Spectral Music

Samuel Stanley Author

08/04/2020 Added

148 Plays

Description

This presentation is an introduction to basic sound mechanics and Spectral Music. Spectral Music is an attitude of musical composition that draws inspiration from natural sounds and sound mechanics.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.000]My name is Samuel Stanley.
[00:00:02.324]I am a senior music student
[00:00:03.604]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[00:00:05.941]and I will be presenting on Spectral Music.
[00:00:09.954]To understand Spectral Music,
[00:00:11.654]we first have to understand
[00:00:12.884]some basic mechanics of sound.
[00:00:15.051]Here the graph displays hertz on the y-axis
[00:00:17.689]and time in seconds on the x-axis.
[00:00:21.190]The loudness of the present frequencies
[00:00:23.122]is displayed with line darkness.
[00:00:25.801]Darker lines mean louder frequencies.
[00:00:28.937]When an acoustic instrument plays a note,
[00:00:30.842][piano note plays]
[00:00:31.703]there are usually multiple
[00:00:32.956]resultant frequencies.
[00:00:35.105]The notated pitch,
[00:00:36.256]which in this example is A4,
[00:00:38.350]is the loudest and most prominent frequency.
[00:00:41.661]This frequency is called the fundamental.
[00:00:44.463]In this case,
[00:00:45.266]the frequency of the fundamental is 440 Hz.
[00:00:49.545][piano note plays]
[00:00:52.403]Since this fundamental
[00:00:53.454]is the loudest frequency,
[00:00:54.864]it is usually the one we perceive.
[00:00:57.367]All resultant frequencies that occur
[00:00:58.783]above the fundamental are called overtones.
[00:01:02.381]These resultant frequencies
[00:01:03.536]are also called harmonics
[00:01:05.120]and occur in a specific order known as
[00:01:06.880]the harmonic overtone series.
[00:01:09.618]In this example,
[00:01:10.396]we can clearly see
[00:01:11.450]a stable overtone series occurring
[00:01:13.268]above the fundamental.
[00:01:15.522]If we examine every overtone,
[00:01:17.035]we can see that frequencies
[00:01:18.225]diminish in volume as we move up.
[00:01:25.182]Another important concept to understand
[00:01:26.894]when considering Spectral Music is timbre.
[00:01:30.541]Timbre is the distinct sound of an instrument.
[00:01:33.155]In this example,
[00:01:34.098]both the piano and trumpet
[00:01:35.181]are playing the same note.
[00:01:37.339]The two instruments sound
[00:01:38.351]very different from each other.
[00:01:40.551][piano and trumpet notes play]
[00:01:44.900]Each has a unique quality of sound.
[00:01:47.226]This unique quality is their timbre.
[00:01:50.090]The overtones that occur above the shared
[00:01:51.525]fundamental are responsible for
[00:01:53.222]the difference in timbre.
[00:01:56.381]As you can see,
[00:01:57.371]the trumpet has much more stable
[00:01:59.228]and prominent overtones than the piano.
[00:02:05.807]To understand Spectral Music,
[00:02:07.048]it is also important to understand
[00:02:08.420]the classification of sound according to
[00:02:10.019]noise level.
[00:02:11.937]All sounds can be placed on a spectrum
[00:02:13.488]between two poles.
[00:02:15.689]On one side there are pure
[00:02:16.720]and sonorous sounds,
[00:02:17.846]on the other there is noise.
[00:02:22.380]As the number of frequencies present
[00:02:23.977]during and given sound increses,
[00:02:26.239]so does the level of noise.
[00:02:28.868]I will explain this spectrum further
[00:02:30.369]through example.
[00:02:33.862]The purest and most sonorous sound is a
[00:02:35.769]sine wave generated by a computer synthesizer.
[00:02:39.076]As you can see, a sine wave does not
[00:02:41.191]produce any overtones.
[00:02:43.196]This means that only the fundamental
[00:02:44.566]is produced.
[00:02:46.349]This makes the sine wave sound very plain.
[00:02:48.448][sine wave plays]
[00:02:50.408]Just to the right of the sine wave
[00:02:51.820]on the noise spectrum is sound produced
[00:02:53.649]by a single instrument playing a single note.
[00:02:56.860]Here I am using the piano example again.
[00:03:00.486]The piano sound is slightly more noisy
[00:03:02.363]than the sine wave because more frequencies
[00:03:04.422]result during its production.
[00:03:06.110][piano note plays]
[00:03:09.893]Now let's examine noisy sounds.
[00:03:13.131]The sound of white noise can be thought of
[00:03:14.658]as "perfect noise" where nearly every
[00:03:16.809]audible frequency is present all at once.
[00:03:20.886]All frequencies are also very loud.
[00:03:23.711]This results in a rather unpleasant,
[00:03:25.292]overwhelming sound.
