A monograph on the musical composition How We Saved the World, a multimedia musical drama written by the author, describes in detail the history of the writing of the piece, its context within his development as a composer, its context within our times, the writing and structure of the libretto, the characters and character types within the piece, their relationships with one another, the music of the piece and its construction. The two hour long composition requires 44 performers to stage: 14 singers, 8 dancers, and a conducted 21 piece orchestra. In addition to traditional acoustic instruments (winds, brass, percussion, strings) the orchestra includes electric guitars, drum set, and audio and video laptop performers. How We Saved the World is situated in a future time and begins with the premise that the world has been saved. Human beings have found a way to live in peace and harmony with one another and with the ecology of our planet Earth. We, the participants in the performance are sharing among ourselves the story of how human culture changed from the destructive, unsustainable practices and consciousness of the past. The libretto is included as an appendix. The score and all of the audio files needed to perform the piece are included as supplementary material. / Music Composition / Accompanied by one .pdf score and one compressed file.

There is an arguable lack of activity and interest in the analysis of electroacoustic music when compared to its composition and performance. The absence of a strong and active analytical community is very concerning, as it should be a fundamental part of any larger musical community that wishes for works to be performed and discussed in later years. The problems that face electroacoustic music analysis are that there is no consensus or single analytical tool/methodology that dictates how such an activity should be undertaken. Rather than attempting to appropriate existing tools meant for traditional musics or create a new universal one this thesis will argue that a new culture should be adopted that promotes different opinions on the subject of electroacoustic music analysis, as opposed to defining a consensus as to how it should be conducted. To achieve this the thesis will: evaluate and critique what constitutes and defines electroacoustic music analysis; provide a general and flexible procedure to conduct an analysis of an electroacoustic work; develop a set of criteria and terms to cross-examine the current analytical tools for electroacoustic music in order to define the gaps in the field and to identify pertinent elements within electroacoustic works; analyse a number of electroacoustic works to test and implement the ideas raised within this thesis; and finally the concept of an analytical community (in which such a culture could exist) is outlined and implemented with the creation of the OREMA (Online Repository for Electroacoustic Music Analysis) project. This universal approach will cover both epistemological and ontological levels of electroacoustic music analysis. All of the concepts raised above are interlinked and follow the main hypothesis of this thesis: • There is no one single analysis that can fully investigate a work; • Analyses are a perspective on a work, ultimately formed through the subjective perception of the analyst; • These perspectives should be shared with other practitioners to help develop a better understanding of the art form. This PhD study was part of the New Multimedia Tools for Electroacoustic Music Analysis project (2010-2013) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). Other outcomes of that project included the various analysis symposiums held at De Montfort University in Leicester and the electroacoustic analysis software EAnalysis created by Pierre Couprie.

The domain of this thesis is electroacoustic computer-based music and sound art. It investigates a facet of composition which is often neglected or ill-defined: the process of composing itself and its embedding in time. Previous research mostly focused on instrumental composition or, when electronic music was included, the computer was treated as a tool which would eventually be subtracted from the equation. The aim was either to explain a resultant piece of music by reconstructing the intention of the composer, or to explain human creativity by building a model of the mind. Our aim instead is to understand composition as an irreducible unfolding of material traces which takes place in its own temporality. This understanding is formalised as a software framework that traces creation time as a version graph of transactions. The instantiation and manipulation of any musical structure implemented within this framework is thereby automatically stored in a database. Not only can it be queried ex post by an external researcher—providing a new quality for the empirical analysis of the activity of composing—but it is an integral part of the composition environment. Therefore it can recursively become a source for the ongoing composition and introduce new ways of aesthetic expression. The framework aims to unify creation and performance time, fixed and generative composition, human and algorithmic “writing”, a writing that includes indeterminate elements which condense as concurrent vertices in the version graph. The second major contribution is a critical epistemological discourse on the question of ob- servability and the function of observation. Our goal is to explore a new direction of artistic research which is characterised by a mixed methodology of theoretical writing, technological development and artistic practice. The form of the thesis is an exercise in becoming process-like itself, wherein the epistemic thing is generated by translating the gaps between these three levels. This is my idea of the new aesthetics: That through the operation of a re-entry one may establish a sort of process “form”, yielding works which go beyond a categorical either “sound-in-itself” or “conceptualism”. Exemplary processes are revealed by deconstructing a series of existing pieces, as well as through the successful application of the new framework in the creation of new pieces.

