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Leonardo Music Journal Vol. 5 (1995)
with Compact Disc
Leonardo Music Journal is a print journal edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and published annually by the MIT Press.
ONLINE ACCESS: Subscriptions to Leonardo Music Journal include access to electronic versions of journal issues available on The MIT Press website.
ORDER: Subscriptions, individual issues and articles can also be ordered from The MIT Press.
[ See also the Tables of Contents and Abstracts of past issues of Leonardo and LMJ ]
Editorial
An Unheard-of Organology
by Douglas KahnArtist's Article
Chromatic Notation of Music: Transforming Bach and Webern into Color and Light
by BRIGITTE BURGMERAbstract: The author describes the development of her color:tone system, which began with her coloring of the harmonic structures in the Prelude in C major from The Well Tempered Piano, Part I, by Johannes S. Bach. She describes her Extended Circle of Fifths, which condenses the harmonic system into one gestalt. Besides converting Bach's Prelude in C Major to color, she has converted three other preludes by Chopin, Busoni and Scriabin and an early 12-tone study by Webern. These graphic representations demonstrate the architectural structure of music and allow for comparisons. Burgmer describes and evaluates her experiment in composing music with colors: She used her color:tone system to create a new piece of music as an addition to Webern's "Piano Piece." She also discusses her transformation of music graphics into holograms. She contends that these music holograms have their own aesthetic value and exist independently as artworks, parallel to the musical pieces on which they are based.
Artist's Article
Orchestrating the Chimera: Musical Hybrids, Technology and the Development of a "Maximalist" Musical Style
by DAVID A.JAFFEAbstract: This article describes the "maximalist" approach the author takes in his musical composition. This approach embraces heterogeneity and allows for complex systems of juxtapositions and collisions, in which all outside influences are viewed as potential raw material. The focus here is on the notion of hybridization, in which two or more sharply defined and highly contrasting aspects of experience are combined to produce something that is both alien and strangely familiar. Recent technological advances have allowed hybridization to extend into the realms of the synthesis of sound itself, the ensemble relationship between musical lines and the connection between performer and instrument.
Artist's Note
Acoustic and Virtual Space as a Dynamic Element of Music
by PAULINE OLIVEROSAbstract: The author provides an overview of her background as a performer and composer interested in acoustics and technology. Her discussion ranges from a description of her practice of "deep listening" to her work developing of the Expanded Instrument System---which allows the performer greater control over acoustic space---to her collaborations with other composers and instrument builders.
Artist's Note
More than just Notes: Psychoacoustics and Composition
by ROBERT HP PLATZAbstract: The author discusses the use of psychoacoustic phenomena in musical compositions, presenting examples from his own works. The phenomena discussed include microtones and musical "streams," various ways of manipulating the perceived location of sound (including methods of causing sound to be heard from inside the listener's body) and Shepard's tones (or "circular" tones), which seem to rise or descend endlessly. Although most psychoacoustic tests are made with pure tones, which limits the potential application of their results, the author attempts to maintain an emphasis on the practicality---or repeatability---of the techniques discussed.
Artist's Note
Reflections on Collaborative Process and Compositional Revolution
by DIANE THOMEAbstract: The author discusses her experiences as an early composer of computer and electroacoustic music, beginning with description of her early engagement with computers as a graduate student at Princeton in the late 1960s and continuing through discussion of her most recent collaborative pieces, Angels (1992), a virtual reality artwork, and Masks of Eternity (1994), a computer- realized solo tape work. She reflects on the ways in which the collaborative process and interactions with various music technologies have impacted her creative thinking and her music, and offers some speculation on the paradigmatic shifts in fundamental conceptualizations of composition that are occurring with the transition to new electronic media.
Technical Article
Thresholds of Confidence: An Analysis of Statistical Methods for Composition, Part 1: Theory
by CHARLES AMESAbstract: Statistical methods for composition include serialism, randomness and statistical feedback. All three methods can fall short of what composers ask from them. This two- part article analyzes statistical methods under various scenarios with the intent of establishing thresholds of confidence. Part 1, published here, develops a music- theoretical basis, while Part 2, to be published in a future issue of LMJ, applies this theory to derive thresholds of confidence under specific compositional scenarios. Part 1 defines a threshold of confidence as a condition under which a composer can prescribe a distribution to a method and be reasonably sure that the resulting population will conform to this distribution. The music- theoretical basis for distributions is developed by examining reasons why a compositional state might be heavily or lightly weighted. From insights gained thereby comes a primary criterion of confidence: the number of samples necessary to make a distribution "speak." In addition, there are subsidiary issues such as how a distribution's states disperse over musical time and how readily different methods can be constrained.
Historical Perspective
The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics
by LIBOR ZAJICEKAbstract: The history of electroacoustic music in the Czech and Slovak Republics began with simple experiments undertaken by composers in the 1950s. Increasing activity and interest throughout the 1950s and early 1960s led to the First Seminar of Electronic Music in the former Czechoslovakia, which was held at the Radio Braodcast Station in Plzen in 1964. Four government-sanctioned electroacoustic music studios were established in the 1960s under the auspices of existing radio and television stations. All other venues for electroacoustic production were clandestine; however, even the official studios were obliged to restrain and/or disguise composition---for both political and economic reasons---throughout their history. The fall of the totalitarian regime in 1989 replaced political obstacles with economic ones. Electroacoustic music in the Czech and Slovak Republics has nevertheless survived and continues to develop.
Theoretical Perspective
A Hierarchical Theory of Aesthetic Perception: Scales in the Visual Arts
by PAVEL B. IVANOVAbstract: A new language is proposed to speak of visual form in terms of directional ensembles, which are posited as akin to musical scales. A correspondence is established between musical intonations and plane curves, and plane figures are found to be the analogues of chords. The author presents his general theory of aesthetic perception, originally developed to describe hierarchical scaling in music. This theory is intended to predict all possible directional scales and provide detailed characteristics of their expressive potentials. The theory might find application in painting, sculpture, architecture, ballet and other arts where visual form has an intonational logic. Some aspects of the use of color and size in painting are also discussed.
Theoretical Perspective
Inventing Images: Constructing and Contesting Gender in Thinking about Electroacoustic Music
by ANDRA McCARTNEYAbstract: The author explores symbolic imagery in the world of electroacoustic music, as presented in both popular music publications and the language of 14 Canadian women composers. While mainstream discourse uses imagery that emphasizes power and control, these composers use metaphors of painting, dancing, sustenance, addiction, wilderness, meetings, circuitry, curses, locks, boxes, blessings and desire to describe their work. This imagery suggests different ways for artists to think about their interaction with technology.
CD Companion
Introduction
by MARC BATTIERContributors' Notes by
ICHIRO NODAIRA, MASAHIRO MIWA, MAMORU FUJIEDA, YUJI TAKAHASHI, HINOHARU MATSUMOTO, SHIGENOBU NAKAMURA, KAZUO UEHARAReviews
GERALD HARTNETT, CURTIS KARNOW1995 Index
Updated 22 November 2006
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