Si la radio n’apparaît pas, c’est que vous n’avez pas installé Flash ou que votre version n’est pas à jour. Vous devez également activer Javascript.
Voici une piste d’écoute sans prétention, une invitation au voyage; pas un tour guidé, mais plutôt un itinéraire, un peu comme les récits de voyages de l’ère romantique. Ce sera donc un itinéraire d’écoute, une invitation à découvrir une sélection hautement subjective de compositeurs d’un coin du globe. Notre destination: l’Europe du Nord.
La France règne en reine despotique sur la musique électroacoustique européenne. L’influence persistante de l’œuvre de Pierre Schaeffer, plus de cinquante ans après l’invention de ce qu’il a baptisé la musique concrète, et la force d’attraction qu’exerce l’Ina-GRM ont tendance à occulter aux yeux du monde le travail qui se fait ailleurs en Europe.
Alors partons d’une voisine de la France, la Belgique. Celle-ci doit en grande partie sa vie électroacoustique à Annette Vande Gorne, animatrice infatigable du centre Musiques & Recherches. Sa musique fait preuve d’une rare sérénité dans le domaine des musiques pour bande. Tao, un cycle sur les cinq éléments primitifs (l’air, la terre, le métal, le feu et l’eau), demeure un classique du genre. La compositrice y épuise les transformations possibles des sons associés à ces éléments avec une maîtrise et une poésie peu communes. Élève de Vande Gorne, Stephan Dunkelman partage sa grâce, une grâce qu’il transmute en mouvement. Souvent issues de collaborations avec des chorégraphes, ses œuvres sont mues par une force intérieure qui oppose à la charge philosophique (quasi mystique, en fait) de Vande Gorne la sensualité du geste. Ses pièces Rituellipses et Thru, Above and Between, parues sur le disque Rhizomes, méritent une attention particulière.
Une courte traversée de la Mer du Nord et nous voilà en Angleterre. Nous nous dirigeons sur Birmingham, un important pôle créatif en musique électroacoustique, grâce au travail du compositeur Jonty Harrsison et de son Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (ou BEAST), un espace de diffusion et d’expérimentation qui nous a donné plusieurs compositeurs de talents. Harrison est un incontournable. Sa pièce Klang (parue sur Évidence matérielle) figure parmi les œuvres électroacoustiques les plus connues des 25 dernières années. La clarté architecturale de ses œuvres et sa façon distinctive de comprimer les sons en jets d’énergie le placent au même niveau que les Henry, Dhomont et Bernard Parmegiani de ce monde. On retrouve sa manière de faire chez l’un de ses élèves, Adrian Moore, en particulier dans son intérêt pour les sources sonores simples (un marqueur sur un tableau blanc, une feuille de papier aluminium) exploitées à travers des transformations complexes. Sieve, parue sur le disque Traces, utilise un ludisme accrocheur pour rendre ce processus transformatif transparent.
Denis Smalley est d’origine néo-zélandaise, mais il réside au Royaume-Uni depuis le milieu des années 70. Sa contribution au corpus acousmatique et au concept de diffusion sonore en fait non seulement le contemporain mais en quelque sorte l’acolyte de Harrison. Les deux compositeurs partagent d’ailleurs un même souci de la forme, un même intérêt dans le déplacement dans l’espace-temps de corps sonores abstraits. Wind Chimes (sur Impacts intérieurs) et Base Metals (sur Sources/Scènes) illustrent bien cette beauté un peu froide mais fascinante. L’un de ses élèves, John Young (un autre Néo-zélandais qui a étudié et enseigne maintenant en Angleterre), utilise une approche similaire tout en remplaçant les sources sonores élémentaires (c’est-à-dire issues des éléments et donc en quelque sorte philosophiques) par des images aux évocations plus chargées. Les pièces de son premier album, La limite du bruit, présentent à l’auditeur plusieurs occasions de replonger dans ses souvenirs au son d’une balançoire qui grince ou d’une porte qui craque (comme autant de madeleines dans les tasses de thé de Proust). Time, Motion and Memory constitue un morceau de choix.
L’électroacoustique scandinave demeure encore trop peu connue chez nous, mais le catalogue d’empreintes DIGITALes nous permet d’y faire un court arrêt pour compléter ce périple. Natasha Barrett a étudié avec Harrison et Smalley et a fait partie du BEAST, mais depuis 1998 elle habite la Norvège. Là, elle a su s’écarter du style de ses maîtres à penser et se laisser imprégner du climat nordique. Ses Three Fictions, parues sur Isostasie, méritent plusieurs écoutes. Enfin, terminons cette piste d’écoute avec l’un des phares de la musique électroacoustique d’aujourd’hui, le Suédois Åke Parmerud, dont la pièce Renaissance (parue sur Jeu d’ombres) redonne au synthétiseur analogique ses lettres de noblesse sans tomber dans la nostalgie.
