In seventeenth-century England church bells started to make a new, and extraordinary, sound. Change-ringing caused bells to be rung according to complicated series of mathematical permutations from pages full of number. It had no liturgical function but was practised as a highly-organised leisure activity, ringing out loudly from church towers through much of the country. Change-ringing is still heard and done today but its sound has become so familiar that the abstract complexity of its structure is easily ignored. Although its practitioners have been assiduous chroniclers of the activity change-ringing has not been placed in the rich context it deserves, nor been the subject of sustained discussion in academic scholarship to date. This thesis examines change-ringing in the century of its inception and beyond. What was (and is) change-ringing? Each chapter answers this question by focussing on a different aspect: it was a mathematical, combinatorial system; it was a notated, learned practice; it was a recreation; it was a kind of music; and it was a sound, noisily imposing itself onto the soundscape. Comparing change-ringing to other systems, practices, recreations, types of music, and sounds I locate it within the intellectual territory and social organisation of early-modem England and connect it to practices far away in time and type. I show how the phrase 'ringing the changes' was taken up as a metaphor to reflect a kind of flitting inconstancy. The formal structure behind change-ringing, with strict rules demanding constant change, reflects the tense balance of order and disorder that characterises the seventeenth century.

This book explores microtonality, specifically the use of microdiscrete intervals and sliding pitch, in new music. It presents a newly designed microtonal percussion instrument (the conic bellophone), a portfolio of inextricably associated compositions, in score and recordings, and a video recording illustrating the technique of the instrument. The question whether an instrument must exist in order for music to be composed for it is addressed by means of experimental composition for the bellophone. Analysis and comparison of the work of Julian Carrillo and Harry Partch, twentieth century composers deeply involved in microtonality, sliding pitch, and the development of new and modified instruments, shapes the research method used. A detailed review of the achievements of these composers in creating novel instruments, which informs this comparison, is presented in appendices. Whereas Carrillo and Partch mostly built new instruments before composing for them, this research proposes and applies an instrument-development-led composition strategy, which systematically promotes interaction between design, construction, composition and theory. A tuning system with very small equal steps (allowing for smooth, microdiscrete-sliding pitch -see Glossary- progressions) is chosen for the bellophone. The 96-equal temperament is a practical compromise between infinitely small quantisation of the pitch continuum and the realisation of a playable instrument. The exploration of microdiscrete-sliding pitch, whose innovative use is sought throughout the composition portfolio, is supplied by means of an original development of established microtonal notation. This research evaluates successive prototypes of the bellophone in relation to compositional practice: the playability of short compositions (solo studies) is assessed in relation to built and virtual prototypes of the instrument, and to defined conceptual variants of it. These variants, which exemplify alternative solutions to the aims embodied in each prototype built, inform the progressive development of the bellophone. Several variants of posterior prototypes are considered for compositional use too. A wide range of further newly conceived instruments, including aerophones, chordophones, and idiophones of materials other than metal, generated by further extending application of the instrument design methodology developed, are illustrated and discussed in an appendix. Informed by the composition of several solo studies, a three-movement ensemble work, Seasons, using a finalised form of the bellophone is presented. The research method arrived at, which instigates a system of instrument-development-led compositional theory and practice, is shown to be transferable to musical parameters other than pitch.

