Jonas’s Regnier Project Report
Individual Project Report
Jonas Regnier (McGill University)
I. Project Introduction
The ACTOR research-creation project Space as Timbre aims to use timbre as a main parameter to evoke different spaces in a sound through orchestration, and endeavours to treat space as a form- bearing parameter in music. As a composer involved in this project, I composed a 6-minute piece entitled Flou, flash, lucide.
This project involved three different phases for composers (each phase lasting a few months): the first phase (research phase) consisted in defining what the term space implies and means, finding some recordings (target sounds) to orchestrate, varying the perceived space of these recorded sounds by modifying the impulse-response parameter with a convolution-reverb software (MaxMSP) and learning to use the orchestration software Orchidea to recreate an instrumental version of the target sounds.
The second phase (workshop and experimentation phase) consisted in having the orchestrated target sounds performed and rehearsed by the ensemble (bass flute, Bb clarinet, trombone, piano, violin and double bass). This phase allowed a direct collaboration between the composers and the performers, as the performers were giving feedback and advice on the different extended techniques they could play on their instrument as well as on the general orchestration of the target sounds.
The final phase (composition phase) of the project consisted of writing a 5-to-7-minute piece that used all the orchestrated target sounds (while taking into consideration the feedback received during the workshops) and treated space as one of its main parameters.
II. Composition Process
a) Choice of target sounds
At first, I chose ten different sounds that I wanted to experiment with, and that I found could bring an interesting result after being orchestrated for a small ensemble. Some sounds had textural effects, some had interesting partials or harmonic content, some had specific gestures.
For reasons stated below, I then decided to focus on three different sounds. two sounds were created artificially through a digital synthesis software called Absynth 5, and the last sound is the sound of a cooking pan when hit with a percussion mallet, that I recorded in a sound-proofed studio a few years ago.
The two synthesized sounds seemed interesting to me not only because of their complex dynamic, harmonic and timbral characteristics, but because they carried a strong sense of wide-open space within them. I was curious to know whether this spatial effect produced by a digital/artificial timbre could be reproduced with acoustic timbres. The first synthesis sound, called “Sinus low vibration,” consists of a twelve second low vibration containing a small and progressive glissando (going down by almost half a tone, then up by the same interval). The second synthesis sound “Vibration F#,” is a twenty-five-second slow vibration which is centered around F-sharp. Some of the partials of the sound have different speed and amplitude vibrations.
The recorded pan sound, which consists of a single attack on the pan with a nine-second reverb time, seemed interesting for a different reason than the two synthesized sounds: although many “bell-like” sounds have already been orchestrated and used in instrumental music by contemporary composers, I wanted to use this sound nevertheless to try to orchestrate it in different spaces. I noticed indeed that changing the space (through impulse/response convolution reverb) in which this sound gets played not only changes the timbre of the original sound but also its perceived harmonic content. This is something that I wanted to explore in this piece and used as the main idea for building the form and structure of the piece.
b) Orchestration of target sounds with Orchidea
At first, I was finding it challenging to understand how to make the most out of Orchidea, as it was quite difficult to get an orchestration that was close to the target sound, even when using the FullSol library. I quickly realized that textural sounds were not very practical to orchestrate with Orchidea as the software relies too much on the pitch materials of the sound (instead of timbre). I also realized that the whole orchestration process was going to take a very long time: firstly, to have Orchidea find a satisfying orchestration solution, and then to transcribe it on the score with the appropriate time signature, rhythms, polyphony, timbres, extended techniques, etc. I found myself in a dilemma between staying close to the Orchidea solution (in terms of pitches) or staying close to the original timbre and rhythms of the sound. At first, I decided to use all, or almost all the notes given to me by the software in the orchestration solution, but after the first workshop, I realized this was not optimal as the result was not close to the target sound. I then started to get rid of most pitch materials from the solution, and only keep the salient pitches that I could hear from the recording. This gave me more freedom in the use of rhythms and timbre manipulations (through extended techniques), and the results were much closer to the target sounds. I would say that the exact imitation of the target sounds was slightly more important than keeping the musical parameters offered by the sound (especially the different pitches given by Orchidea), but I still made sure that the most salient perceptible musical parameters we perceived of to the target sounds were also perceived in the orchestrated sounds (vibrations, specific rhythms, overall timbre and of course, space).