blogue@press-6137
press@6137
There can be little doubt that the electroacoustic medium makes a major contribution to the range of styles and genres of British contemporary music. British-based electroacoustic composers enjoy considerable success in international competitions and regularly receive both commissions as well as invitations to work in foreign studios. Unlike our European neighbors, there are no major centers comparable to the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the Institute of Sonology, or the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM). However, this is not necessarily a disadvantage, as several excellent universities provide both the musical and intellectual environments in which electroacoustic music can be studied at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It is particularly encouraging to note the many young composers who choose to travel to Britain specifically for this purpose. Britain, therefore, has a rich tradition (insofar as a new medium can have a “tradition”) of electroacoustic music. Pioneers such as Tristram Cary, Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, or Maddalena Fagandini have often been overshadowed by their more illustrious counterparts in France and Germany; their activities are only now being given the serious attention they truly deserve. Despite this level of activity there is little evidence of a “school” of British electroacoustic music, and most composers can be situated without undue difficulty within the various strands of European music. Consequently, while it would be simplistic to claim that Denis Smalley, Jonty Harrison, and Adrian Moore constitute a British “school,” they do, nevertheless, accurately represent many of the preoccupations of electroacoustic composers in this country. For example, all three are committed to the public presentation of electroacoustic music — the composition of acousmatic music is central to each composer’s output. Mr. Smalley has championed the practice of diffusion as a vital aspect of electroacoustic music performance since 1976, thereby re-introducing aspects of performance practice to acousmatic concerts. Similarly, as director of BEAST (the Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), Mr. Harrison has been involved in the development of a fiexible system for sound diffusion unrivalled in Britain. Mr. Moore is also actively involved in many areas of performance with technology. Lastly, each is an academic which, although not a prerequisite for electroacoustic composers, does emphasize the role played by higher education in disseminating acousmatic music in Britain.
The compositions on Denis Smalley’s Sources/scènes span 26 years (a remarkable feat in itself). His work and aesthetic falls within a broadly Schaefferian tradition and his own extensive writings deal with the materials, techniques, and aesthetics of electroacoustic music. The Schaefferian framework has been extensively elaborated and Mr. Smalley’s own concepts such as “surrogacy” and “indicative fields and networks” now provide composers, analysts, and musicologists with terminology inherently derived from the medium. This has facilitated both an understanding not only of electroacoustic music but also of its relationship to music in general. In other words: a true electroacoustic musicology. Pierre Schaeffer wrote: “It is the object which has something to say to us, if we know how to make it speak and to assemble it according to the kinship of its families and the similarity of its characteristics” (Chion/Reibel 1976, 57). I believe there are connections between French symbolism and many of Schaeffer’s theories; in Mr. Smalley’s works the sounds (whether recognizable or not) suggest correspondences as “things begin to talk amongst themselves” (Ibid., 47). The first track, Base Metals (2000), exhibits the hallmarks of Mr. Smalley’s language. His affection for attack-resonance sounds is evident (all the source sounds derive from recordings of metal sculptures by Derek Shiel) as is his ability to intervene in their resonances, to extend and develop them into objects of dynamic and spectral interest. Individual nodal components are isolated and given momentum and the energetic processes of sounds are delicately uncovered to reveal hidden textures and transformations. Initially, I found Empty Vessels (1997) the greatest challenge to my expectations. I first heard it during a concert at City University and the real-world sounds recorded from within large earthenware pots in the composer’s North London garden seemed a relatively unmediated documentation of an urban soundscape. However, thanks to this recording, I have heard the work many times and now can begin to appreciate the different acoustic environments through which the listener is taken. The subtle characteristics of the natural sounds are placed in carefully created acoustic spaces thus encouraging an interaction between the confined space of the vessels, the spaciousness of the outside environment, and large but enclosed reverberant spaces. This “play” of acoustic environments inhabited by intimate sounds produced by insects and rain, or smooth and distant ones like airplanes, is possible, of course, only in the electroacoustic medium. I hope to hear Empty Vessels again in the context of a diffused performance where the space of the venue can also participate in these relationships. It is difficult to remain oblivious to the manner in which space is articulated by sound in the real world after having heard it used in this way. This is a composition which transforms how we hear. For many enthusiasts of electroacoustic music, neither Pentes (1974) nor Tides (1984), the remaining tracks on the CD, need any introduction. Mr. Smalley’s control of fine detail and his unerring ear for directing both spectral and dynamic movement ensure that each work engages the listener. The behavior of water — both visual and aural — has long fascinated composers. There is consistency and yet constant variation. According to the composer’s liner notes, Tides was his first work in which source material was transformed by computer. There are two sections, each with distinct characteristics. The “pools” of Pools and Currents, for example, suggest connected sonic areas with individual characteristics of textural play. The water sounds acquire harmonic and gritty characteristicswhich are contrasted with “currents” propelling the music forward in fiuctuating waves of movement and rest. The final track, Pentes, is without doubt a classic of acousmatic music. The source material is mainly transformed instrumental sounds. After some minutes, the significance of the underlying drone becomes clear as a traditional melody, played on beautiful, reedy Northumbrian Pipes, makes a brief and unforgettable appearance.
