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Events

Reviews

the formal and primarily academicbranch of electronic music that is fo-cused on extending musical capabili-ties through technology.”), but Sónarembraces both. The theme this yearwas a “return to the physical in theexpression of live music.” The undis-puted “soloists” of earlier Sónars,portable computers, have been re-placed by guitars, drums, pianos, andvoices. With 300 activities includingDJ sets, live sets, visual and multime-dia art, conferences and discussion

forums, a record fair, an editorial fair,merchandising and hardware exposi-tions, live broadcasts, and archives atindividual viewing stations, the festi-val’s programs embrace the multi-tude of styles and media in electronicmusic today. And that is anotherreason it is difficult to write aboutSónar. Under a sensorial attack ofLas Vegas–like intensity, at somepoint the visitor longs for, or is of-fered, sense-numbing substances,placing high demands on the mostscrupulous professional discipline.

The festival is divided into twoparts, each with its principal venues:Sónar by Day takes place largely inthe CCCB/MACBA complex (Bar-celona Center for Contemporary Cul-ture and Museum of ContemporaryArt) and in the Santa Monica ArtCenter, and Sónar by Night takesplace at the vast convention center,Fira Gran Via, on a hilltop abovetown. Sónar’s secret to success lies incombining mainstream electronic/hip-hop acts of mass audience appealwith experimental underground elec-

tronica and electronic art music. Thewell-organized festival thus attractscrowds as well as cognoscenti, whoall mingle at the sun-drenched festi-val and enjoy a wide variety of Bar-celona’s other attractions: endlesstapas bars, beaches, and a consider-able off program, all at reasonableprices.

Sónar by Night is the venue for big

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[Editor’s note: Selected reviews areposted on the Web at mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Computer-Music-Journal/Documents/reviews/index.html. In some cases, they are eitherunpublished in the Journal itself orpublished in an abbreviated form inthe Journal.]

Events

Sónar 2005: Advanced Music andMultimedia Art

Barcelona, Spain, 16–18 June 2005.

Reviewed by Joyce ShintaniStuttgart, Germany

In the gamut of European multimediafestivals, from Ars Electronica in Linz,Austria to Transmediale in Berlin,Germany, Barcelona’s Sónar is the

most resolutely dedicated to musicand is also the largest. In 2005, the12th annual International Festival ofAdvanced Music and MultimediaArt took place on 16–18 June andwelcomed 90,000 visitors from 40countries and some 800 accreditedjournalists. The difficulty of writingabout the three-day marathon of sun,electronic music, and (chemically in-duced) good vibes that is Sónar is no-torious, and one of the reasons is thesheer abundance and crossover diver-sity that Sónar presents.

From its inception in 1994, Sónarhas provided a space for artists, pro-fessionals, and the public to meet andexchange points of view. Wikipediamakes a distinction between “elec-tronic music” and “electronic artmusic” (“Electronic music is a looseterm for music created using elec-tronic equipment.” “Electronic ‘art’music is a regrettably vague term for

names, this year including acts likeDe La Soul, Ellen Allien, JamieLidell, Laurent Garnier, Miss Kittin,and the Chemical Brothers. Theseevents have been amply reviewed bythe international press, and I leavecommentaries to those specialistsand aficionados (one link to a moremainstream review of the festival canbe found at www.soundgenerator.com/burner/reviews_live.cfm?reviewid=1077).

Sónar by Day provides spaces for

the experimental films, multimediainstallations, and exhibits that defineSónar’s artistic identity and that willbe the focus of this review. I beginwith SonarMàtica, where one findsinstallations and contemporary artcomparable to Germany’s docu-menta, New York’s Guggenheim orLos Angeles’s MoCA (Museum ofContemporary Art); or, as one visitorput it, “similar to the Tate Modern,but more cutting edge.” In their fineexhibit “Randonée (A Walk ThroughLandscaping in the 21st Century),”

curators Óscar Abril Ascaso, JoséLuis de Vicente, Andy Davies, andAdvanced Music made out a return ofabstraction to the forefront of con-temporary creation after years of popart. Based on this view, they soughtto analyze “the extent to which land-scape art is currently surviving innew media.” The exhibits were wide-ranging, with entries lacking onlyfrom African and Middle Easterncountries. Considering Spain’s vicin-ity to the African littoral, selectionsfrom these geographical areas, with

which a dialogue is so desperatelyneeded, would be an appropriatecomplement in future. Many of theinstallations have won prizes at otherfestivals, for example ThomasKöner’s “Suburbs of the Void” (re-ported in a review of the Transmedi-ale Festival, Berlin, in ComputerMusic Journal 29[4]). Three worksparticularly caught my attention for

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their artistic density and the close re-lationship between audio and visualelements.

In her award-winning film Aspect(2004), Emily Richardson undertakesa quick-motion filming of a forestover a year. Films of this type are fa-miliar; the technique is often used innature films or to depict completionat construction sites. Unusual in Ms.Richardson’s film is her successfulaccommodation of visuals to Bene-dict Drew’s soundtrack of organic

sounds. She closely interweaves im-ages and sound with quiet sensitivity,and the resulting work is captivatingwith its simple natural beauty andpoetic soundscape.

An extreme contrast to Ms. Rich-ardson’s view of nature is Yi Zhou’sOneOfTheseDays (2004), a 3-D ani-mation reconstructing the film-maker’s dream about a civil war in anundefined futuristic city—equallypoetic, but chilling (her Web site isfound at www.yi-yo.net). Inspired bythe construction and demolition tak-

ing place in her native Shanghai, thework is a stylized representation ofdestruction that has similarities withthe gun fight in Matrix (chapter 29,“Freeze!”). Both are held in shades ofgray and depict cool, anonymous fu-turistic architecture. Both utilizeslow motion and a breath-taking de-ployment of scattering fragmentsfrom destroyed buildings. But wherethe Matrix scene is short and embed-ded in action, Yi-Zhou’s vision of de-struction is longer and cooler, and,being removed from narrative, is re-

duced to its aesthetic elements. Thefloating, ethereal soundscape under-lines the work’s dream quality, elicit-ing cold shivers of awe.

A final work, Tree by Risc (a.k.a.Christian Riekoff) succeeds at em-ploying music and visuals in equal,minimal quantities. While maintain-ing a distant connection to the land-scape theme of the exhibit, the work

falls into the category of software art.The viewer points to a URL on awall-projected computer screen andpresses Enter. In real time, Tree ac-cesses the source code of the Web siteand transforms its syntactic structureinto the image of a tree with trunk,branches, and ramifications in subtlyshaded geometric forms. At the sametime, simple MIDI data is generated(producing, at Sónar, crystalline tonesbased on high/low frequencies withshort/long durations), providing a

slightly whimsical accompanimentthat is a good correspondence to thesimple geometric shapes. It is a funapplication that gives a satisfyingaesthetic result; you can try it your-self online (www.texone.org/tree;this Web-based version lacks theMIDI output).

Also at the CCCB complex wasSónarCinema, an extensive collec-tion of experimental cinema andvideo clips. Ten viewing sessions,each lasting approximately an hour,showcased works featuring historical

as well as current formats of audio-visual creation providing persuasive“testimony to the ever increasingcommon ground between the imageand advanced music.”

The first highlight was a selectionof short films produced by theGroupe de Recherches des Images(GRI), a collaboration of musiciansand filmmakers in the 1960s underthe auspices of Pierre Schaeffer andthe Groupe de Recherches Musicales(GRM), that explored new televisionforms. Most of the 700 shorts were

never broadcast and “ended up in thestate archive because they were con-ceptually too radical.” These uniqueaudiovisual experiments featuresoundtracks by Iannis Xenakis,Bernard Parmegiani, François Bayle,Ivo Malic, and Pierre Schaeffer,which render audible the historiccontinuity of beats and scratchesfrom the 1960s to the present.

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In another session, Chronopolis, byPolish artist Piotr Kampler with mu-sic by Luc Ferrari, was shown, a con-crete experiment screened at theCannes Festival in 1982. Many of thesessions offered electronic musicclips or works by video jockeys in awide variety of styles and quality. Afinal highlight, Pimp My Bite, was acompilation of works produced usingdigital video, 3-D animation, Flash,and machinima (films shot in the vir-tual reality of a game engine) from

the Hamburg Bitfilm Festival (www.bitfilm-festival.org). Many of thefilms were unmitigated social criti-cism, but the short Kunstbar (2002)by The Petrie Lounge provided first-class comic relief. In this imaginativespoof on high art made in primitiveSouth Park style, different drinks areserved at the Art Bar, producing vary-ing results: the Van Gogh cocktailcauses an ear to drop off, the Hierony-mus Bosch drink is real torture, andso on (this film can be viewed onlineat www.whitehouseanimationinc

.com/kunstbar.htm).From the CCCB complex it is a 15-min stroll down the bustling Ramblas,Barcelona’s central walking boulevard,to the Santa Monica Center. There,downstairs in the dark, cool base-ment, diverse projects and live soft-ware acts from around the world werepresented, including a bizarre per-forming robot (www.myrobotfriend.com). Upstairs, in the exhibit space,the installation “Messa di voce” byGolan Levin and Zach Liebermannwith Jaap Blonk and Joan La Barbara

was particularly eye-catching (www.tmema.org/messa). It is an audio-visual system consisting of viewerspace with camera tracker, micro-phones, and wall projection for thesounds, produced by the viewers,which have been transformed in realtime into interactive visualizations.Using the mics, the viewer can cre-ate, then using hands catch and bal-

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Events

ance “virtual” bubbles or galaxies ofcolor on the wall projection. This is asophisticated installation that hintsat serious themes of meaning and theeffect of speech sounds in a playfuland delightful way.

Another part of the festivities, An-tiliteratur, the “Art and LiteratureFestival,” was plagued by wronglyposted times for its sessions and, re-grettably, I missed them all. At Sónar,missing some events is unavoidable,but discovery is also part of the expe-

rience. My happiest discovery wasPhil K (www.philk.dj) at the demon-stration of the DVJ-X1 DVD/CDturntable, Pioneer’s answer to theiconic turntable. Familiar DJ tech-niques—scratches, loops, instantcues, fades—are now possible forone-person simultaneous disc andvideo jockeying (DVJ), enabling on-the-fly mixing from separate audioand visual sources.

