Organised sound - call for submissions

Volume 15, Number 2
Issue thematic title: Organising Electroacoustic Music
Date of Publication: August 2010
Publishers: Cambridge University Press

Issue co-ordinator: Simon Emmerson (s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk)

It is not possible to define ‘electroacoustic music’ completely - we include all its many genres with their incompatible descriptors – acousmatic, live electronic, interactive, algorithmic, installation, experimental, glitch, post-laptop, live coding – you name it. The range of possibilities for analysis are equally broad (as we see in Stéphane Roy’s L’analyse des musiques electroacoustiques and Leigh Landy’s Understanding the Art of Sound Organization) and more will appear. The field will remain very open. The following four areas are intended not to constrain but to suggest and provoke ideas.

• Who or what organises electroacoustic music?

It might be the composer, the performer, the listener, a ‘system’ (interactive or automatic, software or hardware) – all are potential participants. They may have different roles and relationships.

• How is the music organised?

You might like to examine the creator’s poietic world of intention and realisation, technique, system, method, approach, ‘language’. Or the relation of the creator to the technology, its use, interface, limitations.

You might like to examine a work on its own as an autonomous entity – the sound world, the organisation of its shapes, forms, relationships, functions, processes.

You might like to examine the listener’s reception of the music. The organisation may be imperceptible (why?) or immanent (how?).

Or the relationship of two or more of these, of course (the ‘intention-reception’ issue).

We also accept that a lack of organisation is, after all, a form of organisation. Also that organisation need not necessarily be of human origin.

• How does performance affect organisation?

The music might be affected by where it is composed or performed: a studio, a venue, the internet, a site.

It might be enhanced or (deliberately?) constrained by things mechanical: the instrument, the human-machine interface. Or the performance forces, the instrumentation, sound projection, venue disposition.

It might depend on audience interaction - how is this organised?

• The cultural, philosophical and aesthetic issues of organisation

You may like to question what are we examining. A ‘work’, a process, a performance? Is it fixed or open?

You may wish to discuss languages and models of thinking, either that have been used or that we need to develop, for analytical work in this field.

You may like to tackle the semantic aspects: how and what do sounds in electroacoustic music ‘mean’?

You might like to examine how the social and ecological dimensions of composition and performance influence organisation of the music.

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Deadline for submissions for this issue is 1 October 2009. Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for “Organised Sound”. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal's annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 15/3 as well on the journal’s website.

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SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 1 October 2009

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Notes for Contributors and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or at the following url:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=OSO&type=ifc (and download the pdf)

Properly formatted email submissions and general queries should be sent to: os@dmu.ac.uk (not to the guest editor)

Hard copy of articles and images (only when requested) and other material (e.g., sound and audio-visual files, etc. – normally max. 15’ sound files or 8’ movie files) should be submitted to:

Prof. Leigh Landy
Organised Sound
Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Editor: Leigh Landy
Associate Editors: Ross Kirk and Richard Orton
Regional Editors: Joel Chadabe, Kenneth Fields, Eduardo Miranda, Jøran Rudi, Barry Truax, Ian Whalley, David Worrall
International Editorial Board: Marc Battier, Hannah Bosma, Alessandro Cipriani, Simon Emmerson, Rajmil Fischman, David Howard, Rosemary Mountain, Tony Myatt, Jean-Claude Risset, Francis Rumsey, Margaret Schedel, Mary Simoni

New books and CDs in EMS' library

New books

• Midsommar med Stockhausen : 19:e elektronmusikfestivalen i Skinnskatteberg 23-25 juni 2000 : före, under och efter
• Paletten 1/2009 (special issue on sound art)
• Cary, Tristram: Tristram Cary : biographical notes and list of works
• Hanson, Sten: Antediluvianska skrifter
• Hanson, Sten: Works, oeuvres, Werke, arbeten
• Hodell, Åke: Galgenfrist
• Karperyd, Andreas och Eek, Staffan: Typography now : the typographic dance project
• Kindstrand, Gunilla (red.): Kraftfält : Stiftelsen framtidens kultur 1994-2001
• Laaban, Ilmar: Palingarderomb
• Lane, Cathy (red.): Playing with words : the spoken word in artistic practice
• Laurin, Beth och Millroth, Thomas: Beth Laurin : ett urval verk 1953-2008
• Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso: Det futuristiska manifestet eller "Futurismen" : den nyaste litterära skolan
• Shapiro, Peter (red.): Modulations : a history of electronic music : throbbing words on sound
• Strömberg, Mikael: Ljudbiblioteket

New CDs

• Laurin, Beth: 1984

Online tutorials etc.

I teach an evening class in acoustics and sound synthesis, a part of the EMS two year course in electroacoustic music. I've taught these classes since 1999, and since EMS does not require any formal education for entering the course, the main challenge has always been explaining physical and mathematical concepts in plain language and illustrations. Here are some links to online resources that I've found useful.