The period of Jonty Harrison’s work is only slightly shorter than Mr. Smalley’s, stretching over 17 years. Mr. Harrison’s musical languages range from one based on abstracting features from sound objects to the use of sounds whose origins are often obvious and which inevitably imply cultural (and personal) meanings. As he remarks in the liner notes, his work includes the approaches of (Pierre) Schaeffer and (R Murray) Schafer. Klang (1982), like Pentes, has justifiably acquired the status of a classic acousmatic work. The discovery of the resonant properties of two earthenware casserole dishes owned by Mr. Smalley is the point of departure for the work (a detailed knowledge of a fellow composer’s kitchen-ware is one advantage of living in a relatively small country!). As the composer writes, “Klang… is the German for ‘sound’.” In addition to the onomatopoeic characteristics of the word in English it is worth adding that “Klang” in the original German usually implies some harmonic content and musical intention. It was also one of the basic elements of the Cologne studio and can be translated as “note” to differentiate it from the word “Ton.” (Along with “Schall” and “Geraüsch,” German seems to have a richer vocabulary in its number of words relating to “sound” than English does.) However, harmonic qualities are not the only ones exploited by Mr. Harrison. There are also brittle, fricative sound objects which possess their own energetic momentum. As a result, the resonant characteristics of an apparently mundane utensil are promoted to elements of a musical composition. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that poetry “strips the veil of familiarity from the world.” In a similar way, Klang alerts us to the fragile beauty of everyday sounds and their transformations. A common, and natural, progression for electroacoustic composers is to provide sound for installations. Track 3, Sorties (1995), originates in such a work. It contains abstract sounds as well as those heard in urban environments. Footsteps or the sounds of modes of transport such as trains and traffic suggest movement from one place to another but with little sense of arrival or repose. The action of travel is chronicled but we are left as temporary visitors to these sonic landscapes. The occasional presence of more abstract sounds, which are not developed for their own intrinsic properties, does little to stabilize the sense of unease. We hear rain and storms, footsteps on loose gravel (hardly a material for surreptitious arrival or departure), and despite a calming “pastoral” interlude with buzzing insects, birds, and what sounds like children playing, a feeling of gloomy restlessness prevails. Surface Tension (1996) exploits a dry, fricative sound vocabulary. The sources are sounds from packing materials, and in such unprepossessing physical objects Mr. Harrison once again encourages us to listen so that his sound objects “reveal ‘beauty’ in what is normally thrown away.” Often monophonic and sparsely textured, the fractured energies burst into individual trajectories. The sounds seem to express the frantic behavior of capitalist frenzy: buy a product, tear away the packing, and don’t consider where it came from or where it goes. Like the constant deferral of arrival in Sorties, it is in the process of unpacking and manipulating material that music is discovered. (This is, of course, a personal and highly speculative, if not fanciful, interpretation!) The fourth track, Splintering (1997), also reveals an equally carefully constructed series of transparent textures. However, the source materials in this track are the more resonant sounds of wood. As Mr. Harrison asserts, wood is “organic, ” and the sounds often retain that quality. The composer also plays on the concept of the “wood” as the place deep in our imagination where mysterious things can happen. Thus, he uses the sound metonymically to represent and evoke a whole range of connections — mythical, social, and environmental — with this one sonic symbol. The final work on this CD, Streams (1999), is a stereo version of a composition originally in 8-channel format. Once again, the vocabulary extends beyond the immediate musical contexts and natural processes of “evaporation, clouds and rainfall.” Individual lines merge and divide and water becomes inseparable from its spatial setting—enclosed and resonant, or open with spacious acoustic properties.
Adrian Moore’s works stem from 1994 to 1997. He is the youngest of the three and generously acknowledges his debt to the preceding composers. His first encounter with electroacoustic music was at a concert given by Mr. Smalley and as a postgraduate student he studied with Mr. Harrison and also worked with BEAST. Junky (1996), is described by the composer in the liner notes as “electroacoustic ambient,” although I feel the description of the work as “ambient” is somewhat disingenuous. The opening and closing sections contain slowly evolving harmonies but the variety of interjecting sound objects ensure the piece never descends into New Age navel-gazing. The second track, Dreamarena (1996), makes use of similar sound material, but the rhythmic patterns of Junky are replaced by a more amorphous structure punctuated by gestures which are either dry or reverberant. The third composition is, for me, the most successful. Study in Ink (1997) is a virtuosic demonstration of a sound whose potential is discovered by accident but is then exploited by a carefully controlled series of gestures and juxtapositions. This aesthetic is, of course, a recognizably French attitude toward acousmatic music (in the early 1990s Mr. Moore spent time in Lyon, France). The squeaking of a marker pen on a white board (the sole source for the composition) is extended and magnified with arching melodic profiles to build a repository of sound objects. Short sections of erratic movements trace complex trajectories through pitch-space. With track 4 we move from the single sound source to multiple sources (though precise identification is neither needed nor intended). Foil-Counterfoil (1997) employs closely recorded tin foil, bottles, and balloons. As in the previous work these source sounds are transformed into restless chains of objects, harmonic in content, grainy, fractured—they ensure we are rarely left in repose as our ears constantly seek for connections. The final work is Sieve (1994- 1995), the earliest on the CD. Sieve (a “radiogenic” work, according to the composer) uses electronically manipulated natural sounds. Mr. Moore asserts that by removing certain sections of the sound precise identification can be compromised. The listener begins actively to seek for recognition and occasionally realizes that only when sufficient time is allowed can any accurate recognition be attempted. Even then security is not assured and the sound object slips from our mental grasp and veers off to assume a new identity.