Phil Krokidis, a veteran MelbourneDJ/producer of Greek descent, demon-strated not only the new hardware

but also his own considerable talent.An autodidact who, by his own ac-count, as a youth “couldn’t play aninstrument but could mix,” Phil hasrecently worked with the Pioneer Re-search and Development team to de-velop the new DVJ-X1. Although heis new to visuals, he says he now“watches movies like he used to lis-ten to records,” and the results showthat Phil K not only has huge ears,but also fantastic eyes. He employsvideo art or simple clips he shoots onhis travels, images that conjure up

and comment on urban culture (NewYork street scenes), politics (GeorgeBush, Arab sheiks, and guns), or therole of women (animations). Al-though the club context calls for highintensity video streams, Phil K’s se-lection and controlled use of a fewkey images at timed intervals createsmeaning within the constant flow ofcolor—a message within the mas-

sage. To achieve this he begins, intypical DJ manner, by laying down avisual loop. Under it, layer by layer,he slowly constructs a sound struc-ture, which may also include sam-pled concrete sounds. At specificpoints along the way he inserts theimages that form his commentary,and the audience follows, rocking.The visual/sound-narrative grows,and when the swell reaches its high-point, Phil K places the musical cli-max. No conductor or classic

virtuoso could do so with better tim-ing. The crowd cheers and rises to itsfeet, but Phil K ends the structureand lays down a new loop on thelevel just reached and takes off again.VDJ and crowd interact, building in-tensity over a 50-min set, and onlywith reluctance did they clear thescene for the next act. The formalstrength in composition of Phil K’swork is manifest. The figures, spokenwords, and clips, both drawn fromsamples as well as finished works, in-terplay at various levels and create

their own syntax. Phil K’s art is intu-itive and touches on deep emotions.Pulsing with an urban energy recall-ing Jean-Michel Basquiat, he mirrorsglimpses of a fragmented society andsubmits them to the organizing prin-ciple of music. His way of making artin the club context is a contributionto the best of what electronica offerstoday.

Before summing up the Sónar Fes-tival, let us recall some of the ele-ments that make electronicadifferent from other kinds of popular

music, beginning with its name. Theartists—DJs, vocalists, and instru-mentalists—are all working with apowerful generation of electronic in-struments that affords them libertyin many areas. Evolving high-qualitysynthesis and microprocessors con-tinue to generate new media.Equipped with such mobile creativepotential, electronica artists have

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opened up their ears to exploit thenew technological possibilities attheir disposition. They sample, then“play with”—manipulate, vary, per-mute—not only the sounds they gen-erate, or buy on a historic record, newCD, or download, but also from theworld around them. This great vari-ety of sources brings freshness intotheir work and the work of VJs. Elec-tronics also allows freedom on theeconomic side. Own-your-own elec-tronic distribution and small inde-

pendent labels eliminate certainmarket constraints. Released fromcontracts with music majors that dic-tate shareholder-value productions,and, knowing that their constituencyis listening for new sounds, electron-ica artists are willing to take risksand have thereby created a field withhigh creative dynamism. And in yetanother way electronica artists areopen: often without formal musictraining, DJs are not hampered byears full of aesthetic expectations orcomposition rules. Driven only by

their curiosity and excitement for theworld of technology and sounds,young DJs have trekked through elec-tronic music’s beginnings with JohnChowning, Karlheinz Stockhausen,and Pierre Schaeffer, through jazzand chance and John Cage, andthrough a maze of rap, dance, andworld music styles in the 1980s and1990s. Moving across boundaries ofeducation, geography, medium, style,genre, or time is as natural for themas breathing; they’re on a collectivecreative high.

After the sensory glut of three daysof Sónar, what trends for the futuredoes the juxtaposition of experimen-tal music with hot acts reveal? Theelements listed above combinedwith the instant global connected-ness of the Internet emphasized atfestivals like Sónar has led to cross-fertilization and an explosion of cre-ativity, in stark contrast to shrinking

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classical concerts or the implosion ofthe music industry. Within the cre-ative burst of electronica, two devel-opments were obvious at Sónar. First,as the organizers have pointed out,there is a return to the physical: elec-tronic music has learned perfor-mance. Increasing real-time capacity,women performance artists, andvicinity to the dance floor havefirmly established the performingbody in electronica. Second, as audi-ences have grown and software has

become more robust, DJs have per-fected their improvisatory talents inorder to interact with audiences. Atradition that survived in jazz and rapis returning to electronic music: theimprovising artist. These trends giveDJ-ing electronica a vital, electricquality lost from the museums thatconcert halls have become. Hightechnological standards, burgeoningcreativity, and a lively, growingpublic—this year at Sónar, electron-ica cast an appreciative glance at itselectronic roots and went raving off

in myriad future forms.

NIME 2005: New Interfaces forMusical Expression

University of British Columbia, Van-couver, British Columbia, Canada,26–28 May 2005.

Reviewed by Jamie Allen,* MargaretSchedel,† and John P. Young†

*New York, New York, USA; †SanFrancisco, California, USA

This year’s New Interfaces for Musi-cal Expression conference, NIME2005, was held at the University ofBritish Columbia in Vancouver,Canada, 26–28 May. Although practi-cally everyone disagreed about thepronunciation of the name of theconference, everyone agreed that Sid-

ney Fels and Tina Blaine did a won-derful job of coordinating the event.The spaces for papers and perfor-mances were physically and acousti-cally beautiful, and the weather wasperfectly gorgeous, which made it apleasure to walk from the dorm-likeaccommodations through the cam-pus to the various venues.

Thursday May 26, Reviewed by Jamie Allen

There was a refreshing preamble tothe official commencement of NIME2005. Wednesday night before the of-ficial welcome session the nextmorning, early arrivals were treatedto a showing of The Future is NotWhat It Used to be, a film by MikaTaanila presented by Michael Lyons.The film was a real treat, outliningthe extensive accomplishments andcontributions of Finland’s obscureelectronic arts pioneer Erkki Kuren-niemi. Mr. Taanila’s film also hintedat an emphasis on historical and con-

textual underpinnings that I noticedthroughout the proceedings this year.Three separate keynote speeches

were given during each morning ofthe conference, an aspect of the eventthat was particularly well planned.Each of these was a retrospectivelook at the speaker’s own work, andtheir perspectives on the road ahead.The nearly sublime triumvirate ofDon Buchla, Golan Levin, and BillBuxton truly represents a triumph ofcuratorial talent and orchestration onthe part of the conference planners,

Sidney Fels and Tina Blaine.On this first morning, Mr. Buchlapresented and demonstrated apanoply of the instruments he hasconstructed since 1965. The numberof demonstrable instruments he wasable to bring was limited somewhatby Canada customs agents, but hiscorner of the demo room was still


well stocked. The keynote was fasci-nating, especially for those of us withleanings towards fetishism for syn-thesizer and analog memorabilia. Hecapped his remarks with commentson modern advancements and workin hardware design. This includedmention of a very recently completeddesign by Bob Huott known as the“Been.” Its mention was a surpriseeven to the designer, as the instru-ment is so new, confirming that Mr.Buchla’s attentiveness to his chosen

field has not waned in over 45 yearsof practice.The morning session of paper pre-

sentations began with a look at moreconceptual treatments as contrastedto specific applications, which werecovered in the afternoon. John Bow-ers and Phil Archer presented “NotHyper, Not Meta, Not Cyber but Infra-Instruments.” The presentation cov-ered much of Bowers and Archer’swork and called for a restriction of in-teractive potential in new instruments(NIMEs). Essentially, it was a well-

formulated argument for “keeping itsimple.” The lesson was a profoundand important one for the audience athand, that sometimes the most ex-pressive musical outcomes are de-rived from seemingly less-expressiveinterfaces (Infra-Instruments). “Re-ductionist” Japanese work and “cir-cuit bending” performance successesprove that Infra-Instruments are asmuch a part of the novel ways peopleare expressing their musical voice asthe most belabored virtual reality ap-plication or re-engineered violin.

Three researchers from Helsinki’sUniversity of Technology came next,presenting a set of experiments insound control done within a VirtualReality environment. Identifyingwith the largely synesthetic leaningsof North American computer musiccomposers and researchers, they gavea concise description of the CAVE en-

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vironment and input interfaces, stan-dard in virtual reality (VR) circles butnovel in their application to the mu-sical domain. The work did not seemgeared to performance contexts, butto the context of a singular user, cre-ating and interacting with a virtualinstrument or sound world. As withall presentations of immersive sys-tems, I would have liked to experi-ence the VR system in its entiretymyself, as video and photographicdocuments rarely do them justice.

The three paper presentations thatfollowed were discussions of instru-ment systems that have progressedbeyond experiments. The first ofthese was from Gil Weinberg andScott Discoll, now at the Georgia In-stitute of Technology, with “iltur.”Centered on the Beatbug musicalcontrollers developed at the Massa-chusetts Institute of TechnologyMedia Lab, iltur is a system for inter-action between novice and expertmusicians. Two jazz compositions,

iltur 1 and iltur 2, have been devel-

oped, and the first of these was per-formed at the 2004 InternationalComputer Music Conference. Theimplementation and motivation ofthis work is consistent with Mr.Weinberg’s fine reputation. As anartist and scholar, he seems fittinglyconcerned with issues of accessibilityand the transmission of ideas.

A review of more mature applica-tions was presented by Sergi Jordà,outlining paradigms and applica-tions of multi-user interfaces for mu-sic. He took a new tack on the issues

by rigorously analyzing the multi-user taxonomy of a piano, guardedmost commonly as a single-user in-strument.

The spirited Tina Blaine finishedoff the morning sessions by outlininga remarkable collection of multi- andsingle-user commercial musical in-terfaces from the Interactive Enter-

tainment world. She spoke largelywithin the context of the educationalpotential of interfaces for music fromthe video game and toy industries.Her examples ranged from pop-culturephenomena such Dance Dance Revo-lution and Donkey Conga to the Eye-Toy video-tracking game Groove,which provides a gestural rhythmcontroller to the masses. Ms. Blainewas also kind enough to bring a Don-key Conga system to the demo roomsin Vancouver that day, so we might

all get a chance to sample the gamingindustry’s take on a new musical in-terface. I am always impressed by theindustry’s attitude to musical inter-face implementations, being, for themost part, devoid of excessive pre-tence and valuing human experiencebeyond issues of compositional au-thority or technical prowess.

Those of us attending the after-noon paper sessions were treated todescriptions of specific interfacessystems and rigorous applications.These were clear and succinct pre-

sentations of successful present prac-tices of reactive and interactivemusical systems. Dan Overholt pre-sented the Overtone Violin, whichwas performed at a concert the nextevening. Juan Pablo Caceres and histeam from the Center for ComputerResearch in Music and Acoustics(CCRMA) were a crowd favorite: anaugmented tuba system was pre-sented, wherein real-time manipula-tion of the natural instrument soundwas amplified and retransmittedthrough loudspeakers mounted on

the bell of the instrument, and a sub-woofer beneath the player’s chair.Eric Singer’s presentation of a

LEMUR (League of Electronic Musi-cal Urban Robots) “Large Scale Net-worked Robotic Musical InstrumentInstallation” project installed at theUniversity of California at Irvine wassaddled by two new sensor acquisi-

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tion and control systems. The first ofthese was the Smart ControllerWorkbench, which allows for interac-tive programming without the needfor a computer. The second was anovel system by the team behind theTap Tool Max/MSP add-on set, en-titled the Teabox. The Teabox usesan underused asset of most audioacquisiton hardware systems, theS/PDIF protocol, to get sensor datainto the computer, all mounted intruly roadworthy case.

