Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T23:21:10.535Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Listening Through the Firewall: Semiotics of sound in networked improvisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2012

Roger Mills*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Level 5, Building 10, 235 Jones St, Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia
Kirsty Beilharz*
Affiliation:
University of Technology, Sydney, Sense-Aware Lab, Bldg 6, Level 5, Room 5.48, 702–730 Harris St, Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia

Abstract

Maturation of network technologies and high-speed broadband has led to significant developments in multi-user platforms that enable synchronous networked improvisation across global distances. However sophisticated the interface, nuances of face-to-face communication such as gesture, facial expression, and body language are not available to the remote improviser. Sound artists and musicians must rely on listening and the semiotics of sound to mediate their interaction and the resulting collaboration. This paper examines two case studies of networked improvisatory performances by the inter-cultural tele-music ensemble Ethernet Orchestra.It focuses on qualities of sound (e.g. timbre, frequency, amplitude) in the group's networked improvisation, examining how they become arbiters of meaning in dialogical musical interactions without visual gestural signifiers. The evaluation is achieved through a framework of Distributed Cognition, highlighting the centrality of culture, artefact and environment in the analysis of dispersed musical perception. It contrasts salient qualities of sound in the groups’ collective improvisation, highlighting the interpretive challenges for cross-cultural musicians in a real-time ‘jam’ session. As network technologies provide unprecedented opportunities for diverse inter-cultural collaboration, it is sound as the carrier of meaning that mediates these new experiences.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ANSI. 1994. American National Standard Acoustical Terminology. New York: American National Standards Institute.Google Scholar
Bailey, D. 1993. Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Balkwill, I.I., Thompson, W.F. 1999. A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues. Music Perception 17(1) (Fall 1999): 4364.Google Scholar
Ballas, J.A. 1993. Common Factors in the Identification of an Assortment of Brief Everyday Sounds. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 19: 250267.Google Scholar
Barthes, R. 1985. The Responsibility of Forms. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Beerends, J.G., Houtsma, A.J.M. 1989. Pitch Identification of Simultaneous Diotic and Dichotic Two-Tone Complexes. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 85: 813819.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blandford, A., Furniss, D. 2005. DiCoT: A Methodology for Applying Distributed Cognition to the Design of Team Working Systems. In S.W. Gilroy and M.D. Harrison, eds, Interactive Systems, Design, Specification, and Verification, 12th International Workshop, DSVIS 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3941. New York: Springer, 2638.Google Scholar
Bonebright, T.L. 2001. Perceptual Structure of Everyday Sounds: A Multi-Dimensional Scaling Approach. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Auditory Display, Espoo, Finland, 73–8.Google Scholar
Bregman, A.S. 1990. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chafe, C. 2009. Tapping into the Internet as an Acoustical/Musical Medium. Contemporary Music Review 28(4–5) (August/October): 413420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumming, N. 2000. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
De Haan, M. 2002. Distributed Cognition and the Shared Knowledge Model of the Mazahua: A Cultural Approach. Journal of Interactive Learning Research 13 (Spring 2002): 3150.Google Scholar
Fales, C. 2002. The Paradox of Timbre. Ethnomusicology 46(1): 5695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaser, B.G. 1998. Doing Grounded Theory: Issues and Discussions. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.Google Scholar
Hajda, J.M. 2007. The Effect of Dynamic Acoustical Features on Musical Timbre. In Beauchamp, J. (ed.) Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception of Musical Sounds: The Sound of Music. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Hajda, J.M., Kendall, R.A., Carterette, E.C., Harshberger, M.L. 1997. Methodological Issues in Timbre Research. In Deliège, I. and Sloboda, J. (eds.) Perception and Cognition of Music. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., Kirsh, D. 2000. Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7(2): 174196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hourdin, C., Charbonneau, G., Moussa, T. 1997. A Multi-Dimensional Scaling Analysis of Musical Instruments’ Time-Varying Spectra. Computer Music Journal 21: 4055.Google Scholar
