Netherlands: Donemus: May 2006 Report
ESSAY: How to Document the Various Forms of Electroacoustic Music?
In 1995, Donemus began a programme for Dutch electroacoustic repertoire: NEAR. The term 'electroacoustic music' is meant in its broadest sense [1] and there is no intention to exclude musical (sub)genres beforehand [2], but the context of Donemus leads to a focus on composed music from the Western art music concert tradition. This article focuses on the worldwide problem of how to document the various forms of electroacoustic music. [3]
Extended Score Documentation
The term 'documentation' is being used in a variety of ways, from collecting work lists and biographical information to the publication of musical scores. Thus, the term 'documentation' often caused confusion. Here, I would like to argue for the importance of the documentation of the musical work itself. [4] I name this the 'extended score documentation'. [5] I use the word 'score', because the idea that a composition is determined as prescriptions for future performances, comes from the notion of the score in the Western art music tradition.
A score is a musical notation the main purpose of which is to serve as a work prescription. It records a set of instructions addressed to performers, the faithful execution of which generates an instance of the piece it specifies. The instructions transmitted via a score must be sufficient to characterize a work of the kind in question" (Davies 2001: 100).
But the 'extended score documentation' does not need to have any traditional music notation on paper. It is 'extended', and could consist of one or more audio or video recordings or computer data files, drawings, photographs or text as long as it is essentially a set of prescriptions concerning the 'what' and 'how' of future performances of the work. The extended score documentation of a musical work
- specifies and determines the musical work;
- and provides sufficient prescriptive information and material to make multiple performances (instances) of the musical work possible without the presence of the composer ("multi-instantiability", Davies 2001: 13).
Thus, an extended score documentation preserves and makes available the musical work itself. However, a musical score can not function without the knowledge and ability of the musical performance practices to understand, interpret and perform the score, and without the proper instruments, equipment, facilities, places and social structures. Usually, not all determinative properties are notated in a score; many are determined by and taken for granted within the musical performance practice. It is the question of how much of such musical and technical knowledge has to be documented in the extended score documentation of electroacoustic compositions.
Extended Score Documentation of Electroacoustic Music
Since electroacoustic music is a diverse genre, its extended score documentation will vary. I discern the following types of electroacoustic music: stereo tape music, multitrack tape music, mixed electroacoustic music with live acoustic instruments or voices, film and video, live electronics (improvised or not, with or without acoustic instruments or voices), electroacoustic music theatre and installations. In my paper "Documentation and publication of electroacoustic compositions at NEAR", [6] (available at www.donemus.nl/near/ems05), I discuss the extended score documentation for these types of electroacoustic music, with examples from our Dutch repertoire. It is important to realise that a stereo recording of multichannel live electronic music, or a video recording of a music theatre work or of an installation, is not a documentation of the work itself: it does not provide sufficient prescriptive information to make multiple performances possible and thus it does not preserve the musical work itself. Audio and video recordings of performances may be useful additions to extended score documentation, as examples, especially when it is difficult to notate all constitutive features of the compositions. But with only one recording of a performance, it is difficult to distinguish the work from its interpretation.
While it can be difficult and time consuming to find and restore old tapes for digitisation and publication, there are more fundamental problems with the documentation of mixed media electroacoustic compositions or live electronics. Music with live electronics is difficult for documentation and preservation, because: 1) a complex production and set up, that is usually not documented in the score; 2) "composed" computer programmes or patches that are part of the composition but that require special hardware and software and that are obsolete soon (sometimes within a year) and that may have different copyrights; 3) the use of improvisation; 4) the composer who is the only performer of his or her work (composer-performer) as a musician of a particular, self-invented electronic instrument. Knowledge and skills that are now self-evident, may become forgotten and lost later. Equipment, instruments and software that are common now, may be obsolete soon. When the extended score documentation contains non-standard notation or when other non-standard systems are used (specific software, for example), its explanation must be part of the extended score documentation. In such a small and fast developing niche as electroacoustic music — traumatised by early obsolescence — there is a need for additional documentation of the equipment, the software and other musical practices in which the composition is based.
To tackle these problems, I set up a project on the documentation and publication of mixed media and live electroacoustic music for the Professional School of Arts Utrecht (PSAU) of the Utrecht School of the Arts and Utrecht University, for an interdisciplinary group of master's students, with Hans Timmermans as their supervisor. This group documents two compositions by Anne La Berge, Drive (2003) and Toss (2004), studies the possibilities and complications of such documentation and the related issues of authors' rights, and writes a report with recommendations for future documentations of such works. The results of this first project will be presented in Spring 2006. It will continue with similar projects.