The concert roster on Thursdaynight included a videoconference per-formance organized by Scot Gresham-Lancaster. AB_time, the title of thepiece, featured Tomi Hahn dancingalong to decidedly meandering tex-tures from three locales: our concerthall at UBC; Pauline Oliveros on heraccordion in Troy, New York; andJean-Marc Montera playing the cit-tern in Marseilles, France.

The clear sonic triumph of theevening was next, with Italian-bornVancouver local Giorgio Magnanensi

controlling a set of circuit-bentspeech synthesizers (most from theTexas Instruments “Speak & Spell”line-up). Seated at the center of theroom, Mr. Magnanensi proved onceagain that the physical and visual ele-ments of a performance are not al-ways paramount. He spoke to theaudience through his contorted ma-chines in ways the circuitry never in-tended and we did not expect.

Randall Jones took to a Tactexmulti-touch control pad after Mr.Magnanensi, effortlessly painting a

complex language of visuals on ascreen above his head. The visual ma-terial and linked audio material wasflawless in its synesthetic syn-chronicity, although at times thesound material seemed a bit thin as acounterpart to the imagery. Posthorn,by Ben Neill and Bill Jones, was a finereworking of Gustav Mahler’s Sym-

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phony No. 3 into atmospheric lap-ping through Mr. Neill’s self-designed“mutantrumpet.” Laetitia Sonamilent her unusual blend of theatricalshowmanship and finessed interfacedesign, performing her “Lady’sGlove” gestural controller in a pieceentitled The Appearance of Silence(The Invention of Perspective).

The first evening’s concerts wererounded out by a much-talked-aboutcollaboration between renownedCuban jazz pianist Hilario Duan, per-

cussionist Andrew Schloss, and vio-linist Irene Mitri. Mr. Schloss usesa Radio Drum system to effect andre-digest captured portions of thepianist’s playing, although on thisoccasion the sonic material being ac-tuated by the percussionist seemed alittle less enticing. Midi-synth bongoand conga samples didn’t make forfitting accompaniment to Mr. Duan’splaying and Ms. Mitri’s ruminationson strings seemed slightly out ofplace in it all.

A standout aspect of this year’s

NIME conference was the inclusion ofimprovisation sessions, organized byAjay Kapur of the University of Victo-ria. These were held at various timesthroughout the three days, and despitesome confusion with regards to how“open” these sessions in fact were(many people reportedly hoped toshow up, instrument in hand, whenin fact one had to sign up for an allot-ted session prior to the conference),they were certainly a step in the rightdirection. I was lucky enough to par-ticipate in one such session, and

whatever the overall musical out-come, there is certainly value in or-ganizing more activities where musicis the explicit conversant language ata conference centering on music. Iwould have loved to see a full-on jam,for example, involving all the lovelycontrollers and sound makers thatDon Buchla carted up from California.Music is, after all, for many of us still

a less cumbersome means of commu-nication than the unwieldy awkward-ness of the English language.

Friday May 27, Reviewed by Margaret Schedel

I thought the most successful presen-tations were those that combined apaper or poster with a performance. Iknow that it isn’t feasible to have aone-to-one correspondence betweenpapers and performances, but I do be-

lieve the composers/creators ofpieces selected for performanceshould have an automatic option tohave a poster. There is only so muchinformation one can convey in pro-gram notes, and it would be nice tohave a centralized discussion aboutthe technology behind a work. I wasmuch more receptive to the aesthet-ics of a performance when I wasn’ttrying to figure out the technology.

Roger B. Dannenberg, Ben Brown,Garth Zeglin, and Ron Lupish au-thored the paper “McBlare: A Robotic

Bagpipe Player,” which describes thetechnology behind the piece per-formed later that night. The robotconsists of a custom-built air com-pressor and electro-mechanical relaysconnected to rubber pads which openand close holes on the chanter in re-sponse to MIDI messages. Mr. Dan-nenberg’s musical work McBlare wasa joyous racket of trills and runsfaster than any human could haveplayed. He wheeled their creation outon stage, turned on the compressor,and stood back to watch it work with

a slightly bemused expression on hisface. Thankfully, he had earplugs in.The piece itself was a mélange ofScottish folk motifs which translatedvery well into MIDI, perhaps because(forgive me, Roger) the bagpipe is notthe most expressive of musical in-struments. The work was, however,very musically satisfying, and the au-dience gave it a thunderous cheer.


Dan Overhold also had a paper andpiece: his Duet for Violin + Violinistand corresponding paper dovetailednicely. As mentioned above, Mr.Overhold presented his paper onThursday, and it was rewarding to seethe violin, which was described insuch technical terms, turn into an ex-pressive instrument onstage the nextevening. The performance was nearlyhalf over before he actually bowed anote on the string; most of the perfor-mance consisted of gesture control,

and I felt it was a bit unbalanced. Theovertone violin has six strings and Iwished for more amplified acousticsound—the lower strings especiallyhad a dark and subtle timbre. Thispiece was another that married folkelements, in this case fiddling, withtechnology.

Suguru Goto’s VirtualAERI II usedanother violin controller, the Super-Polm, a virtual violin. Unlike theOvertone Violin, the SuperPolm doesnot have actual strings; it models thegesture of violin performance, using

touch sensors instead of strings onthe fingerboard and resistance sen-sors on the bow. In addition to thesesensors there is an eight-button key-board on the body of the instrument.Mr. Goto is a natural performer, andhis gestures were musically sensitive.It seemed that the sensors did not al-ways work—sometimes a large ges-ture did not have a correspondingreaction in the sound or interactivevideo. Nonetheless, there were somevery beautiful moments with the per-former silhouetted against a wash of

abstract video while a thick soundevaporated into the hall.Ulrich Maiss and Joseph “Butch”

Rovan in Return of the Habanerosand Hopper Confessions, respec-tively, also used gesture to great ef-fect in their works. With Mr. Maisson cello and Mr. Rovan on bass clar-inet the audience had a great timelistening to two European free-jazz–

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influenced works. They had a lot offun onstage together in Return of theHabaneros at points playing air celloand air clarinet; Mr. Maiss also usedthat energy to good effect in his soloperformance of Mr. Rovan’s work. Ihave seen Hopper Confessions a num-ber of times now, and I thought thiswas one of the best performances.

It was refreshing to see so many in-teractive performances that did notinvolve people hunched over laptops.Toichi Nagashima’s Wiggle Screamer

II was a fun example of the Japaneseapproach to this aesthetic challenge.Wearing sensors on his arms and us-ing a light harp interface, Mr. Na-gashima entertained the audiencewith a pop-inspired pentatonic con-fection. At times it was a little likelooking at a virtuosic Dance DanceRevolution performance as boxes onthe screen moved in time to his armslaps while MIDI bells played.

Mocap Performance Instrument,by R. Luke DuBois, Luibo Borrisov,and Beliz Demicioglu, used both

motion-capture information from astudio and live video-tracking in awork for dancer with interactive mu-sic and video. The video consistedmainly of abstracted line drawingsfrom the motion-capture sessions,some of which were more pleasingthan others. The piece had no realhard edges—the dancer trailedscarves of sound behind her as shemoved and it was very soothing tohear the piece come to rest after thedancer stopped moving. I wasn’t sureif the sounds were recorded noises of

dancer friction, but it seemed thatway to me and it was a compellingway to bring the sonic world closer tothe dance world.

I would have liked to see a perfor-mance using David Topper and PeterV. Swendsen’s “Wireless Dance Con-trol: Pair and WISEAR,” a generalpurpose interface to a wide variety ofsensors and gestural controllers. De-

veloping a flexible and powerful sys-tem for tracking dancers has been achallenge, and I am looking forwardto using their product that combinesa small LINUX-based wearablesingle-board computer with a wire-less transmitter. Users solder in theirown sensors, and the computer canbe powered by 7-V batteries.

Other research that may be appli-cable for motion tracking has beendone by Alain Crevoisier and PietroPolotti. “Tangible Acoustic Inter-

faces and their Applications for theDesign of New Musical Instruments”describes a technique whereby usingonly audio signals a computer candetect contact points of users inter-acting with the surface of solid mate-rials. The resolution was astonishingfrom using just two piezo contacts.Sadly, there was not enough time toset up a demo of this “acoustic holog-raphy,” but I am just as excited as theauthors to be able to create con-trollers out of any surface.

Many papers this year seemed to

specifically reference NIME. I’m notsure if the authors submitted only toNIME, or if they tailored their papersaccordingly, but I was a little dis-turbed by the amount of conferencereferencing going on in the papers.Sageev Oore’s “Learning AdvancedSkills on New Instruments (Practis-ing Scales and Arpeggios on yourNIME)” was one such paper, yet Ifound its contents compelling. Muchis made of new instrument design,but often not enough time is taken topractice the new instruments. I am

eagerly awaiting the next Clara Rock-more, whichever new musical instru-ment she might play.

Saturday May 28, Reviewed by John P. Young

The final day of the conferencekicked off with a keynote presenta-tion from Bill Buxton, a man with

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strong opinions based on decades ofexperience as a researcher in com-puter music and human–machine in-teraction. He made his position clearfrom the start, stating that tape play-back sucks as a performance idiom,and that sitting behind a laptop com-puter screen mousing around is moreor less the same thing from an audi-ence perspective. This particular reli-gious war has been well floggedalready, but it still seems to be a goodway to get everyone’s attention early

in the morning. And Mr. Buxtonbacks up his gauntlet-throwing un-usually well. He noted that the tran-sition from analog to digital soundgained stability and predictability,but lost a wealth of interesting con-troller interfaces and thus an impor-tant immediacy of engagement withmanipulating sound while perform-ing. He described various environ-ments he has worked on, emphasizingthat the interfaces were purpose-directed, optimized for the task athand, be it composition, orchestra-

tion, or performance, expanding thenotion of context-sensitivity to in-clude the entire interface rather thanjust a few tools or menus as is mostoften the case today.

One graphic user interface (GUI),in an application called “Scriva,” hadsome useful features that aren’t read-ily available anymore, such as anamplitude-context piano roll displayand multiple flavors of notation thatcould be toggled for differentlyweighted views of musical events:score, Music V code, timbre clusters,

etc. Another performance GUI dis-played multi-dimensional parametriccontrol data on a single screen, ori-ented toward real-time adjustments oftempo, amplitude, filtering, etc., usinga tablet “mouse” as well as reflectingparameter mapping to other tactilecontinuous controllers. These clearlyvaluable, extinct features remindedus that there are many excellent ideas

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out there that have already been vali-dated but continue to languish wait-ing for someone more interested inexceptional design than reinventingthe wheel in their own image.

