Sound Workshop

An outline of topics integrated into a course on sound for artists from all fields given at the
California College of Arts and Crafts in 1988.

General Theme: Propositional Music
– Four Sessions –

David Rosenboom

I. Sound Substance (9/14/88)

Models of natural processes as inspiration for artistic work: acoustics, psychoacoustics, waves in elastic media, oscillation, dynamical models, disequilibrium, coupling, resonance, linearity, nonlinearity, sound propagation, energy dissipation and the harmonic and subharmonic series, harmonics, time domain, frequency domain, spectrum, timbre, interaction of waves, filtration, feedback, noise, chaotic acoustics, the ear, transformations of sound information in the processes of perception, tonotopic organization in the brain, sound cognition, perceptual spaces, mappings, hierarchies and holarchies, events and wholes, global properties, feature extraction, differentiation, categorization, generalization, the paradigm of transformation, listening as composition, transducers as instruments, . . .

II. Sonic Design and Composition (9/21/88)

Designing and composing sonic experiences: sonic imagery, partitioning experiences in the auditory domain, sonic languages, choosing your universe, ordering your universe, musical spaces, scales for making comparisons, deterministic and indeterminate processes, graphics and notation, a tool kit of sonic design and compositional devices, . . .

III. Paradigms of Time (11/16/88)

Ideas about time and the temporal aspects of sound arts: sound as a temporal medium, perception of time proportions, perception of event sequences, editing as time organization, mental chronometry, ordering of stages in perceptual information processing, the structure of the present, granularity of the moment, time and the perception of forms, memory, subjective time, relativistic time, formation of temporal gestalt images in the sonic domain, time as an artifact of the perception of event dependencies, time as an emergent global property, symmetry breakings and anisotropy, shifting paradigms about time in 20th Century music, . . .

IV. a) Performance and Sound Arts and
b) Sound Arts and Programmable Technology -
Survey and Prospectus (11/30/88)

a) Performance and shared experience: design of shared experiences in time, performer-perceiver interaction, responsibility of the listener, aspects of attention, . . . b) Programmable electroacoustic media: the idea of intelligent instruments, new technical tools for sonic design, major implications of digital sound technology, random access storage media, extended musical interface with the human nervous system, prospects for the future, . . .

Work for Class Members

The primary object, of course, is for class members to gain an increased facility with the physical medium of sound, expand their comprehension of processes of perception and cognition associated with sound experiences, and to use these as inspiration for artistic work. Towards this end, the document, Frames for Future Music (Six Composition Lessons), will be distributed. Choose four out of the first five of these lessons and carry out a sound project in accordance with each of the assignments described. (The sixth lesson assignment is a life–long project.) Draw on material, ideas, and techniques discussed in class. Document the project, both in respect to the process of creation and the form of final realization. This documentation should take what ever form is most appropriate to the projects. However, it should include at least a cassette tape recording and written notes describing or explaining the work. Carry out experiments along the way. Keep an audio journal of these experiments. Record written notes about these experiments as well. This will help in final realizations.

Just a Few Inspiring References

Grayson, J.: Sound Sculpture, Aesthetic Research Centre Publications, Vancouver, 1975.
Grayson, J.: Environments of Musical Sculpture You Can Build, Aesthetic Research Centre Publications, Vancouver, 1975.
Jantsch, E.: The Self-Organizing Universe, Pergamon Press, NY, 1980.
Lucier, A. & Simon, D.: Chambers, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn., 1980.
Roederer, J.G.: Introduction to the Physics and Psychophysics of Music, Springer-Verlag, NY, Second Edition, 1979.
Rosenboom, D.: Biofeedback and the Arts: Results of Early Experiments, Aesthetic Research Centre Publications, Vancouver, 1976