These three discs are excellent examples of the current state of electroacoustic composition in Great Britain and are welcome additions to the catalog of the empreintes DIGITALes label. The variety of tracks on each CD reflect the diversity of the composers’ languages and the consistent quality of their output. I recommend them highly.

This CD contains 5 tracks with a variety of musical compositions. Track 1 called Base Metals exist of waves of string and metal sounds. It is a creation of a soft atmosphere where single sounds dominates in a mostly tranquil environment. Yet the music is dominated by waves, it sometimes gets disrupted by strings and metal sounds which appears at once into the soft atmosphere and which gets slowly part of the waves. Track 2 Empty Vessels is a creation of a natural real life atmosphere using recorded outdoor sounds. You hear recording of birds, airplanes flying over, rain, bees… Slowly Smalley adds some musical tunes into the real life atmosphere which adds an extra dimension to the recordings. It sounds as the real life is transforming into the lowest forms of sounds. This CD comes with a cardboard box with a complete and full explenation how the music of each track is created. Therefore when we heard water sounds in track 3 & 4, we were able to read that this track is made with the sonic images of tides based on analogies between water and sound. Big words but how does it sound. It is a mix of tickering sonic sounds randomly repeated and wondering through each other. Some music is just to difficult to describe, also these two compositions. Track 3 is based upon pools and currents and is named Pools and Currents. The bubbles are created with the sonic sounds simulating an underwater reality. While track 4 is build upon waves and is named Sea Flight, recording of waves rea used as basis material and transformed into more electronical sounds that has lost almost its natural sound. For both the computer is used for the transformation of source material into the motions that is typical for these sounds. Pentes is track 5 and a very surprising composition the best I might say. Yet, again a difficult one to review. The basis material are transformed instrumental sounds, which again creates sonic sounds. The sounds are able to appear at once in moments of complete silent ness while some further the music is continuous with sounds waves. It is a creation of a landscape with several emotions ending in one single long note and fading away for ever in complete silence.
blogue@press-471_7
press@471_7
Denis Smalley is an electroacoustic composer from New Zealand who has spent a year in Olivier Messiaen’s composition class at the Conservatoire de Paris and is currently the Head of the Music Department at the City University of London. Smalley has received a number of international awards for his work over the past 25 years. The music on this CD is a collection of four pieces from his long career. Base Metals, Empty Vessels, and Tides are the realization of the idea that a principal sound source can be the provider of the central material. In Base Metals the source was metallic sound sculptures created by the artist Derek Shiel. The result is an ambient sonic journey through the cosmos. The sound sources for Empty Vessels are large garden pots from Crete and an olive jar from Turkey. This piece incorporates many other elements (birds, airplanes thunder, and rain) and is akin to Lustmords Where the Black Stars Hang. The sonic images of Tides are based on the analogies between water and sound. In the first movement Pools and Currents, digital scraping, bubbling, and squelching sounds surge with the ebb and flow of the tides. The second movement, Sea Flight, uses crashing waves of sound. The final piece, Pentes, brings into play loud bursts of sound, chugging rhythms, slow crescendos of chords, and small alien critters to achieve the sonic equivalent of slopes and inclines. All in all, an interesting release that is fairly accessible for this genre.
It is 27 years since the completion of Denis Smalley’s Pentes (“Slopes”) in 1974 1. The following is an edited version of the transcription of a conversation between Simon Emmerson and Denis Smalley, which took place on the 29th January 1989 at the University of Keele.
History and origins
SE: Denis, tell us about what brought you to Europe and to the GRM 2 in 1974. What were the formative listening experiences which took you into the electroacoustic domain?