Mr. Buxton went on to assert thatit is critical for performance instru-ments and systems to have the ca-pacity to adapt between differentacoustic environments, i.e., concerthalls, in order to create comparableexceptional musical experiences foraudiences in any space. Later he dis-

cussed the advantages of a virtualcontrol console based on a largetouch-sensitive tablet, with card-board cut-out overlays emulatingsliders, buttons, and other structuredcontrols, allowing simple switchingbetween controller layouts for vari-ous purposes using a single piece offairly simple hardware. Having im-pressed us with the depth of histhought and decades of work on thesubject, he ended by reinforcing hisinitial assertion that just like sounditself, gesture is a language underpin-

ning the relationship between per-former(s) and audience. Masteringthat gestural dialogue is essential tocreating a theater of performance,that environment in which the inspi-ration of musicians feeds the exhila-ration of audience and back again inwonderful reciprocity. Documenta-tion of much of Mr. Buxton’s workcan be found at his Web site (www.billbuxton.com).

The morning paper session, “Voice,Gestural Control and Multimodal-ity,” was relatively entertaining, al-

ways a bonus for those of us whoeschew imbibing massive doses ofcaffeinated beverages, and a couple ofpresentations in particular stood out.Elliot Sinyor showed off his “Gyro-tyre,” a small (30 cm) bicycle tire at-tached to a hand grip, able to spinfreely around its axis, with a wealthof attached sensors including rota-tional speed, dual-axis acceleration,

gyroscopic orientation, and force-sensing in the grip. Some basic map-pings showed that the controllercould be fun to use as well as fun towatch. Michael Lyons demonstratedsonification of facial expressions,which was not only hilarious but alsoshowed potential for meaningful in-terpretive mappings as the systemevolves towards finer granularity andintegrative analysis of multiple ex-pressive features. It will be excitingto see the potential of these innova-

tive interfaces applied to more musi-cally sophisticated purposes.The afternoon paper session,

“Learning, Tools + Connectivity,”showcased some interesting projectsas well. Art Clay discussed “Going-Publik,” a distributed coordinatedcollaboration using handheld elec-tronics. Essentially, the participantperformers use wearable computersas instrument and global positioningsystem (GPS) tracking interfaces,with a dynamic score projected ontheir eyepiece monitors as they tra-

verse a city. Niels Böttcher then pre-sented “Connecting Strangers,” anattempt to create spontaneous sonicinteractions between passengerswaiting on opposite train platforms.The project team tried several ap-proaches to balancing the impera-tives of being sufficiently accessibleto learn and enjoy within a few min-utes’s time, with enough challenge tohold participant interest after they“figured it out.” The interactive as-pects of the work turned out to be themost difficult, with additional work

and experimentation planned to en-courage players to not only exploretheir own “side” of the sound, but co-operate across the tracks as well. MarkHavryliv described “Pocket Game-lan,” essentially a cross-compilerthat can translate a Pd patch seam-lessly into Java 2 Micro Edition(J2ME) code for deployment onto amobile phone or other portable de-


vice that supports J2ME. He demon-strated live conversion of severalfairly complex patches and successfultesting in a desktop emulation envi-ronment, an already impressive featthat will surely become even more sowith further refinement.

Saturday evening’s concert beganwith Thomas Ciufo’s Beginner’sMind, shakuhachi slowly fading in,maintaining a sense of time beingstretched and extended, with a haunt-ing sustained atmospheric environ-

ment throughout. Then Cybersong byPaulo Maria Rodrigues, Luis MiguelGirão, and Rolf Gehlhaar took us in adecidedly more dramatic direction. Astatic noise began with house lightsstill up—technical difficulty or be-ginning of the piece?—then Mr. Ro-drigues walked down the house rightaisle, donning a tux jacket as hemounted the stage. A grand “O fre-unde!” yielded to falsetto sostenutowhich then recycled through elec-tronics in an eclectic cascade of con-scious chaos. A later section turned

into a hilarious remix of the recitedtext: “A fish is a machine that pre-serves genes in water. A monkey is amachine that preserves genes uptrees.” This segued into manipula-tion of “radio” waves via clownishmouthpiece. Overall, the piece wasdisjointedly non sequitur, but bril-liantly performed, concluding withmaniacal laughter building throughfeedback to a final “Shut Up!”

Next came Elaine Chew perform-ing Ivan Tcherepnin’s Fêtes (Varia-tions on Happy Birthday) as an

interlude, eloquently played. It seemsa little dangerous to include com-pelling purely acoustic work on thesame program as highly experimentalmaterial, as the inevitable compari-son underscores just how great a jour-ney we have left ahead of us. Ye YingDi [Nightingale Floor] by MargaretSchedel, in collaboration with videoartist Charles Woodman and choreog-

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rapher/performer Alison Rootberg,started with a strikingly costumedRootberg all in white, arms and legsilluminated in patterns of neon wire,gently and gracefully unfolding infront of projected video. The move-ment and imagery combined evoca-tively at times, with real-timecapture of the dancer’s glowing linessensitively blended into the mix.However, due to limitations of thestage setup, it was difficult to cogni-tively integrate the dancer and the

background into a coherent union.Discerning the relationship betweenMs. Rootberg’s movement and her in-fluence on the sound and video wasalso challenging, in part becausethere was clearly something so al-most there that I yearned to feel asatisfying connection instead of justgiving up on the idea. Having seenthis work a few times before, I wasaware that many of the wonderful el-ements I had previously witnessedwere not entirely operational forsome reason, which left me wishing

that this audience could have experi-enced more of its full intention. Eventhough we have learned to be forgiv-ing when it comes to new music, it’salways a shame when technical is-sues restrain the artistic blossomingof a lovely piece.

Jamie Allen attacked what ap-peared to be a suitcase full of noise inboomBox, to great theatrical effect. Itmight be a stretch to call it music, ex-actly, but it was tremendously expres-sive, surprisingly funny, and highlyentertaining from beginning to end.

Afterward, David Birchfield on sensor-extended percussion and Curtis Bahnon electronically enhanced verticalbass performed Improvisations, astructured exploration of the capabil-ities of their instruments and the re-lationships between them. Whileboth players are very skilled and sen-sitive, somehow here they seemed tobe inhabiting completely different,

incompatible sound worlds, with thetimbres simply refusing to gel. Thismight have been less problematic ifthe sounds had been warmer andmore inviting in general.

Finally, Dan Trueman performedBoSSA Studies, three short pieces forhis Bowed-Sensor-Speaker-Array in-strument. The first, Vocalise, sam-pled Mr. Trueman’s voice throughheadset microphone as material fortransformation and manipulation.The second piece, Lobster Quadrille,

is becoming a classic, a setting ofthe poem from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The composer-performer persuasively showed how avery satisfying intuitive connectioncan be forged between gesture andsound, even in a fairly abstract rela-tionship such as “playing” textsamples with violin technique. Thelast piece, Tetha, included TomieHahn performing shakuhachi. Theacoustic and electronic spaces inte-grated well, with the shakuhachiplainly the dominant element, the

BoSSA seeming to function primarilyas effect and atmosphere. Unfortu-nately, near the end Ms. Hahn beganbarking and then things went swiftlydownhill, leaving me to wonder whyso much electroacoustic music formscontrast against lyricism by playingthe crazy card. Is it discomfort withusing our medium as a means of ex-pressing serious sentiment, or are wereally all just that wacky?

Publications

Arun Chandra, Editor: WhenMusic Resists Meaning: TheMajor Writings of Herbert Brün

Hardcover/softcover, 2004, ISBN 0-8195-6669-1/0-8195-6670-5, 350

91

pages, illustrated, CD-Audio,US$ 70.00/29.95; Wesleyan Univer-sity Press, 215 Long Lane, Middle-town, Connecticut 06459, USA;

telephone 860-685-7711; fax 860-685-7712; Web www.wesleyan.edu/wespress; distributed by UniversityPress of New England, Order Depart-ment, 37 Lafayette Street, Lebanon,New Hampshire 03766, USA; tele-phone 800-421-1561 or (+1) 603-643-7110; fax (+1) 603-643-1540; Webwww.upne.com/0-8195-6669-1.html.

Reviewed by Ross FellerOberlin, Ohio, USA

Born in Berlin in 1918, Herbert Brün

left Germany and went to Palestineshortly after the Nazis assumedpower. In Palestine he studied com-position with Stefan Wolpe, EliFriedman, and Frank Pelleg at theJerusalem Conservatory. In 1948Leonard Bernstein brought Brün toTanglewood, in Massachusetts, tocontinue his studies. Shortly there-after he attended Columbia Univer-

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sity for a year of graduate work. Fromthe mid 1950s until he finally settledin Illinois he worked at the now well-known electronic music studios inParis, Cologne, and Munich, produc-ing some of the earliest examples ofnon-serial electroacoustic music. Healso gave lectures throughout Europeand the USA on the function of mu-sic in society.

In 1962, after one such lecturetour, Lejaren Hiller invited Brün tojoin the faculty of the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He ac-cepted Hiller’s offer in part becausehe wanted to work with the com-puter systems then available there.Brün entered a compositional envi-ronment that thrived on collabora-tion with other disciplines includingelectrical engineering, cybernetics,and cognitive theory. He co-taughtcourses with Heinz von Foerster oncybernetics, composition, cognition,and social change. Mr. von Foersterhelped establish the field of cybernet-ics and, most importantly, developed

the notion of a second-order cyber-netics which focused on self-referential systems and behaviors.The concepts behind second-order cy-bernetics, such as von Foerster’s slo-gan that, “The world, as we perceiveit, is our own invention,” resonatedwith Brün’s own ideas about meaningand perception.

After taking over Hiller’s Seminarfor Experimental Music in the late1960s, Brün began to implementsome of his most radical formula-tions about music and language. He

was also a conductor. Included in themany performances of contemporarymusic that he led are American pre-mieres of György Ligeti’s Aventuresand Nouvelles Aventures. In the mid1970s Brün helped the ComputerMusic Association get its start. Hehosted conferences at the Universityof Illinois in 1975 and 1987, and wasthe keynote speaker at the 1985 con-

ference (held at Simon Fraser Uni-versity, Burnaby, British Columbia,Canada).

With the recently published WhenMusic Resists Meaning: The MajorWritings of Herbert Brün by Wes-leyan University Press, the opportu-nity arises for a re-assessment ofBrün’s many contributions to theworld of contemporary music. Hiscompositional and pedagogical prac-tices were grounded in informationtheory, cybernetics, and dispersionist

philosophy. He argued for the pur-poseful recognition of the social andpolitical significance of composition,and against the tendencies of lan-guage to preempt thought. At thetime of his death in 2000 Brün left be-hind a half-century’s worth of compo-sitions, playful and polemical texts,computer-generated artworks, and agroup of zealously devoted formerstudents.

