1.1 Introductory comments
This research project aims to create a model for a timbral notation system that addresses a need for usability in performance, analysis, and providing a clarity of communication of timbral elements that exist in music and longevity of technological scores. The project focuses on this issue from the different perspectives of
ethnomusicologists, performative and electroacoustic music genre, and several models of timbral notation have been proposed.
Existing notation systems allow musical ideas to be communicated across centuries and geographical locations. Notation and analysis of timbre, however, hardly exists. This results in a lack of quantifiable ethnomusicological knowledge of
traditional musical sound, and the inability to universally archive electroacoustic music due to the demise and obsolescence of software, hardware and electronic storage systems. In a
The project has utilised spectography to analyse timbre in an investigation of the organology and ontology of sounds. The notational needs of music practitioners, composers and researchers have been considered, and we have proposed several models of notation. This project is funded through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and so we have limited our outcomes to model creation. The authors believe the proposed models, with continuing development and research, have the potential to become useful notational tools for each of the target audiences.
Three sub-projects have mapped and spectographed traditional Malaysian instruments, Western acoustic instruments, electroacoustic music, and explored the performance ontologies of these. The research methodological approach was grounded in the practice and needs of the participating practitioners – ethnographers, performers, technologists and composers.
Contemporary Western Art and Traditional music notation is (usually) linked to an analysis and the semiotic representation of the musical elements of rhythm and horizontal and vertical pitch (melody and harmony) using stave and stick notation.
Precise pitch indications are ‘rounded out’ into the twelve semitones of this system, unable to accommodate precise subtleties of pitch inherent in all music traditions.
Further musical parameters such as, articulation (Attack, Decay and Release), and dynamics (volume or intensity) are loosely indicated through the use of staccato or phrase markings (articulations) or dynamic marks (forte, piano or crescendo/
diminuendo etc). Representation of other significant musical elements such as tone and colour (timbre) are limited to instrumental naming or specific performance directions (eg sul ponticello - play near the bridge - for string instruments). This lack, along with difficulties of definition and understanding of timbre are increasingly recognized within both new music and traditional music fields.
1.2 Problem statement
This project investigates the creation of models which have potential for the timbral and performance notation of music, incorporating both acoustic and electronic sound sources, that notates greater content detail of the musical elements noted above. Of significance for Malaysia, and ethnomusicologists working in this country, has been the explanation of the use of spectrograms as a tool which is inclusive of most musical elements should lead to a greater understanding of the individual and unique spectral and tuning characteristics of traditional Malaysian instruments. These methods have been applied to instruments such as gedombak and instruments of Orkestra Tradisional Malaysia. Knowledge, concepts, and experience gained from creating and interpreting spectrograms of the traditional instruments was later applied to the Contemporary Western Art Music research models.
This issue unites the most avant-garde and most ancient music for study and research of how the researcher or composer might give an accurate account and description of the timbre of the sounds they are describing (in the case of the ethnomusicologist) or imagining and creating (in the case of the electro-acoustic, musique-mixte composer) Over many hundreds of years, musical notation (stave and stick, graphic, tabulature and similar) have met these needs when defining duration, pitch and instrumentation, but in describing the ontology of the sound, musicologists and composers resort to words and text devices such as metaphor. Today, there are Malaysian composers who incorporate elements of colour within their scores – particularly within electroacoustic scores (for example, Valerie Ross) or use other forms of graphic notation. The role of the colours appears to have some timbral
implications but it has been observed that there is little consistency between composers.
Such inconsistency leads to variation in interpretation of the notation itself. Within a spectrogram, there are known and understood colours relating to the relative amplitude (or volume) within a sound structure. By adopting a methodical perspective to the mapping and interpretation of the spectrogram, we can establish a semiotic
understanding of the colour ranges encountered. By working with experienced and established composers, performers, and ethnomusicologists, and establishing their needs of a timbral notation system, the models will allow the definition of parameters that can become software independent, though created by developing new softwares.
1.3 Purpose of research; aims and objectives This study embarked on the following objectives:
1) Using spectrography to investigate the organology and ontology of musical sounds and their semiotic representation focussing on selected Malaysian traditional instruments, selected Western musical instruments, and
electroacoustic music.
2) To assess the needs of practitioners (ethnomusicologists, performers, composers and creators) required of a timbral and performance notation system, and to model possible systems for continuing development
3) To investigate how a timbral and performance notation system might be developed, and applied in academic ethnographic, applied musique-mixte and electroacoustic environments.
4) Through symposiums, to make recommendations, based on the findings of the sub-projects and the participants, for a model of a timbral and performance notation system which can be read independently of music creation software.
Within Spectromorphological Notation: Notating the Un-notatable? we are addressing both the acoustic and electroacoustic, aiming to create an investigative continuum that proceeds and informs from one to another. Elements of the study and documentation of the timbral characteristics of both traditional and modern instruments occurring in the initial stages of the research will lead to experimentation with notation and explorations of the relationships of score and performance. In the creation of new works, the
transformation of the acoustic sound spectra through digital signal processing is extending this exploration into the electroacoustic context.
1.3.1 So'ware:
A number of software packages were utilised to visualise the sound characteristics of each instrument, specifically Sonic Visualiser and Pierre Couprie’s eAnalysis From 1 2 the resulting spectrograms, the researchers then considered how the information revealed by the spectrograms may inform our knowledge of the sound, and how this may be applied in the performance of ethnomusicological works.
As many of our arguments and research outcomes depend on both audio and visual imaging to be understood, the ancillary website provides an opportunity to access this information. This website is http://spectronotation.weebly.com
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/
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http://logiciels.pierrecouprie.fr
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