1. Introduction
In Edgard Varèse’s article ‘The Liberation of Sound’ (which is a collection of his lectures from 1936 to 1962), he spoke of ‘[his] fight for the liberation of sound and for [a composer’s] right to make music with any sound and all sounds’ (Varèse 1966: 14). The talks documented within this article were given at a time when composers were beginning, with the aid of technological advancements, to ‘satisfy the dictates of that inner ear of the imagination’ (Varèse 1966: 18). Varèse’s view on music was that it was simply ‘organised sound’ (Varèse 1966: 18) and he envisaged (in a talk he gave in 1936) a machine that would faithfully reproduce any and all conceivable sound (1966: 12). With current technology, composers are no longer solely dependent on an instrument’s capability and can imagine their musical ideas through the manipulation of recorded sounds or through the synthesis of new ones.
As technology has continued to advance, musicians and artists have harnessed the new instruments to create a plethora of genres and categoriesFootnote 1 under the umbrella term ‘electroacoustic music’.Footnote 2 However, this liberation of sound posed a problem, as there is no general consensus for how to conduct an analysis of such a work. In 1999 Landy wrote ‘there still seems to be relatively too little musical analysis of note within the electroacoustic field and, in my view, too few discussions concerning which techniques are appropriate for the analysis of sonic works including those of the popular sorts’ (1999: 68). A sentiment agreed by Roy (Reference Roy2003: 43 translated by Gatt Reference Gatt2014), who argues ‘the lack of interest in the analysis of electroacoustic music is perhaps due to the fact that the legitimacy of the analytical approach has yet to be defined, while there exists many means to analyse tonal music’. The question posed by this article is: is there a need for a single all-encompassing analytical methodology that can analyse all types of electroacoustic works? Rather than attempting to appropriate existing tools meant for traditional musics or create a new universal one, this article will argue that a new culture should be adopted that promotes different opinions on the subject of electroacoustic music analysis, as opposed to defining a consensus as to how it should be conducted. This approach will consider an analysis of a work as a single unique perspective that encourages multiple interpretations from different analysts in order to form an overall understanding. To achieve this, the concept of an analytical community will be proposed along with an example of an online platform designed to accommodate such an initiative. The platform that will be discussed is called the Online Repository of Electroacoustic Music Analysis (OREMA) project and encompasses open access initiatives to achieve these aims.
2. Theory
Although some attempts have been made to create a formalised analytical methodology, it does not seem this is the best solution for all electroacoustic music. As electroacoustic music does not necessarily have to conform to the traditional parameters of music (such as melody, harmony or rhythmFootnote 3) many of the analytical tools meant for traditionally scored music cannot be appropriated directly. Furthermore, many electroacoustic musics do not present a score and therefore ‘no “pre-segmented” discrete units like notes’ (Delalande Reference Delalande1998: 14) to begin an analytical investigation. The object of study for many instances of electroacoustic music is a fixed media piece (the most obvious example of this would be acousmatic musicFootnote 4), or at the other extreme a fleeting experience that might be specific to a particular event or space (e.g. works that are interactive, indeterminate or site-specific in nature). Much of Schaeffer’s Traité was an attempt to legitimise the new musical material being used, but he himself admitted that another book was needed to account for the organisation of this material (Schaeffer Reference Schaeffer1966: 663). Landy (Reference Landy2007: 137) argues that the ‘emancipation’ of electroacoustic music has meant that some composers have ‘lost [their] way’ with respect to structure and it is only more recently with tools such as Smalley’s spectromorphology (1997) and Roy’s grille fonctionnelle (2003) that these issues have begun to be addressed. However, these tools are still, generally, only concerned with music that is acousmatic in nature.Footnote 5 As of yet there are no specific tools that could address the varying pertinent features within, for example, sound installations.Footnote 6
I should address that many of the issues raised so far in this article do not only relate to electroacoustic music. Musical analysis, in the broadest sense, is simply the ‘the resolution of a musical structure into relatively simpler constituent elements, and the investigation of the functions of those elements, within that structure’ (Bent Reference Bent1980: 340). The existence of a score, although it can be considered an ‘unsystematic analysis of musical sound [that] sacrifices [a] detailed representation in the interests of clarity’ (Cook Reference Cook1994: 16), does not resolve these issues. As Nattiez (Reference Nattiez1990: 73) states, ‘from an analytical standpoint, notation is an image – imperfect but indispensable – of that notation’s sonorous equivalent’. Cook (Reference Cook1994: 2) has also commented on the problems in musical analysis where certain musicologists have only analysed a work to ‘prove the validity of [their] analytical method’, rather than provide a unique perspective of a work, believing their analysis to be the only relevant understanding. The main difference between traditionally scored music analysis and electroacoustic analysis is that there are no formalised analytical methodologies, such as Schenkerian analysis, that can be readily applied (provided the analyst understands its scope and limitations) to a work in order to provide a perspective.Footnote 7 Varèse (Reference Varèse1966: 18) would argue that having no universal formalised analytical methodology for electroacoustic music is fundamentally positive since he feared the ‘esthetic codification’ of electronic music. If we follow Varèse’s beliefs, then a new culture, which complements the creativity and limitless possibilities of electroacoustic music (in both its artistic intention and its musical output), needs to be adopted for the analysis of such music as well. Therefore, a solution (rather than develop a new analytical tool that would codify electroacoustic music) would be to provide a platform that allows an analyst the freedom to express and share their own understanding of a work without being constrained to a set of formalised methodologies that only provide one perspective.Footnote 8