In 1991, Brün and several of hisclosest students formed what is nowcalled the School for Designing a

Society, a non-affiliated institutebased in Urbana, Illinois, dedicatedto the critical examination of soci-ety, language, and music. Membersof the school have collaborated andtoured with Patch Adams, the fa-mous clown-doctor and subject of aHollywood movie starring RobinWilliams. Though Brün’s legacymostly continues in the work of hisformer students, his thought has sig-nificantly impacted many other com-posers and performers throughoutthe world.

One of the primary functions ofBrün’s compositional praxis was touncover possibilities for new signifi-cance, while opposing the reificationof meaning inherent in the acts ofrecognition and appropriation. Histhoughts on these matters are de-tailed in various essays, interviews,and prose pieces contained in WhenMusic Resists Meaning, a wonderful


compendium of Brünian thought ex-pertly edited and compiled by formerstudent Arun Chandra. Several otherformer students ably assisted him.This project, clearly a labor of lovefor Mr. Chandra, began to take shapein 1985. His work consisted of every-thing from collecting and editingBrün’s articles, interviews, and lec-tures to writing new output routinesto generate Postscript code in orderto print Brün’s computer-generatedgraphics (several of which are repro-

duced in the book). He also helpedproduce the accompanying compactdisc, which features performances ofBrün’s compositions by the LaSalleQuartet, pianist John Tilbury, percus-sionist Michael Udow, and the Per-cussion Group Cincinnati, alongwith three of his best-known electro-acoustic pieces.

When Music Resists Meaning(WMRM) is divided into six sections:“Listening,” “Composing,” “Com-posing with Computers,” “Cybernet-ics,” “Poetry and Plays,” and

“Postlude: Appendices.” The firsttwo sections contain unpublishedmanuscripts and lectures, as well apreviously published essay and inter-view from Perspectives of New Mu-sic, a Guest Editorial from KeyboardMagazine, and an important essay,“For Anticommunication,” that firstappeared in Words and Spaces: An

Anthology, edited by Stuart SaundersSmith and Thomas Delio (Lanham,New York: University Press of Amer-ica, 1989).

In this latter essay, Brün lays out

his argument for new music basedupon an idea he terms “anticommu-nication,” and describes how heattempted this in several of his com-positions. Anticommunication isessentially a provisional device usedin retarding the natural decay of in-formation, which occurs when theprocess of meaning assignment, orsemiosis, is stalled or comes to a

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standstill. Brün defines anticommu-nication as

an attempt at saying something,not a refusal to say it. Commu-nication is achievable by learn-ing from language how to saysomething. Anticommunicationis an attempt at respectfullyteaching language to say it. It isnot to be confused with eithernoncommunication, where nocommunication is intended, orwith lack of communication,

where a message is ignored, hasgone astray, or is simply not un-derstood. Anticommunication ismost easily observed, and oftencan have an almost entertainingquality, if well-known fragmentsof a linguistic system are com-posed into a contextual environ-ment in which they try but failto mean what they alwaysmeant. (WMRM, p. 63)

According to Brün, all musical mate-rials, gestures, and forms inevitably

lose what might be called their free-floating signification potential when-ever listeners, composers, and/orperformers fail to anticommunicate.This was no small matter in Brün’sworld because he saw this as a movefrom playfulness toward violence. Heheld that “the insistence on commu-nication ultimately leads to socialand physical violence . . . Anticom-munication ultimately leads to theinsistence on composition andpeace” (from My Words and Where I Want Them, p. 48).

The third and fourth sections ofWMRM contain various essays aboutcomputers and technology, first pub-lished in books such as The Com-

puter and Music, On the Wires of Our Nerves: The Art of Electroacous-tic Music, and Composers and theComputer. Brün covers a wide rangeof topics relevant to composers ofcomputer music, including such

things as artificial systems, second-order cybernetics, and algorithmiccomposition.

The fifth section contains samplesof his aphoristic poems and playfultheatrical skits. The postlude con-tains a brief biography, detailed listsof Brün’s compositions and publica-tions, program notes he wrote formany of his compositions, a techni-cal description of his computer-generated graphics, a short glossary ofterms, and a poignant essay entitled

“Paradigms: The Inertia of Lan-guage,” written by his wife, poetMarianne Brün.

At times acerbic and hard-hitting,WMRM showcases the “brutallycharming” (the author’s terminol-ogy) notions that Brün first intro-duced to his American colleaguesand students over four decades ago.Ultimately, the sense of bewilder-ment or alienation in his workserved to probe and extend his ideasabout freedom and human under-standing. I close with a personal re-

membrance that is emblematic ofBrün’s public discourse. I recall apost-concert question and answersession at the University of Illinois atwhich a student pointed to one of thecomposers and asked why he hadwritten such a “cold” and “calcu-lated” piece. Before an answer wasgiven Brün turned toward the studentand said, “So, you listened without aheart, did you?”

Herbert Brün’s music is pub-lished by Smith Publications (2617Gwynndale Avenue, Baltimore,

Maryland 21207, USA; Web www.smith-publications.com). His record-ings are available from Centaur, NonSequitur, Opus One, CRI, and theUniversity of Illinois ExperimentalStudios labels. His compact discrecordings and books are availablefrom www.nonsequiturpress.com/.For more information, consult theBrün Web site (www.herbertbrun.org).

93

Jim Aikin, Editor: SoftwareSynthesizers: The DefinitiveGuide to Virtual MusicalInstruments

Softcover, 2003, ISBN 0-87930-752-8,304 pages, illustrated, foreword byBob Moog, CD-ROM, US$ 29.95;Backbeat Books, 600 Harrison Street,San Francisco, California 94107,USA; telephone (+1) 415-947-6615;fax (+1) 415-947-6015; electronic [email protected]; Web www.backbeatbooks.com/.

Reviewed by S. Lyn GoeringerSeattle, Washington, USA

Software Synthesizers: The Defini-tive Guide to Virtual Musical Instru-ments, edited by Jim Aikin, is acollection of product reviews fromKeyboard magazine. The focus of thebook is to introduce the reader tosome computer music/electronicmusic products that are on the mar-ket, provide insight into these prod-

ucts, and introduce the reader tobasic electronic music concepts byproviding simplified definitions forconcepts such as MIDI, FM synthe-sis, and sampling rates.

The book has some immediatelimitations. The first and foremost isthat it is a collection of product re-views for products that are eithernow obsolete or have greatly evolvedsince the initial publication of thework. An easy example of how muchhas changed is the book’s statementthat Max/MSP does not run on Mac

OS X. It is important to rememberwhen reading this book that the spec-ifications given for each product aswell as their pricing and availabilityhave changed a great deal in the pastfew years. If you find yourself inter-ested in any products discussed inthis book, it would be strongly ad-vised to find out if the product is stillavailable, what its current specifica-

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tions are, and what the current priceis. This being said, however, the bookdoes offer some useful information tothe novice computer musician.

The format of the book is simple tofollow, and the language is conversa-tional. The book begins with simplis-tic definitions of what synthesizers

are, how they can be implemented assoftware, and how these can apply toyour home computer along withwhat other types of options there are.All of these discussions are lacedwith some amount of humor. Whennew concepts are introduced, Mr.Aikin provides a brief and simple ex-planation of terms. These explana-tions are not designed to teach youhow to operate a specific device orhow to fully understand a specificconcern (such as the mathematicalconcept of floating-point), but merely

to break down how to apply a ratingor manufacture spec sheet to thefunctionality of a program. The finalchapter of the book is perhaps theone most useful to the novice as it of-fers an easy-to-understand introduc-tion to basic synthesis concepts.

The book is a collection of productreviews. Each chapter begins with abasic introduction of what types of

products are to be reviewed. Theclasses of items reviewed are: soft-ware that models its sounds on realinstruments (such as the SteinbergModel-E Software Mini-Moog),virtual-analog suites (such as NativeInstruments Absynth or the VirSynTera), virtual rack systems (Reason,Image-Line Fruityloops), sample play-ers (Tascam GigaStudio, AbletonLive), design suites (Cycling ’74Max/MSP), and percussion modules(Waldorf Attack, Steinberg LM4

Mark II). There is only scant discus-sion of products such as DigidesignPro Tools, Steinberg Cubase, Mark ofthe Unicorn Digital Performer, orCakewalk Sonar. These are men-tioned only to recommend them ashost applications for plug-in “soft-synths” and as being an important as-pect of home studio design. On thewhole, the book is devoted to soft-ware that generates sounds, and isless interested in the sequencing andcombination of sounds.

As noted, the reviews are collected

from Keyboard magazine, and are ba-sically reprints of articles. Wherepossible, Mr. Aikin has supplied in-formation regarding changes from thetime of an article’s original printdate. Each review follows a similarformat: an overview of the product, adescription of what happened whenthe reviewer ran the software throughits paces, and what the opinion is ofeach reviewer.

The book comes with a DVD-ROM containing a collection ofdemonstration plug-ins from Able-

ton, Antares, Arturia, BitHeadz, IKMultimedia, LinPlug, Native Instru-ments, Propellerhead, Seer Systems,Software Technology, and VirSyn.The demos are for either Macintoshor Windows, with some softwareworking on both platforms, and thereare a few fully functional freewareprograms provided, such as Soundfo-rum Synth from Native Instruments.


For many of the programs, there arealso MP3 files available so that youcan hear what the potentials are forthe software in its full format.

Though this book has many limita-tions, primarily the datedness of thereviews, it is useful for the novice as itoffers great introductory informationto what is involved in electronic andcomputer music, and it also providesdetailed descriptions as well as easy-to-access demonstrations of softwarethat has been available in the past (in

many cases, versions are still availableof these plug-ins). Whether the bookhelps one to purchase the variouspieces of software discussed is less im-portant than having access to informa-tion for what is possible, and in thisthe book offers some great overviews.It is much less useful for the moderate-to-advanced computer musician, as itis geared toward newcomers and theinformation is not current. It is pos-sible to hunt down the reviews in thebook by looking through archives ofKeyboard magazine, though markedly

less convenient.

Portraits Polychromes: JohnChowning

Softcover, 2005, ISBN 2-87-623-164-6, 122 pages, €13; GRM Institut Na-tional de l’Audiovisuel, Maison deRadio France, 116 avenue du Prési-dent Kennedy, 75220 Paris, France;telephone (+33) 1-56-40-29-88;electronic mail [email protected]; Webwww.ina.fr/grm/acousmaline/

polychromes; Éditions Michel deMaule, 41, rue de Richelieu, 75001Paris, France; telephone (+33) 1-42-97-93-48.

Reviewed by James Harley Guelph, Ontario, Canada

This slim volume on John Chowningis the seventh in the Portraits poly-

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chromes series published by theGroupe de Recherches Musicales/In-stitut National de l’Audiovisuel(GRM/INA) in cooperation with theCentre de Documentation de

Musique Contemporaine (CDMC).Other volumes in the series havehighlighted Jean-Claude Risset, LucFerrari, Bernard Parmegiani, GillesRacot, François Bayle, and Ivo Malec.

