Cities (Two linked electroacoustic works released as single LP (+USB back-up) with contextual information)
- Submitting institution
-
City, University of London
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 510
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- October
- Year
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
2
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This LP features two collaborations with shared practice-based research goals, each expanding conceptions of the collaborative process to blur boundaries of authorship and genre between instrumental music, electroacoustic sound, field recording, radio play, and site-responsive performance. Side A, The kind of problem a city is (score attached), extends research in audio transcription and ‘close collaboration with performers Yarn/Wire to include their recorded interviews and readings of texts by urban planning scholar Jane Jacobs along with field recordings made at locations mentioned in the texts’. I developed original software for music information retrieval (MIR) to transcribe the timbre of these recordings into an instrumental score. The performance techniques of the ensemble are sampled, mapped to the recordings according to their audio features, and the resulting audio mosaics are transcribed automatically but edited subjectively to produce a detailed score that the performers interpret live alongside the source recordings. Thus, rather than being narrowly automatic, MIR offers a broad expressive palette. The numerous variables involved in transcription are controlled subjectively: there is no single way to render particular urban sounds, just as no two individuals hear these sounds the same way. I detail this approach in “Beyond Automatic Genre Classification” (paper provided here for context, see especially pp. 16-19). Side B, London Scenes for stereo fixed electronics, presents a contrasting response to researching the collaborative process to transcend genre boundaries. I made field recordings drawn from readings of texts by Virginia Woolf, which electroacoustic composer Matilde Meireles complemented with spectral analyses to accentuate frequency drones, with the goal to produce a subjective shared mental map of the city through a parallel yet distinct approach to Side A. An alternative live concert version combines fixed sound files with interactive electronic improvisation and live video projection to situate the audience in a multimedia urban scene.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -