The OM Composer's Book

The OM Composer's Book

OpenMusic (OM) is a visual programming environment for Computer Assisted Composition (CAC), developped by the Music Representations research group at IRCAM. OM counts hundreds of users around the world, and has been used in the composition of numerous musical works. The OM Composer's Book (Editions Delatour, France - Ircam, Centre Pompidou) aims at giving a report of this activity, as well as providing examples of works and practices in the fields of Computer-Aided Composition. Each chapter of the book describes a composer's creation, with an emphasis on the use of OpenMusic in the compositional work.

THE OM COMPOSER'S BOOK - Vol. 1 (Ed. C. Agon, G. Assayag and J. Bresson) Editions Delatour / Ircam - 2006 Preface by M. Puckette Texts by M. Amoric, M. Battier, G. Bloch, K. Haddad, J. C. Hernndez, J.-L. Herv, J. Kretz, S. Lemouton, F. Lvy, P. Livorsi, M. Malt, P. Nauert, K. Nez, G. Nouno, H. Parra, L. A. Pena, O. Sandred, K. Sprotte, E. Thomazi-Freitas, F. Voisin. (Contents)

The OM Composer's Book - Vol. 2 - Call for contributions

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The OM Composer's Book

Contact : Carlos Agon Amado 01 44 78 48 33 Jean Bresson 01 44 78 16 57

Last update: 01-08-2006

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Th OM Composer Book - Vol. 1

The OM Composer's Book .1

Contents
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Writing a Homage to Mersenne: Tombeaux de Marin Mersenne for Theorbo and Synthesiser by Michel Amoric Electronics in Kaija Saariaho's Opera L'amour de loin by Marc Battier and Gilbert Nouno Vuza Canons into the Museum by Georges Bloch TimeSculpt in OpenMusic by Karim Haddad The Genesis of Mauro Lanza's Aschenblume and the Role of Computer-Aided Composition Software in the Formalisation of Musical Processes by Juan Camilo Hernndez Snchez Composing the Qualitative, on Encore Composition by Jean-Luc Herv and Frdric Voisin Navigation of Structured Material in Second Horizon for Piano and Orchestra by Johannes Kretz Generating Melodic, Harmonic and Rhythmic Processes in K..., an Opera by Philippe Manoury by Serge Lemouton When the Computer Enables Freedom from the Machine (On an Outline of the Work Hrdo-Ribotes) by Fabien Lvy Some Applications of OpenMusic in Connection with Modalys by Paola Livorsi Fractals and Writing, Six Fractal Contemplations by Mikhail Malt Algorithmic Strategies in A Collection of Caprices by Paul Nauert

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Sculpted Implosions: Some Algorithms in the Waterscape of Musique Concrte by Ketty Nez Strette by Hctor Parra Klangspiegel by Lus Antunes Pena Kalejdoskop for Clarinet, Viola and Piano by Orjan Sandred Flexible Time Flow, Set Theory and Constraints by Killian Sprotte To Touch the Inner Sound, Before it Becomes Music; to Dream About Dreams, Before they Become Real by Elaine Thomazi-Freitas

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STRETTE
- H` ector Parra Abstract. Strette1 is a 14 minutes monodrama for soprano, live electronics, real time video and lights, based on the poem by Paul Celan Engf uhrung. The dierent elements of the representation (sound, human voice, text, image and scenography) are treated and related among themselves in such a way that the dramatic nucleus is constituted by the sound ow itself and its live relationship with the image and the psycho-acoustical space. This perceptual experience is the intended outcome of the acoustical and visual spaces into which the public is submerged. Hence, it may contribute to a polyhedral perception of the Engf uhrung content. The pages that follow try to explain the specic issues and problems we had to tackle while composing Strette. Noteworthy is the role played by the Computer Assisted Composition Program Open Music in the development of the musical structures and the vocal score better adapted to the aforementioned ends. ***