John Chowning’s work is central tothe field of computer music, but hispublications and compositional out-put have been relatively sparse. Forall his work on digital frequencymodulation and spatialization, his ef-forts to establish and maintain theCenter for Computer Research inMusic and Acoustics (CCRMA) at

Stanford University, and his mentor-ing of generations of computer musi-cians, this is the first volume entirelydevoted to Mr. Chowning’s life andwork. One can only wonder at thestate of things in America that suchan important publication would ariseonly in France, and in French. Re-gardless, Daniel Teruggi, Pierre-Albert Castanet, and Évelyne Gayou

are to be lauded for their efforts inspearheading not only this volumebut the whole series. If you do notread French yet, now would be a goodtime to start, as the Portraits poly-chromes series is an extremely valu-able addition to scholarly resourceson computer and electroacoustic mu-sic. In particular, I would note the in-novative and highly informative Websites connected to each volume (con-sult www.ina.fr/grm/acousmaline/polychromes and follow the links to

the individual sites), which include,among other things, graphic analysesof selected pieces presented in con-junction with audio playback of themusic. (It was on this site, for ex-ample, that I discovered that Mr.Chowning has just recently com-pleted a new composition, Voices, hisfirst since Phoné from 1981.)

This volume on John Chowningopens with an extensive interviewwith Évelyne Gayou, a composer as-sociated with GRM/INA, servingthere as Director of Publications.

Over 18 pages, this interview coversmuch of his career, from his earlystudies with Nadia Boulanger, to hiswork at the Artificial IntelligenceLab at Stanford University, to the es-tablishment of CCRMA, and so on. Iwas rather surprised to learn that Mr.Chowning had been turned down fortenure by Stanford in 1973. This wasafter he had published his work onFM synthesis! Luckily for the univer-sity, the decision was eventuallyoverturned, and the millions of dol-lars in royalties from Yamaha there-

after accrued to the school’s coffers,turning out, apparently, to be one ofthe most lucrative licenses in the uni-versity’s history. In this interview, weare also reminded of the close connec-tion between the work in computermusic at Stanford and the establish-ment of the Insitut de Recherche etCoordination Acoustique/Musique(IRCAM). Mr. Chowning served as a

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consultant to Pierre Boulez and oth-ers during the planning stages ofIRCAM, and spent time at IRCAMpursuing research on voice synthesislater. Indeed, IRCAM was in certainrespects modeled on CCRMA, andthe strong relationship established inthe 1970s has continued. Notably,both Stria and Phoné were producedas a result of commissions awardedto Mr. Chowning by IRCAM.

After the interview, there is a shortarticle by Mr. Chowning himself, dat-

ing from 2004, titled “Composer leson lui-même” [Composing the SoundItself]. In six pages, the composer-researcher outlines his interest increating sounds on the computer,making reference to the seminalwork of Jean-Claude Risset. Ratherthan discussing particular synthesismethods, such as FM, he notes thepossibilities for creating transforma-tions of timbre by applying dynamicenvelopes and vibrato to sinusoidalcomponents of a sound.

Mr. Risset, who has known Mr.

Chowning since meeting him at BellLabs in 1968, has penned for this vol-ume a lengthy article on his work,combining biography with technicalexegesis. “Sur l’impact de l’oeuvrescientifique, technique et musicalede John Chowning” [On the Scien-tific, Technical, and Musical Impactof John Chowning] is a model of clar-ity and insight, and, at 28 pages inlength, will no doubt long remain acrucial introduction to this impor-tant figure.

There follows a short article by

Yann Geslin, “John Chowning: del’informatique à la composition mu-sicale” [John Chowning: from Com-puter to Composition], whichsituates Mr. Chowning’s work in thecontext of succeeding generations ofcomposers who have been able tocarry on from his ground-breaking re-search and applications.

The remainder of the book con-

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tains analytical discussions of Mr.Chowning’s music. Laurent Potterpresents an 18-page analysis of Ture-

nas (1972). He outlines the structure,the canons that underlie parts of thepiece, the spectral organization of thebell sounds, and the aleatoric rhyth-mic procedures used in various sec-tions. In addition, he explains thepaths of spatialization, the use of re-verberation, and details of the FMsynthesis algorithm. Bruno Bossispresents a similarly detailed study of

Stria (1977) in his 29-page article,“Stria de John Chowning ou l’oxy-moron musical du nombre d’orcomme poétique” [John Chowning’sStria or the Musical Oxymoron: ThePoetics of the Golden Mean]. In hisdiscussion, Mr. Bossis devotes usefulspace to an explanation of the GoldenMean and how Mr. Chowning ap-plied it to FM synthesis and the cre-ation of unique timbres andharmonic relationships. Mr. Bossisalso contributes a very short discus-sion of Phoné (1981).

These analyses are augmented bythe presentations on the associatedWeb site (cited above). Graphic out-lines of the pieces are linked to audiorecordings, enabling the listener tofollow along. Being able to take infor-mation gleaned in the articles to thepieces themselves is of great value,in my opinion. One may be limitedin terms of sonic quality (the audioon the Web is compressed), but theavid listener could then go on to thecompact disc recording of the works(Wergo WER 2012-50), still avail-

able from various sources (such ascdemusic.org).Each of the articles in this book in-

cludes bibliographic references, andthe final two pages include a listingof articles authored by Mr. Chown-ing, interviews, and a few otheritems. I have no idea why an inter-view by Denis Mercier would belisted under “In Collaboration with

John Chowning” [En collaborationavec . . . ] when another interview byE. Krick would be listed under “OnJohn Chowning” [À propos de . . . ].In that category, cassette and phono-graph recordings from IRCAM pre-senting Stria are listed as references,along with a biographical entry byE. Ruth Anderson. I doubt the audioitems would be available anywhereoutside of the IRCAM reference li-brary, but hopefully they are at leastaccessible there.

In conclusion, this is a valuablestudy of an important figure in com-puter music. There do not appear to beany plans to publish an English ver-sion, but perhaps that is because wehaven’t requested it strongly enough!In the meantime, pull out yourFrench–English dictionary, if youhave to, and get started. And do checkout the Web site at GRM; it’s a greatreference in itself (and there are plansto translate parts of it to English).

Douglas Spotted Eagle: Vegas5Editing Workshop, 2nd Edition

Softcover, 2004, ISBN 1- 57820-257-4,447 pages, illustrated, with DVD-ROM, US$ 49.95; Published by CMPBooks as part of the Digital Video Ex-pert Series, 600 Harrison Street, SanFrancisco, California 94107, USA;Web www.cmpbooks.com.

Reviewed by Jim HearonHonolulu, Hawaii, USA

This book is an update of Vegas4Editing Workshop, and follows up onrecent developments in the Vegassoftware, including Sony’s HDCAM/DVCAM acquisition and editingtools. Vegas has been upgradingyearly, normally previewing at Na-tional Association of Broadcasters(NAB) convention, and announcingtheir upgrade version shortly after-


wards. More recent improvements inVegas6 continue with digital cameraacquisition tools and do not substan-tially change the basic audio or videoengine, thus while this book is a solidguide to Vegas5, it will also functionwell for Vegas6.

The audio engine has always beenat the core of what Vegas is all aboutas a non-linear editor. Vegas Videogrew out of the audio engine that wasVegas Audio which has always beena solid hard-disk recording and edit-

ing program. Now Vegas5 featuressurround-sound plug-ins for audio en-coding and has panning buses for 5.1channel mixing. The book does notdwell on these features of Vegas5,which are numerous; rather, in as-suming the reader is familiar withthe rich feature set and menus, itpresents an insider’s point of view onhow to use several of those featuresand move to expert level for more ad-vanced project work. For example,author Douglas Spotted Owl writesabout how to use an external MIDI

device to control the software in Ve-gas. This, combined with softwareautomation, a nice set of DSP and FXplug-ins, integration of your favoriteaudio editor, and surround-soundpanning buses, gives you enough au-dio tools that you never have to leavethe track sheet environment to startworking with video.

The layout, editing, and look of thevideo tracks in Vegas come from theearly audio multitrack recorder envi-ronment which is what I like, as op-posed to working with a timeline and

separate windows. Thus, the abilityto organize and scroll through audioand video tracks in one windowworks well for me. One of the book’sbest chapters on video is appropri-ately about composting, which is alsoone of the strongest features of thevideo engine. Additional chaptershighlight filmic aspects of Vegas5.

Another aspect of Vegas I like is

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Publications

the availability of interesting videoplug-ins and there is a short chapterin the book showing interestingvideo effects achieved from usingsome of these plug-ins. The programcomes with several Sony plug-ins foraudio and video processing as well,and the ability to encode into a vari-ety of file formats including a newSony YUV 4:2:2 codec for delivery ofStandard Definition files which canlater be encoded/decoded into a vari-ety of file formats.

The DVD-ROM included with thebook contains source video files,stock stills, ACID loops, sample Ve-gas project files, two bonus chaptersleft out of the book, demo and freesoftware, a collection of legal formssuch as Copyright forms, Locationreleases for the independent film-maker, and several free and trial-useplug-ins.

Vegas is plenty powerful for ren-dering to MPEG file format and usingthe companion DVD-Architect2 formultiplexing and burning to DVD-

Video. For High Definition (HD)video, if one is lucky enough to haveaccess to Sony peripherals such as anHDCam, JH3 Tape Playback Deck,Xpri, and an HDCam Recorder Deck,then Vegas can help you develop 24pEDLs (Edit Decision Lists) as uncom-pressed AVI files using the Xpri.These can then be sent to a posthouse for mastering or used to make24p DVDs in NTSC or PAL. An alter-native to Xpri now exists in version 6of Vegas with the DeckLink softwareand PCI card support for both Apple

Mac OS X and Microsoft WindowsXP for capturing, editing, monitoring,and printing-to-tape using the SDI(serial digital interface) format in 10-bit uncompressed video. For largerHD projects, the book includes a“how-to” guide on network rendering(render farming), a helpful start forsetting up distributed rendering.

Vegas is extremely powerful as a

computer-based nonlinear editor forthe home user, and is also in use atthe upper end of project studio workand in the corporate environment formedia production as well. There arealso educational discounts for site li-censes available for using the pro-gram in the school computer lab.With recent software upgrades forease of digital camera acquisition, Ve-gas clearly seems headed in the direc-tion of integrating this software foruse with Sony hardware and utilizing

those features for nonlinear editing ofdigital film.I found the book easy to read, and

the examples are clearly produced byan experienced user. The book is bestused after gaining a little bit of expe-rience with Vegas and becomingready to move to a higher level ofuser proficiency rather than as astarting point for working with thesoftware. A lot of software instruc-tional guides become muddled in theamount of time spent on the intro-duction of technical aspects, navigat-

ing you through the menus andfeatures, revealing tips and tricks, ordwelling on areas of specialization.Vegas5 Editing Workshop has hit justthe right note, includes a good mix oftopics, and will most definitely helpimprove your user techniques andworkflow.

