Aarhus Seminar Slides

School of Electronic Music A.Y.
2011-12
Electroacoustic Music Composition:

a personal approach to Acousmatic
and Live Electronics works.
Erasmus exchange A.Y. 2011-2012: The Royal Accademy of Music in Aarhus/Conservatory of Frosinone
Prof. A. Chiaramonte
Introduction (1/3)
Which is the best way for a musician to

present his own work?
What does it really mean to present his
own musical work?
with no doubts this is an hard task
Introduction (2/3)
What is the meaning of being a musician

today?
How many people among our parents and
close friends understand what are we
doing?
Are you art for arts sake supporters?
Introduction (3/3)
I had an obsession: a new instrument that would
free music from the tempered system. (E. Varese)
ORGANIZED SOUND
Summary
An overview of Edgard Varese fundamental

ideas.
My compositional language key points.
The fascination of sound: an Electroacoustic
trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento.
..:Electroshop:.. and Etheric Bodies: a personal
approach to live electronics.
Falling, a Video-art-music work: electroacoustic
music and the moving image.
Edgard Varese fundamentals (1/16)
Very few compositions which have strongly

contributed to the evolution of music language.
Sound as living a matter, the primary material of
his musical language.
Electronic music for natural instruments.
Musicians as sound generators.
To listen with unadulterated ears.

Rhythmic complexity and tonal diversity.
Indefinite pitched percussion, free
atonality, musical forms which exist
independent of tradition.
Questing for new timbral sound
possibilities.

I had an obsession: a new instrument that would
free music from the tempered system.
The instruments that the electronic engineers
must perfect, with the collaboration of musicians,
will make possible the use of all sounds - not only
arbitrary ones - and also, in consequence, the
performance of any tempered scale music. They
will be able to reproduce all existing sounds and
collaborate in the creation of new timbres.
Desert (1950-54): for Orchestra and

magnetic tape.
Poeme Electronique (1957-58): for
magnetic tape. The first multimedia work of
art.

The corporealization of the intelligence that
is in sounds.
It was a new and exciting conception and to
me as spatial - as moving bodies of sound in
space, a conception I gradually made my
own.

We have actually three dimensions in
music: horizontal, vertical, and dynamic
swelling or decreasing. I shall add a fourth,
sound projection - that feeling that sound is
leaving us with no hope of being reflected
back.
The music [on tape] was distributed by 425

loudspeakers; there were twenty amplifier
combinations... the loudspeakers were
mounted in groups and in what is called
sound routes to achieve various effects
such as that of the music running around
the pavilion, as well as coming from
different directions... etc. For the first time I
heard my music literally projected into
space.

Rhythm is too often confused with metrics.
Cadence or the regular succession of beats and
accents has little to do with the rhythm of
composition. Rhythm is the element in music that
gives life to the work and holds it together. It is the
element of stability, the generator of form. In my
works, for instance, rhythm derives from the
simultaneous interplay of unrelated elements that
intervene at calculated, but not regular, time
lapses. This corresponds more nearly to the
definition of rhythm in physics and philosophy.

One of the greatest assets that electronics
has added to musical composition is that of
metric simultaneity. My music being based
on movements of unrelated sound masses I
have long felt the need, and anticipated the
effect, of having them move simultaneously
at different speeds.

There will no longer be the old concept of
melody or interplay of melodies. The entire
work will be a melodic totality.

Music is a spatial phenomenon and therefore fuctions in four
dimensions.
Rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic material undergo constant
variation. This material is linked to form "sound masses" with
connecting strands of melodic material.
Rhythm is the generator of form, that which holds the work
together.
Vertical and horizontal material are interchangeable.
Timbre is as important as pitch and will distinguish one sound
mass from another.
Sound possesses inherent intelligence.

When new instruments will allow me to write music as
I conceive it, the movement of sound masses, of
shifting planes, will be clearly perceived, taking the
place of linear counterpoint. When these sound
masses collide the phenomena of penetration or
repulsion will seem to occur. Certain transmutations
taking place on certain planes will seem to be
projected onto other planes, moving at different
speeds and at different angles In the moving
masses you would be conscious of their
transmutations when they pass over different layers,
when they penetrate certain opacities, or are dilated in
certain rarefactions.

Sound-mass
Refers to a body of sound with certain specific

attributes in interval content, register, contour,
timbre, intensity, attack, and decay.
Idea
A motivic fragment in either the winds or

percussion.
Expansion of an idea
Sound masses seem to emerge out of the

expansion of an "idea" based on an internal
structure and may continue into sonic space.
Projection of sound
masses
The sense of projection of sound-masses

depends on the source location as well as the
independent movement of each sound-mass as
opposed to the others.

Penetration
When "sound masses" collide, the interaction tends to bring

about "penetration", during which certain attributes of one
"sound-mass" are transformed to another.
Transmutation When the attributes of a sound or sound-mass are

transferred (penetration) to another, changing the attributes
of each sound or sound-mass. With a single pitch it describes
the change of color by degrees over a wide range (which
electronic machinery made possible in a very perfected
manner).
Rhythm
The simultaneous interplay of unrelated elements that

intervene at calculted, but not regular, time lapses.
Form
The consequence of the interaction of attractive and

repulsive forces evolved out of an idea. (form is the result of
process)
Sound as living matter.

Sound as an object.
Projection of sound-masses
moving into sonic space.
Form as consequence of a
process.
I was not influenced by composers as

much as by natural objects and physical
phenomena.
Personal compositional language key points
Fragmentation
Segmentation
Reflection
Soundscape and its possible perspectives and layers
Foreground (figure) and background (texture)

processing
Gestural vs. textural
Re-construction of a meaning, other than the original

one
An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (1/11)
Year 2000: the encounter with a popular

tradition.
Ammaraciccappa: Ecstatic Rhythms of South

Italy, Desert Voices and Metropolitan Sounds.
Al Qantarah: Electro-World Music from
Salento and Maghreb.
Electroacoustic trilogy:
- Canaja Canaja
- Moroloja
- Envoys
Canaja Canaja
An Electroacoustic song based on
a popular detention song
Moroloja
Is inspired by one of the funeral dirges collected by
Brizio Montinaro in the late 1970s in the strip of
land known as Greca salentina, a small area in the
South of the Apulian region where griko, a hellenic
dialect, is still spoken.
Example of the original chant

Beddha ci stai luntanu
Dolce lo mio drudo
SICILIAN, attributed to
FREDERICK II [1194 - 1250]
source: Codex Reina 6771 (Paris)
Envoys
Amsterdam 08/09/2007
International Gaudeamus Music
Week
ECPNM Live Electronics Contest

Final Concert
..::Electroshop::.. and Etheric Bodies (1/7)
..::Electroshop::.. is a concrete sound workshop.
Sounding artworks (concrete musical instruments).
Original audio-video processing software (Max/MSP/Jitter).
Musical composition, together with artworks, conforms to the

concept of a unique work of art.
Audio tactile principle Performative actions on sounding
artworks.
Video source is used as an input for live sound processing.
Appropriate technological environment aestethics.

Aesthetics is strongly influenced by a subject that is
fundamental to me:
Communication and interaction between humans
Etheric Bodies
for sounding sculptures, theremin, trumpet, bass clarinet, audio sequencing and live electronics.
Composed and produced at ICCMR in Plymouth (UK)


ETHERIC BODIES
SCORE TIMING
0
2.5
12
22
30
50
55
01.08
SEQ. 1
TR
TR
TR
G1=ON
SC1+LE
CL
TR
CL
G2=ON
CL
01.14
01.23
01.27
01.36
01.42
01.47
01.50
02.00
02.12
SC2+LE
TR
CL
TR
CL
TR
CL
SC1=FOUT
TR
TR+CL=OFF
02.17
02.27
02.53
02.56
03.05
03.10
03.16
03.22
03.28
SC1=FIN
CL+TR
TR
CL=OFF
CL
CL
TR
CL
TR
CL
03.42
03.52
04.00
04.07
04.12
04.19
04.29
04.40
04.53
ALL=FOUT
ALL=OFF
SEQ. 2
CL
THER=ON
CL
CL
G3=ON
LE
CL+TR
05.03
05.13
05.18
05.23
05.28
05.43
05.48
06.03
06.08
G4=ON
LE
THER=OFF
SC3&4
TR
CL
TR
CL
TR
CL
06.15
06.23
06.35
06.43
07.01
07.08
07.11
07.15
07.21
TR
CL
THER=ON
TR+CL
SC3&4=FOUT
TR
THER=OFF
SC3&4=FIN
CL
TR
CL
07.25
07.29
07.31
07.38
07.51
08.03
08.16
08.21
07.33

Etheric Bodies
1
SEQ1
PERM2-1
PERM4-1
PERM6-1
PERM1-1
PERM3-1
PERM5-1
PERM7-1
SEQ2
PERM2-2
PERM4-2
PERM6-2
PERM1-2
PERM3-2
PERM5-2
PERM7-2
A. Chiaramonte
Etheric Bodies
EMUFest 2010
S. Cecilia Conservatoire - Rome
Falling: a Video-Art-Music work (1/2)
Falling: a Video-Art-Music work (2/2)
Thank you for your kind attention

Antonino Chiaramontes contacts
E-mail: antonin.chiaramonte@gmail.com
Web: www.antoninochiaramonte.eu
Varese, Edgard. "The Liberation of Sound - 1936 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott
Schartz and Barny Childs, 196-198. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
"Rhythm, Form and Content - 1959 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and
Barny Childs, 202-204. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
"Music as Art and Science - 1939 Lecture," Varese, Edgard. In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed.
Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs, 198-201. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
"Spatial Music - 1959 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and Barny Childs,
204-207. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
"The Electronic Medium - 1962 Lecture." In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. ed. Elliott Schartz and
Barny Childs, 207-208. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Varese, Louise. Varese: A Looking Glass Diary. New
York: Norton, 1972.
Edgard Varse, "Il suono organizzato", scritti sulla Musica, Milano, Ricordi-Unicopli, 1985.

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School of Electronic Music A.Y.

Electroacoustic Music Composition:

Which is the best way for a musician to

What is the meaning of being a musician

An overview of Edgard Varese fundamental

Edgard Varese fundamentals (1/16)

Very few compositions which have strongly

Electronic music for natural instruments.

Musicians as sound generators.

To listen with unadulterated ears.

Edgard Varese fundamentals (2/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (3/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (4/16)

Desert (1950-54): for Orchestra and

Edgard Varese fundamentals (5/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (6/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (7/16)

The music [on tape] was distributed by 425

Edgard Varese fundamentals (8/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (9/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (10/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (11/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (12/16)

Edgard Varese fundamentals (13/16)

Refers to a body of sound with certain specific

A motivic fragment in either the winds or

Sound masses seem to emerge out of the

The sense of projection of sound-masses

Edgard Varese fundamentals (14/16)

When "sound masses" collide, the interaction tends to bring

Transmutation When the attributes of a sound or sound-mass are

The simultaneous interplay of unrelated elements that

The consequence of the interaction of attractive and

Edgard Varese fundamentals (15/16)

Sound as living matter.

Edgard Varese fundamentals (16/16)

I was not influenced by composers as

Personal compositional language key points

Soundscape and its possible perspectives and layers

Foreground (figure) and background (texture)

Gestural vs. textural

Re-construction of a meaning, other than the original

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (1/11)

Year 2000: the encounter with a popular

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (2/11)

Ammaraciccappa: Ecstatic Rhythms of South

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (3/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (4/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (5/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (6/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (7/11)

Dolce lo mio drudo

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (8/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (9/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (10/11)

An Electroacoustic trilogy on traditional-popular music from Salento (11/11)

ECPNM Live Electronics Contest

..::Electroshop::.. and Etheric Bodies (1/7)

..::Electroshop::.. is a concrete sound workshop.

Sounding artworks (concrete musical instruments).

Original audio-video processing software (Max/MSP/Jitter).

Musical composition, together with artworks, conforms to the

..::Electroshop::.. and Etheric Bodies (2/7)

Appropriate technological environment aestethics.