alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun14.164758.23557@agate.berkeley.edu> maverick@mahogany.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes: > >What is the relevance of real sounds to computer music? Gerald Balzano >took a radical position in his article "What Are Musical Pitch and >Timbre?" [Music Perception 3(3), Spring 1986]: briefly, that the >sensations of timbre are really a perception of the dynamic systems >underlying the production of the sound, and thus that electronic music >is doomed to sound "electronic", i.e. less than musical, unless we tap >such dynamic systems in synthesis. I don't think this is such a radical position. I wouldn't go so far as to equate timbre with the "perception of dynamic systems" in a sound, but as timbre research has shown time and again, such attributes as attack tran- sients and dynamic changes over the life of a note are very important to our perception of timbre. It's obvious to my ears anyway that sounds that are very complex and dynamic tend to sound more "warm" and interesting, while more static sounds tend to be "cold" and "electronic." Now neither is aesthetically better or worse. If, like Herbert Eimert, you have an aesthetic that prefers the purity of sine waves to "real" sounds, then the good old days of tape splicing or the RCA synthesizer are the just the technology for you. Understanding the complexities that underlie real sounds and to be able to apply that understanding is rather more of a tall order. Risset is an example of a composer who took the brute force approach to this path. Personally, I have been interested in sampling real sounds and modifying them usually to the point where their relationship to the original sound is unrecognizable. This way the warmth and complexities of the acoustic sounds are maintained, and I still have great control over the timbre and its musical use. >I incline much more to the Jim >Randall-type position that if some piece of music sounds "merely >electronic", that's the fault of the composer or possibly the listener; >that nothing intrinsic to "a timbre" prevents our learning to make its >context make music of it. Blaming the listener is very convenient, but ultimately useless. If a timbre sounds "electronic" when the composer doesn't intend it, then it is certainly the composer's fault (or perhaps the limitations of the technology, though that, too, is a very convenient scapegoat). Maybe there's nothing contextually intrinsic in the timbre itself, but audiences have learned expectations about music, including what an "electronic" sound is. But that's just a common adjective. The perceptual differences are still there. (As a footnote, these expectations among the "average person" may be changing. I think public perception has shifted from the "Forbidden Planet" generation through the "Switched-On Bach" generation to the "Technopop" generation that more or less takes synthesis for granted or doesn't even know that each tune it hears on the radio is largely coming out of a computer.) >Okay, enough maundering. Help save comp.music -- pontificate today! > > Vance glad to. Bill Alves
maverick@fir.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) (06/18/91)
In article <33674@usc.edu>, alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) says a lot I agree with, but I take issue with a bunch of minor points.... |> It's obvious to my ears anyway that sounds that |> are very complex and dynamic tend to sound more "warm" and interesting, |> while more static sounds tend to be "cold" and "electronic." "Complex", "dynamic", and "static" are terms just as vague and emotionally loaded as "warm", "interesting", "cold", and "electronic". Fat round tones from the latest imitation-violin algorithm can sound just as bogus as a sawtooth from a Moog. |> Now neither is aesthetically better or worse. If, like Herbert Eimert, you |> have an aesthetic that prefers the purity of sine waves to "real" sounds, |> then the good old days of tape splicing or the RCA synthesizer are the |> just the technology for you. Except that modern software technology allows for much nicer interfaces and finer control. I've made pure-sine-tone textures from my own software that would have been impossible on the RCA. They aren't deficient in "complexity" or "dynamism" either. (And sine waves only sound "pure" if you've been told they do!) |> Blaming the listener is very convenient, but ultimately useless. If a |> timbre sounds "electronic" when the composer doesn't intend it, then it |> is certainly the composer's fault (or perhaps the limitations of the |> technology, though that, too, is a very convenient scapegoat). But the extreme listenerist position is equally untenable -- there's no music that pleases everybody, and if you're trying to please the average listener, you're after a chimera. Surely you would admit the *theoretical* possibility that some music you liked would strike Joe Blow as "electronic"? I think your response to my posting is primarily a statement of taste, and a reasonable one at that. I was hoping, though, I could scare up some latter-day Eimert or some foe of all that is "electronic".... Vance
maverick@mahogany.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) (06/22/91)
In response to my query about the relevance of real-world sound to computer music, Lonce Wyse posts a sensible exposition of the notion of modeling sounds. I just want to point out, though, that his whole posting assumes the idea of modeling as its basis. For example, he writes > What is ``in between'' the sound of a bowed saw and ewe's bleat? > It depends entirely upon how the sounds are modeled, that is, what > parameters are available. But the question is utterly meaningless unless it is asked in the context of some model. Suppose you ask me "Is sound X between the sound of a bowed saw and a ewe's bleat?" I first ask myself, "In what sense?" Might you not be asking, "Does X sound like an object between a saw and a ewe's vocal tract, subjected to an oscillation somewhere between the stick-and-slip of horsehair and the periodic opening of a glottis?" This is the version of the question a deranged Gibsonian might ask. > Due to a strong bias of musicians toward notes, an incomplete > understanding of how we hear, and a lack of funds, far more resources > have been devoted to modeling traditional instruments than other sound > sources. And more (intellectual) resources have been devoted to modeling, lately, than to what I claimed was the alternate style of electronic music. Case in point: the modeling bias of your post. Do you feel that computer musicians *must* take explicit account of the sounds of the physical world? Vance