DS: I went to Canterbury University in New Zealand to do an ordinary degree, and then on to Victoria University, Wellington to take an honours degree in composition. When I left I needed to earn money and I went to Wellington College to teach music; I started off as a school teacher but always thought at the back of my mind that I didn’t want to stay in schools forever. In addition to that, every New Zealander at that time, and I dare say now, wanted to go to what is called ‘overseas’ to gain experiences that one can’t gain in New Zealand. So I always had my eye and ear on some kind of study in another country, preferably in Europe and also preferably in France. One tended to believe that everything would be much better everywhere else. I think that’s a natural thought in New Zealand or any isolated country. So my eyes were set on going to France; to that end I managed to get a French Government Scholarship to study with Messiaen. Several reasonably famous New Zealanders had done so and found it a rewarding experience. I had played a lot of Messiaen’s music, including many first performances of his music in New Zealand.
SE: You were a keyboard player?
DS: On organ, yes, including a lot of the more difficult music from the 1950s and 60s such as Ligeti’s Volumina. I would say that my formative listening experiences were those gained through performing just as much as listening. As far as listening is concerned I hadn’t heard anything very much of European music beyond some of the serial music of the 1950s. It’s a question of what was available on record out there in the 1960s. Probably the music of Webern was more influential than anything else. Performing Messiaen meant getting scores from Europe: you didn’t know what they were like until they arrived. As far as composing is concerned I didn’t really do very much when I was school teaching; I composed some educational pieces and I was always very frustrated that I couldn’t really have access to top instrumentalists to work with instrumental material in a contemporary way. I certainly couldn’t sit down and write the sort of pieces I wanted to without experimenting. I had done some studio work while at university, but this was of an extremely elementary kind. I did not have an extreme distaste for it, but disliked the circumstances of the particular studio and the way things were taught or not taught.
SE: Was it concrète or electronic?
DS: Both, but when we say electronic: “Compose a piece with one sine tone oscillator”. It may have been considered to be a useful exercise but it certainly could hardly be musical. So I did something along concrète lines but it was pretty terrible. The teaching method wasn’t thought out which is extremely important, so I was rather put off. I left New Zealand on a scholarship though I wasn’t convinced I wanted to compose - it was merely a mechanism for leaving the place. So I went to Messiaen’s class and by chance I heard of the course at the GRM and that I had a right to enter it without sitting the exams because I was a student of the Conservatoire. So I got in and decided very rapidly - I think within a month or so - that working with sounds in the studio where I had direct feedback and could experiment, was a far more fruitful way to compose than sitting in the Conservatoire Library with manuscript in front of me, trying to compose a chamber piece.
The GRM: education and composition
SE: Was that course at the GRM structured in the way that you would now think right and proper?
DS: Generally, yes, in that you had a very limited analogue studio to work with; I think that it is quite important otherwise you get so swamped with machinery that you can’t take stock as you have no aesthetic background; it is important that you have some aesthetic commentary from your teachers. They tried to make you do very fixed exercises - although this is not necessarily a good idea - and we would listen to the results every week. It was group listening that was extremely helpful. The comments of Guy Reibel 3, who was in charge of the course were extremely valuable but the attitudes of other students were also useful. Sometimes you’ll get more from your colleagues than you will from the teacher and I think that kind of set-up in the teaching environment is important.
I can’t say that I got very far in that first year (1970/71). Looking back on it I would expect my own students if they’d been working for a year to get further, so that perhaps says something about the efficiency of the teaching. There were analytical classes with Pierre Schaeffer, which to begin with were largely incomprehensible because of French difficulties and because of Schaeffer’s use of language 4. There were other kinds of pedagogical classes where musical examples were discussed. Students always complained that the ‘mysteries’ were being kept from them: the mysteries of how you make these wonderful works were not being made obvious to them and this was a bone of contention. They wanted to know the secrets, but of course there aren’t any secrets, The secrets are discovered through experiment, getting to know through doing. There are no short cuts. You can’t be given a set of examples to go away and emulate.
SE: No pastiche?
DS: No, absolutely no pastiche
SE: But if the études you were set were not pastiche, did they set global aims and ends for each individual?
DS: No. An étude means specifying the sorts of techniques you would use. That doesn’t necessarily pre-determine the musical outcome. It’s the same in my own teaching now; you introduce certain techniques but you don’t necessarily say anything about the kind of musical result that will come out. You get to feel that after a while through questions of sound quality. For example, when somebody says the sound quality isn’t good enough and attention is drawn to the way things move (and the majority of the class agrees that it’s not right as a consensus), you quickly latch on to what works and what doesn’t.
SE: What did they set you to do?
DS: You were introduced to techniques like looping and the different kinds of splicing but in a vague kind of way. What you come up with might at first be rather naïve and stupid until the whole range of activities of the group becomes apparent and you begin to realise that there’s more to this than meets the eye and ear. Then you break out and try more adventurous things. You would be sent off to do your prise de son with a Nagra tape recorder which you would take around Paris recording sound sources - quite fun but you didn’t know what the hell you were recording them for. I don’t send people to record sound sources to begin with in my teaching. You don’t know what kind of sound you need because you don’t know what you’re going to do with it. So I give students pre-recorded sounds to start with.
