5,989 research outputs found
Audiomobiles, Sculptures and Conundrums
No full textRoberto Gerhard was a pioneer of electronic music in England creating a number of substantial concert, theatre and radio works from as early as 1954. Gerhard’s electronic music is one of the richest repositories for understanding the development of the composer’s late compositional technique. Apart from the Symphony no.3, ‘Collages’, none of Gerhard’s electronic music is published. This paper will discuss aspects of Gerhard’s electronic music, focusing on Audiomobiles (1958-59) and Sculptures (1963)
Performance models for desktop grids
No full textMain characteristics of desktop grids are the large number of nodes and their heterogeneity. Application speedup on a large-scale desktop grid is limited by the heterogeneous computational capabilities of each node, which increase the synchronization overhead, and by the large number of nodes, that results in the serial fraction dominating performance. In this paper we present an innovative technique which may outperform the throughput of traditional grid applications by merging job partitioning and job replication. We utilize ordered statistics analytical models for the performance analysis of desktop–based grid applications. The models describe the effects of resource heterogeneity, serial fraction and synchronization overheads on the application– level performance. Using the models we show how the proposed policies can be tuned with respect to the size of the grid in order to optimize the grid throughput.
Roberto Gerhard’s Sound Compositions: A Historical-Philological Perspective. Archive, Process, Intent and reenactment
No full textThis research advances the current state of knowledge in the field of early tape music both empirically and methodologically. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact that the electronic medium exerted in the musical thinking of Roberto Gerhard, one of the most outspoken, prolific and influential composers in the Spanish diaspora whose musical legacy, for the most part unknown, is a major landmark in the early history of electroacoustic music. Gerhard’s personal tape collection, one of the largest historical archives of its kind reported in the literature, is exceptional for both its antiquity (50+-year-old tapes) and its abundance of production materials. Through the digitisation and analysis of the composer’s tape collection this research argues that the empirical study of audio documents sets out a basis for a broader understanding of textual processes. More specifically, the research demonstrates that the reconstruction of works based on magnetic tape sketches is a powerful method to advance the understanding of early tape music. This research also examines Gerhard’s sound compositions in relation to the post-war context in which they were composed. Finally, this research presents performance documentation that proposes an approach to the electroacoustic music repertoire in which creativity is not at odds with rigor and critical discernment demonstrating that archival study can be closely aligned to the concept of re-enactment
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