Electronic music has experienced rapid and tumultuous incorporation into the
canon of musical practice. Throughout the past century, this genre’s identity has
remained fluid, fallible, and ripe for reconstruction. Creating new works using electronic
mediums differs from acoustic realms in both utilitarian objectivity and resultant affect.
Performing these works invokes additional challenges: What if no performance score
exists and the work itself only exists as a recorded audio file? How does a musician
replicate seemingly endless abstractions of timbre, pitch, and spectral content? Finally,
preserving electronic music is crucial for the survival of the idiom. As many works do
not exist within discernible scores, how will new musical content be documented?
Although recordings remain at the crux of electronic dissemination, issues such as data
degradation muddy the conservation process.
Specifically, acousmatic experiences have utterly inundated many individual's
daily lives; millions of recorded songs are available at the tap of a button, scores
accompany the films, television shows, and video games consumers interact with, and
artistic ventures entail the inclusion of previously instantiated music. When Pierre
Schaeffer formulated ideals on acousmatic listening and an adumbration of musical
objects during the mid-20th century, today’s technological perplexities were not
predicated by reality; such expeditious alterations to musical practice were likely unexpected.
Thus, it is time to situate the framework Schaeffer stipulated within
contemporary mise-en-scene.
Through the composition of my new work, Acousmatic Symphony, I experimented
with alternative notational styles and systems of symbology. Following Schaeffer’s
assertations that two versions of a “score” are needed for adequate description of musical
content-one essential and one operational-I created variations of each and applied my
own version of an acousmatic notational system. Additionally, I transcribed Schaeffer’s
Cinq etudes de bruits, providing iterations of scores repurposed for the work. All four
movements of my symphony relate to differing forms of acousmatic consumption and
experiment with their identifying characteristics: Dance, radio, video games, and film.
Sample instruments are an essential component of present-day compositional
practice and were incorporated extensively in Acousmatic Symphony. Through their
interactions with Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and notation software, authentic
replications of acoustic ensembles are possible (as is the complete rejection of reality).
Acousmatic music also operates within exploratory perceptual spaces; psychoacoustics
and human cognition must be considered in the creative process to accommodate such
parameters. Together, this coalesced entity becomes intrinsically connected to the writing
process. To composers today, the realization of sample instruments constitutes
performance itself.
For all musical creations, it can be posited that individual scores are not what
transcend time, completely impervious to decaying eminence: Rather, transmission
chains connecting both entire eras of history and individual touchstones of musical thought
weave the holistic tapestry our conceptualizations of “music” thrive upon and
continue to impact distinct musical acceptance. An example corpus study of U.S. film
music outlines a means of tracing musical lineage and influence. Documenting
contemporary instances of musical change, trends, and subsequent compositional
techniques ensures the preservation of acousmatic music as a mercurial yet notably
perpetual artform.