Browsing by Author "Emmerson, Simon"
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Item Metadata only Aeolian(2016) Emmerson, SimonI have for many years had ideas for a piece based on the notion of Odyssey, that original story of journey – often frustrated – and eventual return. In recent years it has developed and become a multi-part project, encouraged by several trips to Greece to perform and lecture. One part will be a live electronic piece, a quartet for solo flute player (playing concert flute, piccolo, alto, bass). These instruments produced the source sounds used in the part performed tonight, the acousmatic work Aeolian. Aeolian develops my idea of ‘concert installation’ – works that are in fact mobile and may run in repeating loops which present shorter constituent ‘moments’ in different orders. For tonight I have created a fixed concert version of about 10 minutes which includes eight short ‘moments’. Reading the Odyssey, sometimes I think the many episodes are indeed moments that might have occurred in a different order as Odysseus is continually blown off course at the whim of one god or another, waylaid by a fabled character or faced with an impossible dilemma in how to move forward. My special thanks to Katrin Zenz (flutes) and Apostolos Loufopoulos (who lent us his Athens studio for source recording).Item Metadata only The Analysis of Electroacoustic Music, the Differing Needs of its Genres and Categories(Electroacoustic Music Studies Network, 2012) Landy, Leigh; Emmerson, SimonThis paper reports on our (Arts and Humanities Research Council funded) project New Multimedia Tools for Electroacoustic Music Analysis, designed for a range of genres, drawing together existing methods, engaging the latest interactive and hypermedia tools, and applying them to compare their strengths and weaknesses. This depends on mutually interactive questions such as which tools/approaches, for which works/genres, for which users, with what intentions. We will report on newly developed applications – EAnalysis (Pierre Couprie), OREMA (Online Repository for Electroacoustic Music Analysis) (Michael Gatt) – a forum for sharing and discussing analyses – and preparations for a major new publication ‘Expanding the Horizon of Electroacoustic Music Analysis’ (CUP). We initially divided this field into genres or ‘practices’ (e.g. acousmatic, electronica, glitch); but these have hybridised continuously – an installation may include algorithmic generation, be interactive, and use soundscape and acousmatic materials. We need a range of tools for analysis. Descriptions refer to materials or to methods of organisation, but this distinction cannot be maintained. From the listener’s viewpoint, does knowledge of a generative algorithm influence perception and hence analysis? Analysis may include socially situated characteristics of production, perception and consumption. Glitch and hacking works analysed from their sound alone would surely lose a substantial part of their meaning. How to capture these additional dimensions, including emotional response? What other traces should run in parallel to standard transcription? Any analytical procedure must balance the gravitational pull of genre with a networked, relativistic world of characteristics which reconfigure depending on initial questions.Item Metadata only The analysis of live and interactive electroacoustic music: Hans Tutschku - Zellen-Linien (2007)(Cambridge University Press, 2016-04) Emmerson, SimonAn analysis of Hans Tutschku's work Zellen-Linien for piano and live electronics, starting from the listening experience and working back to the score and performance instructions.Item Metadata only Arenas (piano, brass quintet, electronics) (25’00”).(2003-11-06) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only Combining the acoustic and the digital: music for instruments and computers or pre-recorded sound.(Oxford University Press, 2011) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only Dreamscape(2011) Emmerson, SimonI wrote down a text describing a dream on the 11th April 2001. I see and hear music for piano, harpsichord and electronics – it suggests a piece based on the idea of resonance and changing colours. The visual description of electronic surfaces I think is metaphorical. This suggests the role of the electronics would be to extend, colour and embellish – and amplification would be used to balance the two instruments. In the dream I heard sounds that contrasted yet were integrated in the same sonic space. When at some time in 2010 the opportunity arose for me to write this piece for Keynote+ I remembered the dream and started to elaborate the idea. Stockhausen (Refrain), Cage (Etudes Australes) and some Feldman lie behind some of the sense of time and space. But I always write for specific performers – I have written two works for Jane Chapman (Points of Departure (1993) and Time-Space (with baroque flute) (2001) both with electronics) and Kate Ryder has recently performed Shades (of Night and Day) (1989) – and small hints of these appear. The final work is a lot more developed than the dream sketch – though something of this remains in three ‘chorales’, at the beginning, middle and end. Spatialisation is multichannel (though a ‘touring version’ with simplified projection is available) enveloping the audience in ‘spatialised colour’.Item Metadata only Electroacoustic Music before Language(EMS Network, 2018-06) Emmerson, Simon'The Language of Electroacoustic Music' (Emmerson, 1986) has remained in print continuously since its publication. This paper examines the questions: What has changed in this time? Why has electroacoustic music practice remained so separate from other forms of instrumental contemporary music and neglected by the musicology community? Electroacoustic music has (with some significant exceptions) developed a practitioner-led musicology. Why has this musicology failed to make much impact in more mainstream discourse? This paper develops an argument that ‘language’ may not be the best word to describe relationships in this music. It may be better to relate the field to a pre- or proto- language of sound.Item Metadata only EMAS and Sonic Arts Network (1979–2004): Gender, Governance, Policies, Practice(Routledge, 2016-07-04) Emmerson, SimonThis article is based on an examination of the minutes of the Committee/Board and annual general meetings of the Electro-Acoustic Music Association of Great Britain and its successor organisation, Sonic Arts Network, in the period 1979–2004, as well as other supporting documentation. It looks at the ebb and flow of gender constitution. There was a remarkable year or two in the 1990s when gender balance was almost within sight; but then the conditions fostering this period of potential gender balance seem to have dissipated. I reflect on this history, asking related questions: how was the changing gender balance reflected in the commissioning of works and curation of CDs? How were ‘equal opportunities’ issues addressed by the Board as they became more explicit? And how successfully?Item Metadata only Expanding the Horizon of Electroacoustic Music Analysis(Cambridge University Press, 2016-04-07) Emmerson, Simon; Landy, LeighThis edited collection presents a state-of-the-art overview of analysis methods for electroacoustic music (in 3 parts).Item Metadata only Feeling sound(Peeters, 2018) Emmerson, SimonI have been listening to electronically produced and mediated music for about 45 years and I can clearly recall the thrill of early performances I attended, broadcasts and recordings I listened to. What was it that attracted me to this new soundworld? How would I describe the sensations (both physical and emotional) that such sound elicited then and still does now? On some of these occasions I would describe my response as ‘transcendental’. My aim in this chapter is to encourage a vocabulary of describing responses to electroacoustic sound – in this I treat the perception system and the body as inseparable; the psychology of being thrilled is clearly not just a mental act but profoundly embodied. I will focus on music made with technology, whether in studios or produced live, and that is finally heard through loudspeakers – ‘electroacoustic’ sound.Item Metadata only From dance! To “dance”: distance and digits(2001-04-01) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only In what form can "live electronic music" live on?(2006-12-01) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only Instrumentality, perception and listening in crossadaptive performance(ICLI, 2018-06) Emmerson, Simon; Baalman, Marije; Brandtsegg, OyvindCrossadaptive processing describes situations where one performer’s output effects the audio processing of another, thus imposing direct modulation on the sound of another performer’s instrument. This is done by analysis of the acoustic signal, extracting expressive features and creating modulation vectors that can be mapped to audio processing parameters. Crossadaptive performance can be situated between the performance practices of the audio processing musician, augmented (acoustic) instruments, live algorithms, group improvisation and interconnected musical networks. The addition of crossadaptive processing to these musical practices brings up questions of agency and instrumentality. Performance with crossadaptive techniques produces complex behaviours that are difficult to describe by the performer or the listener. This paper covers issues of transparency and technical language, instrument and ensemble learning. For the performer a shared ensemble identity may emerge. And for the listener we discuss the role of intention and emergent musical behaviour.Item Metadata only Introduction(Cambridge University Press, 2016-04-07) Emmerson, Simon; Landy, LeighIntroduction to the book that we editedItem Metadata only Introduction: music practice - reaching out with technology(Routledge, 2018-05-21) Emmerson, SimonThis introductory chapter starts with a look at evolving terminology in the field of what is loosely called ‘electronic music’. Terminology was originally bound into a very canonic view of history: musique concrète, tape music and elektronische Musik. To these terms have steadily been