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How to define the relationship of human bodies, sound and technological instruments in musical performance? This enquiry investigates the issue through an iterative mode of research. Aesthetic and technical insights on sound and body art performance with new musical instruments combine with analytical views on technological embodiment in philosophy and cultural studies. The focus is on corporeality: the physiological, phenomenological and cultural basis of embodied practices. The thesis proposes configuration as an analytical device and a blueprint for artistic creation. Configuration defines the relationship of the human being and technology as one where they affect each other's properties through a continuous, situated negotiation. In musical performance, this involves a performer's intuition, cognition, and sensorimotor skills, an instrument's material, musical and computational properties, and sound's vibrational and auditive qualities. Two particular kinds of configuration feature in this enquiry. One arises from an experiment on the effect of vibration on the sensorimotor system and is fully developed through a subsequent installation for one visitor at a time. The other emerges from a scientific study of gesture expressivity through muscle physiological sensing and is consolidated into an ensuing body art performance for sound and light. Both artworks rely upon intensely intimate sensorial and physical experiences, uses and abuses of the performer's body and bioacoustic sound feedback as a material force. This work contends that particular configurations in musical performance reinforce, alter or disrupt societal criteria against which human bodies and technologies are assessed. Its contributions are: the notion of configuration, which affords an understanding of human-machine co-dependence and its politics; two sound-based artworks, joining and expanding musical performance and body art; two experiments, and their hardware and software tools, providing insights on physiological computing methods for corporeal human-computer interaction.

Steve Reich’s only long-term set of compositions – the so-called Counterpoint series, which currently includes Vermont Counterpoint (1982), New York Counterpoint (1985), Electric Counterpoint (1987), and Cello Counterpoint (2003) – traces an arc through the final two decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. This timeframe was one of great technological development, which is reflected in these works’ performance forces (soloist and multi-track tape) and in their sketch traces (ranging from pencil and paper sketches to computer files). The Counterpoints are multiples of the same conception of a musical work in much the same way as they are to be performed on multiples of the same instrument (or instrumental family). As the composer himself put it: ‘The overall texture is made up entirely of multiples of the same timbre, which texture highlights the overall contrapuntal web with its many resulting patterns which the listener can hear’.1 Using the semiotic tripartional model adapted for music by Jean-Jacques Nattiez as a methodological basis, the main aim of this thesis is to trace aspects of the Counterpoints through their neutral, esthesic, and poietic levels in order to offer insights into this often overlooked area of Reich’s oeuvre. Independently each level of analysis offers a unique angle from which to view the Counterpoints. The neutral brings together a diverse range of pre-existing analytical views on (and approaches to) the Counterpoints, providing new analytical interpretations on specific sections of each work. The esthesic level scrutinises Reich’s own thoughts and ideas relating to the Counterpoints through the medium of interviews, biographical and programme notes, and social media, while also exploring public response and reaction to them. Split into two sections (analogue and digital), the poietic level deals with the extant sketch material produced by Reich in the course of composing these works. These three angles of analysis are then pulled together in a final chapter that explores Cello Counterpoint’s second movement and Reich’s use of rhythmic construction in combination with canon as a possible defining feature of the Counterpoints. This synthesis draws on all aspects of the tripartition and offers a possible paths through an integrated analysis. 1 Steve Reich, “Texture–Space–Survival,” Perspectives of New Music 26, no. 2 (1988), 273.

In this paper, a theoretical approach is presented to analyse music harmony perception under different tonal context. The purpose of this study is to account for the empirical perception rankings of musical chord structures. We believe the perception of a musical simultaneity depends on both its internal structure and external tonal context and the failure of previous psychoacoustic theories possibly comes from the ignorance of tonal context. The model prediction result reveals some important insights in line with empirical observations for music triads.

Modern scholarship has often viewed insular medieval music unfavourably in comparison to continental and, specifically, Notre Dame composition. This is, in part, due to the fragmentary remains of the insular repertory and the lack of theoretical literature relevant to insular composition, which clearly contrasted with French practices, at times. These differences have been perceived pejoratively in scholarly study, often through a lack of understanding of contemporary aims and perceptions. This thesis therefore attempts to pinpoint the unique features of the insular style and repertory, to quantify their frequency in the extant sources and compositions, and to provide an overview of the entire extant insular polyphonic repertory from the “long thirteenth century”. It has often been observed that part of the uniquely insular approach to composition is a more fluid approach to and cultivation of genre. Whereas French composition focussed on the development of several specific genres, each with their own set of standard rules for composition that were rigidly adhered to, for the most part, insular composers seem to have preferred to experiment, mixing features of French genres, and techniques to create pieces that do not appear to conform to any one continental generic style. Furthermore, while compositions in French manuscripts are organised according to their genre, and the number of voices included, insular manuscripts appear not to follow this organisational style in a significant number of extant sources. This study therefore aims to explore and discuss insular composition in terms of genre, and to investigate and quantify how often insular manuscript sources appear to have been organised in a manner reflective of a more experimental approach to genre.

Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, (1566–1613) is celebrated for his idiosyncratic use of chromaticism. Yet, the harmony of Gesualdo's madrigals evades modal rules and his chromatic style has perplexed analysts. This thesis reappraises the modal and chromatic features in his madrigals and expands on their significance by employing pitch-class set theory analysis to enhance a more traditional modal approach. Whilst analysis of the music through modal features and pitch-class set theory may appear to use contradictory analytical methods, the two can complement each other through the recognition of certain interval patterns regarded as significant by cinquecento music theorists. Ultimately, this analytical technique provides a language with which to articulate the modal and chromatic processes occurring in his music. In order to consolidate the results of the analyses, elements of compositional process are delineated and explored in the dissection of the madrigal '"Io parto" e non più dissi.'

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Syncopation is a fundamental feature of rhythm in music. However, the relationship between theory and perception is currently not well understood. This thesis is concerned with characterising this relationship and identifying areas where the theory is incomplete. We start with a review of relevant musicological background and theory. Next, we use psychophysical data to characterise the perception of syncopation for simple rhythms. We then analyse the predictions of current theory using this data and identify strengths and weaknesses in the theory. We then introduce further psychophysical data which characterises the perception of syncopation for simple rhythms at different tempi. This leads to revised theory and a new model of syncopation that is tempo-dependent.

Classical music performers use instruments to transform the symbolic notationof the score into sound which is ultimately perceived by a listener. For acoustic instruments, the timbre of the resulting sound is assumed to be strongly linked to the physical and acoustical properties of the instrument itself. However, rather little is known about how much influence the player has over the timbre of the sound - is it possible to discriminate music performers by timbre? This thesis explores player-dependent aspects of timbre, serving as an individual means of musical expression. With a research scope narrowed to analysis of solo cello recordings, the differences in tone quality of six performers who played the same musical excerpts on the same cello are investigated from three different perspectives: perceptual, acoustical and gestural. In order to understand how the physical actions that a performer exerts on an instrument affect spectro-temporal features of the sound produced, which then can be perceived as the player's unique tone quality, a series of experiments are conducted, starting with the creation of dedicated multi-modal cello recordings extended by performance gesture information (bowing control parameters). In the first study, selected tone samples of six cellists are perceptually evaluated across various musical contexts via timbre dissimilarity and verbal attribute ratings. The spectro-temporal analysis follows in the second experiment, with the aim to identify acoustic features which best describe varying timbral characteristics of the players. Finally, in the third study, individual combinationsof bowing controls are examined in search for bowing patterns which might characterise each cellist regardless of the music being performed. The results show that the different players can be discriminated perceptually, by timbre, and that this perceptual discrimination can be projected back through the acoustical and gestural domains. By extending current understanding of human-instrument dependencies for qualitative tone production, this research may have further applications in computer-aided musical training and performer-informed instrumental sound synthesis.

Immerse yourself in a world of sound and approximations. This practice-­led research is concerned with critically examining the roots and contemporary significance of immersion within sonic art and everyday life. This body of work has resulted from research into key issues repositioning the term immersion outside the normal parameters of art investigating the intertwining relationship between immersion, listening and anthrophony. The research has been informed by the working methods of selected contemporary artists using field recordings within various interior environments. Rigorous listening to works has also influenced and driven this research forward to search for definitions of immersion. The author analyses the sonic works produced by reflecting on his own practice, with the thesis focused on the works produced rather than any alternative historical notion of sonic arts. The thesis critically examines a collection of works perceived as immersive in nature and secondly explores the interaction with personal sonorous environments. This thesis presents a series of informative and illuminating original interviews that have reinforced expanded elements of immersion presented in the examination of the practice-­led aspects of the work. These primary source interviews give a wide spectrum of opinions and experiences enabling the term and practices of immersion to be viewed outside the commonly viewed perceptions and practices that immersion evokes with artists’, audiences and individuals. Thirteen interviews with international artists’, curators and contemporary writers reflect on their personal experiences of immersion in art and critical methodological influences and practices. The interviews also discuss the contested adjectives that the term immersion evokes and the wider reaching impacts of the term beyond popular usages of the term. These essential interviewees include: Alan Dunn (multidisciplinary artist), BJ Nilsen (field recordist and sound artist), Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (researcher and sound artist), Chris Watson (field recordist and artist), Christine Sun Kim (sound artist), Daniela Cascella (curator, researcher and contemporary writer), David Hendy (researcher and contemporary writer), Francisco Lopez (sound artist), Hildegard Westerkamp (composer and sound ecologist), Markus Soukup (film and sound artist) Matthew Herbert (electronic musician), Ross Dalziel (Local Curator) and Sebastiane Hegarty (visual and sound artist). This primary research brings together, for the first time, a broad spectrum of experiences, opinions and views on immersion in sonic art and everyday life and re-­considers the challenges presented when examining this theme. An accompanying collection of artistic recordings using three distinct methods is also presented as an integrated part of the thesis. First, using mobile phones to record the author’s everyday travels, conversations and movements. Secondly, it utilises the habituated environments and the in/significance of each reverberation by presenting recordings using delicate contact microphones. The third method utilises the phenomenological and abstract memories from the author’s autobiographical past, reconstructing the distant but real recollections. These methods illuminate the author’s immersive resonating capsule of isolated existence including and portraying the fragmented and often distorted everyday sonorous experience. Sound Received: Immersion, Listening and Anthrophony generates alternative and renewed thinking on immersion, re-­definitions illuminating historical moments that have shaped much of the research. The unique collection of interviews and sonic recordings contributes to the expanding area of sonic discourse and offers a unique contribution to the field.