The listener’s experience as an embodied subject is at the centre of this work. Embodied experience forms the basis for analyses of three contemporary compositions that sample bodily sound, in order to question how such works represent and mediate the body. The possible applications of this embodied methodology are illustrated through three case studies: Crackers by Christof Migone (2001), A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure by Matmos (2001) and Ground Techniques (2009) by Neil Luck. The findings of each analysis are placed within discussion of critical and theoretical concerns related to the (re)presentation, mediation and manipulation of the body both as materiality and as social construct, using, in particular, work by Hansen (2004) and Wegenstein (2006). The sampling practices of these works lead to the fragmentation of the represented bodies, in which margins between bodily interiors and exteriors are frequently crossed, bringing about a reconfiguration of the musical subject. Furthermore, the celebration of the bodily origins of these works complicates notions of recorded sound as disembodied. The analytical methodology developed in this thesis derives from a consideration of approaches in a number of fields: feminist musicology, music psychology, embodied cognition, phenomenology, music and gesture and new media theory. The sensations and affective responses of the listening body are discussed alongside an examination of how listening is shaped by processes of technological mediation. This thesis attends to both the body that is listening and the body that is listened to. I argue that it is not adequate to understand the works studied as merely representing the body, but suggest it would be more appropriate to understand the relationship between work and body as multi-faceted, conceptualising the body and recorded sound as mutually framing. This uncovers not only technology as mediation, but also the body as mediation. Finally, the case studies are used to reflect upon the limits of the embodied analysis methodology and its potential for wider application.

In this thesis I argue that the relationship between the increasing ubiquity of digital audio technologies and the transformation of aesthetic hierarchies in electroacoustic and sound art traditions is not deterministic, but negotiated by producers and policy-makers in specific historical and cultural contexts. Interviews, observations, and historical data were gathered during sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Canadian city of Montreal between 2011 and 2012. Research was conducted and analysed in collaboration with a transnational group of researchers on a programme of comparative research that tracked global changes to music and musical practice associated with digital technologies. The introduction presents Montreal as a rich ecology in which to track struggles for aesthetic authority, detailing its history as a key site of electroacoustic and sound art production, and its local positioning as a politically strategic 'hub' for the Canadian culture industry. Core chapters examine the specific role of digital mediation in the negotiation of electroacoustic and sound art aesthetics from multiple interlocking perspectives: the recursive relationship between technological affordances and theories of mediation; the mobilisation of digital technologies in the delineation of cultural, professional and generational territories; the political contestation of digital literacies and pedagogies; the articulation of the digital's opposition with analogue in the construction of instruments and recording formats; and the effects of the digital on the dynamics of genre and genre hierarchies. The concluding chapter offers a critique of the notion that digital mediation has shifted the balance between the normative and the generative dimensions of genrefication in the scenes in question, and closes by suggesting how a better understanding of this shift at an empirical level can inform an ongoing rethinking of the interaction between technology and aesthetics among scholars, policy makers, and musicians.

Thanks to the development of new technology, musical instruments are no more tied to their existing acoustic or technical limitations as almost all parameters can be augmented or modified in real time. An increasing number of composers, performers, and computer programmers have thus become interested in different ways of "supersizing" acoustic instruments in order to open up previously-unheard instrumental sounds. This leads us to the question of what constitutes a super instrument and what challenges does it pose aesthetically and technically? This work explores the effects that super instruments have on the identity of a given solo instrument, on the identity of a composition and on the experience of performing this kind of repertoire. The super instrument comes to be defined as a bundle of more than one instrumental lines that achieve a coherent overall identity when generated in real time. On the basis of my own personal experience of performing the works discussed in this dissertation, super instruments vary a great deal but each has a transformative effect on the identity and performance practice of the pianist. This discussion approaches the topic from the viewpoint of contemporary keyboard music, showcasing examples of super instrument compositions of the 21st century. Thus, the main purposes of this practise based research project is to explore the essence and role of piano or toy piano in a super instrument constellation, as well as the performer's role as a "super instrumentalist". I consider these issues in relation to case studies drawn from my own compositional work and a selection of works composed by Karlheinz Essl and Jeff Brown.