SE: What happened between 1970 and 1974 when you came back to the GRM as a composer rather than a student?
DS: I went to York University to start on a doctorate in music composition; I was searching for a studio to work in, and I couldn’t stay in France because my scholarship was for a year; I needed to go to a country where English was spoken so I could earn some money, and that meant finding a British university.
SE: So in 1974 Francois Bayle 5 invited you back. How did that happen?
DS: I can’t remember the exact train of events but I think that it was always envisaged that I would be invited back: I had completed the 2-year diploma in 1 year - even though I said I didn’t move very quickly, obviously from their point-of-view I had! I don’t think I pestered them; the invitation just came.
SE: Let’s talk about the origins of Pentes specifically. What were the first sounds that motivated the piece?
DS: Pentes comes directly from an earlier piece for amplified clarinet and tape called Gradual 6. What I did was to take the last movement of the tape part of Gradual, with one or two alterations, as the beginning of Pentes. I only had 4 weeks at the GRM. If you have to compose a piece from beginning to end you can’t start from nothing, and you can’t necessarily start just from crude sound sources, particularly using analogue techniques which would take a long time. So I had always envisaged when I was composing Gradual that that would be the beginning of Pentes. It was my goal to go to the GRM and start working on these sounds and to develop them in certain ways; I had certain fixed ideas about these sources which were developed in a very complex way and were totally remote from their origins. I was going to start by developing them at the same time as I was investigating the analogue synthesis possibilities to see whether I could possibly be in sufficient control of them. The Northumbrian pipes recording I took along with me because I thought they’d be a fruitful source of development from nothing. So I had a range of possible sources, perhaps as double insurance in case I didn’t like or couldn’t cope with the things that came through the synthesis methods.
SE: How long did it take to compose the piece?
DS: Only 4 weeks at the GRM. It was the fastest I’d ever composed and for that reason it was quite fraught. But I already had the first 2 minutes or so composed. So I had a starting point.
SE: Was that 4 weeks for the production of materials and then you remixed in York?
DS: No I did it all at the GRM.
SE: 4 weeks! Sorry, I’m taken aback!
DS: So am I! I couldn’t do a piece in 4 weeks now. I didn’t know that I was going to manage it. I might say I was a bit worried.
Techniques and approaches to material
SE: Anyway, you have the material. If you can remember those 4 weeks in a sudden leap back, what was a typical working day? What happened in those 4 weeks? You arrived, 2 minutes are prepared, you have other materials and you have ideas, what sort of ideas?
DS: I first started working on the drone materials as they were things I knew I wanted to develop. But I hadn’t been introduced to the various devices the studio had like a system of revolving heads which allows you to layer delays upon delays which could, in a very convenient way, create a wonderful ‘space’. The space that the pipes have when the melody comes in is due to that - it’s just a canonic effect. In addition Bernard Durr 7 introduced the synthesis possibilities to me. They had quite a complex analogue sequencer built on a patch-matrix system, which I must admit I never fully understood, but one could still get interesting things out of it. These sequences were recorded quite quickly and I realised that it would be easy enough because of the nature of the sounds to mix and incorporate them in some of the drone-based material. In addition there was the material taken from the end of Gradual. This was an immensely complex ‘explosion’ sound which was then superimposed on itself and stretched out into noise textures. So there were all these activities going on, I suppose, simultaneously.
SE: Describe the evolution of structures; you appear to start with a short term idea and then extend, working relatively organically.
DS: I work from a sound out into a section; I don’t necessarily know how big the section is going to be when I work on it; it may be quite a small one, but I don’t necessarily have a fixed idea about where that section will be in the finished piece. Although in this case I had a beginning, when I’m working on other pieces I haven’t necessarily known where a particular section was going to come. Having chosen the right place, I would compose complementary sequences specifically for the end of the structure.
SE: So you have what one might call a ‘local ear’ for what you’re aiming to do.
DS: Yes, very much so.
SE: How do you go about setting out your ‘global ear’ for the piece?
DS: Going back to the same point again, the problem is to find a context for the sounds. When you develop sounds in the analogue studio it’s not as if you can say “I’d really like this to be shorter” and compress it, or conversely to stretch it out; you don’t have those possibilities. Even with computers, it’s not always possible, so you have to find the right psychological spot for sounds and that gradually determines the dimensions of the piece.
I suppose all my pieces follow narrative curves, although they are usually complex ones. Pentes is probably the simplest narrative curve: you feel you have travelled through material and are somewhere else. There are not really retrospective references and I think if I hadn’t composed in a very direct way in Pentes I wouldn’t have been able to finish the piece. In other words, in this case it was a question of finding something logical to carry on from what had gone before, and continuing with the process; there’s not a complex referential system as there is in my later tape pieces.
SE: So in that respect, hearing your work Wind Chimes 8 there are very strong references between the beginning and the end.
