Part II

Conclusion

Music which combines instruments or the orchestra with electroacoustic material has been a possibility which has engaged and interested composers almost since the birth of electroacoustic music itself. Varèse’s Déserts, with its novel solution of how the two can be combined, was written between 1950-54, only a few years after Schaeffer’s development of musique concrète. Yet despite the creation of a sizeable body of mixed electroacoustic pieces since this time, little theoretical or analytical comment has been made upon them. The bridges built by composers between the note-based and electroacoustic worlds have not yet been explored analytically. One reason for this may be the inadequacy of many traditional analytic tools in approaching this music.

The main problems of analysing mixed electroacoustic music identified in part one of this study have been addressed through the use of an analytical approach which places score objects and particularly graphic representations of the work at its centre. Each of the three score objects used in this study (orchestral, graphic and sonogram) can tell us something about a mixed electroacoustic work. The orchestral score allows us a detailed picture of the instrumental role within the work. The graphic score creates an outline of the whole and forces, through the process of its making, a clear view of how the work is heard. The sonogram shows us both a general image of the whole, allowing a structural overview, as well as allowing us to uncover much detail of the internal structures and relationships of particular sounds. However, it is in their combined usage that these scores provide us with a much fuller picture of a work’s structure, in the creation of a multi-dimensional analytical space in which we can explore the piece (figure 22). The centre-point of this diagram, where as much information about the work as possible (from the three specific viewpoints) is gathered, aims to reflect some of the complexity of our experience of a musical work and to bring this to the process of analysis.

The different perspectives that each of these scores affords is not only important for the information each directly reveals about the work, giving us a more rounded view, but also for the fact that it forces the appraisal and re-appraisal of materials and ideas about the piece, as information from the different viewpoints is compared and combined. In addition to this and as a recognition of the fact that mixed electroacoustic music crosses over and combines note-based and electroacoustic worlds, is the importance of applying an electroacoustically-framed viewpoint to note-based (orchestral) material, and vice versa. Perhaps the clearest example of this is seen in the central tape solo of Verblendungen where the adoption of a note-based view of this electroacoustic material shows us much important information. The application of the scientific/ sonographic perspective further reveals much about the underlying (harmonic) structure of this section.

In order that listening can be given its rightful, important place in the analytical process, the difficulties in describing what it is that we hear when we listen to mixed electroacoustic music have been addressed in two ways. Firstly, the use of graphic representation in the creation of graphic scores allows a non-linguistic, symbolic presentation of what is heard. The adoption of the standardised terms that spectromorphology gives us, secondly, assists by providing a structured framework for textual description. The use of the three continua which Smalley proposes (which refer to attack, pitch and gesture/texture) in particular assists the clear identification, placement and comparison of sound materials, and its tripartite model of structure (onset, continuant, termination) permits the bringing together of  large and small-scale views of the work, through segmentation.

It is to be hoped that the partial analysis undertaken here in this case study will lead to more complete analysis and evaluation of mixed electroacoustic music in the future. This is not simply because this music deserves more critical attention than it currently gets, but also because there are likely to be more general benefits to analytical approaches which can deal with musics which present us “with all problems simultaneously” (Delande 1998). The important role proposed here for the process of making a graphic score could easily be applied to purely instrumental music for instance, speeding up our familiarisation with the piece and creating a framework for the presentation of the heard experience of a work. As new types of music emerge, particularly as a result of new technologies, what are needed are robust and flexible frameworks for their analysis. If electroacoustic music, and in particular mixed electroacoustic music, is “music in its most general guise” (Delande 1998) then it is in confronting this music analytically that there is the most to gain, not only in focusing attention upon a neglected body of pieces but also in the development of broadly applicable analytical approaches.