Through a Window: A Networked Music Composition for Four to Six Instruments and Electronics
Date
2018-09-11
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Abstract
Through a Window is a three movement networked composition for four to six variable instruments and electronics. In this work, musicians are distributed between three performance sites and connected by sending multi-channel audio streams across a high-bandwidth network. The composition explores how the networked setting together with live sound-processing, soundfile playback, amplification, and spatialization creates a unique sonic performance environment. By applying sound-processing differently at each location, the composition creates dynamic configurations in which elements of the work such as harmony and orchestration are perceived differently at each location. As the physical distance between performance sites increases, the time delay required to send audio between the sites also increases. This poses a significant challenge for music performance since tight synchronization becomes impossible. In Through a Window I employ several practical strategies to accommodate ensemble performance in the presence of network latency such as composing audible cues within the music, adopting proportional notation, and using networked stopwatches. Formally, the composition presents a variety of musical processes based upon evolutionary algorithms, recursive algorithms, and swarm algorithms. These processes occupy multiple sections throughout the composition and contribute to aspects of the composition such as the harmony and melodic contours. As the composition unfolds, these algorithmic materials recur in new configurations and contribute to create an interlocking macrostructure in which the musical tension increases and recedes in a pattern inspired by ocean waves.
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Networked Music Performance, Algorithmic Music, Computer-Assisted Composition, Interactive Electronics, Interval Cycles, Telemedia, Distributed Performers, Chamber Music
Citation
Bosse, N. S. (2018). Through a Window: A Networked Music Composition for Four to Six Instruments and Electronics (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/32920