The research contained within this PhD project forms part of the Pedagogical ElectroAcoustic Resource Site project of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre of De Montfort University Leicester. This thesis contributes to current research in music education and musicology related to electroacoustic music. The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of teaching on the change in inexperienced listeners’ appreciation of electroacoustic music. A curriculum was developed to introduce electroacoustic music to 11 to 14 year old students (Key Stage 3). The curriculum was based on concepts distinguishing between electroacoustic music using (mainly) real-world sounds and generated sounds. The curriculum is presented in an online learning environment with an accompanying teacher’s handbook. The learning environment represents the prototype for the pedagogical ElectroAcoustic Resource Site offering online learning, blended learning and classroom-based learning. The website was developed following user-centred design; the curriculum was tested in a large-scale study including four Key Stage 3 classes within three schools in Leicester. In five lessons music using real-world sounds (soundscape and musique concrète) was introduced, which included the delivery of a listening training, independent research and creative tasks (composition or devising a role-play). The teaching design followed the methods of active, collaborative and self-regulated learning. Data was collected by using questionnaires, direct responses to listening experiences before and after the teaching, and summaries of the teaching written by the participants. Following a Qualitative Content Analysis, the results of the study show that the participants’ appreciation of electroacoustic music changed during the course of these lessons. Learning success could be established as well as a declining alienation towards electroacoustic music. The principal conclusion is that the appreciation of electroacoustic music can be enhanced through the acquiring of conceptual knowledge, especially through the enhancing of listening skills following the structured listening training as well as the broadening of vocabulary to describe the listening experience.

Esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de realizar um mapeamento de questões presentes em um conjunto de obras que, a partir de meados da década de 1970, vêm se agrupando sob o termo - arte sonora. Para tanto, este trabalho parte de uma aproximação com o repertório, na medida em que realiza um levantamento e análise, por meio de bibliografia, discografia, catálogos de obras e outras fontes, abordando o trabalho de vários artistas que se destacam nesse âmbito, bem como apontando diversas questões extraídas desse primeiro passo. A partir daí, constatou-se que esse repertório é bastante amplo e divergente, e que a delimitação desse campo pode ser apenas aproximada. Porém, para a realização de um mapeamento do ideário da arte sonora, foi estabelecido um levantamento e análise de obras de artistas que, de uma forma ou outra, influenciaram esse processo. Três referências fundamentais são levantadas e abordadas: a Música Eletroacústica, a Installation Art e a Performance Art. Posteriormente a pesquisa concentrou-se no que, no decorrer da dissertação, chamamos de arte sonora e a partir daí, extraiu-se cinco aspectos considerados fundamentais para a análise e compreensão desse repertório. São eles: Sonoridade, Tecnologia, Interação, Espaço e Tempo. / The main purpose of this research is to map the central aspects that can be observed in a representative repertoire of art works that since the 70\' is been labeled Sound Art. This work starts from the research and analysis of this repertoire based on the available bibliography, audiography, exhibitions\' catalogues and other sources. A representative number of artists are investigated and their work analyzed. From this research it becomes evident that this repertoire is extremely large ample and divergent, and that the delimitation of this field is a difficult task. However, for the accomplishment of a mapping of the main concepts that area related to Sound Art, we proceeded the analysis of a number of works. Three basic references are investigated: Electroacoustic Music; Installation Art and Performance. Afterward the research investigated five aspects that we consider to be of fundamental importance to the comprehension of this repertoire: Sound, Technology, Interaction, Space and Time