DS: I wouldn’t say that Wind Chimes, is a very complex referential piece. It is more a straight through piece in the manner of Pentes. Some of my other works, Tides 9, for example, are much more complex from that point of view, but I suppose it has to be, being a longer piece.
SE: So in that respect your global strategies bear a strong resemblance to your local ones, they’re all really accretive and experimental.
DS: It is a chaining together of localities in the case of Pentes. I think that is one reason why it remains ‘popular’ - it is very easy to follow!
SE: It conjures up images, too. You tend to play that aspect down. Do you, in fact, have strong images associated with your music?
DS: I don’t know whether I did then, but I do now in terms of textures and objects. I don’t think I thought of Pentes in those terms. Probably I did have images of landscapes in mind: the pipes on the hill overlooking the coast or something like that, not just because of the melody but because of the space involved and the durations of events: the stretching out of time and the evolution of harmonies creates the ‘feel’ of the structure. I think I relate more to psychological imagery then concrète visual imagery; it is the strength and ‘feel’ of the event when it comes, psychological ramifications of slowness, time and evolution and these kinds of things. Of course, these do have visual connotations for people, or at least, listeners have impressions of being in circumstances which are not those of sitting in a musical structure.
SE: In other words, the feelings behind any possible imagery - psychological state imagery rather than the results of direct sensory input.
DS: Yes. One student once said to me that a sound made him feel as if he were drifting through clouds. If he had thought about it for a moment, he would have realised that it wouldn’t be possible for him to drift through clouds, and it would be a most unpleasant experience if he were able to. So, expressing it in that way is a statement of psychological feeling about a situation which is fancifully thought about in visual terms; it bears a very remote relationship to reality.
Perspective: the role of pitch and other strategies
SE: Since Pentes, many years have elapsed; you’ve remarked that you’re developing perhaps more referential strategies in your music. Does Pentes remain for you something ‘of the 1970s’? Is it linked to its time? How is it in your history now.
DS: I wasn’t terribly conscious of spectro-morphological thinking at the time; I didn’t have that theoretical basis 10. Technically speaking, I had an excellent control of analogue techniques by that time - this was my 3rd or 4th piece which had used tape. That doesn’t mean to say I composed better pieces: it was the ability to be on top of material and techniques which mattered very much. It was a sense of achievement.
There are other things about the work; one is the melody - a traditional pipe melody played by Andy Jackson, a student at York at this time - which is an attractive prospect when it comes, even when you know the piece. I took the piece around to François Bayle’s house the day after it was finished and played it to him. He said “very good, very good” in a non-committal way, “but the melody comes in too quickly”. I’ve always thought about this - does it come in too quickly? I was worried about putting the melody in because it was there in a way for a technical reason and not a musical one. That is, it’s the ultimate consequence of taking a harmonic development which is based on the drone of the pipes but which you don’t really hear as pipes. The pipe melody comes in and tells you something about the previous sounds. But for me it worked psychologically at the time; it seemed a good melody, rather stirring in its superimpositions. That was important because the way in which I dealt with pitched material and notes in that piece was a way to get back into them again.
SE: Back into them? Had you ever left pitched material? Gradual is a piece with an instrument.
DS: Yes, but there is virtually no note-based material in Gradual; there is not one single sustained note. It’s an electroaoustic clarinet. I had definitely moved away from those kinds of things. In the cello piece 11 and horn piece 12, although using mixed resources, drones and so on, I was obviously more involved in the tape side of it; had I been composing tape pieces I would have kept away from pitches. I was more concerned with objects and textures but the presence of an instrument obviously pulled the pitch material back.
SE: So you’re saying that Pentes brought you back to a balance between pitch and noise.
DS: It made me think that it’s the means of incorporating known intervals and tonalities into the broadest palette of sounds.
SE: Give me examples in your later works where that has borne fruit because I’m still a little bemused by the thought.
DS: In Wind Chimes, for example, a lot of the difficulty in putting the sections together results from pitch problems, in tuning things together, in getting into and out of stable pitch structures in order that you can attach importance to the way the pitches are being shaped. I could play on the piano the skeleton - the pitch structure - of the first two or three minutes. The point is that the piece is not actually heard like that. People are conscious of it but not conscious of it. Because of the kinds of activities and objects that are going on, the pitch structure remains a background prop. It is important because there are actual chord progressions in a sense, but where they occur and the way they are approached is rather unpredictable. They are an important part of the piece.
SE: But are you conscious of these pitch progressions when you are composing?
DS: Yes.
SE: Are you preconscious of them? Do you actually direct them or do they merely evolve?
DS: They are part of the larger form and they are directed.
SE: You know them in advance? After knowing the material you create them in advance?
DS: After knowing the material. A lot of the material might have a stable pitch; the problem is not just using the material, it is how you use the pitch stability that it is based on. Out of necessity this means making a decision about the kind of pitch that is to come next even if that pitch is not in the forefront of the focus of the listener. If you do it wrongly or if you choose one note as opposed to another then any resultant psychology of the piece will be different.