1
1.1

Dramatic and musical issues

The interplay between language, poetry and vocal music

Engf uhrung by Paul Celan is a vivid outcome of the relentless progression towards the accomplishment of a credible poetic communication by the German language just after its perverted use by the Nazis. The poem does not describe a reality; it is the text what constitutes the reality itself. Hence no room is left for the mimicry nor for the representation of a reality lying outside the language. This noteworthy characteristic of Celans poem makes it possible to establish direct links between music and text at a very basic language level. Hence music benets of a greater degree of autonomy, and a more
1 Strette was composed during the Cursus de Composition et Informatique Musicale de lIRCAM 2002-2003 and created by the soprano Val erie Philippin at the IRCAMs Space of Projection on October 15th 2003. The pedagogical assistant has been Mikhail Malt and the assistant for the video Emmanuel Jourdan. The electronics of the piece also beneted from the help by Benjamin Thigpen, Jean Lochard and Mauro Lanza. To all of them I acknowledge their trust and help for the realization of Strette. The realization of this work has been sponsored by a grant from the Departament de Cultura of the Catalan Government. I acknowledge Josep Manel Parra for his wise advises and help for the realisation of the present text.

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respectful treatment with its own acoustic and syntactical identities, than it is usual in vocal works. Accordingly we could set as the primary goal of Strette the recovery of the tragic ethos through a more abstract dramatization than the one oered by declamatory performances. The moving experience arises from the friction between the hearing of the temporal ows put forward by the music (vocal and electronic) and the simultaneous interacting ux of visual images. The rst step has been to develop a vocal writing that, while keeping a reasonable contact with the rhythm and declamatory characteristics of the poem, is strictly based on organizational musical principles. A further step linking music and image (shape and colour) has been accomplished by the development of a vocal and instrumental script accordingly to principles analogous to those of the colour theory in oil painting. Quite inspired by C ezannes Ch ateau noir a set of patches in Open Music has been construed that makes room for a strongly gestual compositional activity. Finally, with the aid oered by the program Max/MSP-Jitter, some specic procedures of manipulation and abstraction of an image in real time have made possible the desired live interaction between the sopranos singing face and music. Summing up, a hard work with the above mentioned computer programs has produced a set of new questions and opened new paths to achieve more real (non metaphorical) relationships between acoustical and visual thoughts and experiences.

1.2

Dramatic role of the image. Communication between sound and image

Much the same as what happens with the text and the sound also the modeled or transformed image of the soprano must become the true reality for the public. Accordingly to the basically expositive nature of Celans poem the soprano does not eect any kind of theatrical performance. She sings and thats all. The drama, which has been built in the sound itself is now simultaneously developed and exposed in the visual domain. The veil, which together with lights constitutes all the set, acts as a true ressonance membrane of all the actions of the source. The projection of the video-image of the soprano transformed in real time with Max/MSP-Jitter establishes a technologically mediated communication between the singer and the public. Strette ends much in the same way as it begins. But for the listeners there is a striking dierence -at least this is our bet! After having completed the proposed dramaticomusical progression they have got a more acute and distinct perception of the musical, textual and space-visual materials which were present at the beginning, and a vivid awareness that their interaction takes place in a unique global communication space.

2
2.1

Working Strettes vocal part

Starting points: Engfu ateau Noir hrung and Ch

The structure and articulation of the vocal discourse, comprising not only its main division into sections but also the rhythmic and intervallic sequences, are based on a twofold source. The rst one is obviously the poem itself, with its nine sections and multiple 158

