Electro Acoustic Music Home

Introduction

Welcome to my electro-acoustic music page! Even though I am not a musician, I would like to share some pieces that I have composted when I was in school. These pieces may be the only pieces that I composite in my life, so it is worth to post in here to share with others.

Piece 1 :Toilet

This is the first piece that I have composted in 2001. The theme is talked about toilet.

Download : Toilet (MP3) - 714k

Piece 2 : Bird

This piece had been composted in 2003. I am trying to create a virtual soundscape in this piece.

Download : Bird (MP3) - 1.66Mb

Download the Documentation : Bird.doc (MS Word file) - 55.5kb

Piece 3 : Do you hear me?

This is the last and longest piece I have composted in 2003. As the name of this piece said, the piece talked about the emptiness in human heart.

Download: Do you hear me? (mp3) - 2.61Mb

The Analysis of VOX 5:

This is the paper that I have written for the analysis of the famous piece in electro acoustic, VOX5

Introduction

The Vox Cycle, which was composed by Trevor Wishart, was one of the landmarks in electro-acoustic music. Wishart spent over eight years in the 1980s to compose this series. As what Wishart commented of his own work, the Vox cycle was a demonstration of his exploration of the usage of human voice and the practice of the sound spatial effect in electro-acoustic music. The cycle contained six vocal pieces that focused on the manipulation and electronic process of human voice. Each piece in the Vox Cycle used different approaches to process the vocal material. In addition, by using four amplified voices, Vox employed a sound-spatialisation technique which provided an illusion of sound movement to the audience. Thus, this composition series could serve as a paradigm of the usage of vocal material in electro-acoustic music.

Human voice is a special sound material in electro-acoustic music. This material is more flexible in producing different sounds than any manufactured instrument such as piano, flute, guitar or violin. Moreover, human beings tend to respond to the vocal source more straightforwardly. Therefore, using this type of material in a composition can produce distinctive results due to its unique property in stimulating human mental and muscular articulation. Wishart demonstrated his practices in vocal material when he composed his earlier works Anticredos and Red Bird. In the Vox cycle, he described the piece as “a cycle of vocal pieces with a more ambitious intent to manipulate the human voice.” (1)

The poetic content of the Vox cycle was essentially around the myth of Shiva-Lord of the Cosmic Dance, which was a Hindu idol who controlled the creation and destruction of the world. Wishart used the Vox series as a symbol of the cycle of destruction and re-creation of the world. Within the Vox series, Vox 5 was the most recognizable piece in electro-acoustic community. Because it was the only complete electro-acoustic piece. Also, Vox 5 has numerous international prizes since its release. In Vox 5, Wishart used vocal materials to represent the voice of Shiva. Although the focus of the composition was the vocal sound material, the whole piece was organized musically in order to complement the music of the voices. Furthermore, after the integration with certain spatial techniques, the piece gave the audience a false impression that the ‘super voice’ of Shiva was situated in front of the audience and which moved around in the created landscape. This super voice was then transformed into different natural events such as the sound of crows, bells, and bees. It appeared to the audience that the natural events were from each syllable that was articulated by this Hindu idol. Another important point is that the piece was mainly produced by a computer program which were written by Wishart. That program can be used to process sound analysis data which obtained from Mark Dolson’s Phase Vocoder program. Consequently, it can be found that there were many new transformational and stretching effects occurring in the piece in comparing with his earlier pieces such as Anticredos and Red Bird.

The poetic aspect of the piece

Vox 5 was the piece that described the process of world creation by the Hindu idol –Shiva. The piece was mainly composed by vocal materials and a number of real world natural sound sources. In this piece, each non-vocal sound source had its own vocal root. Wishart used sonic transformation heavily throughout the piece to connect the non-vocal sound sources and the vocal roots together. Most of the sound sources were recognizable and thus were symbolic. The piece was categorized under the mimetic discourse because of the nature of its sound source. In addition, although organization of the piece was not followed by any special patterns, Wishart used the piece to describe a story from the myth. Therefore, the piece could likely be classified in ‘abstract-abstracted’ syntax category.

At the beginning of the myth, the world was empty and full of darkness. This Hindu idol then created the world by uttering the name of each creature and his super voice would construct that creature and made it appear in the world. In order to provide this image to the audience, Wishart made use of many sonic transformations in the piece. The sonic transformation had been applied to transform the voice that ejected from Shiva’s mouth to different recognizable natural events. Throughout the piece, the “super-voice” ejected from the mouth of Shiva was the major sound source, and all other sound sources were transformations of the vocal material. In hearing the piece, one could easily recognize that each new syllable articulated by Shiva represented different creations. The sound of the syllable, which was emitted from the center of the stage, was then circulated around the sonic landscape. Sonic transformation occurred when this vocal sound kept moving, and finally became one of the natural events in the piece. By combining the spatial effect and the sonic transformation, the piece successfully created illusion that every event that appeared in the sonic landscape was generated from Shiva’s super voice.

