Digital Signal Processing and Computer Music: Composi7on and Performance

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1 Digital Signal Processing and Computer Music: Composi7on and Performance March 5th 2019 Richard Hoadley This presenta,on is available at this loca,on: h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 1

2 To cover: 1. Music and technology in composi5on and performance 2. Nota5on and the role of technology in nota5on 3. Diverse uses of nota5on, technological or otherwise 4. Use of dynamic, animated nota5ons 5. The future and conclusions h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 2

3 Composer (academic (PhD) and prac4cal in musical composi4on) Originally using 'tradi4onal' (also called 'common prac4ce') nota4on Modernist h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 3

4 Music and technology Technologist (MSc in Computer Science, currently studying for an MSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering) I think all music is technological: 'AcousBc' music is created by humans interacbng with (usually mechanical) objects There is a divide between notated, performed music and audio. Whether this divide is bridgeable or not is a fundamental quesbon involving many current developments. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 4

5 Jimi Hendrix live at Woodstock h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 5

6 Jamie Cullum Midori Goto Nicola Benede, h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 6

Issues concerning nota.on What is music nota.on? Is it important? Why is the music of most cultures not notated? Nota.on and electronic music; seman.cs, seman.cs, acousma.cs, interpreta.

7 Issues concerning nota.on What is music nota.on? Is it important? Why is the music of most cultures not notated? Nota.on and electronic music; seman.cs, seman.cs, acousma.cs, interpreta.on Has (contemporary) music nota.on become like motor racing: a fe.sh based on a fe.sh? (See next slide) Nota.on as mnemonic (Guido), as a form of organisa.on, as a method of distribu.on, as a method of enforcing copyright, as an art form in itself? h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 7

8 Ferneyhough Second String Quartet (1980) This is as much a drawing as a score. It would be ferociously difficult to generate and present live algorithmically and, of course, even more difficult to read prima vista h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 8

9 Publica(on Some%mes even the original composer ins%lled himself with such fear. Beethoven once remarked that he was not accustomed to revising (retoucher ) his composi%ons once they were finished. "I have never done this," he con%nued, "because even the slightest change alters the character of the composi%on." Le%er (in French) of 1813, in Le%ers of Beethoven, ed. E. Anderson (3 vols.; New York, 1961), i Developments in copyright laws and publicaoon helped insotuoonalize works as commodioes separable from their performances. Developments in notaoon helped free composers from involvement in performance. But these developments only paroally account for the extent to which many composers became strategically uninterested in the performance of their works. A deeper source of that phenomenon takes us back to the romanoc characterizaoon of the emancipated composer. -- Goehr, Imaginary Museum, p229 h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 9

Nota%on as visual art Nota%on enables 'cross-domain expression', where one form of expression such as text or film is 'translated' into another such as

10 Nota%on as visual art Nota%on enables 'cross-domain expression', where one form of expression such as text or film is 'translated' into another such as music. Many people find these forms of expression intriguing. Cordier - Belle, Bonne, Sage, (~1400) etc. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 10

11 Text as music nota.on James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 1939, (also Kurt Schwi=ers, etc...) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 11

12 Nota%on as visual art Cornelius Cardew Octet 61 (1961) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 12

13 Nota%on as (fixed) visual art Cardew Trea%se (1963) page 46 h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 13

14 Detail from Trea%se (p46) and transla4on (vs interpreta4on) in Bun 2... (there's so much interpreta1on here that one wonders about the validity of the nota1on, beau1ful though it is.) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 14

15 Video as dyanamic, but not live music score Chris&an Marclay, etc. - Crossfire (2007) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 15

16 Video as dyanamic, but not live music nota3on Chris&an Marclay, etc. - Surround Sounds (2015) Note created with Illustrator! h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 16

Dance nota)on: Recueil de Dances (Pecour/ Feuillet) These examples emphasise the significantly different uses of technology in crea8ve prac8ces, for instance, musicians in western art music make the

17 Dance nota)on: Recueil de Dances (Pecour/ Feuillet) These examples emphasise the significantly different uses of technology in crea8ve prac8ces, for instance, musicians in western art music make the (usual) need to read music from a fixed source an integral part of their prac8ce. Dance involves more physicality and movement and so it is more tricky to use dynamically, but see here. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 17

