TWENTIETH- - Synapse Music

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Timbre and Texture: Electronic 253 sound at a regular rate. Phase vocoding changes the playback rate of these "frames" of sound. Roger Reynold's Transfigured Wind IV (1985) for flute, and digital audio, uses phase vocoding to alter recordings of flute gestures, which are then played back as accompaniment to a li ve fluti st. Convolution is a type of cross synthesis, which takes the frequency characteristics of one sound and applies them to the frequency characteristic of another sound. The mathematical process involves multiplication of frequencies, which means that frequencies present in both sounds will be enhanced, while frequencies present in only onc sound will be eliminated. In one respect, it can be thought of as using onc sound to filter another sound. Other analysis/resynthesis techniques exist and have been used to good musical results. lonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1981) uses an analysis of a large church bell applied to the recording of a boy's voice. The effect is one of a merged boy and bell that produces unique and haunting textures. Paul Lansky's Idle Chatter (1985) takes analyzed vocal sounds and separates the more static portions from the fast-changing transients (the vowels from the consonants, plosives. and sibilance) to create a rhythmic chorus of nonsense vocal sounds. The affordability, power, and versatility of this technology have led. to a resurgence of interest and compositional activity in the area of concrete music. Composers are able to alter concrete sound sources digitally to create rich textures more easily and quickJy than with tape, and there is no loss of signal quality (or added noise) like that associated with analog techniques. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIDI While early programming languages required massive mainframe computers to synthesize sound (making access to them very limited) many composers today work with a variety of open-ended systems and premade systems on personal computers that provide far greater processing power than those earlier mainframes. Most premade applications trace their history to the development of the MIDI (<strong>Music</strong>al Instrument Digital Interface) specification in the early 1980s. MIDI is a digital communication standard (or language) designed originally to allow the synthesizers of one manufacturer to transmit performance instructions (such as, "now playa C4, now stop playing that C4") to synthesizers made by another manufacturer. MIDI made it easily possible for computers to store and communicate performance instructions, and led to the development of sequencing programs that allowed composers to organize and edit computer music scores in more musically intuitive ways than afforded by early programming languages. Despite MIDI's weaknesses (slow communication speed between devices, limited resolution of control values, and control parameters defined by keyboard performance only) the specification has remained largely unchanged since its inception. Even today, almost all new computer music synthesis programs (premade or open-ended) use MIDI as the basis for controlling parameters and communicating between applications. MIDI breaks down most of the common keyboard-based performance actions into a stream of bits (the smallest unit of binary data, I or O-on or off) arranged in groups of eight to form a byte. Usually two to three bytes are arranged to form a single MIDI message, with seven
254 Timbre and Texture: Electronic bits of each byte being used to represent a value from 0 to 127. When a key is pressed on a MIDI keyboard, a message is sent that tells what key was pressed and usually how fast (or hard) the key was pressed. Since MIDI is a performance language that only transmits information when something changes, a separate message is sent when the key is released. There are a variety of MIDI messages allowing one to transmit a variety of performance information. 111e most common messages include the following: NOle on/off messages- Transmit information about what key is pressed or released, and how it was pressed or released. Continuous controllers- Transmit information about loudness, vibrato, position in stereo field (left/right), sustain pedals, and a variety of similar information through the use of knobs, sliders, pedals, and aftertouch (pressing harder on a key that is already being held down). Pilch bend-Allows inflection of pitch. Program (Patch) changes-Selects a program to be used to produce a sound or effect, allowing one to change the sound of an instrument playing. Whereas MIDI was designed to allow communication between synthesizers in a live pertormance situation, many composers use MIDI to organize communication with synthesizers and software as part of the composition process. The most common application used for this purpose is a MIDI sequencer. Although MIDI does not transmit digital audio, most sequencer applications are modeled after a multitrack tape recorder, with performance information separated into tracks based on the synthesizer or software chosen to receive the jnformation. What is more significant than the ability to organize information into tracks is the capability to edit stored MIDI data much like a word processor does. A sequencer allows a composer to cut, copy, paste and rearrange MIDI data, change or transpose notes, change the durations of notes, change loudness, change instruments, record new information, as well as a variety of other such transformations. MIDI sequencing programs are now almost always combined with graphic audio mixing programs, and this combination forms the centerpiece of much computer music composition. Although the programs are oriented in both layout and editing commands toward" more traditional (and tonal) forms of music, experienced composers have adapted them for use in more modern and abstract ways. SAMPLERS, PERSONAL COMPUTERS,AND RECENT TRENDS IN DIGITAL SYNTHESIS The same principles that all ow a computer to generate and record sound found their way first into dedicated devices called samplers and later to personal computers through the use of software. Samplers (either hardware or software) are devices that record sound digitally into memory which can then be played back, either as recorded or after being
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78.036 K88rn 3.ed . e.02 ; , , Mate
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1 2 PREFACE Contents THE TWILIGHT O
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5 6 SUMMARY 92 NOTES 92 EXERCISES 9
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PRIME FORMS AND SET CLASSES 185 THE
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EXERCISES 280 14 THE ROLES OF CHANC
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---- -- -- -- -- ONE---- -- -- -- -
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The Twilight of the Tonal System 3
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The Twilight of the Tonal System 13
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4. See, for example, notes 2 and 3.
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Scale Formations in Twentieth-Centu
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---------THREE--------- INTRODUCTIO
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VOICE LEADING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY
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4. Arnold Schoenberg, Style alld id
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Harmonic Progression and Tonality 9
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108 Harmonic Progression and Tonali
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INTRODUCTION 11 4 SIX Developments
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136 Developments in Rhythm Finally,
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Form in Twentieth-Century Music 147
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150 Form in Twentieth-Century Music
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164 Imports and Allusions Quotation
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-----------NINE----------- INTRODUC
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SUBSETS Nonserial Atonality 189 Som
Page 229: 214 Classical Serialism SUMMARY The
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Page 251: 236 Timbre and Texture: Acoustic Sp
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Page 262: Timbre and Texture: Electronic 247
Page 271 and 272: 256 Timbre and Texture: Electronic
Page 274: SUMMARY Timbre and Texture: Electro
Page 280: INTEGRAL SERIALISM Serialism After
Page 299 and 300: --------FOURTEEN-------- INTRODUCTI
Page 301: 286 The Roles of Chance and Choice
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316 Minimalism and Beyond SUMMARY A
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Appendix Prime Forms, Forte Labels,
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Materials and Techniques of TWENTIE
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