In Wishart’s article ‘On Sonic Art’, he stated that “using concrete metaphor rather than text, we were not telling a story in the usual sense, but unfolding structures and relationship in time” (2). Similar to his previous work – Red Bird, many metaphoric elements had been used in Vox 5. When hearing Vox 5, one could find that each primitive that existed in the sonic landscape was used to symbolize an object in the real world. In other words, Wishart attempted to connect the virtual world that he created in the sonic landscape to the reality. After the audience realized the connection between these two different spaces, the idea inside the piece became clear. As he stated, it was his way to unfold the content of the story to the audience. However, there were some concerns when using this technique in an electro-acoustic piece. The sound materials that were used in the piece must be self-apparent or symbolic. It meant that the sound source must be easy to recognize so that the general audience could perceive the connection without much hesitation. The sound of baby cry that appeared at about 3’35 is a good example. As a baby started to cry when he first came out from his mother’s womb, Wishart used this imagery to symbolize the birth of the world. The bees’ sound in the piece could be another example, which represented life in the real world. The most interesting example was the thunderclap sound material. It was used to represent the creation of the world since that thunder always serves as a prelude or the starting-sign of storms in the real world. The raining sound was another symbol that was used to symbolize the death of the world. It was because raining gave people the impression of cleansing and renewal. There were still many other symbolisms in the piece that might not be easy to recognize, but the sound-images were apparent in every stage of the piece. In conclusion, the overall organization and the grammatical structure of Vox 5 were successful with the contribution of each metaphoric elements involved.

The Sound Source

The piece involved many different sound sources, which could be categorized into two different groups. The first group was the vocal materials that were used to simulate the super voice of Shiva. Part of the vocal materials was combined with phonemes and consonants. It was usually used as an attack in the sonic transformation. Generally, the duration of this material was not very long. In hearing the piece, the attack of the vocal material was always a starting point of constructing a new creation in the sonic landscape. Another part of the vocal source was the ululation material, which was described in Tom Williams’ paper as an “African vocal technique used in much of the Vox cycle”. Audience could hear the appearance of the sound material at 1’16 in the piece. The last sound source under the vocal category was the muttering material. This material was similar to incantations, which might be created by the transformation of other vocal sources. Other examples of the sound material under this category were the sounds of sibilants, noise constituents, as well as the sounds that were generated by flipping the lips. Another category was the natural event sounds. Basically, it included all the sounds that were not vocal. This category contained many sound sources. The crowd sounds that appeared at the beginning of the piece were good examples. If we listened carefully, we could realize that this sound material was combined with multiple textures. Some crowd sounds were far away and some were near to the audience. As a result, the sound source provided a field of depth to the landscape. This category also included other natural utterances such as animal, human baby cry, and horse neighing. Furthermore, there were natural element sounds like wind-sound, rain-sound, thunderclap and its subsequent rumbling. Throughout the piece, one could hear that there were some mechanical sounds appearing in the landscape. According to Tom Williams, “there is (was) no mechanical sound source in the piece, and most of the mechanical sound image is (was) transformed from other sound source”. (3) This observation could be proven when the piece was listened at a low speed. At 4’08, the large gun sound image appeared like a vocal material at a slow playback rate. Similarly, the bell sound and the ratting sound, which sounded like ratting windows, appeared to have the same behavior under the low speed playback condition.

In summary, one could see that the major sound sources of the piece were the vocal materials. They were also the main source of transformations. In addition, the piece contained three elemental sound sources, which were the sound of thunder, the sound of rain and the sound of wind. Since most of the sound materials were easy to recognize, the creation of the sonic landscape became straightforward.

Spatialisation

The original work of the Vox cycle was performed quadrophonically. The four channels version of Vox 5 was designed to be presented using four speakers with each of speaker placed at different corners of the auditorium. As a result, the audience, who would sit in the center of the four speakers, could perceive the sound movement effect inside the square. In composing Vox 5, Wishart made use of this spatial organization in order to create the illusion that Shiva was ejecting his super voice at the front of the stage. By controlling the output level of each speaker, the sound objects could be controlled to travel around the auditorium. Consistent with the poetic content of the piece, the sound object ejected at the front of the stage was mainly a vocal material. Moreover, while the vocal material kept moving around the auditorium, the sonic transformation occurred. There was a good example at the opening of the piece. Tom William expressed this spatial effect in his article that “The most dramatic example is (was) the opening. In the first minute, the landscape of the crow/wind is (was) heard it is (was) all center front but the very last transforming seconds at 1’12-16’ the sound swoops (swooped) to the back speakers and the whole space.” (3)

The piece was mixed into stereo version in order to be compatible with most of the audio systems in the market today. Although the two channel version lost significant spatial information of the original piece, we could still perceive a limited amount of the sound movement by using only two speakers.

The Structure of the Piece

Basically, the piece could be divided into three different parts. The first part started from the beginning to 1’16. This part included the first landscape. The major sound-images were the wind sound, the crow sounds and the bubble sounds. The second part of the piece, which was the main body of the composition, started at 1’16 to 4’18. This section contained most of the transformations of the piece. The last part of the piece started from 4’18 to the 6’. This part contained the second landscape of the piece. Audience could find that the thunderclap and rain sound material appeared in this part.