During my experimentations with Orchidea before the workshops, I found that the most important parameter to experiment with was the “onetimegate” parameter. The results varied greatly depending on the value of the time gate, which had to be set accordingly to the target sound: I found that the minimum value for this parameter in order to have an accurate (and not overly complex) solution was 500 ms. I used values between 1000 ms to 3000 ms for my sounds, as the harmonic content was changing quite rapidly. I didn’t find that the other two parameters (sparsity and partial filtering) had a notable impact on the orchestration solutions. The difference with the orchestration solutions between two similar sounds played in two different spaces was the partials/pitches. I didn’t notice any important change in the timbre that was given by Orchidea in the solutions (despite using the FullSol library).
c) Orchestration/modifications of orchestrated sounds with the ensemble
The interaction with the ensemble went very well. Being able to have direct feedback on the composed musical ideas and how to realize them is a privilege I wish I could have for every composition I write. Each musician was able to give to the composers their opinions on the feasibility and the efficiency of the musical materials. Whenever an aspect of the music didn’t sound as planned, the musicians of the ensemble would suggest alternative solutions that would bring the sonority closer to the target sound. In short, I thought the interaction with the ensemble during the workshops was very useful and allowed me to learn a lot about orchestration techniques that I would have never learnt in the context of a traditional orchestration course.
Most modifications I had to make concerned pitch adjustments and timbral effects (through extended techniques). Because the musicians could hear the target sounds that the composers were trying to reproduce, they were able to come up with a few solutions to reproduce some of the timbral and spatial characteristics of these sounds that I would have never thought of.
III. Presentation of the Piece
a) General concept and program notes
I used light and photography techniques as an inspiration for creating different spaces in music. The title of the piece, Flou (blurry), flash, lucide (lucid) makes a direct reference to the effects and processes I used in the piece: an opposition between blurry and clear (lucid) materials, with the occurrence of some strong attacks/articulations representing the flashes (the first attack of the piece for instance).
Program notes:
With this piece, I intended to make a metaphor between photography and music, by drawing an analogy between light as used in photography, and space in music. Both can be used to create tension, emphasis on small details, a sense of separation or even to provide additional depth to the main materials. I was inspired from photography and light techniques, which allowed me to develop orchestration techniques that would directly influence our perception of space. Just like in photography, some musical materials in the piece can be clearly identified while others may be perceived as blurry and harder to grasp.
b) Form and structure of the piece
I created the general form of the piece based on three different light techniques that can be used in photography, and their metaphoric spatial meaning. The first section of the piece, from the beginning to measure 55, is based on two different photography techniques. The first one, called “tension,” is meant to generate opposition and tension with space between elements of the story (in the same way that light in photography can generate opposition between characters or places in photographs). The second technique, called “emphasis” is made to lead the eyes (or the ears in this context) to what really matters, with lines, shapes, and negative space. The concept of negative space is a term used in the visual arts to describe the space surrounding an object. A negative space usually doesn’t contain as many details as a positive space. This concept is similar to the concept of background and foreground in music.
Most of the opposition in this section is generated by the dichotomy between the first attack (measure 1) and its composed resonance, which both come from the orchestrated sound of the “pan” target sound. Some tension is also generated by breaking the expectation of the listeners (through a use of silences), by using “blurry” effects (small modifications of musical parameters in materials that have been heard previously in the piece), or by progressively building up the polyphony. The attack and the resonance (sometimes composed as a fast iteration of quiet pizzicato sounds, sometimes orchestrated in a more complex way with held notes and timbral effects) keep coming back in more complex forms throughout the section until they completely fuse (measure 32) and allow the perception of a completely different space (measure 39 to 55). This new space still uses the notion of tension and opposition that characterizes the first space of this section, but this time the contrasted materials are opposed in the same timespan (instead of being opposed one after the other like at the beginning of the piece): the frantic and chaotic noisy materials on the foreground are opposed to the background obsessive ascending melody at the piano that keeps oscillating between dynamics while getting louder and louder (and progressively come to the foreground). This space deals with the concept of negative space, as the attention of the listeners keeps alternating between a focus on the chaotic noise and a focus on the piano melody, as the latter constantly shifts between foreground and background.