Analysis as a perspective on a work is the fundamental concept of the proposed universal strategy for electroacoustic music analysis. To consider analysis as a perspective on a work is to confirm Nattiez’s (Reference Nattiez1990: 168) argument that ‘there is never only one valid musical analysis for a given work’. Instead, an analysis is merely a map that highlights certain elements of a work, through omission and relation (Cook Reference Cook1994: 16), depending on the methodology taken and the analyst’s intentions:
an analysis that does not simplify the music for you is really a complete waste of time. After all, there is no virtue in reduction as such: only in the kind of reduction that makes something intelligible to you that wasn’t otherwise. (Cook Reference Cook1994: 24)
Furthermore, it is arguable whether we as listeners hear/experience a work in the same way. As Schaeffer (Reference Schaeffer1998: 13) stated ‘[we] will finally have to admit that each one of us hears with different ears: sometimes too refined, sometimes too coarse, but in any event always “informed” by all kinds of prejudices and preconditioned education’. Moreover, many scholars agree that music analysis ‘does not provide any objective information about a work’ (Boesch Reference Boesch1996: 229) and that the very existence of an observer pre-empts the possibility of total objectivity (Bent Reference Bent1980: 343). Within my thesis ‘Tools for Understanding Electroacoustic Music’ (2014), I have argued that there is no such thing as an objective analysis. Instead, the concept of the authentic subjective analysis was raised. The concept argues that all analyses are subjective since, ‘no matter how objective an investigation might seem the choices in focus and the chosen elements of the analysis ultimately make any analysis subjective and specific to a conscious, or indeed subconscious, perspective’ (Gatt Reference Gatt2014: 110). In other words, the analyst, when implementing a formalised methodology to a work, is defining the scope of the investigation and, therefore, the eventual outcome. By allowing the analyst to define the investigation by any means they deem fit, it permits non-specialists the opportunity to express their perspectives through perhaps non-formalised analytical methodologies.
Non-formalised analyses, unlike those based on formalised methodologies, offer a different means to communicate a perspective on a work. A number of studies into different areas of non-formalised analyses, such as semiotics, phenomenology and hermeneutics, have taken place for music with some specific examples of their application to electroacoustic music.Footnote 9 More importantly, non-formalised analyses offer non-specialists the possibility to express their perspective on a work without an understanding of the potential compositional process. Kramer’s (Reference Kramer2011: 144) argument was that for scored music ‘even the simplest descriptions, say the labelling of an interval or a chord, call on an assumed body of technical knowledge that, at least initially, does not seem to point beyond itself’. This article is not advocating that either approach to analysis is better, rather that a variety of investigations are healthy in forming an overall understanding of a work that is not construed to one perspective. However, there might be certain genres and categories that would be better suited to specific types of investigations because of their musical structure or performance scenario. For example, a formalised analytical methodology might provide interesting results when applied to an acousmatic work that follows a known and understood compositional rhetoric. Yet the same methodology, when applied to an open-form work, might not produce any useful information because the work does not conform to the same compositional rules or even performance outcome. Ultimately, when one begins an analysis, one should always consider the objectives of the study, the object being analysed (which for certain genres and categories of electroacoustic music is not apparent) and the intended outcomes of the investigation. These three areas are particularly important to consider before one undertakes an analysis since the objectives of the study (or the questions one is trying to answer) will fundamentally affect, or at least influence, the chosen analytical methodology, which in turn will dictate how the investigation is communicated to the readers.Footnote 10 Furthermore, the overall focus of the analysis adds another dimension to the potential plethora of analytical possibilities. To simplify the investigation, one might choose to focus on the production and composition of a work, which might include the composer’s intentions, or choose to concentrate on his or her, or indeed other people’s, reception and interpretation of the work. There are also, of course, analyses that try to marry both these approaches in order to understand if listeners have understood the composer’s intentions.Footnote 11 When considering all of this, the potential scope of analytical possibilities, even for one work, can be vast and everyone, regardless of their perceived understanding of the greater canon of electroacoustic works, can provide a perspective.