added computer music, electroacoustic music, acousmatic music. However live electronics is both the least defined and the most progressive (even subversive) practice. Terms derived from more popular musics added their vocabulary, too: electronica, IDM, glitch and so forth. Then we might add a group of practices variously described as Sonic Art, Sound Art, Sound Sculpture, Sound Installation. Such descriptions have varying emphases on materials, technical means and compositional approaches. New terms are introduced while existing ones subtly shift application. Emerging in the 21st century are new practices based on expanded notions of behaviour enabled by new human-computer interfaces. The second part introduces the specific topics and individual chapters of the book, focusing on how technology allows a ‘reaching out’, based on new multidisciplinary practices enabled by ‘smart’ means, fast AV networks, and new interfaces to neuro-scientific approaches. Such reaching out is literal and prosthetic (immersive and global), but also social (issues of exclusion), as well as further enabling to those whose physical capabilities may be limited.Item Metadata only Listening in time and over time – the construction of the electroacoustic musical experience(EMS Network (online publication), 2014) Emmerson, SimonThe relationship of ‘music’ to ‘sound art’ is increasingly discussed. This seems to take two forms: firstly a discussion of terms – the meaning of words. Thus ‘is there a distinction in meaning?’ tends to become ‘is all music really sound art?’ (and vice versa!). On the other hand this must be based on a greater engagement with substance: what distinguishes these two descriptors in their practice. A first stage distinction has often been made. Music maintains a ‘beginning-middle-end’ paradigm and demands attention from start to finish, while sound art can be ‘sampled’ without damage to the creator’s intention – indeed it may be part of that intention. Clearly such a simple dialectical split has been eroded and a continuum tentatively established. Human performance of any kind tends to be designated ‘music’ but may be sampled as if it were ‘sound art’ (especially) if extended in time and (crucially) if the venue allows or encourages movement of the audience. This clearly generates a new kind of work. Conversely, in ‘open’ spaces I have frequently observed focused listening for extended periods. Furthermore there are issues of signal to background noise ratio in the listening space. What function can dynamic range and frequency range have in ‘lo-fi’ spaces? The freedom of some sound art (for example) to create the unexpected for an unpredictable audience cannot necessarily easily be disciplined into a narrative chain or any other kind of through composed ‘logic’. Several kinds of hybridization (and compromise) are at work here. The discussion will include issues of listening – the ‘forming’ of experience in a variety of spaces. The composer may try to create what I term ‘local forms’, sometimes ‘fractal forms’ (small segments that reveal the shape and order of larger structures). These are designed to have be grasped at shorter and more immediate timescales and to become meaningful ‘moments’. At the other extreme we may have ‘flux’ and ‘drift’ forms that seem to suspend the passing of time in their slow change – yet these, too, may allow a different kind of intense experience. The principles of Stockhausen’s moment form in both mobile and fixed versions (Momente and Kontakte, for example) will be examined; I will argue that it may be reworked as a listening strategy and eventually an analytical approach that crosses the music-sound art distinction.Item Metadata only Listening With Machines: A shared approach(Cambridge University Press, 2015-03-05) Emmerson, SimonThe aim of this article is to review the last twenty years of ‘machine listening’1 to sound and music, and to suggest a balanced approach to the human–machine relationship for the future. How might machine listening, and MIR2-based ideas of data storage, retrieval and presentation enhance both our embodied experience of the music and its more reflective study (analysis)? While the issues raised may be pertinent to almost any music, the focus will remain on electroacoustic music in its many forms, whether for interactive composition, performance or analytical endeavour. I suggest a model of listening with – that is, alongside – machines in such a way that our skills may be enhanced. What can we share with machines to mutual advantage?Item Metadata only Live Electronic Music or Living Electronic Music?(Routledge, 2012) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only Living electronic music(Ashgate, 2007) Emmerson, SimonItem Metadata only Local/Field and beyond - The scale of spaces(Transcript, 2015) Emmerson, SimonThis chapter develops earlier ideas of the author on 'local' and 'field' spaces in the composition and performance of music made with technology. This focuses on discussion of the 'prosthesis' of electronics and how we handle the vast expansion of musical space that technology makes possible.