SE: This is a surprising aspect of preconception in your work. You may not hear the details but you have some idea of formal structure.
DS: This is quite important: the ideal aim of reduced listening 13 is that you assess the sound object for itself in that you examine it outside a context. But, of course, that is impossible; you are always thinking of the real or possible context. So you are making a judgement about the sound, how it starts, its time scale, whether it moves correctly; you have in your mind consciously or unconsciously a whole repertory of ways it might be related to other sounds. In other words you have a whole potential, muddled structure and set of relationships in your brain. So when I say I’m working locally that can’t be true; it must be a lie. I am working globally as well.
SE: But subconsciously or intuitively…
DS: Intuitively. You can’t have everything in the forefront of your brain at the same time - you’re thinking, concentrating locally on the details but in the background you have all the material lodged in vague sorts of ways, or the kinds of material that you might want to work with.
SE: But these are hidden strategies. They are more the strategies of the mind than of the conscious brain.
DS: Not necessarily, because I know I can bring them to the surface if I want them, as required. I think this is the important thing about teaching students. They can’t have that background to begin with. You’ve got to create the circumstances where it grows - and grows quite quickly.
Technology
SE: You have only ever wanted to incorporate new technology when in fact it has added to or allowed you greater freedom in what appears to be the continuing theme of your work. How do you see the new technology available since 1974 as having expanded the possibilities?
DS: A lot of people have always thought that when voltage control synthesisers came along I clung on to concrète techniques. People think you’re making a judgement about voltage control synthesisers. It’s that I realised I still had a certain distance to go without confusing the issue with different technology; certain things about them I wasn’t ready to work with, but when finally I had the Synthi 100 14 at my disposal, of course I used it. It’s the same with everything that comes along. I was working with complex FM, and with signal processing techniques at the GRM before others in Britain. It has a lot to do with opportunity and is not necessarily linked to desire. Obviously I have wanted to use the most modern technology and have done so sooner than most other people. I must say now that in terms of some equipment I’m glad I’ve held off from my own studio’s point of view, trying to avoid being saddled with the initial excitement of a product that comes on the market and which turns out very quickly not to be good enough in terms of quality.
SE: But the refreshing thing about your approach is that it is in a sense beyond technology. The technology should be translucent, not specifically detectable. In the case of Pentes, my own experience suggests that 90% of an audience think of it as an electronically generated piece and don’t actually perceive the concrète material within it.
DS: You always have to compose for other composers - yourself being one of them - quizzing yourself on just how much a particular technique surfaces at the expense of the musical intent. You do have to think of the music you’re composing on that professional level.
Education
SE: Supposing next year Pentes were chosen as a GCSE 15 example work; supposing it were available to a much wider audience, what would the lessons you hope the young, perhaps 13 or 14 year old, composers might be able to learn? What might be the pitfalls and the gains of using the work in a much wider context?
DS: The wider context of what I would see as important is not necessarily for the composers; if you take GCSE as an example, were that to be done, it would be a signal that the listening experience was valuable.
SE: Would you want a much wider appreciation of the general techniques of electroacoustic music given the problems inherent in the MIDI generation of equipment? Could we get something out of Pentes of very great relevance to our education system in general across the board?
DS: Methods of working with materials.
SE: But that is not immediately apparent from the music.
DS: No, exactly; that’s why I concentrated on listening. The approach to the making of the piece as far as the composer is concerned is how you develop and relate sounds. There is no difference in essence between the way I developed sounds then and the way I am working with computer systems now. I would say as far as young composers are concerned, an important lesson is that procedures for developing sounds are not particularly different.
SE: You think it is the act of getting there that is what we have to learn, not necessarily the finished product?
DS: As far as composition is concerned, yes, because you can’t deduce from listening to an electroacoustic work the means of production. It is possible to deduce a means of getting there if you’re listening to a note-based or instrumental piece: you can diagnose what is happening and what is playing to a large extent. You can’t in listening to an electroacoustic piece diagnose the composing process. When you’re starting to teach electroacoustic music composition, it doesn’t do any good to set a lot of music to listen to because beginning composers can have no clues as to how the pieces were made. It doesn’t inform them to begin with. First-year students always ask me for pieces and I say I don’t want to give them any. I want them to learn these things for themselves and, in a short space of time, they will arrive at something which, while there might be echoes of it in the repertory, will have been arrived at without knowing the repertory. That is unusual in a ‘method’, as it’s not one you’d adopt in instrumental and vocal composition - you probably couldn’t, because there’s a repertoire already known to the student. But a lot of students coming into electroacoustic composition probably haven’t listened to anything electroacoustic very much and even if they had, they wouldn’t know how it had been made so it couldn’t influence them.
Postscript
SE: How would you like Pentes to be remembered in your overall output?
DS: Not necessarily the best piece, but a good piece.
Notes
blogue@press-428_5
press@428_5