Compositional Methods in Electroacoustic Music - Adrian Moore ...

3.4 Paper Session 4
Paper 13 - Illustration and the compositional process: an update on pedagogical and creative
uses
15:00
Blackburn, Manuella
Liverpool Hope University
My compositional tool (first presented in 2008) based on the vocabulary of Denis Smalley’s Spectromorphology
has more recently evolved into a visually orientated aid for creating new acousmatic works. This shift
from descriptive language to image has revealed itself to be of great relevance not only to my own creative
practice of acousmatic music composition and mixed instrumental/electronics works, but also for pedagogical
situations in undergraduate teaching and school-aged learners (between 11-14).
My paper will provide an update of this compositional tool and how illustrations now find themselves as central
components within the composition construction process. Examples from two recent pieces, Switched On
(2011) and Triple Retort (2011) for cello, flute, mezzo-soprano and three laptops will provide an insight into
the internal working of my compositional process, while its application within pedagogy will be discussed using
examples from teaching experiences trialing the tool in the classroom. Offering the compositional tool
to a new demographic of school-aged learners has demonstrated the great flexibility of this research and the
importance of a visually tangible component when introducing electroacoustic music (especially acousmatic
music) to those uninitiated with the practice.
My illustrations contributed to Leigh Landy’s new book, Making Music with Sound (NY Routledge) will also
be introduced as a further educational aid and how future developments of this project may take this tool
further a field.
Paper 14 - Notes, Sounds, Outsides and Insides
15:30
Young, John
De Montfort University
This paper examines the functional uses of pitch in acousmatic music. The psychological phenomenon of
pitch is a basic form-bearing element in music: scales represent collections of perceptually related discrete
values, while patterns formed from scalic elements can be easily remembered, are invariant under transformation,
and can project functional relationships, such as in tonal music (McAdams and Saariaho, 1985). In
acousmatic music, pitch has become separated from the self-contained domain of the instrumental note, viz.
‘note abstraction’ (Francès, 1988) and part of a wider frame of relationships between sounds. Because of its
strong resonance with the instrumental tradition, focal pitch can be regarded as a difficult aspect of electroacoustic
music for acousmatic composers. An emphasis on timbral manipulation is often cited as a creative
imperative in electroacoustic music: expressed as complex evolving textures, or as forms developed out of the
sampled sounds of ‘physical’ objects: A traditional model of musical discourse resting principally on fixed instrumental
timbres can suffer in acousmatic space by appearing as a kind of second hand reflection of a performance
or, more colloquially, a recording of one.
Electroacoustic studio methods and associated rigorous analysis of sound and listening have taken a leading
role in refocusing musical thinking away from note abstraction toward a more comprehensive view of the
spectromorphological qualities of all sound in which a timbre offers a ‘spectrum of available pitches’: a sonic
interior (Smalley, 1986). The multidimensional space encompassed by timbre becomes a rich resource for musical
design. In addition, Erickson (1975) characterised timbre as having two basic musical functions: as carrier
and object. As carrier timbre takes a secondary role to the traditional primary functions of pitch and duration,
providing ‘subjective constancy’ of instrument or voice which is tied to and helps delineate the phrase
structure of music. As object it defines units such as instrumental identities, as well as the perceived character
of an instrument across its registers. In considering the formation of strategies for working with pitch,
electroacoustic methods and the concept of a sonic interior raise for the composer the perspective of a contin-
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