Speech-Based Computer Music: Selected Works by Charles Dodge and Paul Lansky
by Madelyn Byrne
Hunter College and Columbia University
MByrn e1204@A OL C OM
Abstract
This paper examines two speech-based computer music compositions: W~ord Color by Paul Lansky, and
In Celebration by Charles Dodge. The following issues are considered; the composers' treatment of the voice,
text interpretation, musical structure, timbre, and use of computer music programs.
1. Introduction
There were two general questions that propelled
me toward a study of speech-based computer music,
these were a desire to understand the musical and
expressive possibilities of speech, and how various
computer programs could be used to create music
with those possibilities. I choose to analyze pieces
that set meaningful texts and that were skiliftully
crafted by the composer to enhance the speaker's
interpretation of those texts. The pieces discussed in
this paper are Wo0rd Color by Paul Lansky and In
Celebration by Charles Dodge.
Paul Lansky has often stated that he wishes to
make explicit the implicit music in speech. In this
endeavor, Lansky has often collaborated with Hfannah
MacKay, an accomplished actress, who has a
remarkable speaking voice.
Charles Dodge has cited a long-held interest in
acoustics and the voice, and the work of a number of
Swedish text-sound composers, as having influenced
hi~s work. Dodge has also said that he was interested
in the possibilities of computer generated speech, and
that he wanted to integrate more of his personality
with his music. He found a successful way of doing
these things in his speech synthesis pieces. (Dodge
has created a number of pieces that use a synthetic
voice based upon the qualities of his own voice.)
Among the factors considered in these analyses are
text interpretation, treatment of the voice, musical
structure, timbre, and the composers' choice and use
of computer programs.
2. Word Color (1992~) by Paul Lausky
Important components of WVord Color include the
musical structure of the composition, the use of comb
filters, the careful manner in which the piece alternates
between isolated words and fragments of verse 17 of
Walt Whitman's Song of Miyself, and finally, how
these factors work together to create a unified whole.
WVord Color is a computer music composition
based completely on samples of Hannah MacKay's
reading of the aforementioned isolated words and
Whitman text. Paul Lansky took the isolated words
from children's stories; most of them refer to time.
This piece was premiered at a festival in Delphi on a
cliff overlooking the sight of the oracles. Lansky
wanted a text befitting such a setting and chose the
Whitman text for its "oracular" quality. He was
especially drawn to the Whitman text for its broadbased character and its suggestions that profound truth
is both familiar and universal. Universal truth is often
thought of as timeless. This may explain the
composer's juxtaposition of time oriented words and
Whitman text fragments heard throughout the
compo sition.
The composer is also interested in the double
meaning of resonance, "Wtord Color is based on the
sense that words, as sounds, can ring, and have
resonance in our memory. Whiile that memory may
be regarded as purely sonic, words themselves
inevitably reach more deeply into other areas of our
consciousness....")
Lansky elaborated on this idea in our interview,
The piece evolves over a course of time. One of
the ideas of the piece was to capture the resonance
of sound. For instance, everyone has the
experience of saying a word and then saying it
again, and again and at a certain point it makes no
sense. It becomes a timnbral object. I was
interested in that. The idea was that these words
just hang in space. There are ten second reverbs
on words and they're just sort of hanging out there.
I was also interested in the arbitrary nature of these
words hanging out in space. As the piece evolves,
the Whitman text comes to the surface - but more
than that - the whole feeling of words as objects
comes to the surface. It's a complicated texture.
At the end there' s a series of repeated ascending
chords. I was inspired by Bizet' s L 'arlesienne
Suite.... The idea was to take the chords and at
the end resolve them into this pattern that goes on
but the harmonies change with each four. There is
a sense that it gets darker, it moves inward and
becomes introspective with the repeated chords.
The composer used comb filters for harmony and
bass tones, and comb~pluck ( a CMIX instrument
combining comb filters with the "plucked string"
algorithm) to create a melodic accompaniment in a
high register, somewhat analogous to a descant. These
programs are never used to obscure the reader's voice,
but rather to accompany her consistently clear and
audib~le reading. With regard to combpluck, Lansky
ICM~C Proceedings 1Y999 6
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