ï~~TEXTURAL COMPOSITION: IMPLEMENTATION OF AN
INTERMEDIARY AESTHETIC
Dr. Kerry L. Hagan
Centre for Computational Musicology and Computer Music
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
University of Limerick, Ireland
kerry.hagan@ul.ie
ABSTRACT
An approach to the creation of musical material, coined
here as "textural composition," addresses aesthetic
consequences of real-time stochastic sound mass
composition. Musical texture as source material exists
between sound-object (singular) and sound-objects
(plural), inducing an aesthetic of the intermediary. Since
sound diffusion is inextricably linked to composition,
spatialization requires an approach conducive to the
textural composition environment. This method of
spatialization falls in an intermediary zone between
point-source diffusion and the mimetic trajectory- or
path-based spatialization informed by psychoacoustic
principles. The aesthetic discussion is followed by the
technical details of the author's work, real-time tape
music III, a realization of textural composition.
1. INTRODUCTION
Dialectics may describe acousmatic music and its use of
acoustic space, i.e., its diffusion through loudspeakers.
On the one hand, there are sound-objects delineated by
characteristic spectromorphologies; on the opposing
extreme, indistinguishable elements comprise
' 2.
soundscapes. On one side, mimetic spatialization
techniques dissimulate the loudspeakers to serve the
illusion of movement and location. On the other side,
point-source compositions embrace the loudspeakers as
electromagnetic instrumentalists whose agency is
fundamental to the composition. However, intriguing
musics occur in the ambiguous mean between opposing
points. If a gradient exists, intermediate elements
become a third thing, as grey is neither black nor white.
If the continuum is perceived categorically, then the
1 The definition of acousmatic used here includes all visually
sourceless electroacoustic music preoccupied with image-in-sound,
sound-objects, and musical and acoustic spaces. This extends the
definition beyond electroacoustic music fixed on a medium; real-time
computer-generated music may be acousmatic provided it employs the
same approaches to sound.
2 Soundscape used here refers to the extreme "lo-fl" soundscape
described by Murray Schafer and discussed by Simon Emmerson [2]
and not the environmental compositions of the World Soundscape
Project [6].
midpoint becomes a fragile edge where substance
appears to flip or flutter between extremes.
In particular, two intermediary positions, one in
musical material and the other in spatialization, tender a
fecund ground for development. In material, texture
mediates between sound-objects and soundscape in a
precarious boundary between both, suggesting a
categorical perception of either. In spatialization, a
gradient exists, where a third spatialization objective
arises from intermediate domains: maximal mobility
with minimal psychoacoustic cohesiveness of trajectory
or location. The development and refinement of these
intermediary aesthetics resulted in the work real-time
tape music III, a real-time computer-generated
composition. The technical implementation of this work
provides an example of working within intermediate
terrains.
2. TEXTURAL COMPOSITION
The qualities associated with sound-objects are
metaphors from vision, taction, or corporality: volume,
size, texture, mobility, etc. In fact, the very notion of a
sound-object is a metaphor, however utilitarian.
Metaphors intrinsically provide rich fields for continua
since they often imbue ambiguity. The sound-object
metaphor must be explored firstly. Then, it can be seen
how the metaphor of texture can mediate sound-object(s)
and soundscape. When the focus of composition centers
on texture at the expense of other sonic qualities, one is
no longer simply composing a texture. One is creating a
textural composition, at which point the rich and varied
world of musical texture may be developed. In this
paper, "textural composition" is the practice of working
with musical texture and subjugating other musical
qualities for the express purpose of creating a sonic
space on the boundary between sound-objects and
soundscape.
2.1. Sound-Object - Sound Mass - Sound Monolith
The ontology of an object presupposes that it has
boundaries distinguishing it from other objects. The
metaphor of the sound-object exists because the qualities
and gestalt behaviors of a sound's time-varying
frequency spectrum distinguish it from the frequencies
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