Week of 09.27.10

In the new world were every sound is trackable, and usable in the context of a musical piece, one must set delimitations to focus the process of the composition. Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) set himself four delimitations for sounds to record that would then be unconventionally used in his pieces. These delimitations were that he could only record living elements, like animal sounds, noises, like found sound, modified and prepared instruments, and conventional instruments. With the confines of these parameters Schaeffer was able to compose electronic music that led him to the development of seven values that apply to all sounds. Mass, which is the organization of sound in a spectral dimension, Dynamics, which are measurable amplitude values of the sound, Timbre, which is the tonally qualities of the sound, the Melodic Profile, which is the temporal evolution of the sound in reference to the sound spectrum, the Profile of Mass, temporal evolution of the spectrum in reference to highs and lows, Grain, which is the analysis of the irregularities in surface and texture, and Pace, which is the analysis of the dynamic and amplitude irregularities. With these parameters of sound in mind, Schaeffer developed plans that would facilitate the compositional process of electronic music. These plans included a Harmonic Plan, which encompassed the material in al spectrums, a Dynamic Plan, which determined the envelope of the sound (Attack Decay Sustain Release), and a Melodic Plan, which is the development of pitch and tone over time.
While this was going on in France, there was a different kind of electronic music being developed over in Germany. While French electronic compositions were more organic, German compositions were much more methodical in that they were based on serialism, and 12 tone music. 12 tone music was the beginning of the serialist movement and was developed by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and is based on the concept of a tone row. A tone row consists of all twelve notes in a specific order, with no one note having any more or less significance than the other. No notes can be repeated until all the other notes in the row have been played. The order can be reversed and inverted, and the piece is to avoid having a tonal center or any type of formal cadence.
From these influences came the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) who is considered by some to be one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century. In 1952 Stockhausen began experimenting with tape in Pierre Schaeffer’s studio. From here he began to develop tape music, creating loops and using tape as a liner time editing device. Because tape is one of the most accurate physical manifestations of the way humans think of time, Stockhausen was able to do early Varispeed editing with his array of tape machines. This allowed him to speed up and slow down sounds to alter their pitch, timbre, and duration. By using sine wave tone generators and tape, Stockhausen was allowed to create serialized compositions that were birthed from the mathematical analysis of tones applied to the shape and editing of the sounds. Stockhausen was also able to develop his own method of notating these types of compositions that very much resembles the modern day PTools midi editor. Two graphs one above the other, the top graph has frequency (pitch) vertically, while the bottom graph showed the attack or velocity of the tone and its release. Time was shown horizontally. This notation first appeared in his 1954 composition Studie II. It was the first electronic composition for sine waves, and to have a score based on pitch, duration and attack. Stockhausen developed a principles for his process of electronic composition. These are first, a Unified Time Structure, meaning the modification of tone, dynamics, frequency and timbre via tape. Second, Splitting the Sound, that one must have the ability to edit and manipulate the smaller elements of the synthesized sound. Third, Mutli-Layered Composition, can be understood as the necessity of the control of the sound during performance, conversely not relying on the human element on performance. And Fourth, the Equality of Tone and Noise, which in Stockhausen’s words “any noise is musical” but “you can’t just use any tone in any interval” meaning that one must have more constructive thought that just the recording or generating of sound for the purpose of listening. Stockhausen’s work forever changed the way msic can be approached. He successfully worked toward liberating music from the confines of western music. His Helicopter String Quartet is a phenomenal undertaking of performance and compositional blend, and his fresh perspectives on the characteristics of sounds are inspirational if not musically, al least compositionally.