Output details

Analysing Electroacoustic Music: an Interactive Aural Approach

This journal article (c. 11,800 words) discusses the context and underpinning theory behind my development of the interactive aural approach to analysis, exemplified in another submitted output: ‘Wind Chimes: an interactive aural analysis’. It also provides partial background to collaborative research presented in a further submitted output: ‘Evolution and Collaboration: the composition, rehearsal and performance of Finnissy’s Second String Quartet’. The research was funded in part by an AHRC Research Leave Award (£39,464) in 2009. Electroacoustic music presents particular challenges to the analyst. Often the music is not notated, and where notation is used it may well take a different form and serve a different purpose to that of acoustic music. Furthermore, the sounds employed may not be traditionally musical, and pitch and rhythm may not be the most significant parameters in the musical argument. The concept of the note as the basic building block of a work may not be appropriate, since significant structural activity may take place at a lower level or because seamless extended transformations may be used. Transcribing such music can also prove problematic, whether using traditional Western musical notations or other approaches. This research questions where might the analytical process begin, and how can its outcomes be communicated. The article examines these issues and presents a new interactive aural approach, in which software is used to engage directly with the sounds and to allow the reader to interact with the musical materials and the methods used to create them. The development of this approach is discussed in relation to three analyses of contrasting works by Jonathan Harvey, Denis Smalley and Pierre Boulez. Conference/workshop presentations on aspects of this work have been given at EMS 2009, Buenos Aires; IRCAM Forum, Paris 2009; EMS 2011, New York; and the European Music Analysis Conference 2011 in Rome.