Leonardo Music Journal
with Compact Disk
Volume 4 (1994)
December 1994/January 1995
Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ) is a print journal, published annually with an accompanying compact disk. LMJ is edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and published by the MIT Press. Subscriptions and individual issues can be ordered from the MIT Press.
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ARTIST'S NOTE: Music from the
Center of the Earth: Three Large-Scale Sound Installations
by ALVIN CURRAN
ABSTRACT
The author describes Music from the Center of the Earth,
a series of three electronic music installations deploying
underground loudspeakers in various configurations. The works
described are Notes from Underground, a tape piece realized in
conjunction with Melissa Gould's light installation, Floor Plan;
The Magnetic Garden, a collective musical earthwork united by the
author's underground sound chambers and musics emulating
biological time; and The Listening Well, an interactive listening
and performing space that centers around a well designed both to
play back a continuous sound-portrait of the world and to dialogue
with sounds "cast" in it by the public.
ARTIST'S NOTE: Radio Art in
Waves
by FRANCES DYSON
ABSTRACT
Through descriptions of three of her sound pieces---The Logic of
Waste (1989), Voices Lost and Calling (1990) and
Highways to Virtuality (1991)---the author outlines some of
the theoretical concepts and strategies that underlie her work,
and the way they relate to both her compositional practice and her
choice of aural material. Through this description, central
concerns of her work---such as the impact of technology, the
Western worldview and the status of sound in Western culture,
ecology and militarism---are exemplified, and the importance of
audio art as an appropriate medium for addressing these issues is
highlighted.
ARTIST'S NOTE: Transients of
Attack and Hybrid Sounds: Toward a New Mixity
by MICHAEL LEVINAS
ABSTRACT
This article aims to explain the compositional principles of the
author's Prefixes (1991), for instrumental ensemble and
MIDI clavier. For him, this composition represents a new "mixity"
between direct sound and loudspeaker sound that has come out of
computer synthesis. "Mixity" is a term specific to the author's
music that differs from both "mix" and "mixture" through its
reference to this combination of electrically amplified and
non-amplified sound. Prefixes is the logical outcome of the
author's development of the principle of hybridized sound.
Hybridization affects the transients of attack: the neuralgic and
decisive moment from which instrumental sound surges. The theory
of mixity concentrates on the hybridization that results from
fixing signaling particles to the initiative of a sonorous,
acoustic entity.
ARTIST'S NOTE: Interactive Radio
by GREG SCHIEMER
ABSTRACT
Despite prevailing program formats, broadcast radio is a medium in
which an unprecedented level of communal participation can be
combined with the public exposition of private sound worlds. Two
of the author's recent broadcast radio events are discussed here
in detail: Concert on Bicycles (1983--1984), a program
broadcast from a community radio station to an audience of
cyclists who participated by riding en masse while listening to
portable radios attached to their bicycles; and Talk-Back
Piano (1991), an interactive radio broadcast during which
members of the radio audience telephoned the radio station and
used vocal and other sound to influence a live-to-air
improvisation taking place on a computerised player-piano called
a Disklavier.
TECHNICAL ARTICLE: Brahms at the Piano: An Analysis of Data from the
Brahms Cylinder
by JONATHAN BERGER AND CHARLES NICHOLS
ABSTRACT
In 1889, Johannes Brahms recorded a segment of the first of his Ungarische Tanze
(Hungarian Dances) in an arrangement for solo piano. The authors describe the analysis and
reconstruction of this recording and examine the implications of this work as a contribution to
the understanding of performance practices in the late nineteenth century.
TECHNICAL ARTICLE: L-Systems, Melodies and Musical Structure
STEPHANIE MASON AND MICHAEL
SAFFLE
ABSTRACT
Among musical symmetries and self-similarities are those that can
be produced using Lindenmayer-system (L-system) curves to generate
melodies and rhythmic patterns. In 1986, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz
introduced a simple method of producing relatively complex musical
scores that incorporate a legible internal structure. Using a
scheme called edge-rewriting, one of the authors, Stephanie Mason,
has extended Prusinkiewicz's methods to generate melodies and
polyphonic structures that conform to traditional Western
expectations. By stretching certain L-system curves, she has also
duplicated melodic phrases associated with hundreds of
pre-existing works by classical and popular Western composers. The
authors discuss the possible link between the perception of
musical beauty and the fractal or quasi-fractal character of music
associated with L-system curves.
SPECIAL SECTION
Sounding the Mind: Music and Cognitive Theory
Guest Editor: Kathryn Vaughn
Introduction: Music, Cognition and Culture
by KATHRYN VAUGHN
Music and Trance
by JUDITH BECKER
ABSTRACT
The author discusses the relationship between music and trance in terms of new theories of
mind and brain. She uses examples from several music cultures, including trance in the
Rangda/Barong ritual of Bali.
