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From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: reality and computer sound [was WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS NEWSGROUP?]
Keywords: question for discussion
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.015511.7330@rand.org>
Date: 18 Jun 91 01:55:11 GMT
References: <1871@culhua.prg.ox.ac.uk> <2100@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <1991Jun14.164758.23557@agate.berkeley.edu>
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In article <1991Jun14.164758.23557@agate.berkeley.edu> maverick@mahogany.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:
>What is the relevance of real sounds to computer music?  Gerald Balzano
>took a radical position in his article "What Are Musical Pitch and
>Timbre?" [Music Perception 3(3), Spring 1986]: briefly, that the
>sensations of timbre are really a perception of the dynamic systems
>underlying the production of the sound, and thus that electronic music
>is doomed to sound "electronic", i.e. less than musical, unless we tap
>such dynamic systems in synthesis.  I incline much more to the Jim
>Randall-type position that if some piece of music sounds "merely
>electronic", that's the fault of the composer or possibly the listener;
>that nothing intrinsic to "a timbre" prevents our learning to make its
>context make music of it.

Why look for a simple distinction?  Our perception of timbre is
strongly affected by experience--both personal and evolutionary--
of those "dynamic systems" around us.  But this isn't necesarily
an end-point for synthesis; rather, it can be a stepping-off point.
"Natural" sounds carry a lot of experiential baggage with them--
baggage that can be musically very useful (or merely distracting).
One of the things that technology allows us to do is to play on
these associations.

As a simple example, consider simulations of room acoustics: models of
reverberation can serve a role analogous to perspective in the visual
arts.  By playing on the listener's experience of the sonic ambiance
of different spaces, we have a tool for suggesting the size and even
the construction of our "environment," and even a reference point for
movement within it.  Never mind that this "space" might be as
artificial as an Escher print, with parametric changes that defy
physical law.  It still can be heavily evocative of moods and
associations within the listener.

In my opinion, this tapping of the listener's experiences is near-
essential for creating anything beyond a superficial involvement in a
piece of music. (The experiences can be quite recent--even involving
the same piece of music--or can go back to more primal things from
commonly-experienced physical, cultural, or evolutionary events [by
"evolutionary" I mean "neurobiological"].)  What gets interesting
for me is when the simultaneous sensations of recognition and
surprise produce a new experience--one of musical pleasure.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org