Works for percussion are often neglected and underperformed because of instrumental unavailability, logistic limitations and notation issues. This research addresses these problems by delivering eight self-contained, adaptable and transportable multipercussion-based projects. The first three works solve these problems by using found objects, body percussion and imaginary instruments, revolving around the concept of interchangeable, if not transportable, instrumentation. The following two projects look at the snare drum as a harmonious box (a resonant body), augmenting its timbre with extended techniques - such as mallets and hybrid hand/stick techniques- and live electronics. The audio processing starts with short and crisp sounds and looks at ways to generate pitch via resonators, and how to control length with reverb. The remaining three projects focus exclusively on MIDI percussion, filling a wide gap in the repertory. These are the first works composed with this instrument in mind and not as a transcription or as a substitute for more common instruments. They cover, respectively, the areas of sampling, automated pitch randomizers and live MIDI scaling and shaping. Furthermore, the max4live MIDI patches serve as a link between the pitched and unpitched percussion, empowering the drum kit with harmonic and melodic controls. All the projects are designed to solve logistic problems and are developed as concerts-in-a-suitcase, a concept which is at the basis of my research Make it Happen. All the scores and types of notation put the performer's needs first; this is why I produced performance editions, sometimes to the disadvantage of the original composition. The graphic, metronomic and partially composed scores included in this commentary, are all drawn together by controlled improvisation. As I was constantly performing and practicing on new instruments, without an established performance practice, I used controlled improvisation to create solid structural skeletons that provide percussionists with versatile performance solutions. The commentary outlines my roles within each project and contextualises the works within the repertory. The conventional, graphic and timed scores designed in the process, have created a body of work that, by granting considerable freedom to the performer, can generate a vast repertoire of diverse realisations.

This thesis scientifically investigates the setup and tuning of cylindrical membranophones as musical instruments. To date there has been very little quantitative analysis of drum tuning with respect to performance sound, studio recording and music production. Digital signal analysis has been used to quantify a number of acoustic related factors to drum setup and tuning. This is concerned with the evaluation of a drum's free vibration once excitation has occurred. Novel analysis of membranophone response is performed with respect to tuning an 'equalised drumhead'. Such analysis has not previously been performed on cylindrical drums with two heads. The findings show that it is indeed possible to tune a drum to a chosen, uniform frequency response and to a quantified accuracy. With reference to previous, non-scientific literature, the fundamental frequency of each drum in the modern drum kit is shown for the first time to be objectively tunable to correspond to a musical pitch. The research also investigates the role of the resonant head in tuning cylindrical drums. Unique analysis of the interaction between the two membranes shows for the first time that the ratios of the modal frequencies present in a drum sound are not fixed and can be manipulated to more desirable ratios. The fundamental frequently present is shown to be the same for both batter and resonant heads due to the strong coupling effect of the (01) modes. Furthermore the current research shows how this ability to manipulate the frequencies present in the drum can be extended to the drum kit as a whole and how the envelope profile of cylindrical drums with two heads can be manipulated via tuning and damping. This research therefore provides an original contribution to the knowledge of drum tuning for both scientific and musical purposes.

Bien que le courant musical « spectral » soit à la source de nombreuses recherches, il apparaît que les percussions y tiennent une place particulière qui n’a été que trop peu étudiée. L’évolution de disciplines comme l’organologie, l’anthropologie ou l’ethnomusicologie a contribué à l’inclusion dans le vocabulaire des compositeurs de nombreux nouveaux instruments à percussion. Si on remarque que les spectres fournis par les percussions servent bien souvent à composer le timbre, c’est l’intérêt pour la perception qui pousse les compositeurs à considérer la sonorité globale des pièces par phénomènes de mémoire ou de seuils. Ceci amène une nouvelle manière de forger des sons sur certaines caractéristiques inhabituellement mises en avant comme la densité, la plage fréquentielle, la rugosité, ou la granulation. Le langage des percussions apparait comme vecteur immédiat de l’expression des compositeurs et des interprètes, et le courant spectral semble bénéficier de cette exploration sonore. / Although the musical style called « spectral » is the source of much research, it appears that the percussion family holds in it a special place that has been too little studied. Developments in disciplines such as organology, anthropology or ethnomusicology contributed to the inclusion of many new percussion instruments in the vocabulary of composers. If one notice that the spectra provided by the percussion often serve to dial tone, it is the interest towards perception that pushes composers to consider the overall sound of pieces through memory and threshold phenomena. This brings a new way to craft sounds from some unusually highlighted characteristics such as density, frequency range, roughness, or granulation. Percussion appear as immediate expression vectors to composers and performers, and the spectral movement seems to benefit from this exploration of sound, made possible by the diversity inherent to percussion alloys spectra.