When combining many authentic subjective analyses, one could start to piece together a general understanding of a work (not a consensus), much like different maps when combined provide a multifaceted overview of a terrain. These separate analyses do not have to agree on the same perspective and within the concept of this universal approach it is encouraged that analyses conflict with one another to demonstrate how different auditors can interpret and understand a work. Surowiecki’s (Reference Surowiecki2004) concept of the Wisdom of the Crowds argues that diversity in opinions is essential in making good collective decisions; when a community works effectively, providing different opinions, they are what Surowiecki (Reference Surowiecki2004: 4) terms a ‘wise crowd’. I have already argued that the electroacoustic community already meets three of the four criteria of a wise crowd (Gatt Reference Gatt2013):Footnote 12 the final criterion that was not meet was aggregation, which Surowiecki (Reference Surowiecki2004: 74) states is a means to pool collative research together whilst still allowing for diversity in opinions. Therefore, what is lacking is a platform to provide such interaction between community members. The OREMA website was an initial attempt to accommodate such a community.
3. The Orema Project Website
The OREMA project was a community-based repository and forum for the analysis of electroacoustic music. As a platform, it provides a number of means to support the concept of an analytical community. One of its functions is to act as an avenue of publication, allowing members to publish to the website in two very distinct ways. The first is to submit an analysis to the community and the second is to submit an article to the eOREMA journal – a peer-reviewed open access journal.Footnote 13 These two avenues are an attempt to provide opportunities for any type of user and both provide certain advantages. Obviously contributions to the eOREMA journal have to go through a peer-review process before a final article is published, whilst direct submissions of an analysis can be uploaded at the user’s discretion. Since an analysis does not go through a peer-review process, the community can advise or comment on the contribution through the website. The contributor can then choose to refine his or her analysis following this interaction and can continue to do so even after they have published it. This means that any analysis could be changed anytime with all amendments being tracked by the website to show its evolution. Analyses of the same work are encouraged and then grouped together so that users are able to see the different perspectives and analytical methodologies that have been applied to a single work. Submissions to the eOREMA journal are not limited to just analyses of electroacoustic works and can cover a range of topics on the subject of electroacoustic music analysis. Issues of the eOREMA journal were intended to be release bi-annually; therefore contributors had to wait until their articles were reviewed and potentially released.
Another function of the OREMA website is to provide users with information related to the analysis of electroacoustic music. Often much of the research that has been undertaken is maintained within either books or online journals. As it is a specialised field, important texts may be written in a language that might not be understandable for all members due to the international nature of the electroacoustic community. What is more alarming is that some of the literature is, or indeed may, become grey literature where it might not be possible to find certain publications through conventional means.Footnote 14 There is also an associated cost to access such information, which means that much of the knowledge concerning electroacoustic music analysis (and indeed electroacoustic music in general) is out of reach for anyone who cannot afford to obtain it.Footnote 15 To counteract this, the OREMA website provides what is termed an ‘analytical toolbox’ containing community written articles detailing various analytical methodologies within the field. These articles act as a bank of knowledge for those users who do not have the means to access such information directly, providing references to the original cited material if users want to (or indeed can) investigate further. These articles function similarly to those held on Wikipedia, where any user can make amendments to the content in order to reach a community consensus through potential disagreement.Footnote 16 Again the articles can be edited at any time (by any registered user) and the evolution of each is tracked by the website.
Finally, the OREMA website accepts a variety of submissions that could be considered to fall under the umbrella term ‘electroacoustic music’. When the OREMA project was first introduced, five credos were announced to ensure focus within the community. The first of which was that the OREMA project community (would) analyse electroacoustic music in all its guises.Footnote 17 Some examples were given, such as acousmatic music, sound installations and electronica, but it was not specifically stated what constituted electroacoustic music, or indeed what would not be considered to fall within this scope. The interpretation was left to the community and this liberation produced some interesting contributions that will be discussed further on.
