Composition as Commentary: Voice and Poetry in Electroacoustic Music

jar — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:23:29 +0000

What is the role of a spoken or sung text in an electroacoustic composition? Does it represent anachronism, assigning the role of communication to the voice and thereby depriving more abstract electroacoustic material of its rhetorical force? Does the disembodied, electroacoustic voice distance the audience from the communicative power of the words that are heard? Although Simon Emmerson argued that the disembodied human voice in acousmatic music can often seem frustrating, this sense of disembodiment might be turned to the composer’s advantage, as the basis of a methodology for creative practice. In the process of developing a methodology to address questions of text, language, voice, and electroacoustic technology, I created two musical compositions. Both works used the untranslated words of an enigmatic Old English poem, ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’. At first glance, the idea of using a text in an obscure or ancient language that carries little or no semantic meaning for the listeners might raise further questions. Is this a deliberate attempt at obfuscation, hiding the paucity of the composer’s ideas behind a veneer of archaism or even naive exoticism? As my investigation progressed, I began to envisage the process of electroacoustic composition as a type of non-linguistic commentary on a text. Rather than hindering the listener’s understanding of a composition inspired by literature, the electroacoustic voice might help to reveal different interpretations of a text, allowing multiple ideas and identities to be heard.

jar Thu, 07/16/2020 - 17:23

Composition

contemporary music

electroacoustic music

voice

voice and electronics

composition process

composition as research

Old English

Literature

vocality

Issue

OPEN EXPOSITION

Edmund Hunt

Divergent voices – Different dialogues in the artistic research project Wikiphonium

erlend — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 12:18:51 +0000

Divergent voices – Different dialogues in the artistic research project Wikiphonium

In this exposition we present the outlines of the artistic research project Wikiphonium, and discuss how the Bakhtinian concept of dialogue can function as a theoretical, practical and methodological approach in artistic research projects. The Wikiphonium project was an investigation into new ways of playing the euphonium and creating new music for the instrument, in close dialogue with various composers and musicians. The work contributed to the expansion of the sonic possibilities, expressions, and repertoire for brass instruments in general. Three interrelated parts together constituted the practice as artistic research: thirteen concerts and performances consisting of new works for euphonium based on experimental collaborations with composers and musicians, experimentation with the instrument's possibilities, and development of different tools enabling these developments, including a wiki with a library of sounds and notations. The exposition contributes to the general methodological discussion in the field of artistic research, illustrated through examples and experiences from the dialogic approach in the Wikiphonium project. A genuine dialogic attitude in artistic research processes enriches critical reflections embedded in the practice. Documentations of process and results together with the multimedia tool wikiphonium.org constitute a transparent and open communication of artistic practice as research.

erlend Thu, 04/20/2017 - 14:18

Issue

OPEN EXPOSITION

Hilde Synnøve Blix & Geir Davidsen