Electroacoustic music belongs to the tradition of Western art music, in which the notions of the score and the musical work have been regulative forces since about 1800, as Lydia Goehr shows in her book The imaginary museum of musical works (1992); Stephen Davies (2001) even argues that a broader concept of the musical work is historically, culturally and geographically universal. In our contemporary musical culture, we still find that the work-concept prevails and has a regulative function in many musical institutions. Goehr (1992) argues that the musical work-concept is a strong and flexible open concept. The extended score documentation of electroacoustic compositions stretches the concept of the score and articulates new forms of the work-concept. In electroacoustic music, there are often different versions of a composition, related to a diversity of media. This way, the musical work is not one fixed object, but a cluster of versions for different media and different situations, of which the determination or openness must be well defined in the extended score documentation.
Documentation of electroacoustic music involves ontological questions about the definition of the electroacoustic work, the difference between composition, improvisation, interpretation and performance, the demarcation and intertwining of music and other disciplines, and the articulation and symbolisation of semi-unconscious electroacoustic musical features. The extended score documentation relates to and extends the musical tradition. Although conventional music publishing may not seem to suit the variety of electroacoustic and mixed media music, I am convinced that it is a worthwhile effort to find means of extended score publication that make the works themselves available in the best possible way. Availability is essential for the development and survival of electroacoustic music; it makes its study, criticism, discussion, interpretation, perception and enjoyment possible. In this era of electronic reproduction, it is a valuable and feasible ambition to reproduce and distribute electroacoustic and mixed media works, because these are then available to people beyond the confines of place and time and outside of institutions. Obstacles to the publication of the variety of electroacoustic and mixed media music are the media-dependency of many regulations and practices, because these musics often combine different media or do not fit into the categories of music and art institutions and of the music industry. Extended score documentation and publication of electroacoustic music is best served by a flexible approach geared to the versatility of this genre.
I am interested to hear from the other MICs as to how they document the various forms of electroacoustic music. Why do you document electroacoustic music in this way? And what are the problems that you encounter? Or why don't you document (some forms of) electroacoustic music? I invite you to read the more extensive paper on the documentation of electroacoustic music at www.donemus.nl/near/ems05 and to contact me for further discussion. I hope this paper will stimulate the exchange of ideas and experiences with institutions and individuals in other countries. Hopefully we can learn from each others' experiences.
Notes
- Similar to the use of the term 'electroacoustic' in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: "Music in which electronic sound technology, now primarily computer-based, is used to access, generate, explore and configure sound materials, and in which loudspeakers are the prime medium of transmission" (Emmerson & Smalley 2001: 59); and by for example the Canadian Electroacoustic Community: "The CEC adopts a very broad definition of 'electroacoustic', and supports any exploratory audio work made using electronic technology" (www.sonus.ca/def_e.html, accessed February 14, 2006).
- As was stated by the NEAR advisory board 1999-2004.
- This article is based on a more extensive paper for the EMS05 conference, that can be accessed via www.donemus.nl/near/ems05.
- The paper on www.donemus.nl/near/ems05, contains a list of other types of documentation.
- Simon Emmerson introduced a similar term ("super score") at the Electroacoustic Music Studies 05 conference.
- Based on a paper presented at the EMS05 05 conference, October 22, 2005, at McGill University in Montreal.
References
Coenen, Alcedo. 1996. "NEAR: The Netherlands Electroacoustic Repertoire Centre", Key Notes XXX (3): 20-21 (Amsterdam: Donemus).
Coenen, Alcedo. 1997. "NEAR: The Netherlands Electroacoustic Repertoire Centre", Organised Sound 2(1): 19-21 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Davies, Stephen, 2001. Musical works & performances: A philosophical exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Emmerson, Simon & Dennis Smalley. 2001. "Electroacoustic music", in: Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd. ed., Vol. 8, pp. 59-67. London: Macmillan.
Goehr, Lydia. 1992. The imaginary museum of musical works: An essay in the philosophy of music (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Kolsteeg, Johan. 1997. Één groot oeuvre. Donemus: Vijftig jaar tussen componisten en publiek. (Amsterdam: Donemus).
Hannah Bosma
specialist electroacoustic music
Donemus-NEAR
h.bosma@donemus.nl
