Sonic Art: An Introduction to Electroacoustic Music Composition
by Adrian Moore (Music 786.76 Moo)
Electroacoustic music, also known
as musique concrete or acousmatic music, has been taught in universities
internationally since the 50s and 60s, but there still aren’t a ton of books
that get into how this kind of music is put together. There are lots of books
that go over various building blocks that help to understand other kinds of
music: music theory, orchestration, harmony, etc, and at times, electroacoustic
music can use these principles, too, so we don’t need to reject them
altogether. However, from a philosophical standpoint, we find ourselves in
slightly different territory, where sound itself is the main building block
that we’ll work with. That sound could come from conventional instruments or
pre-existing recordings, but it could also come from anything: the sound of a
motor, a coffee grinder, the tide coming in on a beach, birds, ice cracking on
a winter lake, your own breathing, you name it. We can use recognizable
snippets of these sounds, or we can trim just a tiny sample from them that can
be manipulated into all kinds of other sounds. And then from the perspective of
evolving technology, we can treat these sounds with effects in a wide variety
of ways. We can still use all of the conventional effects used in other kinds
of music, but since some of the sounds we might be using can behave a little
more erratically than one would expect from conventional instruments, we can
think about using these effects in new ways, too, to glue our new sounds
together or to transform them even further.
For a full overview of modern
electroacoustic music as it’s presently taught in universities, we have an
excellent book by composer Adrian Moore called Sonic Art: An Introduction to Electroacoustic Music Composition.
This book started as a set of teaching materials used in electroacoustic music
classes at the University of Sheffield, where Moore is the Director of the
University of Sheffield Sound Studios. And Moore is an experienced contemporary
composer in this field, having released four albums of his own work on the
preeminent electroacoustic record label Empreintes DIGITALes over the last 20
years.
In the first chapter, Moore lays
out the ultimate goals for this project: “This book hopes to tie down some
of the possibilities, block off some of the dead ends of sound manipulation and
suggest a number of meaningful methodologies for selecting, developing and
mixing sound so that, as a composer, you can make something musical.”
Finally, we have a book that addresses electroacoustic music as a relatively
mature discipline. In addition to philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings of
the music, the modern tools of the electroacoustic composer are mostly found within
software, and Sonic Art is packed with practical examples of how
various treatments can be added to sound within digital environments. The Sheffield
program has developed its own electroacoustic music tools within Pure Data and
Csound, and examples are presented through those tools, along with instructions
for how to download and use them yourself. If you want to use newer or
different audio software yourself, though, the principles behind using various
kinds of treatments are thoroughly discussed in the book, and would be widely
applicable.
The book alternates between
philosophical and technical approaches to electroacoustic music. Chapter 1, “What
is Sound?” explores the nature of sound from a variety of perspectives. Many of
them are likely unfamiliar to performers and listeners of other styles of
music, and getting into some of these abstract concepts, like thinking of
sounds from spatial or architectural perspectives, or in terms of perceived
variations in appearances, textures, energy, growth stages or character traits,
are fantastic ways to expand the world of fun sounds all around us. Then
Chapter 2, “What Does All This Software Do?” takes readers directly into all
kinds of software filters, granulators and frequency shifters in the Pure Data
software environment, where we learn about many of the commonly-used sound
transformation techniques common in electroacoustic music. Moore also reflects
on some big-picture considerations at this point, from the importance of
careful mixing to remembering that most sound transformations are happening as
a result of running sounds through a series of effects rather than one at a
time.
In Chapter 3, “The Theory of
Opposites,” Moore deeply explores the art of weighing and balancing the many
kinds of contrasting perspectives introduced in Chapter 1. Here he begins to
assign particular kinds of effects or effect chains to different kinds of aural
descriptors, and incorporating structural/formal concepts to create strong,
coherent musical statements. Similarly, Chapter 4 expands on the final steps of
completing audio works using the tools from Chapter 2, thinking in terms of
composing for 5.1, 7.1, or 8.0 multichannel playback systems. In concert hall
scenarios, electroacoustic music is commonly presented using multichannel
speaker setups like this that help to give a similar kind of orchestral and
spatial richness to the music that listeners might expect from a large ensemble
on stage. This becomes a technical issue that helps to clarify compositional
intent.
If you’re fairly new to
electroacoustic music, Chapter 5, “Examples from the Repertoire,” is an
excellent place to learn about classic and contemporary electroacoustic
compositions that will give potential composers a sense of both the norms and
the range of diversity found in electroacoustic music. A large range of pieces
that have been inspirational to Moore are described, highlighting a few
elements of what makes them significant in the electroacoustic music canon.
Aesthetic, philosophical, and technical aspects of these pieces are discussed
as appropriate. If you’re curious about this music but haven’t heard much of
it, this might be the best place to start in the book, since actually listening
to a selection of these pieces will help to clarify the abstractions in more
general discussion about the style.
The final sections of the book
continue to follow the basic pattern of alternating theoretical and practical
issues. I especially like the chapter “Space and Time,” since electroacoustic
music is often focused on trying to achieve 3-D like effects in sound. The
discussion here focuses on how our ears seem to perceive different kinds of
sound combinations as having different kinds of implied weights or shapes,
which are very useful in composing this kind of music. Toward the end of the
book, Moore addresses some of the practical issues that arise when trying to
present this music in concert halls, where the positioning of speakers and
accounting for the acoustics in a space must be considered to make sure the
audience hears what the composer has intended.
I really enjoyed the material in
Appendix B, as well—it could have stood nicely as the final formal chapter.
Here we get a final set of tips and tricks from a few active composers,
including the author. At the end, if you decide to try your hand using the Pure
Data software referenced earlier in the book, there are a few more basics for
running audio signals in that program. In all, Sonic Art is a great companion for starting your
journey as an electroacoustic composer.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try In Search of a Concrete Music by Pierre Schaeffer or Electronic Music and Musique Concrete by F.C. Judd.)
( publisher’s official Sonic Art web page ) | ( official Adrian Moore
web site )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
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