Acoustics

• Carl Rod Nave's HyperPhysics, especially the Sound and hearing section
• Daniel A. Russell's Acoustics and vibration animations for teaching acoustics
• David J. Benson's Music: a mathematical offering
• The Sound object project book (PDF)

DSP

• Mark Dolson's The phase vocoder: a tutorial from CMJ (scanned by Swedish keyboardist Jens Johansson, son of jazz pianist Jan Johansson). Also available in an HTML earlier version
  
• Bores signal processing online classes: Introduction to DSP and Advanced DSP
• Stephan Bernsee’s DSP Dimension Signal processing tutorials (FFT/phase vocoder)
• Steve Smith's The scientist and engineer's guide to digital signal processing (free online book)
• DSPRelated.com, a portal and community for DSP

Sound synthesis

• James C. Clark's Advanced programming techniques for modular synthesizers (includes example patches for Clavia Nord Modular)
• Øyvind Hammer's Digital lydbehandling (PDF in Norwegian) from Notam

Pd
Although we use Max/MSP and not Pd on the course, there are many similarities between them, so these free books could be useful (via Create Digital Music):

• Johannes Kreidler's Programming electronic music in Pd
• IOhannes m zmoelnig's bang | pure data
• Miller Puckette's Theory and technique of electronic music

There is also a free manual at Flossmanuals. (Thanks to Jonas Enqvist for the tip!)

Software

• Manuel Op de Coul's Scala, a tuning utility hosted by the Huygens-Fokker centre for microtonal music)
• Michael Klingbeil's SPEAR, Fourier-based sinusoidal modelling for OS X
• Xavier Serra's SMS, spectral modelling synthesis

Updated July 25, 2010

Master's degree in sound art at DI

EMS and Dramatiska institutet (DI), the Swedish university college of film, radio, television and theatre, offer a two-semester master's programme in sound art (60 credits) for active artists, sound designers, musicians, radio and television professionals etc., starting fall 2009. Last date for application: April, 2. More info in Swedish follows.

Dramatiska institutet
Ljudkonst 60 hp
En ettårig magisterutbildning med start höstterminen 2009.

Utbildningen vänder sig till verksamma inom radio- eller medieområdet, konstnärer, ljuddesigners, ljudtekniker, musiker och andra ljudintresserade som vill utveckla sina uttryckssätt med hjälp av/genom ljudkonst.

Sista ansökningsdag 2 april 2009

Vi undersöker möjligheterna i mötet mellan den experimentella ljudkonsten och berättandet. Vi utforskar också ljudkonstens relation till olika typer av rum, platser och bilder.

Utbildningen drivs i nära samarbete mellan Dramatiska institutet och Elektroakustisk Musik i Sverige (EMS). DI:s starka berättartradition genomsyrar utbildningen och förenas här med EMS tradition av elektronmusik och ljudexperiment.

Temp'óra call for projects

Temp'óra is issuing a call for projects, period 2010-2011. It is aimed at composers and soloists or ensembles involved mainly in contemporary music, permanently residing in Europe within EU or not.

The performing part of the project may incorporate electroacoustics. The pieces may also be of improvisational character.

The project must consist of an exchange between, at least, three different European countries. From these countries each ensemble will commission a piece from a composer of its own country.

The exchange is in form of a collaboration between these countries, so that each ensemble will play a programme including the new commission in the two or more other countries of the collaboration. The programme may be performed in one concert or consist of a tour. This part of the project takes place between 1st of September 2010 and 31st of December 2011.

Application form must be returned by 30th of June 2009.

About Temp'óra

"Temp'óra aims to encourage a better understanding between the cultures of the member states of the European Union by developing and organizing concerts and other musical events of today's music.

Temp'óra proposes to create a central network to bring together actors and sponsors of written and improvised music of the contemporary European music community. The aim is to promote interaction of musicians and composers, and exchange written, visual or audio documents.

[...]

Temp'óra is intent on promoting all the existing websites, institutions, centres and associations devoted to supporting today’s music."

The Experimental Music Studios of the UIUC celebrates 50th anniversary

The Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released an four CD set in celebration of their 50th anniversary. The music is freely available as mp3s.

There is also a paper on the history of the center by Emanuele Battisti: The Experimental Music Studio at the University of Illinois, 1958-68: Environment, People, Activities, and one can find more history-related stuff if one looks around the site.

Lejaren Hiller created and directed the studio during its first ten years. He left in 1968 when he was appointed professor of composition at SUNY at Buffalo, and his archive belongs to the SUNY Music Library. The inventory, together with a brief chronology and bibliography, is compiled by Pei-jung Wu (this resource will be added to the EAM meta-bibliography).

Via Synthopia.

Gramophone Archive

All issues of Gramophone magazine are now available online in full text (though one has to register for access to the PDF scans). One can search the archive and narrow the results down by decade and year. There are some 1500 results for electronic music and about 200 for concrete music. However, not all of these are reviews. The term electroacoustic music is only used in reviews from 1990 onwards, and 'acousmatic' not at all.

In the very first review of musique concrète, the reviewer, L.S., concludes: "To the intellectually curious, this disc will be of great interest: whether this is what we look forward to as the music of the future is another matter, not [to] be entered into here." The record reviewed is the Pierre Henry/Pierre Schaeffer Ducretet-Thomson DTL93090, containing Bidule en Ut, Schaeffer's 1955 Etudes, Henry's Le Voile d'Orphée and other works.

