Spatial music

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Spatial music is composed music that intentionally exploits sound localization. Though present in Western music from biblical times in the form of the antiphon, as a component specific to new musical techniques the concept of spatial music (Raummusik, usually translated as "space music") was introduced as early as 1928 in Germany. [1]

Contents

The term spatialisation is connected especially with electroacoustic music to denote the projection and localization of sound sources in physical or virtual space or sound's spatial movement in space.

Context

The term "spatial music" indicates music in which the location and movement of sound sources is a primary compositional parameter and a central feature for the listener. It may involve a single, mobile sound source, or multiple, simultaneous, stationary or mobile sound events in different locations.

There are at least three distinct categories when plural events are treated spatially: [2]

  1. essentially independent events separated in space, like simultaneous concerts, each with a strong signaling character
  2. one or several such signaling events, separated from more "passive" reverberating background complexes
  3. separated but coordinated performing groups.

Examples

Examples of spatiality include more than seventy works by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (canticles, litanies, masses, Marian antiphons, psalm- and sequence-motets), [3] the five-choir, forty- and sixty-voice Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno by Alessandro Striggio and the possibly related eight-choir, forty-voice motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis, as well as a number of other Italian—mainly Florentine—works dating between 1557 and 1601. [4]

Notable 20th-century spatial compositions include Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony (1912–18), [5] Rued Langgaard's Music of the Spheres (1916–18), [6] Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique (Expo '58), Henryk Górecki's Scontri, op. 17 (1960), which unleashes a volume of sound with a "tremendous orchestra" for which the composer precisely dictates the placement of each player onstage, including fifty-two percussion instruments, [7] Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet (1992–93/95), which is "arguably the most extreme experiment involving the spatial motility of live performers", [8] and Henry Brant's Ice Field , a "'spatial narrative,'" [9] or "spatial organ concerto," [10] awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Music, as well as most of the output after 1960 of Luigi Nono, whose late works—e.g., ... sofferte onde serene ... (1976), Al gran sole carico d'amore (1972–77), Prometeo (1984), and A Pierre: Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietuum (1985)—explicitly reflect the spatial soundscape of his native Venice, and cannot be performed without their spatial component. [11]

Technological developments have led to broader distribution of spatial music via smartphones since at least 2011, [12] to include sounds experienced via Global Positioning System localization (BLUEBRAIN, [13] Matmos, [14] others) and visual inertial odometry through augmented reality (TCW, [15] [16] others).

See also

Sources

  1. Beyer, Robert (1928). "Das Problem der 'kommenden Musik'" [The Problem of Upcoming Music]. Die Musik 20, no. 12: 861–866. (in German)
  2. Maconie, Robin (2005). Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: The Scarecrow Press.): 296. ISBN   0-8108-5356-6.
  3. Lewis Lockwood, Noel O'Regan, and Jessie Ann Owens, "Palestrina [Prenestino, etc.], Giovanni Pierluigi da ['Giannetto']", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001).
  4. Davitt Moroney, "Alessandro Striggio's Mass in Forty and Sixty Parts", Journal of the American Musicological Society 60, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 1–69. Citations on 1, 3, 5 et passim.
  5. Jan Swafford, Charles Ives: A Life with Music (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998): 92, 181–182. ISBN   0-393-31719-6.
  6. Geoffrey Norris, "Proms 2010: Prom 35. A Danish Avant-garde Classic Is Expertly Reappraised." (review), The Telegraph (13 August 2010).
  7. Jakelski, Lisa (2009) "Górecki's Scontri and Avant-Garde Music in Cold War Poland", The Journal of Musicology 26, no. 2 (Spring): 205–239. Citation on p. 219.
  8. Solomon, Jason Wyatt (2007), "Spatialization in Music: The Analysis and Interpretation of Spatial Gestures", Ph.D. diss. (Athens: University of Georgia): p. 60.
  9. Anon. (2002), "Brant's 'Field' Wins Pulitzer", Billboard , 114, no. 16 (April 20): 13. ISSN 0006-2510.
  10. (2008). Musicworks , no. 100 (Spring), 101 (Summer), or 102 (Winter): 41. Music Gallery.[ full citation needed ]
  11. Andrea Santini, "Multiplicity—Fragmentation—Simultaneity: Sound-Space as a Conveyor of Meaning, and Theatrical Roots in Luigi Nono's Early Spatial Practice", Journal of the Royal Musical Association 137, no. 1 (2012): 71–106 doi : 10.1080/02690403.2012.669938, citations on 101, 103, 105.
  12. Dehaan, Daniel (2019). "Compositional Possibilities of New Interactive and Immersive Digital Formats". Northwestern University. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  13. Richards, Chris (28 May 2011). "Bluebrain make magic with the world's first location aware album". The Washington Post . Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  14. Weigel, Brandon (1 October 2015). "Your hurricane soundtrack is here: download this new interactive app from Matmos". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  15. Palladino, Tommy (17 April 2019). "New iPhone App Fills Your Living Room with a Virtual Orchestra". Next Reality. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  16. Copps, Will (14 April 2019). "Building Augmented Reality Spatial Audio Compositions for iOS" (PDF). TCW A/V. Retrieved 12 September 2020.

Further reading

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