3.1. Building an analytical community
The OREMA project was the first attempt to build a platform for an analytical community in order to provide the aggregation that Surowiecki (Reference Surowiecki2004: 74) stated was necessary to satisfy the criteria of a ‘wise crowd’. Web 2.0 technologies were investigated to ascertain what potential platforms would be best suited to the project. Although initially launching on a MediaWiki platform,Footnote 18 the OREMA project website soon moved to Drupal,Footnote 19 as it offered more flexibility with regards to content management and ease of use for users.
A closed beta version of the OREMA website was released in March 2011. Only a select few participants (mostly UK postgraduate students studying electroacoustic music) were granted the ability to submit to the website at first in an attempt to create a cohesive group of users who would then act as ambassadors for the project once contributions opened up to the wider community. The aim was to set the foundations for a ‘needs-based commitment’ environment in which users continued to contribute to the project because of the net benefits they experienced from the community:
When net benefits are positive, members predict that they get sufficient rewards to warrant the time, effort, and frustration they spend on the community. When benefits are low and the costs of leaving the community are low, commitment will also be low. (Ren et al. Reference Ren, Kraut, Kiesler and Resnick2011: 105).
If the community were active and engaged with one another, then users would be more likely to contribute to the project. However, this type of interaction is in stark contrast to most other academic initiatives, which for legitimate reasons often need to work independently in order to protect any original ideas. This has inevitably created a culture in which ‘[some] scholars are still too focused on themselves and insufficiently attentive to the ways in which others value and define community’ (Renninger and Shumar Reference Renninger and Shumar2002: 372). The concept of the analytical community requires that those involved share and collaborate with one another freely. To allow for this, the OREMA project submissions were all maintained under a Creative Commons Licence, which allowed users to share and adapt the contributions of others.Footnote 20 The OREMA project encouraged participants to share the working files, if at all possible (be it AcousmographeFootnote 21 or EAnalysisFootnote 22 multimedia files), so that others could use these as a foundation to their own investigation.
Throughout the initial beta period I, as the organiser of the initiative, asked those within the community to contribute analyses. To provide both focus and contrast I suggested a different electroacoustic work every three months to the core participants. The choices of works were not arbitrary, but aimed at satisfying a number of criteria: they were short in duration, easily accessible (i.e. could be found on a number of CDs or on streaming services) and known to the majority of the community. The pieces that were chosen for the beta period were Dripsody (1955) by Hugh Le Caine, Étude aux chemins de fer (1948) by Pierre Schaeffer, Presque rien No.1 C (1970) by Luc Ferrari and Meattrapezoid (2008) by Merzbow. Meattrapezoid was the final work to be suggested to the community and, although perhaps not known by many of the community, was chosen to provide a variety of works and challenge the community within the beta period.
A year after the beta launch, the OREMA website was opened to the world allowing for anyone to create an account. Hoping that the core participants would act as ambassadors, no more works were suggested to the community to see if analyses would be submitted to the site through the users’ initiative. Although there were a number of interesting submissions to the website, contributions decreased in the subsequent months. To counteract this, the eOREMA journal was announced on October 2012 to provide another avenue of publication in an attempt to increase interest within the OREMA project. Although it was not intended to detract from contributions to the website, it did attract more interest because submissions were peer-reviewed.
Contributions were, in most cases, not organic and I would often have to approach users to ask them to contribute. Once I had stopped asking for submissions, the contributions diminished to a select few of enthusiastic participants. The eOREMA journal was the only instance where contributions were received from contributors completely unknown to me as editor, but still in some cases I had to continue to chase writers who had contacted me to express interest.
3.2. Outcomes
Many different analyses were submitted to the OREMA project website since its initial launch in March 2011, ranging from analyses of acousmatic music and even an analysis of an audio-only game (Hugill Reference Hugill2012), demonstrating the scope of the submissions. Although initially very successful, the OREMA project received less submissions as it continued. The core participants were the most active of all the contributors to the project, but after the initial beta period these users became less active. Many of them were coming to the end of their studies, or having to concentrate on other ventures. Hence, there was not a sufficient ‘needs-based commitment’ (Ren et al. Reference Ren, Kraut, Kiesler and Resnick2011: 105) for core participants, which obviously impacted on the overall draw of new participants. What is clear, from the statistics of web activity and from speaking to people in person at conferences, was that the OREMA project website was used by the community, but as a site of reference. This is not dissimilar from other collaborative websites that state that for every one heavy contributor there are nine minor contributors and 90 people who will just view the work (also known as the 90:9:1 ratio). The decline in activity might also be attributed to the fact that many people did not feel their potential contribution was sufficient enough to submit to the website. Often when asked to contribute, members would respond by saying their analysis was not ready. The difference between OREMA and other publication avenues is that the website, by its very nature, allows for working drafts to be submitted and refined based on the feedback of the community.