Marina Bosi and Richard E.Goldberg: Introduction to DigitalAudio Coding and Standards

Hardcover, 2003, ISBN 1-4020-7357-7, 434 pages, introduction byLeonardo Chiariglione, US$144.00;Kluwer Academic Publishers (nowknown as Springer Science+BusinessMedia Inc.), 101 Philip Drive,Assinippi Park, Norwell, Massachu-setts, USA; telephone (+1) 781-681-0537; fax (+1) 781-681-9045; Webwww.springerlink.com/.

97

Reviewed by Bob L. SturmSanta Barbara, California, USA

Stanford University’s well-knownCenter for Computer Research inMusic and Acoustics (CCRMA) hasoffered a class since 1997 that intro-duces digital audio coding by a lead-ing researcher in the field, Dr. MarinaBosi. By the end students not onlyunderstand the concepts behind au-dio coding, but are able to create afunctional encoder and decoder—

known together as a codec—for audiosignals. As the authors state in thepreface, “The ultimate goal of theclass, and now of this book, is to pres-ent the student and reader with asolid enough understanding of themajor issues in the theory and imple-mentation of perceptual audio codersthat they are able to build their ownsimple audio codec” (p. xvii). Thetext traverses the wide range of sub-jects necessary for accomplishingthis task, from as basic as how analogsignals can be represented with dis-

crete bits to as complex as how anhour of CD-quality audio can be rep-resented with 60 megabytes (MB) in-stead of 600. The numerous readingsand notes given in the six years theclass has been offered before the pub-lication of this book, which has in-cluded technical articles, bookchapters, and standards documenta-tion, has been summarized and com-piled in a natural way by Ms. Bosiand Mr. Goldberg. The end result is abook that can serve both as a classtext and as a reference.

Actually, understanding digital au-dio coding is essential for an under-standing of all the technology thatsurrounds the computer musician,from the tools used to create musicto the methods used to distribute it.For instance, the technology behindthe CD, DVD, and MP3 are all madepossible by audio coding techniques.This text will aid the reader in under-

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standing the state-of-the-art in digitalaudio coding without having to readthrough numerous complex stan-dards documents.

The book is arranged in two majorsections, and has 15 chapters in total.The first and largest part (chapters 1–10) presents audio coding methodsfrom the basics, like digital represen-tations and the frequency domain, tomore complex topics like the modi-fied discrete cosine transform andperceptually informed bit allocation.

The second part (chapters 11–15) goesinto detail about numerous audiocoding standards, from MPEG-1 tothe still developing MPEG-4, offeringa great history and overview of cur-rent developments in audio coding.

The first chapter introduces thefield of audio coding and providesmotivation for learning representa-tion schemes more complex thanpulse code modulation, namely tobetter utilize bandwidth. Chapter 2 isdevoted entirely to quantization, orthe limited precision of digital repre-

sentations. One of the topics in thischapter, Huffman coding, is essentialto completely understanding theideas behind MPEG-1 Layer III, orMP3. A brief excursion into mathe-matics is taken in chapter 3, whereuseful concepts like the Fouriertransform and the frequency domainare presented. The most importanttheorem of digital audio, the sam-pling theorem, is also presented.

Chapters 4 and 5 are the real meatof the book, introducing psuedo-quadrature mirror filtering (PQMF),

the discrete Fourier transform (DFT),and the modified discrete Cosinetransform (MDCT). These chaptersrequire devoted concentration andcross-referencing to fully understandthe material. These topics are essen-tial, because they form the centralcomponents in modern audio codingalgorithms. For instance, the PQMFallows one to split an audio signal

into many frequency-isolated signalsfor more efficient processing, and toreassemble the sub-bands withoutdistortion and without increasing thedata rate. This technique is used inMPEG-1 Layer I and II coders. TheDFT and MDCT are presented inchapter 5; they are used in MPEG-2AAC, for example. Instead of con-volving blocks of a signal by PQMFimpulse responses, transform-basedcoders window the signal and use theDFT to work directly in the frequency

domain. Overlapping windows wouldincrease the data rate were it not forits time-domain aliasing cancellationproperty. Together, the PQMF andMDCT are used in cascade in theMPEG-1 Layer III codec.

The final four chapters of the firstpart of the book introduce psychoa-coustics and perceptual audio coding,and illustrate the benefits of takingadvantage of human auditory limits.Chapter 6 provides an introduction tothe science of psychoacoustics, fromthe hearing threshold and Fletcher-

Munson curves to the phenomena oftime and frequency masking. The fi-nal part of this chapter presents theanatomy of the ear and how it works.Chapter 7 introduces models of hear-ing for use in audio coding. These aremotivated by the idea that if certainparts of the spectrum of a signal areinaudible due to masking, fewer bitscan be allocated to those parts be-cause the resulting distortions willnot be heard. Methods for distribut-ing the bits are the subject of the nextchapter. Here one finally sees how 10

MB of audio can be represented in 1MB or less with little to no loss inquality.

The goal of the book, assembling acodec that takes advantage of humanperceptual limits, is the subject of thepenultimate chapter of the first sec-tion. Here the authors discuss howthe various pieces that have beenstudied fit together. From the compu-


tation of masking curves, to the con-tent of the file headers, and even tosome comments on the business ofthe deployment of codecs, this chap-ter is the last thing one needs to buildan audio codec, provided one alreadyhas programming experience. Afterthis then, all that is left is to measurethe quality of your implementationon a variety of sources, and fine-tuneyour system. How to do so withinprofessional guidelines, and the vari-ous artifacts created by the coding of

audio, is the subject of the final chap-ter of the first half.Part 2 of the book goes into detail

about five audio coding standards:MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 AAC,Dolby AC-3, and MPEG-4. Thesestandards, as applied to audio, are allmeant to provide methods to codeaudio in perceptually lossless waysby incorporating psychoacousticmodels. Chapter 11 presents a historyof several MPEG standards and thegoals each is meant to accomplish.The MPEG-1 audio standard, a speci-

fication for reducing the data rate forhigh quality audio synchronized tovideo, is then presented in detail.This standard led to the developmentof MPEG-1 Layer III format, or theMP3 format that many know andlove. The functional blocks of eachlayer are discussed and their differ-ences pointed out. The psychoa-coustic models and bit allocationschemes used in MPEG-1 are pre-sented as well.

MPEG-2 audio is the subject ofchapter 12. This standard is meant to

improve upon MPEG-1 audio forlower data rates and multichannelaudio applications. Achieving this re-quires lower sampling rates, whichrepresents a reduction in signalbandwidth. This, however, is an ac-ceptable compromise for some appli-cations, like browsing music online.Multichannel audio is introducednext, and how it is encoded into a

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Recordings

two-channel standard is presented.An extension to MPEG-2, known asAdvanced Audio Coding (AAC) ispresented in chapter 13. This stan-dard addresses the limitations im-posed on MPEG-2 by the requirementthat it be backwards compatible withMPEG-1. Without this restriction,MPEG-2 AAC allows sampling ratesof up to 96 kHz, 48 channels of soundwith various loudspeaker configura-tions, and superior sounding audioquality at higher bit rates.

The next chapter presents a stan-dard outside the realm of MPEG,Dolby Digital (AC-3). This format isused for DVD and High Definitiontelevision. Like MPEG-2, AC-3 ismeant to support multichannel audioaccompanying video. It supports upto five channels in various configura-tions. Unique to this format is itsflexibility in letting users specify dif-ferent settings such as dynamics con-trol, different speaker configurations,and multilingual support.

The final chapter deals with the

MPEG-4 audio standard. Unlike theprevious MPEG standards, MPEG-4is a broad collection of specificationsand tools for “media objects” such asstill images, video, and audio, and in-cludes functions that can alter them,such as special effects. In this way itis not a single algorithm for the cod-ing of audiovisual data. It is meant toaddress a wide range of scalable appli-cations, such as digital broadcasting,mobile communication, and interac-tive multimedia, at numerous datarates. The tools it contains include

tools for speech coding and synthesis,high-quality audio coding, sound syn-thesis, and even tools for intellectualproperty management.

The authors do an excellent job re-lating the numerous topics coveredin the book to the main goal of creat-ing an audio codec. In many placesthey mention which coding standardsuse the information just presented.

The reader understands at once theimportance and applicability of thematerial. Because this book is in-tended in part to enable a reader todesign and build a codec, whether itis compliant or not with existingstandards, the authors are thoughtfulenough to include at the end of eachchapter key references, as well aspractical exercises for a deeper under-standing of the material. These exer-cises, most of which requireprogramming of some kind, are great.

I was able to do most of them usingMATLAB, but with many free andopen-source audio libraries available,they could just as easily be done inanother language.

Two unfortunate problems withthis text are the figures and the equa-tions. All the figures are in black andwhite, which becomes a problemwhen a graph has several lines thatcannot be discerned one from another.Usually the figures can be properlyinterpreted, but having to spend timedecoding it because of formatting is

annoying. The formatting of all of theequations in the text is also trouble-some. First there are no equationnumbers, so referencing an equationfrom within the text is usually lim-ited to paragraphs near its appearance.Second, some of the equations areformatted like they were copied andpasted from an ASCII text file, ren-dering them difficult to read. Lastly,the notation is inconsistent. In manyequations, but not all, the use of “*”denotes multiplication. Returning tothe text for reference at a later time I

had considerable confusion as to whytwo windows were being convolvedinstead of multiplied. With no sym-bol table included with the text, I hadto find the first instance of their sym-bol for convolution (“°”).

Introduction to Digital Audio Cod- ing and Standards is quite straight-forward and is a welcome summaryof the numerous and sometimes-

99

obfuscating standards documents. Itpresents all topics relevant to audiocoding in a logically arranged order,which is something that instructorsand students who use this text willappreciate.

Recordings

Leslie Stuck: PasCompact disc, c74-008, 2003; avail-able from Cycling ’74, 379AClementina Street, San Francisco,California 94103, USA; telephone(+1) 415-974-1818; fax (+1) 415-974-1812; electronic mail [email protected]; Web www.cycling74.com/c74/.

Reviewed by Peter V. SwendsenCharlottesville, Virginia, USA

Few computer music composers are

as intensely and exclusively commit-ted to scoring for dance as LeslieStuck. Although this deprives con-cert audiences of his provocative mu-sic, it serves to highlight hisinfatuation with movement and hisskill for creating its sonic surround-ings. Mr. Stuck’s recent compactdisc, Pas, grants everyone a glimpseinto the vibrant soundworld thatdance audiences have been enjoyingfor many years. Spanning ten years ofwork realized in collaboration withchoreographers in Europe, Japan, and

on both U.S. coasts, the compositionson Pas allude to their fundamentalrelationship with dance while alsostanding firmly on purely musicalground. There is movement to befound and felt in this music whetheryou are performing to it onstage orlistening to it while sitting at home.