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Figure 1: The stage

subsections. We have paid attention and tried to be respectful to the semantic and syntactical elements of each stanza and each verse. This eort was necessary in order to achieve a meaningful musical development of the drama expressed by Celan. The other source has been Chateau Noir (1904); an oil painting by the later C ezanne that was owned by Picasso and that now belongs to the Picasso Museum of Paris. I cannot refrain to confess that it was a perception or feeling of a deep structural analogy between Celan action on the language exerted along the linear progression of the poem and a pictorically guided two-dimensional visual tour aiming to capture C ezannes action upon form and colour which are at the basis of this work. I think that this fact has to be taken into account if one tries to derive any general propositions or consequences from the work here presented. Thus, Strette was conceived as a sequence in which the rhytmic and intervalic materials are subjected to driving forces and structural tensions that follow the aesthetically signicative colour relationships. Hence we started a search of quantiable relationships between spaces that parametrize the music or sound phenomena and perception with spaces that parametrize colour vibrations and modulations. These relationships, which later we will consider in detail, gave us access to a numerical control of the rhythm and intervals by which we reproduced in a more malleable way the strict syntactical and semantical progression of the poem. The analysis of the poem Engf uhrung given by Peter Szondi and Werner W ogerbauer have proved to be a useful guide and provided valuable suggestions to control the dramatic ow and achieve the desired coordination. In Chateau Noir, after a strong initial polarization blue-orange, the light is progressively decomposed in all its spectral components. At the same time, due to the emerging half tones and to the tensions caused by the lost of colour complementarity, we have access to all the dierent depth levels of the painting. Now we complete and bridge the chasm, through the modulation, between the initial extreme tones blue and orange. But the depth so achieved conicts with the bidimensional pictoric surface, character that C ezanne strongly reinforces with its characteristic system of abstract patches. 159

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Figure 2: Chateau Noir by Paul C ezanne The rhythmic and intervalic parameters have been formalized and subjected to a temporal development acordingly to the chromatic path described upon C ezannes painting. The guiding idea is that, taking into account its specic musical nature, the rhythmic and intervalic characteristics of the vocal line should act upon the auditive perception in a way structurally analogous to the action of the colour modulations of Chateau Noir upon the visual perception. The tool used to implement this idea has been Open Music. We also stress the fact that a fraction of the colours that enter into the modication in real time of the video-image of the soprano correspond sequentially to those that have been used to structure the vocal part. We think that this action, eected through the program Jitter/MaxMSP, reects and puts in evidence (in some way) the structural linkages that have been created between sound and colour.

2.2

Formalisation of the relationships colour-rhythm and colourpitch. Implementation in OpenMusic

At this point it seems necessary to state that the expressed aim to connect and develop parallel lines in colour and sound spaces does not imply any conception of identity or 160

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proper mixing of the two spaces that I believe possess clearly distinct character and behaviour. Rather the idea has been to take advantage of the qualities of the colours and their eects on our perception and understanding processes in order to develop a working scheme of pitch and duration. This scheme, based on clear and eective organizative principles, has given enough room to encompass a great deal of musical variation and richness. Colorimetric system used a basis of the formalization process. Data coming from Chateau Noir The colorimetric system founded upon the three perceptual colour parameters: HueSaturation-Intensity (HSI) lies at the basis of my formalization of a rhythmic and intervalic thought that may be subject to a parallel (and even synchronous) development. The three dimensions of the HIS space are usually represented by a solid cylinder with luminosity in the vertical axis, saturation being the radial coordinate and Hue the angular one. Each colour is then represented by three coordinates or numerical values: the specic colour tonality (from 0 to 360), and saturation and intensity from 0 to 100.

Figure 3: Hue-Saturation-Intensity It is obvious that painting possess many other interacting dimensions specically related to the colour and the plastic matter as are, for instance, the texture density, the opacity and the directionality of the brushstroke (essential in C ezanne), the shapes and kinds of colour patches, etc. They are very dicult to analyze and cannot be manipulated in a simple way even with the computer. Hence, after a number of visits to the Picasso Museum which allowed a detailed study of C ezanne masterpiece I got conclusive ideas about my visual path through the painting and which colour patches were interacting at each moment, and with which intensity. Then I articulate temporally the chosen sequence of interacting patches assembling them in little groups which (could be made to) correspond to each of the stanzas of Celans poem. This segmentation was in no way a mechanical one. Each segment had to possess a pictorial sense by itself and, at the same time, to share with the corresponding stanza 161

