Kees Tazelaar - A Handbook for Teaching Analog Studio Techniques in Function of Composing Contemporary Electronic Music by Kees Tazelaar

One important reason to address the (limitations of) analogue studio techniques in education today, is that they offer a unique possibility to gain insight in the relationship between compositional utopias and studio practice – between ideals concerning sound composition and musical reality. The Royal Conservatoire houses two unique and predominantly analogue studios: the Karlheinz Stockhausen Studio of the Composition Department, which gives an overview of techniques and equipment from several decades, and the Voltage Control Studio (BEA5) of the Institute of Sonology, which contains one of the largest modular sound synthesis systems currently in operation. Although the handbook in preparation will primarily address Sonology’s analogue studio, users of the Stockhausen Studio will benefit from reading it. The logic behind Sonology’s analogue studio is inseparable from a serial approach to music composition. Whereas in serially composed instrumental music, the musical dimensions such as pitch, duration and dynamics are treated as separate parameters, in a modular approach to electronic music, the sounds themselves fall apart in parameters. Each module of the analogue system represents a specific function of sound, and together these functions form a network that is physically represented by cables on a patch field. Planning and analysing these networks will be an important aspect of the handbook. The handbook will discuss analogue studio techniques in education and composition practice not only from a technical perspective but also from a musical one. The author’s previous research in the field of historical production practice by composers such as Jan Boerman, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Dick Raaijmakers will be translated into practical examples. The research method will consist of experiments in the analogue studio, protocolling the technical configurations and recording the audible results. Working methods of Boerman, Koenig and Raaijmakers will be analysed based on their own documentation, and subsequently translated into the possibilities of the Royal Conservatoire’s studios. The research will result in a handbook with a theoretical introduction, explanations of pieces of equipment (both in text and in graphical representations), with configurations of equipment divided into the categories of sound production, sound transformation and sound spatialisation, and accompanied by sound examples.

Kees Tazelaar - A Handbook for Teaching Analog Studio Techniques in Function of Composing Contemporary Electronic Music

Research Project Description

The Royal Conservatoire houses two unique and predominantly analogue studios: the Karlheinz Stockhausen Studio of the Composition Department, which gives an overview of techniques and equipment from several decades, and the Voltage Control Studio (BEA5) of the Institute of Sonology, which contains one of the largest modular sound synthesis systems currently in operation. Although the handbook in preparation will primarily address Sonology’s analogue studio, users of the Stockhausen Studio will benefit from reading it.

The logic behind Sonology’s analogue studio is inseparable from a serial approach to music composition. Whereas in serially composed instrumental music, the musical dimensions such as pitch, duration and dynamics are treated as separate parameters, in a modular approach to electronic music, the sounds themselves fall apart in parameters. Each module of the analogue system represents a specific function of sound, and together these functions form a network that is physically represented by cables on a patch field. Planning and analysing these networks will be an important aspect of the handbook.

The handbook will discuss analogue studio techniques in education and composition practice not only from a technical perspective but also from a musical one. The author’s previous research in the field of historical production practice by composers such as Jan Boerman, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Dick Raaijmakers will be translated into practical examples.

The research method will consist of experiments in the analogue studio, protocolling the technical configurations and recording the audible results. Working methods of Boerman, Koenig and Raaijmakers will be analysed based on their own documentation, and subsequently translated into the possibilities of the Royal Conservatoire’s studios.

The research will result in a handbook with a theoretical introduction, explanations of pieces of equipment (both in text and in graphical representations), with configurations of equipment divided into the categories of sound production, sound transformation and sound spatialisation, and accompanied by sound examples.

0. Foreword

This handbook for analogue studio techniques is based on my experiences as a composer and teacher while using these techniques, in particular in Studio BEA5 at the Institute of Sonology / Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. However the ideas and techniques discussed in this book should be of interest to all musicians interested in analogue studio techniques and their historical background.

At a time when making electronic music with computers has become the standard, writing a book about the use of analogue studio techniques needs some motivation. Analogue studio techniques had remained common practice at STEM / Institute of Sonology in Utrecht (1991–1986), even after a PDP 15 computer was installed in 1971. Voltage-controlled equipment was continuously designed and built at Sonology’s technical facilities, resulting in a unique collection of devices, whose functions were mostly compositionally oriented instead of being geared towards performance. None of Sonology’s studios had a keyboard installed; an ondes Martenot (electronic keyboard instrument) that had come with the equipment of the Philips studio in Eindhoven was discarded. Jaap Vink (*1930) taught me analogue and voltage-controlled studio techniques in Utrecht from 1981 until 1983. These lessons have had a strong influence on my approach to sound synthesis up to the present day.