This thesis explores both the creative process and the creative product behind a unique and complex collaboration between two composers, called Endings (2012): firstly Jeremy Peyton Jones and secondly Kaffe Matthews. It interrogates the behavioural aspects and negotiations between the two composers in the compositional and rehearsal processes, in the run-up to three performances. Using ethnomusicological methodologies towards data collection (rehearsal recordings, interviews, studio work) and analysis (discourse in compositional discussion, rehearsal), the thesis offers new understandings on collaboration, specifically the fluidity and complexity of the interaction between composers who work in two very different ways: Peyton Jones, who composes with scored, conventional notation, rehearsing with his ensemble Regular Music II; and Matthews, who works improvisationally with live electronics and electroacoustics, both with her surrounding sonic material and pre-existing samples. The thesis finds two core important conclusions, which contribute to our current knowledge and understanding of music and collaboration. Firstly, pre-existing models of collaboration segregate behaviours into ‘types’. Endings offers an example where such types cannot always be applied so exclusively. And secondly, collaboration in the rehearsal of Endings contradicts conventional rehearsal models which state talking should be kept to a minimum. The majority of the collaborative process between Peyton Jones and Matthews rests heavily on conversation.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:25:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Dignart.pdf: 477064 bytes, checksum: 35ac83e10edf51d5b0c87a44caaae8d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-03-22 / In the context of electroacoustic music production, specially in the acousmatic version, the human gesture will not develop its primordial role - the utilized material, in this case, is obtained no longer exclusively by the physical action of an agent who produces it. In this tendency, the musical discourse is constructed by sounds and noises that no longer are obligatorily proceeding from determined musical instrument played by a performer, but created and processed in studio. Based on such premises, this present work has the intent of pointing possibilities of applications of the use of the gesture as a structural principle in the electroacoustic musical creation, through the compositions Trajetórias, Metagestos and Entre Planos. Three gestural approaches are used in the creation process. The first mentioned piece is the acousmatic work Trajetórias, where the use of the electroacoustic gesture is applied in its pure form, without explicit relations with instrumental gestures. Another approach is the also acousmatic piece Metagestos, where the creation of gestures used as material is done based on gestural instrumental models. The third case is the mixed piece for cello and electroacoustic sounds Entre Planos where, inside of the same musical context, the instrumental gestures interact with the electroacoustic gestures. With such compositional experiences, we believe that the use of gestures as structural principle may be a strategy, front to the new sound possibilities that in many times may relate with the lived musical experience of the listener, who may already possesses in his perceptual repertoire a range of sound motions that will be re-interpreted in electroacoustic context, being perhaps possible to provide a certain indirect familiarity with such motions. / No contexto de produção musical eletroacústica, especialmente na versão acusmática, o gesto humano não irá desenvolver o seu papel primordial - o material utilizado, neste caso, não é mais obtido exclusivamente pela ação física de um agente que o produz. Nessa vertente, o discurso musical é construído a partir de sons e ruídos que não são mais obrigatoriamente provenientes de um determinado instrumento musical tocado por um performer, mas sim, criados e processados em estúdio. Baseada em tal premissa, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo apontar possibilidades de aplicações do uso do gesto como um princípio estrutural na criação musical eletroacústica, por meio das composições Trajetórias, Metagestos e Entre Planos. As peças apresentadas enfatizam o uso do gesto sonoro como material composicional. Três abordagens gestuais são usadas no processo de criação. A primeira peça relatada é a obra acusmática Trajetórias, em que o uso do gesto eletroacústico é aplicado em sua forma pura, sem relações explícitas a gestos instrumentais. Outra abordagem é a peça também acusmática Metagestos, na qual a criação dos gestos usados como material é feita a partir de modelos gestuais instrumentais. O terceiro caso é o da peça mista para violoncelo e sons eletroacústicos Entre Planos em que, dentro do mesmo contexto musical, interagem os gestos instrumentais com os eletroacústicos. Com tais experiências composicionais, acreditamos que o uso de gestos como princípio formador pode ser uma estratégia frente às novas possibilidades sonoras que muitas vezes podem se relacionar com a experiência musical vivida do ouvinte que já possui em seu repertório perceptual uma gama de movimentos sonoros, que serão re-interpretados no contexto eletroacústico, sendo possível, talvez, proporcionar certa familiaridade indireta com tais movimentos.