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some characteristics of semantical or syntactical character. By way of illustration of the process followed we can consider the central part of the poem. In it the language is almost completely detached and the two opposed worlds of the beginning nd a space of mediation that makes possible a resolution of the conict. The pictorial correlate is found in the full spectral decomposition of the light after the extreme initial blue-orange polarization. Although this kind of correspondences may seem to have a great deal of subjective content we are convinced they are often at the very root of the artistic creative activity. Of course Celans poem is very special and suggestive because as W ogerbauer has noted, Tout le long du Engf uhrung la cr eation po` etique est analys ee dans une succession d etapes au sein dune synesth esie g en erale 2 . Following this order of ideas I proceed to chose, for each colour patch in a digitized image of the Ch ateaux Noir, those pixels that seemed to me more close to the colour I experienced at the museum. Then I evaluatd the colorimetric mean of each zone that had been of relevance during my visual path or pictorial reading of C ezannes work. The network of HSI indices thus obtained was the expression (a partial and oversimplied one) of the successive strains and stresses I experienced before the painting. This data was ready to be used as a starting point of the set of musical patches to be presented in the next subsection. Colour to rhythm: formalisation and implementation into Open Music According to the general plan of the piece I planned a rhythmic space based in little units possessing each one a certain temporal identity. They were to be composed by a minimum of three attacks and a maximum of seven. Each of those rhythmic units were to be associated to a colour, and their vertical polyphonic interaction should produce a dynamical tension similar to the one produced by the visual clash of colours. The pictorial rhythmical structures and tensions of Cezanne could then be then translated in some way into the musical language. We oer now an outline of how this transposition from the colorimetric to the musical space has been able to produce a rich amount of basic materials that are most adapted to the original conception of the piece. All rhythmic units are composed by two superposing cells of atacks, one in progressive accellerando and the other in progressive rallentando. Each atack is triggered by a xed discrete amount of an exponential (for the accelerando) or logarithmic (for the rallentando) curve that is characteristic of the Hue and dened at Saturation=100. The number of atacks for each rhythmic unit has been xed to a minimum to keep the character of each cell. The colours in the blue-orange axis, which constitute the pillars of C ezannes painting, are given between seven and eight attacks while other colors are given six. With decreasing saturation these functions tend to the linear one that produces regular atacks in such a way that grays correspond to complete regularity. The upper or rst cell in time is maximally accelerating at yellow and maximally rallentando at magenta. The lower or second cell is opposed in character. The opposition is reduced for the at complementary colours red and green in which one of the cells presents equally spaced atacks. These characteristics are represented in Fig. 4. The size ratio of the upper to lower cell is also xed as a function of Hue for each value of saturation. It ranges from 1/10 at yellow to 5/1 at violet. Again the relative size tends
2 W ogerbauer,

Analyse de Strette, 1991.

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to the value 1 (uniformity) whith decreasing saturation, as is reected in a non-quantied manner in Fig. 4. The delay between the upper and lower cell is also a characteristic function of hue that tends to zero with decreasing saturation in a hue-dependent way: hot colours loss delay more quickly than the cold ones, accordingly with colour theory perception. Flat colours (red and green) present always zero delay (temporal simultaneity). Orange, yellow and violet, that give pictorial depth can achieve a maximum delay of a 20% of the size of the rst cell. Again this fact has been qualitatively reected in Fig. 4.

Figure 4: Rhythmic units Finally the physical extension of time of each rhythmic unit is also function of hue and intensity. At maximum intensity of 100, yellow-orange colours have maximum duration 163

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of 6 and 5 seconds, respectively. Their complementaries violet and blue are given the minimum duration of 1 second. With decreasing intensity this distribution of duration is almost inverted, accordingly to the visual rhytmic tension of C ezannes painting: in the most bright zones blues act as accents or activators of the more extensive orange patches while in the dark regions blues become dominant and profound, corresponding to rhythmic units of more duration and less atacks. In fact, the displacement to the dark regions of less luminic vibration corresponds to the disappearance of a part of the rhythmic content, specically those attacks that because its closeness make the rhythmic unit more vibrant. A simplied outline of how the rhythmic patch generates and uses the aforementioned Variables is oered in Fig 5. In the example it is generated the rhythmic unit that corresponds to the colour orange (hue=30), saturation of 50% and Intensity of 80%. The still not quantied intervals between atacks are given in miliseconds.

