1,721,029 research outputs found
Towards A Cross-Domain Notation
Get PDFThe musical score is an inherently ambiguous object that contains symbols that imply and refer to something other than themselves. The score acts as an imperfect form of communication between the composer and musician and relies upon a shared domain of knowledge to ensure that communication occurs at all. In this dissertation, the author explores the implementation of a notational system that requires musicians to interact with the conceptual metaphors that give meaning to the symbols in the musical score. I call this system cross-domain notation. Chapter 1 explains the conceptual framework that underlies cross-domain notation. Chapter 2 describes the four primary elements of cross-domain notation: presence, absence, and the established and discovered meaning and how these interact and support one another. Chapter 3 shows different implementations of cross-domain notation and how those are augmented through the use of digital scoring. Chapter 4 reflects on the process of working with musicians using this notation and on the next steps in developing cross-domain notation in other areas of the scoring process
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A Post-Intercultural Path: As wide as Persian music, jazz, and Western contemporary music
Get PDFThis dissertation explores the musical and extramusical concepts shaping Diaspersity, a radio opera that I produced in order to reflect on my life as a bicultural immigrant who has been constantly struggling with identity complexities in the music making process. While in the past several decades many musicians have moved towards intercultural practices, in many cases these attempts turn into an unbalanced space where one musical culture appears as an exotic element within a dominant musical culture. I suggest taking a “post-intercultural” path, which can be divided into “post-inter” and “post-cultural”. In a “post-inter” path, combining two musical cultures is neither the motivation nor the intention of a composer, but an organic personal quality based on the composer’s experiences. The “post-cultural” path suggests that, while various musical cultures—which include different musical traditions—exist, culture is a personal concept in the process of a creative work. Based on my personal background and experiences, I concentrate on intercultural music that incorporates classical Persian music, jazz, and Western contemporary music. Therefore, I provide a historical and theoretical analysis of intercultural music practices in Iran and its diaspora. I also analyze the repertoire of classical Persian music and its application in various intercultural settings through studying works by Iranian-American musicians. Ultimately, I argue that achieving a liberating intercultural experience is a fluid process rather than a fixed musical practice
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Algorithmic Improvisers
Get PDFIn this essay I explore the creation of interactive, improvising computer partners. I consider different forms of interaction with computer musical collaborators, be it through traditional musical instruments or alternative controllers. I discuss the work of David Cope, particularly his musical analysis and composition program Experiments in Musical Intelligence, George E. Lewis and his musical improviser Voyager, and finally Eduardo Reck Miranda’s work in algorithmic composition and alternative controllers. The ideas of each of these artists have significant implications for the design of interactive music systems and form the basis of my model of computer improvisation. My approach to improvisation is informed by various styles of the Western tradition—primarily jazz—from very open improvisation (free jazz) to highly structured improvisation.I begin by analysing key ideas behind interactive music systems, such as creating dialogue and reactivity compared to compliance. I then discuss how Cope’s EMI can be utilised as a framework for analysis and improvisation, and discuss other ways of listening and understanding incoming music. This is followed by a comparison of some forms of interaction and algorithmic composition, which comprises the main component of musical generation used by these computer systems. I conclude by discussing my own implementations of these concepts in the piece Henonistic
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Silent Music
Get PDFSince the twentieth century, silence has become an increasingly significant theme in the performing arts, including music and theater. This dissertation analyzes some of the most prominent approaches to composing with silence and offers new methods for using and creating silence in the context of a theatrical music performance. My methodology for investigating sonic and visual elements that evoke silence is derived from the notion of censorship and surveillance.The first chapter defines silence in music and theater and introduces its varieties, as well as the concepts of censorship and panopticism. In the second chapter, I analyze prior musical and theatrical works that either focus on silence, or have distinct silent moments. This includes pieces by John Cage, Salvatore Sciarrino, Krzysztof Penderecki, and György Ligeti, as well as a politically oriented play by Nassim Soleimanipour that is based on the theme of censorship. In the third chapter, I introduce a palette of silences and evocations of silence, which incorporates both methods employed by other composers and original techniques I have devised. In the last chapter, I detail the creative process of my film, Silent Music, a multidisciplinary project that integrates music, theater, and motion sensor technology. Through that analysis, I explain my methodology for composing a theatrical music piece centered on the notion of silence and censorship.This dissertation demonstrates the many capabilities of silence and will assist composers, directors, and performers in better understanding the variety of silence and how to use it as the main theme of a creative work
