CSM 26: Electroacoustic Music
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/733714854
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Item Open Access Jim Franklin: Heart (1995)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1995) Composer: Jim Franklin; Grafton-Greene, Michael"Heart is built around the Maka Hannya Haramita Shin Gyoh (given below), the Sino-Japanese version of the Great Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra, one of the central texts of Zen Buddhism. An intonation of this text, for processed voice, frames the piece, and is accompanied by a synthetic texture. In the central section, the electronic textu re underpins and interacts with a solo shakuhachi (classical Japanese bamboo flute). Throughout the piece, the electronic layer is based on gestures and harmonic structures typical of the shakuhachi repertoire, although the timbral world makes no attempt to imitate the voice or flute. Despite its presentation here in recorded form, the piece was conceived for live performance. The electronic texture is generated through the actions of the solo performer (in this case, myself) who, in addition to shakuhachi, plays two small MIDI keyboards. Output from these keyboards is transformed by, and triggers event generation in, a MAX patch running on a laptop computer which forms part of the performance system. The synthetic sound sources are generated by several analogue and FM synthesizer modules, vintage 1985-1994, and signals are treated by three effects processors. The present recording was made as a single take of a studio performance, using this equipment. For me, the juxtaposition of voice and shakuhachi on the one hand and synthetic sounds on the other throws into relief the similarities and differences between human-performed acoustic instruments, and human-controlled synthetic sound worlds. Nevertheless, I feel that the density and beauty of the electronic texture requires the flesh and blood, the breath and vital energy of the acoustic performance to bring it to life." -- Jim FranklinItem Open Access Stephen Adam: Chromophony (1993)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1993) Composer: Stephen Adam; Grafton-Greene, Michael"The imaginary title loosely translates from the Greek as 'coloured voice'. The human voice provides a significant range of sound types for electroacoustic transformation, (d)evolution, or colouring. This piece takes samples from that palette of possibilities, focussing on the utterances and sustained textures which maintain links with the human voice, even under radical modification. The piece contrasts discrete and continuous elements in various ways. At the lowest formal level, the pseudo-linguistic solo utterances with which the piece opens stand in opposition to the sustained, unvoiced and 'massed' sound textures whose emotive and morphological attributes are far less clearly defined. At a higher formal level, the (discrete) episodes in the early stages of the work which incidentally outline a symbolic transition from 'higher' to 'lower' life form give way to a predominantly transformational (continuous) motion. At a little over halfway through the piece, this trajectory is reiterated; its commencement is marked by the 'explosion of plosives' which gradually merge and subside to reveal a single, and substantially time stretched, utterance. While this section reinforces the motion from discrete to continuous sound events, it simultaneously mirrors the overall trajectory of solo voice to dense texture evident in the first half of the piece. With only a few exceptions, the sounds used in the piece are of vocal origin and, in order of frequency of appearance, are the voices of Joan Pollock, Trish Anderson and myself." -- Stephen AdamItem Open Access Ross Bencina: "Why Are You So Stupid?" (1993)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1993) Composer: Ross Bencina; Grafton-Greene, Michael"Completed at the end of 1993, 'Why Are You So Stupid?' marked the composer's entry into the electroacoustic domain. Sound worlds collide as the music of an all too recent youth is juxtaposed against a text by John Cage. Kim Elmer played electric guitar in his garage, Ross read Cage in his bedroom; sound manipulations were performed on a humble personal computer with the assistance of some creative programming on the part of the composer." -- Ross BencinaItem Open Access Ian Fredericks: Requiem For A Planet(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Ian Fredericks; Grafton-Greene, Michael"Requiem fora Planet is a radiophonic work commissioned by the Sydney radio station 2MBSFM with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. That is, the work's primary venue for performance is intended as broadcast from two channel stereo radio and other like recorded media. The entire work was synthesised and edited on my own PC based computer music workstation in the '.WAV' multimedia format using mainly the software base IANSMUSE which I originally developed for the multi user, eight audio channel (phase coherent) computer music system project called JESSIE in the Music Department at the University of Sydney. Sometimes I like to work with strong dramatic images, particularly in relation to the 'radiophonic' concept. The imagery in the Requiem Mass, especially the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), provides excellent material for a dramatic piece. If