Figure 5: Construction of the rhythmic unit corresponding to the colour (H=30, S=50, V=80 Hence, as it is shown in Fig. 6, the patch that gives the rhythmic variables consists 164

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in three main parts. First we have the three entries corresponding to the colorimetric data in the Hue, Saturation and Intensity codication. This input is represented by the three upper arrows. Then we have the complex network of subpatches that sequentially implement the transformation of a colour path into a rhythmic path. Finally we get an eective construction of the rhythmic units that are expressed in the form Chord-seq, parametrized in miliseconds, and which are represented by the lower arrow.

Figure 6: The rhythmic patch

As an illustrative example of the rhythmical musical tensions derived from the two colour oppositions orange-blue and red-green we oer in Fig. 7 the rhythmic sequences that result of the superposition of the two corresponding rhythmic units. In the orangeblue case, the perception of extreme closeness and depth requires characteristic times that amount to a deformation of the uniform ow of time. In musical terms these irregularities take the form of an initial energy propulsion (initial blue attacks) followed by a central development (orange and blue together), suddenly stopped by a second propulsion (blue ends) that gives way to the nal expansion (orange alone). In the red magenta-green case, the pictorial at colours, we get a superposition of two regular patterns of dierent durations that express less energetic vibrations, and have a simultaneous starting point. These kinds of interactions between rhythmical units take place in the maquette. 165

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Figure 7: Two basical rhythmic sequences From colour to pitch As a parallel correspondence to the colour-rhythm association, I also developed a system of patches in Open Music that give for each colour an aggregate of pitches or chord consisting in a maximum of eight pitches and a minimum of one. What is really important here are the intervallic relationships and much less the absolute value of the frequencies. The role of these pitch-groups is to provide a strongly characteristic and dierentiated harmonic colour, even in a monodical disposition, as is the case for Strette. As the starting point for the computation of the chords I took the 32 rst partials of a harmonic series whose fundamental pitch I change several times accordingly to the formal structure devised for Strette. Hence, to the three continuous colorimetric indexes we add a fourth external parameter of discrete nature and intrinsically musical. Again, as in the case of rhythm, it is the Hue parameter that plays the dominant role in determining the idiosyncrasy of each pitch aggregate, which are dened at maximum saturation and intensity by means of the sub-patch represented in Fig. 9. Decreasing these parameters will modify the aggregate by diminution of the number of elements and homogeneization of the intervalic ratios. As we can see in the upper part of Fig. 8, small displacements of the fundamental of the harmonic sequence are implemented in such a way that for the colours close to the yellow-violet axis are raised a half-tone, while those close to the green-red axes are lowered by another half-tone. With this simple procedure we try to avoid a too great coincidence of pitches belonging to chromatically opposed spaces. In Fig. 10 we see how the two named functions virtual-fundamental and bestfrequency belonging to the Open Music Library Esquisse provide some of the pitches that will be used for the complementary cold color of a hot one. Together with other partials that come from the upper lines of this lower section the cold colour aggregates will attract and acoustically complement those corresponding to the complementary hot colours. As saturation decreases the pitch aggregates lose notes until they are reduced to a single tone for saturation lower than 20. The frequency-distortion function of Esquisse produces a reduction or compactication of the original range of the spectrum. It transforms the original irregular intervals dened in eighths of tone at saturation 100 into regular intervalic progressions. For saturation between 50 and 75 the precision is 166

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Figure 8: Patch for the pitch reduced to quarters of tones and to half tones for saturation below the 50 per cent. Summing up, the progressive loss of saturation that describes the path to the gray is made to correspond to a process of homogeneization by reduction of the elements that characterized the idiosyncrasy of the initial chords. In Fig. 10 this process is represented for hue = 60o , intensity = 100 and saturation values of 100, 75, 60, 50 and 20. Finally, the decrease of the intensity parameter also reduces the number of notes and reduces the range of the spectrum. However, in this case the concentration is not performed around the central pitch of the chord, but on the higher frequency part for the hot colours and in the lower frequency for the complementary cold ones.

