Discrete/Continuous: Music and Media Theory after Kittler

Rehding, Alexander; Kreuzer, Gundula; McMurray, Peter; Krämer, Sybille; Moseley, Roger

doi:10.1525/jams.2017.70.1.221

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 56 publications

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“…There is much to be learned from a close engagement with instruments and sound technologies; however, this requires developing fresh approaches to study how media (whether acoustic, analog, or digital) first, shape knowledge about sound and music-making, second, encode aesthetic affordances, and last and more generally, inscribe cultural and cognitive processes in their operations. In recent years, these concerns have been taken up by a growing number of music scholars whose work, from a variety of perspectives, addresses the ways in which music is mediated by entanglements of people, objects, and ideas (Born 2005;Tresch and Dolan 2013;Piekut 2014;Rehding 2016;Rehding et al 2017). The present article builds on this line of research by positioning themes of digital mediation and instrumentality as a panoramic backdrop for a more narrowly focused analysis of Saariaho's early electronic music at IRCAM (ca.…”

Section: Analyzing New Musical Media In the Archivesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Encoding Post-Spectral Sound

Morrison

2021

MTO

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This article examines computer-based music (ca. 1982–87) created by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. A detailed account of archival materials for an early étude in voice synthesis, Vers le blanc (1982), demonstrates the music-theoretical import of software to Saariaho’s development of a robust compositional method that resonated with the emergent aesthetics of a post-spectral milieu. Subsequent analyses of two additional works from this period—Jardin secret II (1984–86) for harpsichord and tape, and IO (1987) for large ensemble and electronics—serve to illustrate Saariaho’s extension of this method into instrumental settings. Specific techniques highlighted include the use of interpolation systems to create continuous processes of transformation, the organization of individual musical parameters into multidimensional formal networks, and the exploration of harmonic structures based on the analysis of timbral phenomena. Relating these techniques to the affordances of contemporaneous IRCAM technologies, including CHANT, FORMES, and Saariaho’s own customized program, “transkaija,” this article adopts a transductive approach to archival research that is responsive to the diverse media artifacts associated with computer-based composition.

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Section: Analyzing New Musical Media In the Archivesmentioning

confidence: 98%