Method
My method for this research into field recordings as a source for instrumental composition contained several main components: reading articles, listening to pieces, composing, and talking with teachers and colleagues about the topic. Most crucial for me was composing several pieces in this genre, which initiated my interest and gave direction to my research by giving me personal experience in the working process and components of such pieces.
My main research question was sparked by the idea to transcribe train sounds for an ensemble. Through the audio, I had a clear sound-image I wanted to mimic and turn into music over time. Thus the compositional process, thinking, and experimentation started. My personal way developed, but what about other artists' methods? Thus I arrived at my topic of research.
Main Research Question
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How can field recordings be used as a source for instrumental compositions?
Research Subquestions
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What are the main approaches and considerations based on some examples pieces of field recordings with instruments?
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Which parts are live or recorded, and how does this affect the composition?
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What is the performance location, and how does this affect the composition?
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What happens in the intersection/blending of electro-acoustic and instrumental music?
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What elements of traditional Western music still apply?
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What parameters or analysis tools are useful?
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How much imitation or interaction happens between the tape and the instruments?
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If transcription is part of the piece, was it done by ear or with computer assistance? Is a score available or do musicians mimic the sound themselves?
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How much are the recordings edited or processed?
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I planned to answer these questions, some of which overlap or are interrelated, through study of existing works. The first subquestion group led to my discussion in Chapter 2 “Five Categories.” Which parts are live or pre-recorded in combination with the performance location form the basis of my five categories. The second subquestion is vital to answer the main question because methods and approaches within electro-acoustic music (and soundscape) can be applicable as soon as any recorded sound is involved. Also, knowledge of instrumental composition is useful when adapting field sound for instruments. As these two worlds combine, the elements which still apply, as well as parameters and analysis tools change. The third subquestion group delves into the question of how much imitation or interaction happens between the field sound and the instruments, i.e. how directly does the field recording become the source for the music. The main documentation (and product) of the research is this paper, through which I can best synthesize and explain the information, resources, and ideas I have collected. I will prepare a version for the Society of Artistic Research Catalogue, and continue to compose music.1
Main literature consulted included classics such as R. Murray Schafer's “The Tuning of the World” (1977), to have a solid foundation on the doctrine and history of the soundscape movement. Schafer is a leader in this approach to field sound and field recording, and coined terminology now widely used. His thinking about soundscapes throughout history and how sounds particular to a place are preserved or change made me think about the soundscapes in which I have lived, and how nature, technology, machines, and human traditions have shaped my aural experience of the world. As an artist, these often subconscious experiences are surfacing in my work, and now I am drawn to investigate them deeper.
Trevor Wishart's “On Sonic Art” (1996) provided interesting information on ways to listen (and reflections on how people listen) to sound such as noise, and to discuss elements of pieces using found sound, and especially “sound objects” which could be a note or any sound within a specified amount of time. His book assumes there is no “unmusical sound object.”2 He describes Western music as being lattice-based (with a focus on pitch and duration as main parameters, and fixed timbre), for him a very limiting system in terms of sonic results. This made me reflect on my own inherently Western approach to transcribe sound for my Train compositions. (My first steps were to organize the sounds into layers of timbre, pitch, and rhythm in time.) This book was not as directly related to my research as I would have liked, but it gave me more ways to approach electro-acoustic music and think about established systems.
Since my two compositions detailed in Chapters 3 and 4 involved transcription of a field recording for instruments, I sought out resources related to this topic, such as James O’Callaghan, “Mediated Mimesis: Transcription as Processing” (2012), which discusses computer-assisted transcription that he has used in his compositions, as well as that of other composers.
Simon Polson's article “(Demolishing) Concrete Music” (2013) was a thought-provoking resource as I learned more about the Schaeffer vs. Schafer reduced vs. contextual listening debate. Polson composed an electroacoustic piece to demonstrate the effect of context in a piece, especially in regard to perceived recognizability of sounds. Can one listen to a sound without perceiving or imagining a context? Once a sound has been heard in a context, how does it affect subsequent sounds? In the article, he walks the reader through his refutation of musique concrète. I do not reference this paper further, but it influenced my views on the debate.
In researching about interactive music performed outdoors I learned of David Dunn. Besides pieces and recordings he has many writings and resources online since he is an active lecturer. I read his article “Acoustic Ecology and the Experimental Music Tradition” (2008) which discusses the label of “acoustic ecologist” that he has earned through his music, recording, and contribution to science. This article provided an overview of the soundscape-based experimental music tradition from the point of view of an insider who also has a scientific and sociological background, and provides many names of artists involved in this genre as a further resource. This resource addresses the second subquestion of the intersection of two genres of music.
Along with reading, listening was a second major component in my research. With each listening I first noted questions and reactions to the piece, and gathered musical and background data: How was the piece composed? Where was it recorded and by whom? Is there a score? What is improvised? Over how many days was it recorded? Some pieces do not have a score and some existed mainly as a set of instructions. But for a research to be credible I needed to find a way to compare the works objectively. This proved an interesting challenge because it became clear that I did not have the analysis tools in-hand to examine, compare, and categorize them because these pieces were not instrumentations or settings as traditional as a piano trio, for instance. Doing a harmonic analysis of a open piece of John Cage or Alvin Lucier that changes with each performance is hardly applicable, and what if a piece is based on the slow passing of a plane overhead? With only one type of activity happening, stagnant, what type of classical forms could be applied? How can one account for the live or pre-recorded elements?
The fertile intersection of soundscape and instrumental music also requires an intersection of their vocabulary and analysis. These questions led me to search for a list of parameters and 'analysis tools' to examine these types of pieces so I could begin to compare works. Listening to these different pieces further challenged me to find a way to categorize pieces.
Thirdly, the artistic and academic environment of my conservatory provided another resource for me as I researched: teachers and colleagues pointed me toward a number of works described in the paper, and provided an interested sounding-post for my developing ideas. At the Master Circle led by Yannis Kyriakides and Peter Adriaansz at the Royal Conservatoire Den Haag we had a a monthly opportunity for such discussion, where I could bring in ideas for the analysis tools or parameters that need to be examined in this genre of music, for instance. Yannis Kyriakides served as my research coach, further stimulating my inquiry into the topic and helping me express my ideas and find more pieces and resources to strengthen my research.
Lastly, one of the best ways to learn is by doing, and my research began with the project of composing a piece based on a short field recording. Composing pieces including the “Train” series (for small ensemble and field recording), and “Escalator” (for Yamaha Disklavier and field recording) taught me about the challenges of transcribing field recordings for instruments, and ways of combining them with the original. I became interested in mimesis, and how it has been part of music for centuries. I became interested in the idea of place, as the soundscape of one place, and what kind of imagined 'place' the mind creates as one mixes field sound (live or recorded) with instruments. As part of my results I will discuss my compositional processes in the last two chapters.
1 A Side Note: My preference is to examine field recordings that do not have spoken word in the foreground, but I do address some use of speech in parts of the paper. Another preference is to focus on works that include the “original” source tape within the live performance. The focus of my personal compositions has been on pieces performed in acoustically-sheltered venues such as a concert hall, although interesting work is being done by others with musicians interacting with outdoor venues, forests, canyons, cities, etc.
2 Wishart, p. 8.