When Sonology moved from Utrecht University to the Royal Conservatoire in 1986, analogue equipment from three different studios was combined into one new studio. This studio was set up temporarily in room M205 and then moved to its current location (BEA5) in 1992, once the new Sonology studios were ready.

Vink retired in 1993, after which I became the teacher in BEA5. Digital techniques had become more accessible by now due to the arrival of the personal computer, and the analogue studio’s right to exist was even questioned among Sonology’s staff. My own practice had moved to the digital domain indeed, so starting to teach analogue techniques in 1993 seemed at first only to have a historical context. However I soon started to realise that if this studio – and teaching in it – had a future, it would be necessary to (re)define its unique features in terms of composition, production techniques and their interaction. And although I had just finished my studies in music composition with Jan Boerman (*1923), I found myself at the starting point of a series of musical discoveries once again. The works and writings of Gottfried Michael Koenig (*1926), in particular the composition Terminus (1962) and the Funktionen series (1967–1969) played a crucial role in those discoveries.

In his writings Koenig distinguishes three historical periods in the production of electronic music: the first encompasses the classic electronic music studios, in which the equipment was mostly controlled manually, the second involves the period of automation (punch tape, voltage control), and the third period starts with the use of computers. This handbook deals with the first period to some extent, whereas its main subject is voltage control.

1. Theoretical Introduction

The technical reality in the 1950s made it necessary in the Cologne studio for elektronische Musik to apply working methods that showed similarities with the studio for musique concrète in Paris. However, their aesthetic and theoretical starting points were completely different. Reducing these differences to the use of purely electronic sound material in Cologne on the one hand, and the use of material based on microphone recordings in Paris on the other is naïve and misleading. This can be further explained by looking at the term ‘sound object’ from Pierre Schaeffer’s theories about musique concrète. According to me:

A sine-wave is not a sound object but a sound ingredient.
A sound object has a specific duration, a tone from an oscillator doesn’t.
Once a tone from an oscillator has been recorded on tape and cut to a specific duration, it can become a sound object, just like a sound recorded with a microphone (which in many cases already had a specific duration already during its recording) can become a sound object.
The duration of a sound object must lie within a reasonable range that is determined by human perception.
A one-hour recording of a nightly cricket choir is not a sound object.
A ten-second excerpt of the above mentioned recording is a sound object.

For practical reasons one would work with sound material cut to specific durations in the early Cologne studio too. Cutting, splicing and mixing tape segments were the only ways in which one could create sound complexes and longer sequences. However, such a sound complex or sequence is not a concrete object but a configuration. Whereas a sound object derives its (new) meaning from the recorded sound source and its transformation, an electronic sound complex or sequence derives its meaning from an abstract (serial) organisation, even when this configuration lies on the table in the form of a piece of magnetic tape of a certain length. According to me:

The attention of serial organisation is essentially oriented towards the continuum, towards a sound variation over time in which the perception of individual objects is not a necessity.
The attention of musique concrète is essentially oriented towards the ‘meaning’ of the individual sound objects and the narrative that might emerge from their connections.
The organisation of (serial) elektronische Musik is ‘outside time’, meaning that structural relationships are embedded in the parametrical design already before the music is represented on a timeline and these relationships do not depend on the order of the material.
The organisation of musique concrète is ‘inside time’, meaning that its structural relationships only occur once the material is placed on a timeline in a specific order.
Elektronische Musik aims at the abolition of the differentiation between large form and material.
A presumably unintentional effect of musique concrète’s focus on sound objects is that the differentiation between large form and material is emphasised.
In musique concrète silences separate sound objects.
In elektronische Musik silences can operate as elements of a sound continuum.
When musique concrète is ‘spatialised’ this is done to emphasise the individual characteristics of the sound objects.
In elektronische Musik space is a parameter of the sound continuum.
When in elektronische Musik the spatial distributions or movements of the sound material are not part of the compositional design then they disturb the sound continuum instead of being a part of it.

Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge has nothing to do with musique concrète, despite the fact that it makes use of recordings of a boy’s voice. The voice sounds are not sound objects but are a part of the composition’s serially designed continuum.

Schaeffer and his colleagues used the sounds of synthesizers in the 1970s as sound objects, which has nothing to do with the theoretical starting points of elektronische Musik. This handbook will focus mostly on techniques related to elektronische Musik, although the chapters on sound processing are relevant more widely.

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