Musical coherence is essential for the achievement of meaning in any particular work. While it is possible to speculate on a variety of reasons which may facilitate this coherence, many would agree that an important determinant may be found in the successful articulation of the work’s structure. Furthermore, structure is realised through discourse, which is dependent on the articulation of actual sounds: inflections, accents, local changes in tempo, etc., may alter the meaning of a passage significantly. Although this is true of any music, it acquires additional significance for the composer in the electroacoustic domain since she becomes responsible for the inner attributes of timbre.

There has been an extraordinary amount of interest in sound spatialisation in recent years. The volume of work in this area has pushed many international organisations to feature sound spatialisation as a theme for conferences and publications, and Organised Sound is probably overdue in having a thematic issue based upon aspects of sound in space. This issue of Organised Sound contains many different views of space. We have included articles about spatialisation techniques, our understanding of sound spatialisation, composition, performance and spaces inside music as well as the spaces and environments where music can exist, including virtual spaces.

Organised Sound has until now been principally concerned with the audio arts. However, we live in a rapidly changing world; in particular, given the relentless evolution of competent technology in the form of multimedia PCs, new rendering technologies and standardised distributive media such as the web and MPEG, it seems timely to explore the relationship between the audio and visual spheres in the digital arts.

As a composer in the very late twentieth century my goal is to inject as much intelligence and substance into the process of music-making as possible, to present listeners with sensory and intellectual metaphorical tools that enable them to perceive relationships of time and space in ways that might otherwise go unnoticed. Music-oriented researchers in the fields of psychoacoustics and cognition in recent years have viewed the computer as a means of simply extending and rationalising traditional music theory and form, rather than summarising the base of musical knowledge we have inherited and then breaking free of those constraints. Performers, composers and producers in the field of popular entertainment continue to use technology to narrow rather than broaden aesthetic boundaries in the so-called creative arts.

A new aesthetic paradigm is needed . . .

Technology provides us with the tools we require in order to build a genuinely new method of music creation and listening. I propose that it is time to invest our energies in the creation of visionary learning tools that enhance our ability to evolve in our relationship to ourselves, to one another, to the planet, and perhaps ultimately to the stars. It is the author’s strongest desire to allow for the full realisation of what computer music has long held the promise to provide – limitless variation with infinite control.

Toward this end, I document here (i) a theory of music that attempts to assimilate the infinite and subtle interconnectedness of the human experience into a single symbolic structure, and (ii) the application of this theory to the extension of an emerging genre – the environmentally interactive computer music system – designed for eventual use by people not necessarily aware of the underlying technical and aesthetic principles at work, but fully appreciative of the profound personal benefits to be found embedded therein.

Owing to space limitations, I will focus almost exclusively on the theoretical and aesthetic issues that have driven the software development, and leave a detailed discussion of the system specifications and its operation to a separate article.

Once upon a time there was a computer music system called GROOVE (Generating Realtime Operations On Voltage-controlled Equipment, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey) which outputted in the realm of sound, and was a wonderful and still-unique tool for the composition thereof. At that time a then-young composer who was using GROOVE for music got the harebrained idea that if she made a few minor changes here and there she could use it to compose images as well. This she did in 1974-6, and though the untimely demise of the system prevented creation of much documentation in the form of aesthetic works of its output, the system did function sufficiently to make some description worthwhile. While it is true that the mid-1960s DDP-224 computer on which GROOVE became a VAMPIRE (Video And Music Program for Interactive Realtime Exploration/Experimentation) was a massive room-sized computer, it has by now long been eclipsed in power by the constantly improving home computer. It is worth describing the concepts involved in part because there are by now many small computers capable of emulating its musical methods. Besides, I had a deep personal relationship with that computer, and wish to commemorate it. Here then follows the tale of Graphical GROOVE, aka the VAMPIRE.

At a time when our sense of physical space is being radically challenged and modified by new global communication technologies, it seems not unusual that composers are taking a renewed interest in it. We have begun to experiment with using the new technologies available to us to move sound in space and create surround-sound environments.

For electroacoustic music and other soundscapes we have pan pots on our mixing desks and in our synthesizers to radially position sounds between loudspeakers, and reverberators to simulate the distance of sound sources from the listener. Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC-3) and DTS were introduced as competing standards for theatre sound recordings around 1992 and consumer products are available in both formats. In addition, Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) are making sophisticated soundfield techniques such as Ambisonics both practical and more accessible.

This article traces some of my own explorations in the use of 3-space for musical composition, examines the limitations of basing structuring methodologies primarily on functional psychoacoustic studies of hearing, and suggests alternative approaches based on an understanding of 3-space from the work of the perceptual psychologist James Gibson.

Electroacoustic music, since its inception, has been situated in a cross-disciplinary no-man's-land, with areas of interest spread in many directions; from ideas of musical structures ordered through traditional pitch-classes to research on physical modelling and analysis of sound and compositional structures through the use of neural networks. Much of the material found in computer music has been developed through processes of appropriation, both from sound recordings of physical events and from the application of various principles found in the natural sciences.

