In his article 'Reigen seliger Geister' (On My Second String Quartet), Helmut Lachenmann uses the term super-instrument to describe the orchestral technique of combining multiple instrumental voices into a single sonic entity. This orchestral technique has been explored by composers throughout the 20-21st Century. In Louis Andriessen’s Worker’s Union (1975) “everybody (the performer’s/ensemble) plays in unison throughout: one voice united in delivering the same emphatic message unified in their intent” (Philip 2020). When analyzing Unsuk Chin’s Double Concerto, Jong Eun Lee states that Chin “is more concerned with melding the timbres of the percussion and piano soloists, along with that of the ensemble into a composite ‘super instrument’— or, as she designated it recently, a ‘hyper-instrument’—than she is with creating a vehicle for virtuosity of the soloists” (2014: 3). Greenberg (2017) describes a similar effect in Chaya Czerowin’s work Sahaf (2017) which features a climax where the ensemble becomes an enlarged ratchet via this same orchestration technique.

The possibilities for creating electro-acoustic super-instruments are endless as can be seen by the instruments showcased at conferences like New Interfaces for Music Expression (NIME) and National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). For example, Tod Machover creates what he refers to as hyper-instruments through the augmentation of acoustic instruments with digital extensions to “give extra power and finesse to virtuosic performers” via live electronic processing (Machover n.d.). Other examples can be seen in more commercialized instruments like Re.Corder and the Akai Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI). Although Kallionpää and Gasselseder initially state that live electronic processing distinguishes “a true super instrument from other situations where a fixed media background is being used” (2015: 2) they settle on a broader definition: “a super instrument, or a super instrument composition, should be defined as an entity in which all the instrumental lines or computer-generated features complete each other in a manner which does not allow them to form separate identities, but to form an organic unity with its own congruent identity” (2015: 7). This definition together with Lachenmann’s conception of the super-instrument as an orchestral technique forms the basis of how I conceived of the electro-acoustic super-instruments in my Masters Thesis work Tripping In The Horror Vacui (2022).The possibilities for creating electro-acoustic super-instruments are endless as can be seen by the instruments showcased at conferences like New Interfaces for Music Expression (NIME) and National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). For example, Tod Machover creates what he refers to as hyper-instruments through the augmentation of acoustic instruments with digital extensions to “give extra power and finesse to virtuosic performers” via live electronic processing (Machover n.d.). Other examples can be seen in more commercialized instruments like Re.Corder and the Akai Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI). Although Kallionpää and Gasselseder initially state that live electronic processing distinguishes “a true super instrument from other situations where a fixed media background is being used” (2015: 2) they settle on a broader definition: “a super instrument, or a super instrument composition, should be defined as an entity in which all the instrumental lines or computer-generated features complete each other in a manner which does not allow them to form separate identities, but to form an organic unity with its own congruent identity” (2015: 7). This definition together with Lachenmann’s conception of the super-instrument as an orchestral technique forms the basis of how I conceived of the electro-acoustic super-instruments in my Masters Thesis work Tripping In The Horror Vacui (2022).

Tripping In The Horror Vacui (2022) is a piece for amplified violin, amplified cello, and amplified piano with electronics (stereo or 7.1 multichannel speaker set up) that explores the concepts and aesthetics of heaviness. Here, heaviness relates to the composer’s interest in contemporary metal music, noise music, and both acoustic and electroacoustic experimental/avant-garde concert music. In this work, heaviness is manifested musically through electro-acoustic super-instruments, noise masses, crushing drones, and complex metal inspired riffs and rhythms.

  Heaviness

Heaviness in music means many things to different people. It can be used to refer to the literal material of the music as well as the metaphorical expressive elements of the music. Tripping In The Horror Vacui seeks to explore “the material references of ‘heavy’ timbres” and the idea that “heaviness is the music’s perceived size, weight and density” (Hannan 2018: 9). Calder Hannan connects rhythmic complexity to heaviness as well as the idea that “compositional choices (not just timbral or textural choices, and beyond surface-level, melodic and harmonic ones) can contribute to heaviness by enacting metaphors for both the material and the expressive dimensions of ‘heaviness’” (2018: 10). Finally, heaviness is maximized through a metal music and noise music aesthetic.