18 Dance nota)on: Labanota)on a#er music nota/on, text, live generated audio and physical performance: some form of dance nota/on. quite a lot of types of dance/movement nota/ons: Labanota/on, Benesh, etc. some of these (Labanota/on) have some work on so#ware implementa/on many of them, though, focus on the recording of dance and movement rather than for live interpreta/on. dancers are not in general so used to reading nota/on as actors and musicians. there are issues with how a dancer might read live nota/on (reading displays significantly restricts movement). h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 18

19 Other nota*ons h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 19

20 Other nota*ons The D part denotes the finger used to press the string, and the 7.6 part denotes the pressing posi8on. The Z part denotes the sound decora8on method, the T part denotes the plucking method, and the 7 part denotes the string being played. The overall meaning of this symbol is that the player uses leb thumb to press on the 7.6 posi8on of the 7th string, uses the right forefinger to pluck the same string outward, and kneads the string while pressing. No8ce that other symbols may contain [a different number of] parts. The right side shows a piece of tablature that consists of many different symbols. (Sun et al., 2010, Ancient Chinese Zither (Guqin) Music Recovery with Support Vector Machine) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 20

21 Liveness and anima+on Un$l the 1980s most classical musics were 'fixed' in one way or another, even electroacous$cs ("press play") Pieces like "Repons" (Boulez, ) introduced 'live' electronic processing Gradually there has been more and more use of 'live' algorithmic processes, as audio technology has developed to enable this. This liveness has not been used so much with regard to nota$on un$l the last ten years or so, although live coding has been associated with this. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 21

22 "A#er 50 years, tape music suffers from a wallflower-like existence, not being performed in concerts and radio programs. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that a piece for instruments like Quatuor pour la fin du temps sounds fresh like a young day. The conhnuous evocahon of specific names from the early Hmes of electronic music asks the queshon where are the real nostalgics? Of course, a lot of effort is made to add new dimensions to electroacoushc music for example, with spahal qualihes. But one should not be tricked. The spahalizahon of music is a superficial quality that seems to be aorachve at first but quickly loses its excitement for the experienced listener." Computer Music Journal, 2001, vol 25 no 4, Le;ers York Höller, quoted from Musike Texte 88, Cologne: NB (Irritated) responses from many including Francois Bayle, Jonty Harrison, Jean- Claude Risset and Karlheinz Stockhausen... h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 22

23 Live coding: text as nota0on? "Code, like mathema/cs, has o2en been described as a form of nota/on (Aaron et al. 2011; Magnusson 2011) and (Blackwell and Green 2003, pp ). Exci/ng though Magnusson s comparison between live coding and the processes of composing, interpre/ng and performing might be, it is possible that his idea misses a fundamental issue: that the music played by humans on physical instruments is very much defined by the quali/es of those instruments and the rela/onships between performer and instrument. While it may be possible to replace interpreta/on and performance with a computer s interpreta/on of code, this will have an equally fundamental effect on the nature of that music (Collins et al. 2003; Magnusson 2014). Moreover, acous/c musical instruments are excep/onally limited in their physical characteris/cs and it may well be these limita/ons themselves which enable musicians to develop such in/mate, specialised rela/onships." h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 23

24 "Instead, as the dominant element in performance, interpreta4on seems to have been replaced at least in part by the new and dis4nctly code-focused idea of changing the rules as part of performance : "Live coding is making changes to algorithms as they run, with the possibility for both live feedback and a live audience." h$p://iclc.livecodenetwork.org/2016/ h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 24

25 "During a talk given in 2013 Alex McLean presents a pragma;c view of changing rules while they are followed. In response to the observa;on that in a live situa;on you have a certain range of segngs and you change things within the segngs rather than actually changing the rules :" h"ps://vimeo.com/ :16 Do these 'rules' have an analogy in acous4cally performed music? 'Standard' nota4ons have the advantage that trained musicians understand them very well 'Standard' nota4ons have the disadvantage that they take 4me and effort to understand thoroughly. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 25

Technologies of nota/on: impossible nota/on (Debussy Violes (1909)) NB it is possible to programme examples such as these, but not algorithmically, as they are graphic

26 Technologies of nota/on: impossible nota/on (Debussy Violes (1909)) NB it is possible to programme examples such as these, but not algorithmically, as they are graphic solu7ons and not re-representable. In terms of storage and analysis, it's similar to the difference between SVG and JPG... h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 26