[00:03:27.499]If the volume is high on our device,
[00:03:29.611]I would suggest turning it down before
[00:03:31.091]I play this audio clip.
[00:03:35.997][white noise plays]
[00:03:40.504]The sound of a thunderstorm is less noisy
[00:03:42.306]because less frequencies are present.
[00:03:44.628]If we examine the image, we see a lot of grey.
[00:03:48.410]This grey represents the sound of the rain.
[00:03:51.197]When the thunder strikes, we get a bump
[00:03:53.369]in the low frequencies.
[00:03:56.278]This results in a more pleasant, natural sound.
[00:03:59.229][thunderstorm sounds play]
[00:04:12.987]Now that we have a basic understand of
[00:04:14.850]sound mechanics, we are ready to talk about
[00:04:16.684]Spectral Music.
[00:04:18.574]Spectral Music began as a musical movement
[00:04:20.659]in the 1970's.
[00:04:22.333]It primarily took place in Paris, France,
[00:04:24.388]at the Institute for Research and Coordination
[00:04:26.739]in Acoustics/Music or IRCAM for short.
[00:04:31.327]The composers there took inspiration from
[00:04:33.332]natural sound phenomenon and used new technologies
[00:04:36.205]like spectrograms and computer software to
[00:04:38.406]analyze sounds.
[00:04:40.441]Spectral composers don't follow one
[00:04:42.372]concrete method of composing.
[00:04:44.318]Instead they consider the creation of
[00:04:46.569]Spectral Music to be an artistic attitude.
[00:04:49.648]One of the most important features
[00:04:51.186]of Spectral Music is the blurring of the
[00:04:52.933]traditional distinction between timbre and harmony.
[00:04:57.352]Spectral composers use their knowledge
[00:04:58.922]of sound mechanics to create new timbres,
[00:05:01.142]usually by strategically placing frequencies
[00:05:03.416]to emulate natural sounds.
[00:05:05.924]Spectral Music often employs use of the
[00:05:08.364]noise spectrum as the structural dichotomy
[00:05:10.702]for musical works.
[00:05:13.108]Let's examine an example of how this plays
[00:05:15.588]out in real music.
[00:05:20.219]Here is a spectrogram image of an excerpt
[00:05:22.184]from Kaija Saariaho's Violin Concerto
[00:05:24.534]entitled "Graal théâtre".
[00:05:27.223]In this excerpt, the influence of
[00:05:29.048]Spectral Music on Saariaho's work is clear.
[00:05:32.346]When I play the excerpt, listen to how the
[00:05:34.650]noise peaks near the beginning and
[00:05:36.236]decreases throughout.
[00:05:39.433]This exhibits the importance of the noise
[00:05:42.048]spectrum.
[00:05:49.602]Also listen for the way the line between
[00:05:51.972]timbre and harmony is
[00:05:53.363]blurred in this sound mass.
[00:05:56.554]In this excerpt, it is almost as if the
[00:05:58.756]noise of the orchestra encloses around
[00:06:00.496]the violin's sonorous sound quality.
[00:06:02.880]The violin seemingly escapes the noise
[00:06:04.880]as it ascends.
[00:06:07.696]["Graal théâtre" by Kaija Saariaho plays]
[00:06:32.541]Now I will briefly go over my own method
[00:06:35.239]for analyzing sounds and turning them into
[00:06:36.954]musical materials.
[00:06:39.013]First I analyze a sound in a computer
[00:06:41.191]program called SPEAR which provides a
[00:06:43.227]spectrogram image.
[00:06:44.900]In this case the sound is a Lion's roar.
[00:06:49.589][Lion's roar plays]
[00:06:53.653]Second I use a software function to reduce
[00:06:56.047]the sound data as much as possible while
[00:06:58.489]still preserving the integrity and gesture
[00:07:00.676]of the sound.
[00:07:03.002][reduced lion's roar plays]
[00:07:09.063]Third I use another software function to
[00:07:11.224]collect data on the frequencies.
[00:07:15.096]Fourth I use a piece of software I wrote
[00:07:17.154]to convert the frequency data into musical
[00:07:19.467]pitches.
[00:07:21.699]Fifth and lastly I analyze the data and
[00:07:24.472]attempt to notate it.
[00:07:29.047]Here I will play the final product for you.
[00:07:31.708]This is a recording featuring Lucy Collins
[00:07:33.822]on all the violin and viola parts and me
[00:07:36.630]on the cello and bass parts.
[00:07:39.691][orchestral snippet plays]
[00:07:48.583]The result captures the gesture of the
[00:07:50.041]original sound, but gives it an orchestral
[00:07:52.039]quality.
[00:07:53.826]Alright, so with that I will conclude
[00:07:55.885]this presentation on Spectral Music.
[00:07:58.297]Thanks for watching!

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Tags:
Spectral
Music
Kaija Saariaho
Sound Mechanics
Research
UCARE Summer 2020

Comments

0 Comments

Spectral Music

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments