Composition and Computers today

Composition andComputers today

Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.1

Composition and Computers todayWhich tools for which creation

Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, December 13th 2011

Nicola BernardiniConservatorio “C.Pollini”

Padova

Copyright ©2011 Nicola Bernardini <[email protected]>This work comes under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-SA 2.5 license

mailto:[email protected]

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.2

However much the growth of theorchestra has been the toy ofcircumstances, conditions, or themechanical or technicaldevelopment of instruments, thereal driving force behind suchevolution is after all the insistentlygrowing demand of musical art forfit means of expression.

Adam Carse,The History of Orchestration,

p.7 (1925)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.3

Yesterday and today

• When computers were scarcely available, there werehardly any “digital tools” for music

• Composers had to go out of their way with theirimagination to produce music with them

• Their imagination was constantly stimulated by thedifficulties and the limitations

• Today, computers are a general commodity• They are used for music as for anything else. . .• . . . and composers have many pre–fabricated tools to work

with (as everybody else as a matter of fact, both musiciansand non musicians)

• The question is: do these tools help imagination andcreativity on the musical side?


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.4

Tools Usage (1)

• Tools are essential to creation• Their function is to lower the complexity barrier• Past:

highly structured languages. . .

. . . simple interface structures


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.5

Tools Usage (2)

• Present:

weak languages. . .

. . . complex tools

• Are tools taking over creation?


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.6

Digital Tools

• Digital hardware is a large matrix of switches:• Unlimited potential. . .• . . . almost infinite complexity

• Software restricts potentials. . .• . . . but it allows humans to deal with complexity


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.7

Tools Transparency (1)

• Generally speaking, tools are an extension of humancapabilities

• Digital tools provide extensions to mind capabilities• Tools Transparency is the ability of doing exactly what you

have in mind using tools that lower the complexity barrieryou are facing


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.8



Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.9


• Very roughly:• The height of the complexity barrier is directly proportional

to the versatileness of the tool• i.e.: a versatile tool is more complicate to learn and use,

and you will reach the complexity barrier sooner. . .• . . . but a tool that automates many things for you will most

probably automate decisions for you too

• There is no silver bullet :(• Perhaps a solution lies in getting to learn as many tools as

possible, using the (most) appropriate one for each task


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.10

Special Tools vs. General Tools (1)

highlowGenerality

low

hig

h

Co

mp

lexit

y

Sound Editors:(cooledit, sound designer,

soundforge, audacity, etc.)

HDRs:(ProTools, Cubase,

Ardour, etc.)

Score Editors:(Finale, Sibelius,

Lilypond, CMN, etc.) Fast−prototyping

Environments:(pd, Max−MSP, jMax, etc.)

Music Languages(csound, SuperCollider,

nyquist, CM, etc.)

Small Languages:(awk, perl, python, etc.)

System Languages:

(C, C++, Java, etc.)

Hel

per

s

Plu

g−i

ns


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.11

Special Tools vs. General Tools (2)

• Transparency at all costs is seldom necessary• However we should be wary of tools that “open up new

possibilities”• We often need to step from one tool to the other in the

creation of a complex work


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.12

A Musical Example (1)

• Recordare - Madrigale Recitato per Suoni Elaborati(1999-2000)

• Designed in 1995• Got around to write it in 1999• Took a couple of years of work (on and off)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.13


• Basic (abstract) Ideas:• A speaking choir of ghosts• Choir of individual voices representing entire communities• Walking frontally towards the audience

• An elaboration on roughness


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.14


• Technical Construction Ideas:• Collect recordings of the text by close friends and relatives

of both sexes and ages• Segment recordings by dyphones or syllables• Reconstruct the text mixing syllables and/or dyphones

according to statistical rules• Render spatially the reconstructed text(s) using simple

sound–tracing techniques


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.15


• Tools:• csound processing engine• transcriber (helped by awk and perl scripts) to

segment the text in the recordings• awk and perl scripts to create csound scores and tables

• A short excerpt


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.16

Another musical example (1)

• Passacaglia, for flute and multi–track fixed media, by AldoClementi

• conceived by Clementi in 1988• first fixed media version premièred in 1996• new fixed media version premièred in 2010


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.17


• fixed media content:• 12 fragments taken from the classical flute repertoire• a matrix of 12 × 12 × 4 = 576 fragments extrapolated from

the initial fragments• fragment rotations and superpositions• 48 real voices independently moved in space on an

8–channel system

• many other problems:• musical materials to be built in order to record the fragments• figuring out if everything is done according to plan (charting)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.18


Figure: Passacaglia, first page of fragments (manuscript by AldoClementi)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.19


Figure: Passacaglia, schema (manuscript by Aldo Clementi)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.20


Passacaglia - Schema A - Riga S3Aldo Clementi

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Figure: Passacaglia, automatically generated materials (example)


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.21


Figure: Passacaglia, automatically generated database dump


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.22


Figure: Passacaglia, automatically generated schema


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.23


• when Clementi conceived it (1988), nobody knew how tohandle this piece

• first version (1996):• awk + shell preprocessor scripts• materials generated by hand• csound generation, static multitrack output (8–tracks)• sound movement in space done by specialized hardware

• second version (2010):• ruby scripting• materials (and everything else) generated automatically

through lilypond and latex• csound generation, fully independent voices• sound output already spatialized


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.24

Conclusions

• Digital creation goes hand in hand with a wide availabilityof different tools. . .

• . . . which must be customizable and/or modifiable at will. . .• . . . and whose input/outputs must be join-able together.• in such situations, proprietary, closed, one–size–fits–all

software simply won’t do.• In the digital world, the imagination is strictly connected to

(the creation and) use of appropriate tools – which maynot have been conceived for the specific task at hand.


Nicola Bernardini

Introduction

Tools

Digital Tools

Transparency

Special vs. General

ExamplesRecordare

Passacaglia

Conclusions

1.25

THE END.Thank you.

Composition and Computers today

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