27 h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 27

28 Examples: Ryan Ross Smith Study No 57 Similar to Cardew, nota0on like this references common prac0ce nota0on without using it explicitly. How much is this to do with aesthe0c choice, how much to do with technological pragma0sm? h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 28

29 Seth Shafer Terraforma(on (2017) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 29

30 Earle Brown December 1952 h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 30

31 December Varia+ons (2013-4) Compare theme (0:10) and varia4on 5 (5:00) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 31

December Mobile (2013-16) code (taken from the file the installa3on is

32 December Mobile ( ) code (taken from the file the installa3on is based on) as poetry h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 32

Semaphore/Choreograms (2014-2016) 13:13 Choreograms, 'transla4on' via command (from Laban), method and result; Dancers

33 Semaphore/Choreograms ( ) 13:13 Choreograms, 'transla4on' via command (from Laban), method and result; Dancers (specialising in 'contemporary dance') found the idea of instruc4on difficult h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 33

34 Movement as text (dra/) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 34

35 How To Play the Piano 2015 with Philip Mead; 3:00: poem; this uses the words of the poem algorithmically: taking par<cular fragments and some simple filtering (e.g...). Also, as in Semaphore, the audio data from a recorded reading of the poem is used. h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 35

36 Edge Viola+ons 2016 clarinet: Ian Mitchell (8:45, 14:00); h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 36

37 Walking Within... (2017-present) Another approach Experiments with music and text Most music and text have a!me line. Importance of performer and audience knowing something of the original. Text processing provides many challenges: should one to idenafy 'sensible' clauses? This is further explored in Unthinking Things h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 37

38 Walking Within... (2017-present) 0.00: Goldberg; 1:30: Nils Pe4er Molvaer; 2:15: Por:co; 2:45: Metamorphosis h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 38

39 Unthinking Things (2018-present) Uses text, image, audio, standard and graphic nota5on The text is taken algorithmically from Bishop George Berkeley's Principals of Human Knowledge Use of many performers (16 voice choir) Use of graphic nota5ons Collabora5on with 'amateur' musicians Text processing provides many challenges: should one agempt to iden5fy 'sensible' clauses? h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 39

40 Choosing text Divide text into sentences Divide sentences into clauses (separated by ", ", ";", etc.) Edit clauses if they're too long, but avoid phrases ending in words such as "as, the, on, in", etc. Avoid single words that could be inappropriate (e.g. 'snatch' in 'How To Play the Piano' h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 40

41 Unthinking Things (2018) with the St Augus,ne's Singers, Cambridge h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 41

42 The tools... If anything is new here it's the use of automa4cally genera4ng nota4on, par4cularly in music. In the musical world, there is also a tension between those using non-standard as opposed to standard nota4ons. provide a structure for the genera&on of music and/or common prac4ce nota&on as well as text and graphical elements (including raster and vector images). facilitate communica4on between SuperCollider and INScore offer the beginnings of a more standard interface for physical mapping and live nota&on h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 42

43 ...which are located... h#ps://github.com/supercollider/supercollider h#p://inscore.sourceforge.net/ h#p://rhoadley.net/inscore (latest versions on request) h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 43

44 More technologies of nota0on TENOR Organisa-on: h1p://tenor-conference.org TENOR Conference 2019: h1ps:// TENOR Network Partnership SMUFL h1ps:// h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 44

45 Every Noise at Once The future of music categorisa0on, choice and recommenda0on? h"p://everynoise.com Spo$fy as performance? h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 45

46 The big and the small Popularity is very important: the number of followers Popular things tend to be small, short or immediately appealing h:ps:// Sales of poetry, [24:45] h:ps:// h:ps:// Rupi Kaur's Instagram account h:ps://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/10c10deb?bcast= : The Poetry of Instagram [3:45+] h:ps:// Review of Rupi Kaur's poetry What about longer, more complex and more difficult things (modernism)? Is there a problem? h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 46

47 Forthcoming Unthinking Things April 11th Recital Hall, ARU Singers and string quartet conducted by Paul Rhys Unthinking Things (parts 1 and 2) October h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 47

48 Any ques)ons contact: this presenta+on is available at h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons as dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf video recordings of past performances are at rhoadley.net/ youtube and rhoadley.net/vimeo h"p://rhoadley.net/presenta1ons/dspcm_hoadley2019.pdf 48

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