The main body of the piece was separated into two sub-sections by the only silence of the piece at 2’41. Furthermore, the first sub-section had five episodes and the second sub-section had four. Wishart started each episode by ejecting a new vocal material.

The First Sub-Section

Episode I: 1’16-33 – Started by the attack of an ululation, and then the sound circling around the space, it was especially easy to hear the effect when using the headphone. The sound panned from left to right, and then right to left. The sound suddenly disappeared before the second episode appeared.

Episode II: 1’33-46 – The duration of this episode was short. It started with a consonant attack. Then, there were snap sound and sibilance appearing right after the attack. After that, the sounds panned around the landscape.

Episode III: 1’46-2’00 – This episode started with a vocalized breath and then transformed into flange-sound. It seemed that the spatial movement in this episode was not that significant.

Episode IV: 2’0 – 13 – This episode started by the double attack of the phoneme, then followed by two other attacks using the transformation of the phoneme. This episode ended with the transformation of the crowd sound.

Episode V: 2’13-40 – This episode started with a vocal material. The vocal material was then transformed into the bees sound. At the end of this episode, the bees sound was transformed back to the starting vocal material.

The Second Sub-Section

Episode I: 2’41-3’01 – At the beginning of this episode, there was an attack of a bell sound. Then, a bubble sound appeared in the landscape. A vocal material appeared in the landscape at about 2’45. There was another wave of attack of the bell sound, the bubble sound and the vocal material at 2”48. All sounds were fading out at the end of this episode.

Episode II: 3’01-18 – This episode contained a number of attacks with different vocal materials. The vocal materials were then combined together to create a complex texture in this episode.

Episode III: 3’17 – 53 – Similar to the previous episode, this episode contained a sound object which could not be easily identified. This sound object transformed into a cry sound at the end of the episode.

Episode IV: 3’35-4’19 – This sub-section ended with the most complex episode which included many different sound object such as the cry sound, some vocal materials, the crow sound, the horse sound, and the gun sound. All of the sound objects combined together to create a complex texture in the landscape.

Landscape

The first landscape that was created in the first part of the piece (0”–1”16) could be described as a space that was full of darkness. There was nothing except for the wind. The crow sounds, which were far away from the audience, created a feeling of emptiness in the landscape. The situation changed after the bubble sound appeared in the scene. The appearance of the bubble sound might be used to symbolize water, which was the most vital element at the beginning of the world formation. As a result, the complex texture that was created by the combination of the crow sound, the wind sound and the bubble sound gave a feeling of the recreation of the new world. The second landscape was introduced in the third part of the piece (4’18-6’). The part was mainly consisted of the thunder sound and the rain sound. The rain sound material might be used to symbolize the cleansing of the world. Therefore, this part created a landscape of the renewal and cleansing of the existing world.

The transformation in the piece

In Vox 5, many metaphors were implied by the transformations of the sound objects. In Tom Williams article, he stated that the “transformation in the work of Wishart from one sound symbol to another – from one overtly recognizable sound symbol to another overtly recognizable sound – had important metaphoric ramification.” It was not difficult to find some transformations in the piece. For example:

- 1’06-16, the crows/bubbles sound were transformed into a sonic stream.

- 3’52, a vocal material was transformed into a horse sound.

- 3’57, a baby sound was transformed into a blowing lip sound.

Unlike Wishart’s previous pieces, the transformation in Vox 5 made use of a computer system to transform the sound objects. The result was that the digital system could perform a much smoother transformation than the analogue system. Except for the continued change between two sound objects, the phase vocoder that was used in Vox 5 also allowed the composer to stretch part of the sound object, stretch the sound over time, and transposition the sound object without distorting the original formants. These techniques gave a lot more flexibility to Wishart in composing the piece. For instance, the bell sound object that appeared in the piece was the result of using the phase vocoder on the consonant vowel ‘ko’.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Vox 5 was one of the renowned pieces in the electro-acoustic music. The transformation techniques applied in Vox 5 gave other composers a model in processing vocal materials. Moreover, the structure of the piece was well organized so that the poetic content could be unfolded literally. Unlike Wishart’s previous work, Vox 5 presented a new way in composing the electro acoustic music.

Reference

1. Wishart Trevor. The Vox Cycle. Electric Phoenix, 1988

2. Wishart Trevor. “On Sonic Art.” Imagineering Press. (1985), 85

3. Tom Williams, “An analysis of Trevor Wishart’s Vox V,” Journal of Electroacoustic Music, Vol 7, 9

4. Online. Digital Music Archive. Internet. 31 March. 2003. Available http:// http://www.digital-music-archives.com/

5. Online. Trevor Wishart Website. Internet. 31 March 2003. Available http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/publ_rec.html/

Download : Vox5.doc (MS Word file) - 48.0k