The overall tone of the review is a mix of condescension and prejudice: Neither Schaeffer nor Henry is counted amongst "real composers", unlike Boulez or Messiaen, despite the fact that Henry studied both with the latter and Nadia Boulanger, and the review begins with the usual science-fiction reference.

Well, at least something has changed for the better; I daresay reviews like this are more unusual today.

Thanks to InternetBrus for the tip.

DAFx 2009 call for papers

Digital Audio Effects Conference DAFx 2009
http://dafx09.como.polimi.it/

The 2009 edition of the DAFx conference will be held on September 1-4, 2009 in the beautiful city of Como, Italy, at the Conference Area of the Politecnico di Milano's Como Campus. DAFx provides an opportunity for experts and students of audio from all over the world to show their research achievements, present and attend tutorials, and exchange ideas on the most recent developments in the audio world.

Papers are solicited for, but not limited to, the following topics:

- Audio Effects
- Sound Synthesis
- Physical Models and Virtual Musical Instruments
- Virtual Analog Models
- Sound Representation and Sound Modeling
- Time-frequency & Spectral Processing
- Audio Coding
- Audio Analysis and Feature Extraction
- Synthesis, Reproduction and Perception of Spatial Sound
- Perception, Cognition, and Psychoacoustics
- Software and Hardware Implementations
- Audio-Based Music Information Retrieval Systems
- Automatic Transcription and High-level Features
- Space-Time Audio Processing
- Networked Audio and the Internet
- Compositional Issues, Sound Design and Sonic Interaction Design
- Audio in Mobile Applications

Prospective authors are invited to submit full-length papers before April 6, 2009 according to one of the following two papers formats:

- Oral: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, 20-min presentation
- Poster: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, recommended length 4 pp.

All submissions are subject to peer review. The accepted contributions will be published in the Conference Proceedings, which will be made freely accessible on the conference website.

Important dates

- Full-Paper Submission: April 6, 2009
- Notification of Acceptance: May 22, 2009
- Final Paper Submission: June 19, 2009
- Early-bird registration deadline: July 1, 2009

The event is organized by the Sound and Music Computing Lab of the Politecnico di Milano, Como Campus, and by the Image and Sound Processing Group, with the Help of the Conservatory of Music in Como.

Sound and Music Computing Conference 2009: Call for Music

The 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC) is glad to announce an open call for works. This year's SMC will happen in Porto at Casa da Música, Porto's most recent architectural landmark located in the new center of the city.

There will be five concerts at the conference that include a network performance. Three of the concerts will be at Casa da Música and the other two at a venue to be announced.

We particularly encourage submissions of works of electronic music that have a performance aspect to it, such as works for instrument(s) and electronic music, laptop performances, live electronic music, live coding, circuit bending, interactive installations, audio-visual performance, and interactive dance.

The conference concert programme will be selected by curators (Evan Parker, Nicolas Collins, Pauline Oliveros and Robert Rowe) in coordination with the Music Chairs (Carlos Guedes and Pedro Rebelo). The conference will provide a professional ensemble with soloists in the following instruments: Flute, Clarinet, Saxophones, Double Bass, Piano and Percussion.

All submissions must be made through an online system at http://smc2009.smcnetwork.org/. Please note there is a limit of 100MB per submission (please used compressed formats, e.g. mp3, ogg, mp4). If you wish to send larger files you should mail us a CD/DVDs to the following address:

SMC 09 C/O Carlos Guedes
INESC-Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 378
4200-465 Porto
Portugal

Call for Student works
The 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference is also glad to announce a call for student works. Undergraduate and Postgraduate students from all European Schools are encouraged to submit works, following the guidelines proposed in the main call for music. When submitting the works for the student call, you have to submit a proof of enrollment at a European School or University.

Important dates for both submissions:
Submission deadline: April 17
Notification of acceptance: May 15

All questions should be addressed to Carlos Guedes cguedes[at]inescporto[dot]pt or to Pedro Rebelo p[dot]rebelo[at]qub[dot]ac[dot]uk.

New books in EMS' library

• Baalman, Marije: On wave-field synthesis and electro-acoustic music : with a particular focus on the reproduction of arbitrarily shaped sound sources
• Edgerton, Michael Edward: The 21st-century voice : contemporary and traditional extra-normal voice
• Engström, Andreas & Staneviciute, Ruta (ed.): Contemporary lithuaninan music (World new music magazine, no. 18, oktober 2008)
• Kronland-Martinet, Richard, Ystad, Sølvi & Jensen, Kristoffer (ed.): Computer music modeling and retrieval : sense of sounds : fourth international symposium (CMMR 2007)
• Larsén, Carlhåkan: Lars-Erik Larsson
• Rikskonserter i tiden : enkät till Rikskonserters arrangörer och samarbetspartner utskickad 16 maj 2008 : standardrapport 2008-06-02
• Swedish music past and present