2.3

Final steps towards the score

The maquette For each visual phrase of my aesthetical perception of C ezannes Ch ateau Noir I have constructed a maquette in which I have temporally disposed the little rhythmic units corresponding to each colour present in it. Each maquette covers a temporal span between 167

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Figure 9: Sub-patch for the partials (hot colours)

10 and 30 seconds. The particular spatial disposition of the dierent rhythmic units is inspired in the functions that the corresponding colours play in painting, as we have mentioned before. In the right side of Fig. 13 we can see the above analyzed rhythmic patch integrated into the maquette as well as the list of colours that constitute its input. I think this procedure gives room for a strong and malleable interaction between the output of the Open Music patches and the musical needs and wishes of the composer. After the transmission of the content of the maquette to the multi-sequence midi editor of Open Music I perform a simultaneous ltering of the sequence. In it I supress all the attacks considered musically uninteresting and implement the pitches corresponding to each colour in what really constitutes a precomposition of the vocal line. This kind of work was done simultaneously with the rst manuscript drafts of the score and with the reection over the most adequate treatement of the text. 168

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Figure 10: Sub-patch for the partials (cold colours)

Figure 11: Chords corresponding to successive changes of 15o in Hue, at the maximum level of Saturation and Intensity

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Figure 12: Progressive decrease of the saturation for Hue=60 and Intensity=100

Figure 13: Maquette corresponding to the rst 30 seconds of Strette The process of rhythmic quantication The quantication of the musical phrases has been eected using the rhythmic quantier provided by the library Kant 3 . The Fig. 14 illustrates the three stages of this process:

3 The

OMKant library was conceived and programmed by Benoit Meudic.

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1 I mark the sequence at those points where I want start a measure or an important beat. 2 I trigger the quantication process with the tempo I think it is more adequate to this point of the piece and which, at the same time, oers a quantication rather close to the original sequence. 3 I visualize the outcome in the form of a concrete rhythms and a xed tempo applied to some measures.

Figure 14: Quantication with the OM Kant library It is necessary to stress that the specic characteristics of each phrase make this process dierent each time. There is no mechanical or automatical rendering possible. For instance, while I have imposed by means of the object OMKant rhythms that satised me more than those resulting of the quantication process of some beats, I have tried to be respectful with the derived material. The nal realization of the fragment quantied in Fig. 14 is shown in Fig. 15. In it we can see how some of the rhythmic characteristics proposed by OMKant have been transcribed. In general their gestuality has been stressed and adapted to the text by combination of dierent dynamical progressions and structured silences. In other places, as in the last part of the second measure, the entrance point of the second articulation has been considerably moderated.

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Figure 15: Exemple from the score (measures 18 and 19 of Strette )

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Bibliography
[1] Carpenter J. and Howard F.: Color in Art. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1974. [2] Gowing L. : C ezanne: La logique des sensations organis ees. Editions Macula, 1992, Paris. [3] Itten J.: Art de la Couleur. Dessain et Torla /VUEF 2001. [4] Lhote A. and Howard F.: Trait es du Paysage et de la Figure. Bernard Grasset Editeur, Paris. [5] Machotka P. : C ezanne, Landscape into Art. Yale University Press New Haven and London, 1996. [6] Meudic B.: Librairie OMKant 3.0. Edited by Karim Haddad. IRCAM, Paris 2003. [7] Montchaud R.: La couleur et ses accords. Editions Fleurus, 1994. [8] Szondi P.: Etudes sur Paul Celan: lecture de Strette, dans po esies et po etiques de la modernit e . Presses Universitaires de Lille, France. [9] W ogerbauer W.: Analyse de Strette. 1991.

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