The design and development of a layered Web architecture for Malaysian music can be applied as a model of Web architecture for music education, specifically for the introduction of the music of a particular country or region. The model is designed and developed in two phases: the building of the subject architecture and the design and development of the application architecture. The complete Web architecture is analysed and tested to determine its suitability for delivery of music-related content. Research findings indicate that the Web architecture is reliable, efficient and suitable for its purpose. The classification scheme proposed is found to provide a firm foundation for the building of the Web architecture. In conclusion, the prototype model provides a suitable extensible platform for the delivery of music content, which may be packaged for the purpose of education.

The Law of One, my doctoral thesis composed during 1980 and 1981, was the first in an ongoing series of works which employed the numeric relations of the overtone series to determine all other compositional parameters, pitch, timbre, harmony, rhythm and several nested magnifications of form. The entire composition is a large fractal with a simple principle of construction permeating every aspect of the composition from micro to macro. Copies of the score are available from UMI. Write or call UMI, 300 N.Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA. Tel. (800) 521-0660. Ask for order no. DA8214158.

The challenge of composing both sound and moving image within a coherent computer-mediated framework is addressed, and some of the aesthetic issues highlighted. A conceptual model for an audiovisual delivery system is proposed, and this model acts as a guide for detailed discussion of some illustrative examples of audiovisual composition. Options for types of score generated as graphical output of the system are outlined. The need for extensive algorithmic control of compositional decisions within an interactive framework is proposed. The combination of Tabula Vigilans Audio Interactive (TVAI), an algorithmic composition language for electroacoustic music and realtime image generation, with MIDAS, a multiprocessor audiovisual system platform, is shown to have the features desired for the conceptual outline given earlier, and examples are given of work achieved using these resources. It is shown that ultimately delivery of new work may be efficiently distributed via the World Wide Web, with composers' interactive scripts delivered remotely but rendered locally by means of a user's ‘rendering black box’.

Sound diffusion – the realtime (usually manual) control of the relative levels and spatial deployment during performance – is one of the most contentious issues in the field of electroacoustic music. There are parts of the world where the practice is virtually unknown; in other places it is the norm and appropriate facilities would be provided as a matter of course for any visiting composer or performer. These ‘local variations’ are not merely ripples on the surface of a standardised performance practice but stem from underlying attitudes to what composition and performance in this medium are about and, ultimately, to a definition of music itself. What follows summarises observations drawn from fifteen years of working with the BEAST concert diffusion system in numerous performance spaces in the UK and Europe, as well as experiencing, both as listener and performer, other systems in Europe and North America. Scientific rigour, in the normally accepted sense of tables of measurements etc., is not my goal – my portable measuring equipment has been my ears, and my conclusions are based on what I have heard.

This paper addresses the overwhelming importance which computer music composers usually place on the structural elements of their music. It deconstructs the belief that the meaning of music lies within its structure. This represents only one half of the equation, while the other half embodies the notion that music is ultimately intended to be listened to by subjective human beings who will interpret the music in different ways. The meaning is not located in the musical object (the piece), nor is it exclusively in the mind of the perceiver (human), but rather lies in the relationship between the two. Furthermore, this paper proposes that there are no objective aspects of music at all. To support this claim, the author uses the latest research from neuroscience, cognitive psychology and neo-Darwinism. Analysing the pitfalls of the modernist world view and the structure-based music that it has produced, the author proposes postmodern methods for the survival of computer music. In order to do so this paper relies on Richard Dawkins’ concept of cultural memes.

Vector base amplitude panning (VBAP) is a new method for soundscape creation. It generalises the pair-wise panning paradigm to the triplet-wise panning paradigm, which can be used in three-dimensional loudspeaker setups. Similar soundscapes can be created with differing numbers of loudspeakers in different positions. The VBAP implementation in Csound synthesis software presented in this paper is a powerful tool for producing generic soundscapes. Virtual sources are positioned by defining the virtual source directions as (azimuth, elevation) pairs; the loudspeaker setup is defined in the initial settings. Virtual sources can be moved in three different ways: they can be moved along a polyline between specified directions, angular velocities can be applied to them, or their directions can be controlled arbitrarily.

Pierre Schaeffer's notion of Arts-Relais highlights aesthetic fissures in the passage from manual to mechanical techniques of sound production, fixation and reproduction. The Arts-Relais ‘instrument’ is a case of what Walter Benjamin terms technische Reproduzierbarkeit, and there is a close resemblance between the two roles of that instrument and the two manifestations of technische Reproduzierbarkeit as expounded by Benjamin. Furthermore, the Arts-Relaisinstrument materialises the shift from ‘older handwork technology’ to that technology which, in the words of Martin Heidegger, unlocks, transforms, stores up, distributes and switches about the energies of nature, and whose essence he terms Ge-stell. Heidegger's ‘sinking of the object into the objectlessness of the standing reserve’ (a feat of Ge-stell) intersects Benjamin's ‘decline of the aura’ (a feat of technische Reproduzierbarkeit), but while the decline of the aura paves the way for art as political praxis, the sinking of the object into the objectlessness of the standing reserve elicits from Heidegger an invitation to a return to the golden age of Greek techne. Is this not praxis too? And how does Schaeffer respond to Heidegger's invitation?

