composer takes his starting point in his own
listening to other music and transforms his
impressions to new music. The initial perspective
is directed towards music which is already there.
In the context of computer music, the bricoleur
composer especially relies on digital sampling and
editing, combined to some extent with DSP
techniques. Unlike composers from earlier days,
such as Charles Ives who worked according to
similar principles, he is not limited to composing
on paper, but can use recorded sounds and music
directly in creating new music. This allows for the
incorporation of timbre, which has been an
important factor in 20th century music in the
West, as a referent to other music.
Re-interpretations of musical instruments have
been known since John Cage first used radios and
record players in some of his early works. The use
of reproduction equipment for production
purposes is embodied in the digital sampler which
allows for recording as well as for digital
manipulation and playback of pre-recorded
material. The sampler, with its various sound
manipulation facilities, could be seen as the
bricoleur instrument par excellence.
When considering style and genre, bricolage can be
most obviously related to experimental music,
such as that of John Cage and his followers, and to
a crossing of electronic music with performance
and installation art. The DJ scene and its techno
music which relies heavily on the use of recorded
material, could also be a candidate for inclusion in
the bricoleur category.
The musical engineer
The musical engineer could be said to represent a
centuries- if not millennia-old tradition in Western
music. The skilful, almost obsessive, use of
abstract constructive elements, which cannot be
perceived by the listener, was conspicuous already
in 15th century composers such as Ockeghem and
Obrecht. This tradition has continued in different
guises up until the present day. Recently, it was
prominent in the total serialism of the 1950's and
1960's in which the pre-compositional
construction of all the musical 'parameters'
according to series of numbers played an import
part of the compositional process.
However, the tradition of emphasizing
mathematical relations behind the sonorous music
can be traced back to antiquity, as in Pythagoras'
concept of 'music of the spheres'. In this
philosophical tradition, musical sound is
understood as a sensuous representation of some
larger universal harmony. The perceptive
phenomena are subordinate to their assumed
cosmological implications. It should not be
forgotten that through the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, music was considered part of the
"quadrivium" of natural sciences, and musical
philosophy was still based on these antique
concepts.
Even today, in computer music, this philosophy
has its advocates, e.g. Xenakis who evokes the
"ancient civilizations" in his descriptions of a new
"sonic art" (Xenakis 1971:178). The importance
of numbers in music has once again come to the
fore in the guise of digital representation. No
doubt this ancient philosophy is an undercurrent in
the dominance of technological and mathematical
perspective in journals such as Computer Music
Journal and conferences such as this one.
The musical engineer bases his work on the
tradition of emphasizing numbers and abstract
structure in Western art music history. Computer
music composers in the engineer category are
eager to devise new technological tools to
facilitate the formation of new kinds of sound
material. In this respect, the composition process
becomes a research process as well, a research into
the nature of digital sounds, of instruments, of
spatialization and so on. An 'engineer composer'
in computer music works with sound as an abstract
physical entity rather than a cultural artifact, and
he will often want to create nie erhdrte Kldnge
using sophisticated synthesis methods.
CONCLUSION
We would like to emphasize that the attempt to
evaluate the analytical material in terms of the
bricoleur/engineer construction should by no
means be understood as an absolute categorization,
but only serve to clarify the aesthetic differences
we have been discussing. Like L6vi-Strauss, who
uses the terms bricoleur and engineer as equally
valid creative modes, we do not imply any
preference of the one to the other.
When considering our analytical examples, it was
clear that the pieces by Saariaho and Truax came
closer to the engineer end of the spectrum,
whereas the pieces by Pizzicato Five and Oswald
were leaning towards the bricoleur end.
Both Saariaho and Truax used specialized software
to explore the sound, putting it under a 'timbral
microscope'. In both cases, this exploration into
the micro-structure of the timbre was an
important key to the composition. Saariaho adds
an external story, while Truax sets out to
investigate how to use timbre to determine the
musical form. Although they both incorporate
concrete sound material, the pieces remain largely
abstract in nature. The two composers'
development and use of specialized software in the
exploration of material and method justifies the
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