This paper presents the history and the theoretical study of mixed music and focuses on two piano solo works and two mixed electroacoustic compositions for piano and electronics. By discussing the working process and giving the analysis of the original composition Alchemy for piano and electronics, this paper investigates the relationship between cause, source and spectromorphology, reflecting how the concept of energy-motion trajectory are embodied in this mixed electroacoustic work. Alchemy is a mixed composition for piano solo and 8-channel fixed electronics focusing on the gestural play and sonic expression. The live piano part explores the gestural sound played with a slide (cup), paper clip, and objects placed inside the piano. The 8-channel electronics part is mainly derived from the recorded acoustic piano. It extends the sonic potential of source materials and presents the diverse vectorial movements of spatialization.

This paper provides an overview of the inspiration, research, and creative process involved in the composition of EverWind for orchestra and electronics. EverWind is based on field recordings from the American Southwest. The composition uses pitch material derived from spectral analysis of the recordings, and it incorporates a fixed media element using the field recordings that are then electronically manipulated to various degrees; this fixed media element is played alongside the orchestra. The paper also analyzes John Luther Adams' Dark Waves for Orchestra and Electronics and R. Murray Schafer's Music for Wilderness Lake in order to place EverWind within the broader musical context.

In the first half of the twentieth century, sporadic attempts of avant-garde composers to include sounds other than pitch in musical composition paved the way for the composers in the second half to embrace the sound of all types in their creative works. The development of technology since the mid-past century has facilitated composers' inclusive use of sound. The recent achievements in electronics and computers have led to cost-effective tools for today's composers to explore new possibilities in sound design and manipulation. Gradual for tenor saxophone and fixed electronics is primarily concerned with noise. Among the infinite possibilities of noise types, metallic sounds significantly contribute to the composition. The title of the piece refers to the compositional process in which the music progressively unfolds itself from the beginning to the end. The methods and strategies used to present the content give rise to a form I call accretion, described as an organic process by which the musical materials grow. Within the process, while established materials are interacting, combining, and forming layers, new materials may be incorporated and take part in the process. Throughout the composition, the interaction between sounds with common properties guides the music toward interactive unity, while the interplay between sounds with different characteristics forms a dialectical communication. The constant push-and-pull between the two states creates a restless tension throughout the composition. In the current version of Gradual, the audio signals from both saxophone and fixed electronics are transmitted to the same speakers, which helps coalesce acoustic and electronic sounds. The future prospect of the piece can involve real-time audio signal processing to manipulate the sound of saxophone. Adding the above feature to the current version will promote the unification of the two media into a single whole.

Audiovisual concatenative synthesis is an analysis-driven granular technique using a corpus of multimedia data to sequence audio and video streams on a microtemporal level. This text outlines my development of this technique as a tool for multimedia composition, using my work, Replica, as a case study. The paper illustrates how the concepts of granular structure, gesture capture, and replication are integral not only to the software but to the architecture of the composition. In doing so, machine learning approaches to music and visual art are reviewed and related to my personal compositional practice. Additionally, I attempt to show how audiovisual concatenative synthesis provides a composer with strategies for shaping one's sense of time through disorienting audiovisual cues and tightly organized counterpoint between sound and image, stage and screen, and the real and virtual.

This dissertation primarily concerns performance aspects in compositions for piano and tape, using three specific works as the basis for discussion: Larry Austin's Sonata Concertante, Thomas Clark's Peninsula, and Phil Winsor's Passages. These compositions are representative of the medium as a whole, yet each offers its own unique set of performance problems.

This Creature, Bride of Christ is a composition for soprano, alto flute, viola, marimba, and computer running custom software for live interactive performance in the Max/MSP environment. The work is a setting of excerpts from The Book of Margery Kempe, an early autobiographical manuscript depicting the life of a Christian mystic. The thesis discusses the historical, sociological, and musical context of the text and its musical setting; the use of borrowed materials from music of John Dunstable, Richard Wagner, and the tradition of change ringing; and the technologies used to realize the computer accompaniment. A score of the work is also included in the appendix.

This dissertation examines the role of noise in shaping the form of several recent musical compositions. This study demonstrates how the contrast of noisy sounds and harmonic sounds can impact the structure of compositions. Depending on context, however, the specific use and function of noise can vary substantially from one work to the next. The first portion of this paper describes methods for quantifying noise content using FFT analysis procedures. A number of tests on instrumental and synthetic sound sources are described in order to demonstrate how the analysis system may react to certain sounds. The second part of this document consists of several analyses of whole musical works. Works for acoustic instruments are examined first, followed by works for electronic media. During these analyses, it becomes clear that while the use of noise in each work is based largely upon context, some common patterns do exist across different works. The final portion of the paper examines an original work which was written with the function of noise specifically in mind. The original work is put through the same analysis procedures as works seen earlier in the paper, and some conclusions are drawn regarding both the possibilities and limitations of noise analysis as a compositional tool.

This thesis explores an experimental music approach to writing autobiography. As a composition, Pilgrim Carnival took place as a travelling series of events. The central event was a sound installation for a blindfolded audience. This essay is a description of that series of events as well as a discussion of similar precedents in interdisciplinary art. Beginning with Luigi Russolo and Marcel Duchamp, aspects of autobiography are examined in both noise music and the concept of the ready-made artwork. Body Art of the 1970s, particularly the work of Marina Abramovic, is also tied into the idea of the ready-made artwork as an explicitly autobiographical example. The hybrid form of Pilgrim Carnival and the concept of ready-made autobiographical music create ongoing potential for new work.

Three Pieces for Musicians and Computer implements a modular formal structure that allows the performers to experiment with the order and number of movements to arrive at their ideal combination. The piece is a collection of three solo works: Rameaux, Nature Morte, and Moiré for bass flute with b-foot, metal percussion (vibraphone, glockenspiel, and crotales), and clarinet (A and B-flat instruments) respectively. In addition to the original versions, an alternate version of each piece is included. The alternate versions add new performance elements to the original works: live electronics in Rameaux and Nature Morte and an acoustic quintet (flute, viola, percussion, piano and harp) in Moiré. These additions reframe the original works by introducing new harmonic, timbral, and formal connections and possibilities. The compositional process of Three Pieces relies on the notion of Germinal Elements, which are defined as the set of limited, distinct, and indivisible materials used in the creation of the work. Though Germinal Elements are indivisible, they undergo a type of developmental process through expansion and contraction, which is an increase or a decrease in the range or scope of any musical parameter (time, pitch, density, dynamic, duration, etc.) or set of parameters. Analysis of this cycle of works reveals a variety of recombinations of four GE's as well as processes of expansion and contraction applied to multiple parameters of each GE to generate formal relationships within and between works. Two electronics systems, the delay/harmonizer instrument and the live performance system are described both in technical and musical terms with specific examples given to show how the electronics influence and expand both the surface material and the formal structure of the work.

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