As befits an Homage to Schaeffer, this essay improvises ‘new uses for things originally meant for something else’ (Schaeffer and Hodgkinson 1987: 5), according to the rule of bricolage: to make do with whatever is at hand (Lévi-Strauss 1962: 17). A new structure is invested with disused remnants of old structures (Genette 1963: 37), as practised by the savage mind, structural thinking, musique concréte and Oswald de Andrade's antropofagia (Andrade 1928). One saves up by not making it to measure at the cost of a double operation: analysis (extraction of various elements from organised ensembles) and synthesis (organisation of these elements into a new ensemble where ultimately they will be entirely detached from their original functions).

The ‘art’ we produce today attempts to incorporate an increasing level of computer technology. There are many reasons for this trend, the most significant being a thirst for an exploration of the ‘new’, and the desire to parallel the increasing level of technology seeping into everyday life. However, when surveying recent developments we find an array of technology-related arts projects that instead of reaching forward into the previously unknown, often reproduce the past simply in a digital form, designed to appeal to our immediate senses but lacking in depth and substance. Likewise, it can be observed that in many cultures (ancient and modern), mimesis grows out of what seems to be a human reaction to technological change. Qualities familiar from past usage tend to be reproduced in new materials and with new techniques, regardless of appropriateness. This may have religious origins, or simply result from inertia, reworking concepts within the current paradigm. Parallels can be drawn from evolution, which can be observed to progress in a series of large advancements alternating with periods of extremely slow or zero development (Eldredge and Gould 1972), and from the progress of science, which seems to be similarly stepped (Kuhn 1962).

This paper describes Mimetric Dynamics – an audiovisual interactive installation exploring one of the many possible relationships between nature and technology. In this work, real and simulated fluid dynamics are presented simultaneously, allowing both artist and viewer to explore the relationship between ‘digital’ and ‘analogue’ media in both sound and visual dimensions. It gains insight from physical laws and time flows derived from the natural world, where digital technology is used to produce mathematical models simulating real physical attributes. In doing so we are able to harness qualities of the ‘natural’ and use their characteristics to control aspects of the ‘artificial’ (virtual).

Visual rendering is the process of creating synthetic images of digital models. The modelling of sound synthesis and propagation in a virtual space is called sound rendering. In this article we review different audiovisual rendering techniques suitable for realtime rendering of three-dimensional virtual worlds. Virtual environments are useful in various application areas, for example in architectural visualisation. With audiovisual rendering, lighting and acoustics of a modelled concert hall can be experienced early in the design stage of the building. In this article we demonstrate an interactive audiovisual rendering system where an animated virtual orchestra plays in a modelled concert hall. Virtual musicians are conducted by a real conductor who wears a wired data dress suit and a baton. The conductor and the audience hear the music rendered according to the acoustics of the virtual concert hall, creating a lifelike experience.

Six historical electroacoustic compositions from the 1950s to the 1960s are analysed in search of a series of ‘narrative strategies’ whose validity can be extended to the electroacoustic repertoire. In this paper we propose some examples of the narrative elements, showing analogies and differences in their use by different composers and in the context of different studios of production.

This paper seeks to examine how sound in general (and electroacoustic music in particular) can evoke a sense of being and place which may be strongly related to our visual experience. The auditory system has evolved to seek the reasons for the soundfield it encounters and this property cannot meaningfully be ignored by composers in this medium. The acousmatic condition stimulates and enhances this response. The science of acoustics cannot any longer alone explain sound phenomena and requires psychological and ecological dimensions. The idea of the ‘frame’ is developed from large-scale to small-scale soundfields: ‘landscape’, ‘arena’ and ‘stage’ are seen to be flexible components of this approach to composition. The paper concludes that a mature relationship of audio and visual art forms requires a greater acknowledgement of these attributes of sound.

Requiem per una veu perduda (Requiem for a lost voice in Catalan) is a piece for mezzo-soprano with on-stage effects processing and recorded electroacoustic material. The electroacoustic material consists mainly of synthesised vocal sounds and the pitches for the mezzo-soprano part were defined based upon the functioning of the speech synthesis methods used. This paper outlines the basics of one of the speech synthesis methods used to compose the piece and introduces the scheme for the definition of the pitch material for the singing. The relationship between the speech synthesis methods and the pitch material establishes the structural foundations of the piece.

Composition and diffusion can be understood as two complementary and related processes: bringing sounds together, and spreading them out again in an organised fashion. In the Western tradition, these two processes are frequently carried out by different people at different times, each drawing on specialised knowledge. The electroacoustic tradition, even if much briefer, offers the possibility of the composer designing and implementing both aspects of the music, and interrelating them in highly specific ways. Computer control offers the greatest precision in dealing with the complexities of these processes, even though, at present, separate programs are usually required.