a 'modern' translation of this text is attempted, then the picture painted of the end of the world in the light of modern cosmological knowledge is quite astonishing. For example the first two verses of the Dies Iras: There will come a day of great wrath and on that day all of humanity will be broken down into the ashes of the dead and this will be witnessed by David (son of God) and the prophetess Sibyl. This time of great trembling is destined to come and at that time the Judge will come in the form of a mighty wind and each and every human being will be summarily shattered to pieces. Compare this 'word picture' with the scenario of the sun going supernova! One of the most demanding aspects of the work was the computer synthesis of all the voices, both 'spoken' and 'sung'. Two synthesis techniques were used. The first is an additive synthesis technique, which I wrote as part of IANSMUSE, which allows for continuous specification of musical parameters over an arbitrary time scale. The specification is then interpolated by the computer programs add and space. Continuous and very precise specification of pitch, volume, timbre and spatial position is possible, and results in a well animated sound which constantly evolves in 'natural' ways. This technique was used for the synthesis of the sustained sung vowel tones in the Requiem and Kyrie, and forthe bell-like sounds in the Bell Storm and Sanctus. The second technique uses the commercially available so called 'speech synthesis engine' called 'Text Assist' for 'Windows'. This 'speech synthesis engine' uses a DSP chip driven by a windows software package which calls for the specification of a phoneme followed by a number that represents pitch (1 -37) in semitones and time length to sustain that particular phoneme (milliseconds). Of great use was the 'Speech Dictionary', which gives a phonetic interpretation of the words typed into the dictionary. This provided a means of translating the Latin words into the set of phonemes which the speech synthesiser could 'understand'. The one big problem was, however, that the phonetic structures provided are all based on models of American English. I spent quite a lot of time trying to remedy this." -- Ian FredericksItem Open Access David Worrall: Harmonie Du Soir (1995)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1995) Composer: David Worrall; Grafton-Greene, Michael"This work is a setting of the last four lines of Charles Baudelaire's 1857 poem, Harmonie du soir : Un cceur tendre qui hail le neant vaste et noir, Du passe lumineux recueille tout vestige! Le so teil s'est noye dans son sang qui se fige... Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir! (A tender heart that hates the huge black void, Is gathering to itself all traces of the luminous past! The sun has drowned in its congealing blood... And like a monstrance your memory shines in me!) All the sounds in the work originate from a single reading of these lines of the poem. The (speaking) voice was separated into its voiced and unvoiced components. Using Fourier techniques, these components were then subjected to a number of different frequency analyses. Controlling the analysis window size and shape in unusual ways produced highly non-linear and sometimes bizarre results, which were-then time dilated using both phase vocoder and non-interpolating techniques, and resynthesised. The different timbres were then filtered and resynthesised before the final mixture was assembled. The work has four easily identifiable sections. The first and (shorter) third sections are based on unvoiced sounds; the second is based on the original sound with the voiced and unvoiced components intact, and the longer final section uses justthe voiced components compressed together. Time dilations are 19/n , 19/e, 19, and 31. The voice is that of Katy Pallier, to whom the work is dedicated. The work was made in the studios at the Australian Centre for the Arts and Technology using Neuman U87 microphone, Sony PCM 2700 DAT recorder, DSP on Macintosh and SGI computers using SVP (IRCAM), Soundtools and MIX." -- David WorrallItem Open Access Anthology of Austraian Music on Disc: CSM: 26 Electroacoustic Music Works by Kreger, Franklin, Adam, Worrall, Bencina and Fredericks(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Crisp, DeborahItem Open Access Tim Kreger: Babel's Legacy(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Tim Kreger; Grafton-Greene, Michael"This piece uses a DNA based algorithm to generate and manipulate melodic data. The entire piece has been generated from the melodic 'seed' which opens it. The algorithm iteratively produces variations on the melodic material present in the system at the time of generation. There are periods of growth in material as well as periods of decay, where melodic information becomes scarce. The rising and falling drone-like patterns in the background are also produced using a variation on this method. The spatial location and movement of the melodic parts are controlled by a non-linear equation known as a Lorenz Attractor. The piece deals with the constant evolution of information systems. Although the language of the piece continues to change, at any point one can hear its entire history of evolution. The reference to Babel in the title ties together the ideasoi DNA and 'the mother tongue', and this is perhaps the most important concept within the piece." -- Tim Kreger