There are two issues of the eOREMA journal that have been released thus far. The first was published in April 2013 consisting of a total of six articles. Again, much like the analyses to the OREMA website contributions, the articles covered a wide range of different topics from reimagining existing analytical tools (Emmerson Reference Emmerson2013) to analyses of electronic dance music (Ratcliffe Reference Ratcliffe2013). The second issue was based around the theme of works by Trevor Wishart (although other topics were also accepted) and, after a number of delays, was eventually released in October 2014 with a total of seven articles. There was certainly a greater interest in the original call for articles; perhaps due to the specific theme of the second call, or perhaps that there are not many scholars who write about electroacoustic music analysis.
The analytical toolbox contains 20 articles that discuss a number of different tools. Most of these submissions were written by myself, with only a few contributions from select heavy contributors to the website. There were very few cases where the articles were contested or changed to any great extent. The only disagreement that occurred was listed on the original OREMA website forum when one of the core participants questioned if spectromorphology should be included as an analytical tool. A potentially very interesting discussion, which unfortunately never made it past the initial post even after I challenged this contention. It seems that the electroacoustic community is very polite when discussing in public forums, so much so that any disagreements are not overtly contested for others to see.
3.3. Moving forward
The OREMA project has shown the potential for an analytical community within the field of electroacoustic music. Although it was not able to create and maintain such a community, important lessons were learnt as to how to, potentially, adapt the findings for future endeavours (not necessarily focused solely on the analysis of electroacoustic music).
1. Collaboration and breaking down the ivory tower – changing the hearts and minds of current and future academics to focus on more collaborative ventures is the main barrier to the success of the analytical community concept. Whilst we still believe in the ‘publish or perish’ mentality, there are other avenues to publish and indeed work together in order to better the community as a whole. One is certainly not discounting the impact and importance that peer-reviewed publications can have on the electroacoustic community, rather that this should not be considered the only way to work or distribute ideas. By providing other avenues, not necessarily using the foundations of OREMA, the electroacoustic community could work together to expand the field of research.
2. Contrast not consensus – the best outcomes of the OREMA project were not garnered by consensus, rather through disagreements and participants challenging the perspective of others. In one instance a user, who was not accustomed to traditional electroacoustic music theory (such as spectromorphology), analysed Dripsody and found that the crescendo in the middle of the work coincided with the golden mean ratio (something that no other participant found). In other cases, an analysis would provoke another analyst to produce their own perspective to challenge that of the original contribution.Footnote 23 The OREMA project did not state that there was one way in which to analyse a work and therefore encouraged a variety of different submissions, some of which challenged what many would consider constituted electroacoustic music analysis. These types of interactions are fundamental to the success of an analytical community and require active and engaged participants.
3. Everything in one place – the OREMA project intended to focus on a particular area of research within the grander electroacoustic field. Often it was asked whether participants could share their musical works, or at least analyse them. This was discouraged to a certain extent, but showed that many users wanted a platform that would potentially benefit them. There were considered reasons why the works of participants were not included on the website (mostly relating to the issues surrounding rights of their works); however, by only providing a space to analyse works, the OREMA project potentially missed an opportunity to encourage greater community activity. Another platform, not focused solely on the analysis of electroacoustic music, could attract more input from participants by offering a place to publish not just their analyses, but also their works. The same interaction could be shared across with the uploaded works where other participants could comment to provide feedback to the composer. Any of the works could then be analysed and discussed by the larger community as well, feeding through to the analysis section.
4. Closing Remarks
The OREMA project was an attempt to test and validate the proposed liberation of sound analysis and if an analytical community could grow organically, provided a platform was available. Similar to Varèse’s (Reference Varèse1966: 12) hypothesis of a machine that could faithfully reproduce any conceivable sound, the concept of an analytical community platform allows for any type of analysis for any type of electroacoustic work.
The concept of the analytical community demands innovation from analysts and musicologists to push the boundaries of analysis and not to conform to a set number of formalised analytical approaches that only provide one perspective. The work undertaken within the OREMA project also demonstrates an opportunity to rethink the current academic landscape and move towards more collaborative ventures to harness the untapped potential of the electroacoustic community. Hearts and minds will need to be changed, but provided an initiative can offer sufficient incentive to stay and contribute online collaboration can exist and flourish.
