Imaginary Workscapes: Creative Practice and Research through Electroacoustic Composition

Compositional activity in electroacoustic music is central to the research culture of that field. Electroacoustic tools for sound manipulation and transformation allow the creation of sound materials that present new problems of integration, content and meaning in music, but it is proposed here that the only way to fully investigate their musical values is through compositional processes. This perspective is argued from the starting point of Margaret Boden's notion of the conceptual space as a framework for measuring different forms of creativity and innovation. Pierre Schaeffer’s typo-morphological summary of sound materials is identified as a relevant conceptual space for the materials of electroacoustic composition but it is further argued that only through practical engagement with sounds themselves can the full musical implications of Schaeffer’s theoretical outline be tested and validated. Denis Smalley’s discussion of techniques and motivations in the composition of his work ‘Pentes’ are evaluated as an example of a compositional research process shaped by the structure of Schaefferian typo-morphology.