It is worth mentioning at the out-set that any critical treatment of this

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music is incomplete without a simul-taneous consideration of the choreog-raphy with which it resides on stage(though such attention is largely be-yond the scope of this review). This isparticularly the case with Mr. Stuck’smusic not because his compositionsdo not deserve independent analysisand response, but rather because Mr.Stuck places tremendous importanceon creating a meaningful, intimate,and non-hierarchical relationship be-tween sound and movement. Having

experienced some of the pieces pre-sented on Pas in concert, I can assureyou that he succeeds in this enterprise.

Though each of the six pieces onPas has its own distinct character andenergy, there are certain qualitiesthey all share: crispness, rhythmicvigor, allusions to or direct use ofacoustic instruments, and justenough whimsical sound objects tokeep you guessing while submergedin an inventive soundworld. Theopening piece, special x, exemplifiesMr. Stuck’s predilection for acoustic

instruments, which he samples, pro-cesses, and assembles to great effect.Though at times the timbres of spe-cial x sound slightly dated to 2005ears, the soundworld in general is in-credibly precise as Mr. Stuck playswith the boundaries of source recog-nition, letting each sonic elementhave its say, until an undeniablerhythmic insistency emerges.

Soothing the Enemy uses a berim-bau as its primary—or at least mostrecognizable—sound source. This is amore compelling starting point thanthe collection of instruments in spe-cial x. Perhaps Mr. Stuck agrees, asthe berimbau samples often appearwithout extensive processing. Thereis also ample space in the gestureshere, one of many indications on Pasof Mr. Stuck’s sensitivity to the needfor moments of silence, even if theyare brief. This sonic prudence bene-

fits the music and especially suc-ceeds in the dance theater, when anunsympathetic constancy of soundand movement can easily overwhelman audience. Soothing the Enemy istight and focused, its rhythmic groovesupporting a satisfying use of spatialmovement and registral ranges.Though it is included here as an ex-cerpt of the longer original work, itfeels whole and well structured.

The more limited pitch world ofmaxi-zub makes its rhythmic charac-ter all the more driving. A single high

piano note instigates much of the ad-ditive action here, as other pianosounds and sampled material snap toan unyielding metric grid. Hereagain, one can witness Mr. Stuck’sability to assist, but not overwhelm,the dance for which he composes.Though the rhythmic foundation ofmazi-zub seems poised to support ex-tended melodic and harmonic lines,Mr. Stuck keeps these to a minimum,granting the choreographer and audi-ence their own gestural space inwhich to function.

Pas is at its most organic in Con-volution, a composition with wider-ranging gestures and formaldepartures than its counterparts. Itsmodulations in size, space, and moodcarry Convolution on a living andbreathing path through sparseness,self-invention, and frenetic density.Though it stumbles into a slightlymeandering section in the middle


(quite possibly a choreography-necessitated restraint in Mr. Stuck’sotherwise active score), its formalshape is both welcoming and imagi-native. As is the case in other pieceson Pas, Convolution breaks down toa minimal collection of sounds andgestures about two-thirds of the waythrough the piece. However, in thiscase, the rebuilding that occurs as thepiece approaches its end never quiteattains the ferment heard earlier, atactful touch that leaves one wanting

more after an engaging nine minutes.The aptly titled Go sneaks into thefray as the penultimate piece on Pas.This frantic miniature is electric andbubbling. It both flies by and allowsyou to get lost in its midst, like thetwo minutes when you decide youare fed up with your list of demandsfor the day and pull quickly onto thatinviting back road that will whiskyou out to the country, where youcan drive fast and open the windows.

Mondriaan was the first piece ofMr. Stuck’s that I experienced in con-

cert, paired with the intense andfinely crafted choreography of MaryCochran. Though complete conjec-ture on my part, the title perhapsrefers to Mr. Stuck’s algorithmiccompositional processes, which areemployed throughout Pas, and whichecho the painter Piet Mondriaan’sweighted grids in their rhythmic char-acter and subtle shifts of focus. In anycase, this final piece is wonderfullycinematic. Its sounds have character,it plays with perceptions of fore-ground and background, and its rhyth-

mic and gestural “cuts” keep thepacing fresh and engaging. Sampledsound objects pop out from a linger-ing and lush texture of strings, everyso often initiating a tangential depar-ture that sometimes succeeds in lead-ing the piece to new territory andsometimes is thwarted by a reasser-tion of existing material. At times itfeels like a struggle between nature

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Multimedia

and industry, at others like you arestanding on a knife-edged peak whereon one side of you is the most amaz-ing view you have ever had and onthe other is a fall to certain death.

Given his dedication to the venue,the collaborators with which heworks, and most importantly, the en-ergy and quality of his work, it is clearthat anyone even remotely interestedin composing for dance (or dancing tonew music) should immediately fa-miliarize themselves with Mr. Stuck’s

music. But other listeners, composers,and computer musicians in generalwould do well to explore the works onPas. Their rhythmic invention alonemakes them well worth a listen, withsuperior sonic features, high-level pro-duction, and finely crafted structuresthrown in as a bonus. Experience Mr.Stuck’s music live if you can, as it isa real treat to see choreography andmusic interact so convincingly, butin any case, do take advantage of fi-nally having this appealing collectionin portable CD form.

Multimedia

Toni Dove: Sally or the BubbleBurst

DVD-ROM, 2003, Bustlelamp Pro-ductions, US$ 49; available from Cy-cling ’74, 379A Clementina Street,San Francisco, California 94103,

USA; telephone (+1) 415-974-1818;fax (+1) 415-974-1812; electronic [email protected]; Web www.cycling74.com/.

Reviewed by S. Lyn GoeringerSeattle, Washington, USA

Sally or The Bubble Burst is an inter-active DVD-ROM written, directed,

and designed by Toni Dove. It is anexcerpt from a larger work-in-progresstitled Spectropia. The DVD takes youthrough different scenarios in whichyou can interact and observe variouscharacters, including Sally, who wasdesigned by Toni Dove and based ona real life burlesque/nude dancerfrom the early-to-mid part of the lastcentury, Sally Rand. Through the useof Max/MSP and Jitter, the disc is de-signed so that you can interactwithin certain segments through a

speech recognition program, a com-puter keyboard, or through move-ment of a computer mouse. It canonly be operated on Macintosh plat-forms (Macintosh OS 9.1–9.2.2 orMax OS X 10.2 or later; a microphoneis required to use the speech recogni-tion capabilities of the work).

The main menu of the DVD hasfour options, which I will describebriefly. The first option is to play theprogram, the second is to play “SallySings,” and then there are two pre-views of coming attractions from Ms.

Dove: Artificial Changelings andSpectropia (which is the project Sally or The Bubble Burst is a part of).

When you play the program, a newmenu screen comes up. You maychoose here to speak directly to Sallyusing the speech recognition pro-gram, or you may interact with herusing your keyboard. After making aselection, you may select one of threezones within which to interact withSally and the other characters in theworld she inhabits.

In Zone 1, you are able to have a

conversation with Sally. The conver-sations are based on either speechrecognition or typed-word recogni-tion. If you are typing in your ques-tions and responses to Sally, theconversation seems to be brief and tooffer less varied responses. If youhave a spoken conversation withSally, the conversation lasts longerand the responses seem to have more

101

variation. The content of the conver-sation comes from quotes eitherabout the actual life of Sally Rand, orat times even quotes from the actualSally Rand. The comment she offers

when discussing whether you findher performance shocking that “somepeople probably would want to putpants on a horse,” was originallymade by Superior Judge Joseph B.David (19 July 1933) when discussingcharges brought forward relating toher performance at the ChicagoWorld’s Fair in 1933.

There are several strange things thatoccur while carrying on the conversa-tion with Sally in Zone 1. Most no-ticeably, the computer gets responseseasily confused. The operation man-

ual suggests using a noise-cancelingmicrophone to help with this prob-lem, but it is still interesting to notethe strangeness of some confusions.When you speak a word clearly, thecomputer repeats the word back toyou as Sally is responding. This repe-tition can alleviate some confusionin her responses. As she speaks, eachword is presented as a separate facial

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expression, creating a video-collagedsentence. After running this aspect ofthe program multiple times andnoticing there were several storedsentences, it became unclear to mewhy the collage element was neces-sary. Her responses could be morefluid visually, though more memorymay need to be used to create a sys-tem in which to do this.

Another feature of Zone 1 is theability to manually select keys tochange Sally’s expression. You are

also supposed to be able to typewords for her to speak as well, al-though I could not get this aspect ofthe program to function. The expres-sions were possible to obtain by se-lecting letters on the keyboard.

Zone 2 allows you to hear from theobjects surrounding Sally on the set.There is a radio, a small clear whitebubble, a larger bubble on a blackfloor, a chair, and a shawl. By clickingon these objects you can hear whatthey have to say, and each object hasmultiple responses, so you can click

on them several times to hear sev-eral comments and commentariesfrom them. Each object offers itsown social commentary on the Great

Depression and on consumerism.This is the least interactive aspect ofthe disc.

I found Zone 3 to be the most com-pletely realized part of the project.Utilizing mouse tracking and/orvoice recognition, you are able to di-rect the movement of the characterSally dancing with a bubble as well asuse your voice to have her sing along.It is possible to change the sample re-sponse rate. The video is quitesmooth, and very predictable, allow-

ing you to move the mouse as thoughyou were dancing with her. The mu-sic that accompanies the videos isalso linked to the mouse, and itspeeds up or slows down with themovement of the mouse.

On the main menu there is anotheroption, which is to play “Sally Sings.”You have the option to get her to singthree pre-programmed songs: Daisy Bell, You Made Me Love You, andOut Of No Where. You also have theoption to have her sing notes youplay by clicking on a keyboard on the

screen or through your computerkeyboard. This portion contains thesame collage style found in Zone 1 ofthe primary program on the disc.


On the whole, the product wouldbe useful to instructors wanting togive a brief introduction to some ofthe capabilities of a combinedMax/MSP and Jitter environment.When combined with the informa-tion on the Coming Attraction trail-ers for Artificial Changelings andSpectropia, it would allow an instruc-tor to show some of the possibilitieswithin an interactive video installa-tion and performance environment.Unfortunately, the DVD does not de-

liver as much of interest to the indi-vidual user, as it seems to be ademonstrative video rather than aninteractive environment that woulddraw you back again and again. Theresponses and interaction betweenthe participant and the characters aspresented in Sally can be almost ex-hausted after an hour of pursuing thepossibilities. As an installation, thiscan be very effective, but as an in-home product, it is not very satisfy-ing. The project does not reduce wellto a DVD-ROM, and is best suited for

a large installation space, where wewould be expected to interact withthe characters for only a brief mo-ment of time.