The second section of the piece, from measure 56 to 84, is based on the technique of “substance” in photography. This technique aims to provide additional depth to the story by reinforcing the primary subject with light (or space in this piece). The beginning of the section starts by featuring the “Vibration F#” sound, to add a second element to the narration and bring another change of space at the same time. At measure 69, a violent clash between the registers happens in the piano (a very loud chord using extreme registers is opposed to a quiet chord using a restricted register), which generates the sensation of a sudden change of space (from wide space to narrow space). This change of space also includes the reminiscence of the resonance of the pan sound previously heard in the first section of the piece. By the end of the section, the narrow space material has become louder and now precedes the wide space material.
The last section of the composition (measure 85 until the end) deals with the photography technique called “separation,” which is meant to give shape to a story with basic tonality differentiation. The idea of this section was to start from silence and progressively extend the space by accumulation (of rhythms, lines, harmony, and timbre). At the beginning of this part comes a new material that was partly introduced at the end of the second section (from measure 79, in the violin part, then in other parts): an obsessive recurring small descending scale that continuously gets longer, quieter, and lower in pitch. The unfolding of this heterophonic texture progressively opens a wide space that gets filled by the last musical material of the piece: the “Sinus low vibration” sound. This final sound slowly disappears in the same space it opened, leaving a quiet never-ending resonance as an integral part of the space.
IV. Conclusion
When I wrote Flou, flash, lucide, the conception of space was mostly an abstract idea that related to the form and the musical materials of the piece. I realized during the rehearsals and the concert that a unified blend between the instruments was necessary for the listeners to be able to perceive the projected space in the music. Without this timbral blend, almost no composed space in the music could be perceptible. I was overall satisfied with the general perception of space and changes of space throughout the piece. Most composed spatial changes were effective (the most perceptible spatial effects were obtained through timbral augmentation and timbral resonance), and I noticed that some spatial changes were quite subjective and subtle in the piece (since space perception is the result of the subtle combination/mixing of dynamics, timbre, pitch, rhythm, and more parameters). Using materials that project contrasting spaces was very helpful to amplify the perception of space changes (like the dichotomy between the recurring first attack and its orchestrated resonance, for instance).
The SAT project was a very positive and fruitful experience that allowed me to expand my knowledge and my practice of orchestration related to space. The constant interaction with the musicians during the workshops was one of the most valuable and helpful aspects of this project. Indeed, being able to have direct feedback on the composed musical ideas and how to realize them is a privilege I wish I could have for every composition I write. Each musician was able to give to composers their opinions on the feasibility and the efficiency of the musical materials and parameters. If anything didn’t work or didn’t sound in the way I thought it would sound, the musicians of the ensemble would give me another solution that would work better and would reach a sonority even closer to the target sound than my original solution. Furthermore, I found that working with annotated parts between and during the workshops was quite useful as it allowed me to understand better how the instruments work (in terms of fingerings for instance, mutes, effects, etc.). It also made the correction process much faster as I could rely on the annotated parts of the musicians on top of my own notes that I took during the workshops. It was a good way to ensure that I didn’t forget anything that came up or was suggested by the musicians during the workshops.
To conclude, I thought the interaction with the ensemble during the workshops was very useful and allowed me to learn a lot about orchestration techniques that I would have never learnt in the context of a traditional orchestration course. Even though space has always been at the center of my musical composition practice (especially when composing electroacoustic or mixed music), the specific focus on space perception and space variations in this project allowed me to think about music and instrumental composition in new ways that I had not thought about before. I now consider space as an essential parameter resulting from timbral blend and timbral segregation when I write and listen to music. I will try to expand this practice in my next composition and research projects.