 1949, although additional development continued as the year progressed. Ferranti, a Manchester engineering firm, contracted to build a marketable version of the computer, and the basic designs for the new machine were handed over to Ferranti in July 1949. The very first Ferranti computer was installed in Turing’s Computing Machine Laboratory in February 1951 (Fig. 23.2), a few weeks before the earliest American-built marketable computer, the UNIVAC I, became available. Less

Computer Music Experiences, 1961–1964: (1964)

James Tenney

Larry Polansky, Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, and Michael Winter (eds)

in From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory

James Tenney reflects on his experiences with computer music during the period 1961–1964. He recalls arriving at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in September 1961 with a number of what he calls ... More

James Tenney reflects on his experiences with computer music during the period 1961–1964. He recalls arriving at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in September 1961 with a number of what he calls musical and intellectual baggage, including various instrumental compositions reflecting the influence of Anton von Webern and Edgard Varèse; a dissatisfaction with all purely synthetic electronic music that he had heard up to that time, particularly with respect to timbre; and a growing interest in the work and ideas of John Cage. He left in March 1964 with six tape compositions of computer-generated sounds and a far better understanding of the physical basis of timbre, among others. Tenney goes on to discuss some of his compositions using computer-generated sounds, such as Analog #1: Noise Study, Four Stochastic Studies and Dialogue, Stochastic String Quartet, Ergodos I and Ergodos II, and Phases. He also describes his rise-time experiment on tone.Less

For More New Signals

Douglas Kahn

in Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts

Concurrent with the developing plenitude of sounds from the early avant-garde through the experimental arts in the 1960s, exemplified in John Cage’s “For More New Sounds” (1941), was an expansion of ... More

Concurrent with the developing plenitude of sounds from the early avant-garde through the experimental arts in the 1960s, exemplified in John Cage’s “For More New Sounds” (1941), was an expansion of signals. This is demonstrated in ideas about earth-scale radio by avant-garde composers and writers and in the history of electronic music. Per the latter, the relationship of musicians to engineers, especially at Bell Labs, is discussed, including Alfred Norton Goldsmith, who stated that electronic music belonged to nature, and Max Mathews. Post-Cagean composers Gordon Mumma and James Tenney are noted as having identified characteristics of a signal plenitude in the astro-bio-geo-physical application in live electronic music and a generalized signal and total transducer, respectively.Less

Domesticating gesture: The Collaborative Creative Process of Florence Baschet’s for ‘Augmented’ String Quartet (2006–08)

Nicolas Donin

in Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music

As personal and solitary as it may be, the process of composition always implies more than one individual and has many collective dimensions. This chapter presents an ethnographic account of the ... More

As personal and solitary as it may be, the process of composition always implies more than one individual and has many collective dimensions. This chapter presents an ethnographic account of the collective process involved in creating a work for ‘augmented string quartet’ at IRCAM from 2006 to 2008. It addresses three primary concerns: the composer–performer interaction and the role of musical notation; the relationship between artistic creativity and reflexivity; and the sharing of skills and expertise across disciplines. The project led not only to a new musical work, but also to a technological device for ‘gesture-following’ (including customised motion sensors and innovative software), scientific papers, and new expertise in computer music design for future projects involving motion capture. These patterns of distributed creativity are essential to ‘musical research’ as a collective endeavour, and are present in many other circumstances of contemporary or traditional composition and performance.Less