Étude sur la collaboration et la participation active d’un saxophoniste-chercheur avec plusieurs compositeurs dans la création musicale mixte. Les musiques mixtes combinent un performeur jouant d’un instrument acoustique qui interagit avec des outils électroniques et informatiques, se faisant entendre par des hauts-parleurs. Nous comprenons la participation comme des multiples échanges humains intégrant l’écoute, l’instrument acoustique, l’électronique et les dernières technologies numériques dans la musique. Notre méthodologie s’est nourrie des sciences cognitives, de la systémique, de la recherche-action intégrale et systémique, de la cybernétique de second ordre, de l’opérationnel et de l’émergence contextuelle. Notre démarche propose une réflexion autour de quelques bouleversements de l’écoute musicale au XXe siècle et l’étude des musiques mixtes contemporaines sous le biais de l’approche multi-échelle. Nous faisons partie de notre objet d’étude tout en le modifiant dans un processus dynamique. Quelles connaissances musicales émergent de ces échanges de compétences et peuvent en être élargies grâce à cette rétroaction (feedback) multiple, en boucle créative ? Ces questions, avec nos sources de première main et l’inclusion du compositeur en tant qu’interprète ont fait émerger notre concept d’interprétation musicale participative. Nous proposons que l’analyse de nos propres collaborations peut apporter une connaissance originale sur les pièces musicales mixtes en question et développer une sorte de plasticité dans le faire musical. Comme démonstration, des morceaux ont été créées pendant nos recherches et sont analysées sous cette approche. / This research is about the collaboration of a saxophonist-researcher with several composers in electro acoustic music with saxophones. Mixed music combines a performer playing acoustic instruments (traditional or not) interacting with digital and electronics means of all sort of operations, time scales and technical configurations, diffused by loudspeakers. We understand participation in our case as human exchanges in musical digital environments, and as the creation of new links that didn’t exist before. Our research proposes a reflection on listening approaches through the XXst century and studying mixed music through the multi scale approach. The saxophonist gives a contribution, that enhance a creative perspective for each musical piece that influence the composers’ work. Which techniques and which musical knowledge can be exchanged and enlarged thanks to this multiple feedback ? The work on first sources, the competence exchanges between musicians during the many steps of their process of collaborative work construct what we call participatory interpretation in new music. In some aspects we get close to the integral and systemic action-research, since we take part in our study objet, and we modify it in a dynamic process. We propose that the analysis of the musical pieces from our collaborations can bring forth an original knowledge about them and enhance musical creativity. Participatory interpretation optimizes the musical results and explore new mixed “composable” spaces. As a demonstration, some pieces are though analyzed under this participatory perspective. Our research leads to a conclusion towards the idea of plasticity in music making.

Present Absence is a work that integrates electronic processing and live performance. It is approximately 20 minutes long and is divided into three movements. The movements are distinct from each other, but are related through various elements. Incorporating electronic processing and live performance can be cumbersome. The primary objective of this piece is to use electronic processing in a manner that liberates the performers from any restrictions imposed by the use of electronic processing. The electronic processing in the work is accomplished through the program MAX/Msp, a real-time digital signal processing environment. The patch that was created for this piece is called MOO-V. This paper discusses the both the technical details in the construction of this patch, and the aesthetic it serves.

Electro-acoustic music composition makes it possible for composers to manipulate sounds with the computer with either alone or both live and prerecorded sounds. From the end of the 19th century when the first electronic devices for performing music were developed up till today, transformations in music technology keep surfacing and the possibilities with working with sounds have become endless. Electro-acoustic music has the ability to conjure mental images using vast sound manipulation techniques using the DAW(Digital audio workstation) and sound amplification through loudspeakers. Every space in our environment has its unique sound/s. Lost and found through these techniques provides an insight to a space which seems distant by geographical location but closer through sound.

This dissertation contains five chapters: 1. Introduction, 2. Basic Digital Processing Used in Summer Rain, 3. Part I Summer Rain - Dawn, 4. Part II After the Summer Rain and 5. Conclusion. Introduction contains a brief historical background of musique concrète, Electronische Musik, acousmatic music and music for instruments and tape, followed by basic descriptions of digital technique used in both parts of Summer Rain in Chapter 2. Also Chapter 2 describes software used in Summer Rain including "Kawamoto's VST," which is based on MAX/MSP, to create new sounds from the recorded samples using a Macintosh computer. In both Chapter 3 and 4, Kawamoto discusses a great deal of the pre-compositional stage of each piece including inspirational sources, especially Rainer Maria Rilke's poems and Olidon Redon's paintings, as well as her visual and sound imageries. In addition Chapter 3 she talks about sound sources, pitch, form and soundscape. Chapter 4 contains analysis on pitch in the piano part, rhythm, form and the general performance practice. Chapter 5 is a short conclusion of her aesthetics regarding Summer Rain, which is connected to literature, visual art and her Japanese cultural background.

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.