The idea of heaviness as a music’s perceived size, weight, and density lends itself well to theories on excess, maximalism, and Kant’s aesthetic philosophy on the sublime (Demers 2010). When discussing maximalist noise and drone music, Joanna Demers states that “sublime objects are impossible to encase within a frame because of their sheer scale. They inspire within the viewer a sober respect of awe that Kant describes as a ‘negative pleasure,’ whereas beautiful objects elicit unambiguous pleasure thanks to their adherence to perfect, universally recognizable forms” (2010: 12). The work achieves this metaphorical heaviness through the creation of huge and sublime electro-acoustic super-instruments.

  Working Methods

When beginning Tripping In The Horror Vacui, I took a “sound up” compositional approach that began by layering sounds and improvising in the studio. This writing process brought forth the form, gestures, melodic material, spectromorphological changes, and heavy timbres that were injected into the written parts for the performers and their amplified instruments. Because much of the groundwork for the piece was created through improvisation in the studio, and because I would add to the music sequentially, the generated form was intuitive and through-composed.

The starting point for the instrumental writing began with superimposing a harmonic scheme to ground the fixed media. The fixed media does not adhere to any harmonic scheme and is more freely composed in terms of melodic and harmonic material (see Figure 1.). I chose to start the harmonic scheme on C because the first electronic gesture I created consisted of a low C drone and I wanted to pair this sound with the sound of bowing the string wrapping of the cello. New pitches are gradually introduced until the final section when all pitches are available to the performers. The black line around the MIDI roll is a tracing of the performer’s written pitches which illustrates the tessitura of the harmonic scheme and how harmonic width is being utilized throughout the work. Inspired by maximalist composers like Varese and Penderecki, I composed the music in large chunks which can be seen in figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Formal Diagram of Tripping In The Horror Vacui (from top: section titles, waveform of performance recording, the progression from two pitches to all pitches, and MIDI roll of the performers written pitches.

  Electronics

The electronic components of Tripping In The Horror Vacui consist of a fixed media track that the performer synchronize with via a click track as well as amplified violin, cello, and piano that are processed with distortion, delay, and reverb using stock plug-ins in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Reaper (see Figure 2). Using stock plug-ins will ideally create a work with accessible electronics. This processing is automated so that it starts, stops, and evolves in conjunction with the fixed media without the need for triggering by the performer. The fixed media and click track are also handled in the same Reaper session as the live automated processing. The textures in the fixed media combined with the amplified and processed instruments and the spatialized gestures creates convincing electro-acoustic ensemble that is powerful and musically expressive.

Figure 2. Electronics signal flow patch for Tripping In The Horror Vacui

  Computer Aided Composition

For the climax of Tripping In The Horror Vacui, I used various samples of noisy raw data sonifications that are arranged together to create a Noise Collage (the final sections title). Raw data sonification (also sometimes referred to as data bending) “is the use of representations of data through sound, involving a mapping process into the aural realm” (EARS 2020). To create the performer’s written music for the Noise Collage section, I used simple computer aided composition in Reaper. With Reaper’s “record MIDI output mode”, I was able to extract pitch information from the raw data sonifications and record it in the form of MIDI information. This pitch material extracted from the raw data sonifications in the fixed media is then doubled in the performer’s instrumental writing to create massive electro-acoustic super-instruments.

When extracting the MIDI information, the pitched material in the raw data sonification moves very quickly, is extremely complex, and often is unplayable by humans. To create a convincing electro-acoustic super-instrument, I manually quantized some of the melodic gestures from the raw data sonification samples to the click track grid to make the instrumental writing rhythmically feasible for the performers. Samples that were not fixed to the grid created a more compositionally free scenario where I would pick and choose the notes and rhythmic structures that were most important and could most easily be transferred to the instrumental writing. This allows space to create melodic material that while taken from the raw data sonfication is not a direct transcription.

