Alan Ahued Naime
Research project:
Music is subjected to temporality and therefore only exists in time and memory. For the past couple of years I have been developing the concept of what I call the "Plasticity of Sound", a creative research that explores the idea to emancipate music from the element of duration, trying to reach a ‘new’ way of sonic perception. My project explores the possibility to perceive music as a plastic medium, played in a sculptural space that allows the audience to walk through the composition. In short, it consists of a floor layout with a number of speakers emitting specific audios in a constant loop. Similar to the way we experience a sculpture, visitors can walk through the space at their own speed, forward or backwards, and even stop at any section for a deep listening. In this way, sound (music) is always there and the listener becomes time itself along the composition.
I believe that this can be a large scaled project worthy of a few years of research so I am tackling small fragments of the concept in order to be able to experiment, learn, present, and further develop the idea. The research is lead by a series of creative exercises where I experiment with the different elements that I consider important to address. Such elements include visual, acoustic, and musical aspects that will enrich a full experience of the piece.
With the support of the Amarte Fonds development grant I got a chance to expand my research focusing on the development of compositional techniques on timbre, harmony, and modulators in “one dimensional spatial compositions”. Here, the listener walks through a space where stereophonic sound sources are set in one line at ear height.
The main goal of this creative research is to learn (through experimentation) about the use of musical elements as compositional resources for future pieces with the aim of presenting them in a physical space when the opportunity comes.
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Research project:
Music is subjected to temporality and therefore only exists in time and memory. For the past couple of years I have been developing the concept of what I call the "Plasticity of Sound", a creative research that explores the idea to emancipate music from the element of duration, trying to reach a ‘new’ way of sonic perception. My project explores the possibility to perceive music as a plastic medium, played in a sculptural space that allows the audience to walk through the composition. In short, it consists of a floor layout with a number of speakers emitting specific audios in a constant loop. Similar to the way we experience a sculpture, visitors can walk through the space at their own speed, forward or backwards, and even stop at any section for a deep listening. In this way, sound (music) is always there and the listener becomes time itself along the composition.
I believe that this can be a large scaled project worthy of a few years of research so I am tackling small fragments of the concept in order to be able to experiment, learn, present, and further develop the idea. The research is lead by a series of creative exercises where I experiment with the different elements that I consider important to address. Such elements include visual, acoustic, and musical aspects that will enrich a full experience of the piece.
With the support of the Amarte Fonds development grant I got a chance to expand my research focusing on the development of compositional techniques on timbre, harmony, and modulators in “one dimensional spatial compositions”. Here, the listener walks through a space where stereophonic sound sources are set in one line at ear height.
The main goal of this creative research is to learn (through experimentation) about the use of musical elements as compositional resources for future pieces with the aim of presenting them in a physical space when the opportunity comes.
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This research was supported by Amarte Fonds.
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Thank you
Compositional techniques​
For a better understanding of the process the following words will be used: Global: The music composition as a whole.
Section: A group of steps that are part of one musical idea.
Steps: Audio sources (stereo speakers)
Example: A Global composition has 4 sections. Section ‘A’ has 6 steps, ‘B’ has 4, ‘C’ has 4, ‘D’ has 6.
In Global terms, my research for this paper is about the use of harmony in plastic compositions. The idea of creating melodies for such a spatial composition seems improbable. Due to a lack of fixed rhythmic figures, melodic patterns do not work normally within the nature of the concept. Nevertheless, the creation of harmonies is perfectly possible. We could think, for example, of a global composition in which every step is part of a chord progression, similar to a chorale. In this paper I explain the process of experimenting with this idea, from simple to complex in three studies each of them composed of 16 steps:
Study No. 1.- Piece where the global development is the constant variation that can be applied to one chord. With each step, changes can be in timbre, dynamics, pannings, EQ or filters.
Study No. 2.- Piece where the global development consists of a chord that changes with the use of chord extensions.
Study No. 3.- Piece where the global development consists of one chord with a complex timbre. With each step the chord passes through filters that emphasise certain frequencies, changing the morphology of the chord.
To facilitate my composition process I created a patch using MAX (MSP) that allows me to navigate through the volume faders of a DAW as if I was walking through a corridor with sound sources. In addition I created a template in Logic ProX where I can include software instruments and audio files in stacks with individual pan, EQ , and FX.
Study No. 1: Changes in timbre
Each step is playing its material with a different timbre. Exploring the use of acoustic instruments, synthesisers, or collection of pure wave sounds.
Changes in the chord’s organisation:
The chord played does not necessarily need to always have the same structure. Apart from experimenting with the inversion and structural organisation of the notes, the possibilities are extended once we consider that notes can be triggered with different dynamics and at different moments of the loop. Therefore the chord is not changing but its “molecular” structure is.
Study No. 2: Chord extensions
Each step plays 2 notes (R and L panned) with an interval of a 3rd (M,m, dim, or aug).
One full chord of 4 notes is created between the transition of consecutive steps. The chord is changing with every step, creating harmonic variation of extended chords.
In addition to the harmonic material, there is a panned melody in the voice leading of the steps. One melody on the Right side and one in the Left side of the audio sources.
In order to create a second layer of interest, for this specific study, all the chords are played with one synthesiser that gradually variates the timbre.
Study No. 3: Filters
For this composition, one chord with a complex timbre changes its structure by applying a different EQ , filter and/or pan on each step.
In this piece, there is an exploration of the psychoacoustic effects of panning certain frequencies to one side and other frequencies to the other. A constant change of the complexity of the chord is generated by emphasising certain frequencies, using individual filters for each side and each step