Mathematics and Music: A Search for Insight
into Higher Brain Function
by WENDY BOETTCHER, SABRINA HAHN
and GORDON SHAW
ABSTRACT
A profound problem of historical origin and continuing interest is the relationships and
similarities among higher brain functions relating to music, mathematics and chess. The authors
present the results of detailed interviews with 14 professors of mathematics concerning their
research and possible relationships between mathematics and music. The results provide
interesting insights into higher brain function, suggesting a common theme of pattern
development. In addition, the authors propose some new behavioral experiments.
On the Tuning and Stretched Octave of Javanese Gamelans
by EDWARD CARTERETTE and ROGER
KENDALL
ABSTRACT
The authors fit five theoretical models to the frequency-scale (Hz) data reported by
Surjodiningrat, Sudarjana and Susanto on individual instruments from their extensive
measurements of the tunings of 76 Javanese gamelans. The exponential models fit best and
perfectly in the case of either nearly equal-interval pentatonic (slendro) scales or unequal-
interval heptatonic (pelog) scales. Further, relative to the (presumed) mild stretching of Western
scales, both Javanese scales are considerably stretched. The exponential model may be useful
in comparing the highly variable tunings of gamelans, in studying defunct or incomplete
ensembles, for generating variable stretchings for use in perceptual and cognitive studies on the
aesthetics of gamelans, or for computer modeling of gamelan instruments.
The Fusion and Layering of Noise and Tone: Implications
for Timbre in African Instruments
by CORNELIA FALES and STEPHEN
MCADAMS
ABSTRACT
Since their earliest explorations of African music, Western
researchers have noted a fascination on the part of traditional
musicians for noise as a timbral element. The authors present the
results of perceptual and acoustic investigations of the fusion
and "layering" of noise and tone. These results have implications
for pitch and timbre in both traditional and non-traditional,
acoustic and synthesized music. The results define possible
perceptual relations between noise and tone and reveal that the
construction of noise devices should follow relatively precise
acoustic rules involving the frequency, the bandwidth and the
level of the noise relative to those of the tone. The results also
exemplify the fusion of two extremely different timbres, with
implications for the blending of instrumental timbres in an
orchestral setting. The experiments should be of interest to
composers who synthesize mixtures of noise and periodic sound and
for whom the control of such mixtures remains problematic.
Computers, Composition and the Challenge of "New Music" in
Modern India
by JAMES KIPPEN and BERNARD BEL
ABSTRACT
The use of sophisticated computer systems in the design and performance of music has taken
place in the context of a society that demands novelty and expects technology to play a
leading role in extending the boundaries of what is musically possible. This article describes a
different approach to the use of technology in composition and an alternative technology that
grew out of research into the complex rhythmic intricacies of Indian drum music. The authors
present the new version of their Bol Processor and explain its time accuracy, flexibility and
capacity to manipulate highly complex polymetric symbols. The authors' work has inspired
further developments by Indian researchers who are rising to the challenge of developing a
technology built around concepts familiar to the Indian musical mind as an alternative to
models dependent upon Western concepts.
Musical Scales
in Central Africa and Java: Modeling by Synthesis
by FREDERIC VOISIN
ABSTRACT
The author's research on the tuning and scale systems of the Central African xylophone and
Javanese gamelan has departed from previous Western ethnomusicological studies in these
areas. Rather than relying on acoustical measurement as a primary source of data, his team has
adopted an interactive approach involving the participation of Central African and Javanese
musicians, who work with researchers to demonstrate their tuning processes using synthesizers
and MIDI systems. The author presents results of this experimentation and explains the
inconsistencies of previous research in terms of differing cultural concepts of scale.
CD COMPANION: CONTRIBUTORS' NOTES
RICARDO DAL FARRA: Some Comments about Electroacoustic Music and Life in Latin America
Contributors' Notes by LEON BIRIOTTI, JOSE AUGUSTO
MANNIS, CARLOS VAZQUEZ, ROBERTO MORALES-MANZANARES,
PABLO FREIRE, ANDRES POSADA, ADINA IZARRA, RICARDO DAL FARRA
MUSIC/SCIENCE FORUM
CHRISTOPHE CHARLES: Megalopolis Aborigines: The
Tokyo-Osaka Action Art Ensemble's 1992 Tour
TAKEHITO SHIMAZU: The History of Electronic and
Computer Music in Japan: Significant Composers and Their Works
REVIEWS
Contributors: MARC BATTIER, GERALD HARTNETT,
AXEL MULDER
CD COMPANION
LMJ CD Series Volume 4 (1994): Musica Electroacustica
de Compositores Latinoamericanos
Curated by Ricardo Dal Farra
- LEON BIRIOTTI: Self-Portrait
- JOSE AUGUSTO MANNIS: Cyclone
- CARLOS VAZQUEZ: El Encanto de la Noche Tropical I:
El Yunque
- ROBERTO MORALES-MANZANARES: Servicio a
Domicilio
- PABLO FREIRE: Zeluob 3
- ANDRES POSADA: Catenaria
- ADINA IZARRA: Vojm
- RICARDO DAL FARRA: Memorias
1994 Index