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Metric Interplay: A Case Study In Polymeter, Polyrhythm, And Polytempo
Get PDFThis thesis paper examines the use of polymeter as a compositional technique. I compare the terms polyrhythm, polymeter, and pdlytempo, and discuss their use in selected passages from the music of Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, and Frank Zappa. I also discuss polymetric and polyrhythmic interplay in my own work, using examples from my capstone MFA project, LAVA GLASS
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Performed Electronics: Compositional Paradigms for Reinforcing Human Agency in Electroacoustic Music
Get PDFWhile musicians have been performing with electronics for nearly a century, there still exists very little performable repertoire for electronicists. In fact, the notion of the electronicist as a performative role in contemporary classical music is still not necessarily widely accepted. It is still the case that most contemporary electroacoustic repertoire calling for live electronics refers only to the real-time nature of the electronic processes and not human action as it is enacted and perceived in real time. I present a new term in response to this issue which I call performed electronics. This new category of work (for which there are historical examples I adopt into the new terminology) focuses on liveness, performativity, and temporally immersive human agency given to the electronicist. I discuss what these terms mean in the context of performing with electronics, present three compositional paradigms for composing works for performed electronics, and analyze existing works that exemplify these concepts. I argue that these compositional approaches yield more engaging and compelling performances––for both performers and audience members––and that this practice is necessary in trying to promote the electronicist as a legitimate role in contemporary electroacoustic music
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Composing with Sound-Objects: A Methodology
Get PDFTechnology presents us with the ability to record and manipulate the entire universe of sound in a musical composition. As a result, composers are faced with an overwhelming—often paralyzing—amount of available musical options. My methodology focuses on how a sound-object informs the organization, collection, manipulation, and culmination of a work of electronic music. I believe that breaking down the number of choices to manageable bite-sized portions helps minimize ambiguity, and imposing limits on musical parameters helps the composer focus on productive musical options. This is a methodology where the sound-object holds primacy over the work and serves as the motivic touchstone from which to make all compositional decisions.Part one of the dissertation provides a definition of a sound-object and an historical overview. Part two is my methodology, which is divided into three working stages: onset, continuant, and termination. The onset stage discusses a compositional approach to organizing a piece of music based on the sound-object as motivic touchstone; it introduces the organizational process according to functional considerations as well as conceptual approaches. The continuant stage is the composer’s playground where sound is transformed. It includes the technical and practical approaches used to assess the many parameters of a sound-object, as well as how the object itself informs the transformations. Additionally, the continuant stage represents an approach to composition and improvisation—informed by the sound-object—that uses acoustic instruments. Finally, the termination stage brings all these elements together in order to finish the piece. This stage explores how the sound-object can inform the structure of the piece at the subsequent levels of event, phrase, section, and overall form. I will demonstrate this methodology by explaining how I composed five original pieces with sound-objects—Acoustic Memories (2019), Modular Voices (2019), Interconnected (2019), Synthetic Objects (2019), and Gucci Concrète (2019). Through the framework presented in this methodology, composers of electronic music will better understand this flexible medium of composition, by moving beyond the traditional grid of discrete pitches and rhythms, in order to control the entire universe of sound for their palette of inspiration
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‘Musical Gesture’ in Analysis: Gesture-Class as a formal structure
Get PDFIn this paper, I examine notions of musical gesture and their possible compositional and analytical applications. As a point of departure, I provide a provisional definition of musical gesture; I then posit a theory of gesture classification that draws on language used in post-tonal set theory, in order to develop the formalized structures of gesture-classes and gesture-class sets. These concepts serve as the basis for my analysis of music by Franco Donatoni, Cecil Taylor, and Mari Kimura. I use Franco Donatoni’s Omar: due pezzi per vibrafono to present and illustrate how a set theory of gesture can be applied to musical composition. Building on the sets shown in Omar, I discuss Cecil Taylor’s Indent in order to demonstrate systems of gestural flow between gesture-classes and gesture-class sets. Finally, I use Mari Kimura’s Clone Barcarolle to exemplify the complex relationships that exist in the hybrid space between musical and physical gestures. Through each of these brief case studies, I aim to provide vocabulary with which to describe music that can be seen as gestural in conception or construction, as well as insight into possibilities for new forms of composition based on exploration of gesture as a formal musical element
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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