Notes on atem 1

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes [1] These notes were written as a short introduction to Atem, and intended for Paul Méfano, who conducted the premiere of the work at the Auditorium of Radio France, Paris, 15 April 2003, with members of the Ensemble 2e2m. The Acousmonium of Ina/GRM was used in the diffusion for both the instrumental and electroacoustic sounds. [2] The mixing desk of the Acousmonium controls an ensemble of sixty loudspeakers. [3] One of the factors contributing to this ‘iridescence’ is found in phase relations between the superimposed figures (decorrelations to the order of milliseconds; see Section 8). [4] lsquo;When I speak of “mixed figuration”, I mean that a figure can conceal a quantity of superimposed strata, instrumental and electroacoustic; however, these mixed figurations are not the result of a simple addition of simultaneous sources: instead of being a single “mass”, they are perceived as something multiple, like a mille feuilles.’ (H. Vaggione, in Criton et al., Citation2005) [5] We can trace the granular approach to sound structure back to Norbert Wiener's (Citation1964) criticism of Fourier's paradigm in 1925, and then to the first quantum model by Dennis Gabor (Citation1946), later taken up again by Xenakis (Citation1963) and implemented in digital form by Curtis Roads (Citation1978). It was further enriched, from the 1980s on, by a myriad of synthesis and sound transformation techniques (for an overview, cf. Roads, Citation2002). Granular techniques can be global (statistic) or local (manual). A global algorithm for distributing grains onto a timeline is not the only option here, as we can also build musical figures locally by agglutinating particles of diverse sizes. [6] As well as ‘attached’ silences of variable lengths. The fact that the grains can contain ‘attached’ silences conducive, among other things, to the establishment of a temporal irreversibility in the grain flux. [7] I.e., to temporal scales to the order of milliseconds. [8] The tempo is stable because it is the only fixed ‘macroscopic’ reference, indispensable for synchronisation with the digital part. [9] ‘To speak of “instrumental granular synthesis” would be an abuse of language: synthesis belongs only to the digital domain. I don't claim to remove the instrumental from its own domain. On the other hand ... I count on the development, in the instrumental domain, of a consciousness of duration, minimum variation and micro-detail, coming close to a granular sensibility: a matter of rapidly changing temporal perspectives' (H. Vaggione, in Criton et al., Citation2005). [10] Cf. the ‘commentaries’ included at the end of this text, especially Section 2. [11] This, to say it again, is not a consequence of playing only fast sequences of notes, but fundamentally of playing ‘short’ notes. I recall in this respect that the uncertainty between pitch and duration as observed already by Norbert Wiener in 1925, at the moment of the emergence of the quantum physics paradigm: ‘[T]he number of oscillations involved in a note, while it is a statement concerning frequency, is also a statement concerning something distributed in time. In fact, the frequency of a note and its timing interact in a very complicated manner’ (Wiener, Citation1964, p. 544). [12] The electroacoustic part cannot be reduced to the simple presence of the four virtual parts, each of which correspond to an instrument, because other strata are to be found in it, with morphologies which in no way correspond to the instrumental sources

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