Figure 3 shows the MIDI information that was extracted from three different raw data sonification samples, each lasting roughly one measure (mm. 193-195). The blue circles denote pitches that are direct transpositions from the raw data sonifications while the red circles denote pitches that are harmonized (usually in 2nds) against the MIDI information derived from the raw data sonfication(notes with both blue and red circles indicate a direct transposition as well as a harmonized note). The green rectangle around the MIDI information used in mm. 195 is an example of a pitched gesture in the raw data sonification that has a clearer and simpler melodic motif with less notes making it easily playable by the performers.

Figure/ Sound 3. MIDI roll of pitches extracted from raw data sonification and mapped to the instrumental writing (mm.193-195).

Figure 4 (mm. 219-224) shows a raw data sonification where the only real distinguishable MIDI information comes at the end of the gesture (F5 in blue circles and squares) despite the audio from the raw data sonifications being full of pitched material. Because the pitched information is moving too fast and sporadically, the computer assisted composition tools used to extract the MIDI information only gathers approximately 5% of the actual pitched content in the raw data sonification samples. In this situation I took a more traditional transcription approach and listened to the sample and analysed the audio file waveforms to compose gestures that matched the raw data sonification sample in a convincing way.

Figure/ Sound 4. MIDI roll of pitches extracted from raw data sonification and mapped to the instrumental writing (mm.219-224)

Although there are far more advanced computer assisted composition tools available like OpenMusic (https://openmusic-project.github.io/) and Orchidea (http://www.orch-idea.org/) that can automatically orchestrate sound files, because the pitched material in the raw data sonification samples is so fast and complex, these programs would have still likely produced unplayable results. Therefore, the simple and flexible workflow of the “record MIDI out function” was preferable because of the orchestral freedom it allowed. Using the MIDI information derived from the raw data sonification melodic gestures illustrates a new and exciting way to create electro-acoustic super-instruments. Taking this “sound-up” approach to composing for electro-acoustic ensemble where the synthesis of electronic and acoustic sounds becomes one giant composite gestalt is an almost constant presence throughout the work and contributes greatly to the perceived heavy aesthetic.

  Source Bonding and Timbral Synthesis

In Tripping In The Horror Vacui, the violin, cello and piano are all amplified and processed with distortion, delay, and reverb throughout the piece to bring the instrument’s timbres to the same plane as the fixed media. In the 7.1 speaker setup (see Figure 5), using the three front speakers (Left, Centre, and Right) onstage and behind the performers as localized sources for their amplification and processing creates a more convincing electro-acoustic super-instrument. The fixed media is therefore the main vehicle for the spatialized gestures in the multichannel set up. When played through the loudspeakers in a performance space, the live processing of the acoustic instruments and the fixed media fuse together via “source bonding” (Smalley 1994) where listeners group the fixed and live sounds because they are emitting from the same sound source. This source bonding is amplified through the use of the homophonic textures between the electronic and acoustic voices.

Figure 5. 7.1 speaker set up diagram

For example, the second section of the work is based on the metal style known as Djent which is characterized by rhythmic complexity, and distorted low tuned guitars (Bowcott 2011). This section was created using similar rhythmic complexity and samples of distorted electric guitar which operates as the most recognizable signifier of heaviness in Djent and metal music. During this section all the live instruments are distorted with the Reaper plugin WaveForm Distortion and the ReaXComp compressor plugin synthesizing their timbres with the guitar samples in the fixed media. Both the live and fixed elements play a C microtonal cluster to create a massive electro-acoustic super-instrument playing heavy unison gestures that showcases rhythmically difficult playing as can be seen in Figure 6. As Hannan states “rhythmic difficulty enhances ‘heaviness’ through various enactments of sonic metaphors for size, weight, density, power” (2018: 4).

Figure/ Sound 6. Beginning of Djent section

논문투고일: 2022년 09월30일
논문심사일: 2022년 12월02일
게재확정일: 2022년 12월15일