Houtsma, A.J.M. 1984. Pitch Salience of Various Complex Sounds. Music Perception 1: 296307.Google Scholar
Houtsma, A.J.M. 1997. Pitch and Timbre: Definition, Meaning and Use. Journal of New Music Research 26: 104115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyer, V. 2008. On Improvisation, Temporality, and Embodied Experience. In P. Miller, ed. Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 273292.Google Scholar
Kendall, R.A., Carterette, E.C. 1993. Verbal Attributes of Simultaneous Wind Instrument Timbres: II. Adjectives Induced from Piston's Orchestration. Music Perception 10: 269502.Google Scholar
Kendall, R.A., Carterette, E.C., Hajda, J.M. 1999. Perceptual and Acoustical Features of Natural and Synthetic Orchestral Instrument Tones. Music Perception 16: 327362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krumhansel, C.L. 1997. An Exploratory Study of Musical Emotions and Psychophysiology. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 51: 336352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, A 2009. Interfaces for Musical Expression Based on Simulated Models. PhD thesis, University of Technology, Sydney, http://hdl.handlenet/2100/1210.Google Scholar
Juslin, P.N., Laukka, P. 2003. Communication of Emotions in Vocal Expression and Music Performance: Different Channels, Same Code? Psychological Bulletin 129(5): 770814.Google Scholar
LaBelle, B. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors we Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Landy, L. 1987. An Analysis of Tayutai for Koto (1972) Composed by Makoto Shinohara: A 3-Dimensional Approach. Journal of New Music Research 16: 7596.Google Scholar
Landy, L. 1994. The ‘Something to Hold on to Factor’ in Timbral Composition. Contemporary Music Review 10(2): 4960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, G. 1993. Voyager: Interactive Computer Music for Computer, Trombone & Saxophone. Performed by George E. Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell, sound recording, Avant, Japan.Google Scholar
Lidov, D. 1987. Mind and Body in Music. Semiotica 66(1/3): 6997.Google Scholar
Loureiro, M.A., Paula, H.B.Yehia, H.C. 2004. Timbre Classification of a Single Musical Instrument. 5th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR), 2004.Google Scholar
Manning, P. 2004. Electronic and Computer Music. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Berkeley, CA: Ginko Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Miller, Paul (aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid). 2008. Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moisala, P. 1995. Cognitive Study of Music as Culture: Basic Premises for ‘Cognitive Ethnomusicology’. Journal of New Music Research 24(1): 820.Google Scholar
Monahan, C.B., Kendall, R.A., Carterette, E.C. 1987. The Effect of Melodic and Temporal Contour on Recognition Memory for Pitch Change. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics 42: 306307.Google Scholar
Nettl, B. 1956. Music in Primitive Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Oliveros, P. 2010. Sex as we Don't Know It: Computer Music Futures, keynote speech, International Computer Music Conference, SUNY Stony Brook. http://paulineoliveros.us/site/node/93 (accessed on 4 September 2010).Google Scholar
O'Neill, S. 2008. Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction. London: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pegg, C. 2001. Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative, Vol. 1. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Pierce, C.S., Burks, A.W. 1958. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Pierce. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, R.L., Doak, P.E. 1976. A Subjective Rating Scale for Timbre. Sound and Vibration 45(3): 317328.Google Scholar
Prévost, Edwin. 1995. No Sound is Innocent: AMM and the Practice of Self-Invention. In Meta-Musical Narratives and Other Essays. Essex: Copula/Matchless Recordings.Google Scholar
Resnick, M. 1996. Distributed Constructionism. Proceedings of the 1996 International Conference on Learning Sciences.Google Scholar
Rioux, V. 2001. Sound Quality of Flue Organ Pipes: An Interdisciplinary Study on the Art of Voicing. PhD, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Roads, C. 2001. Microsound. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, R. 1997. A Brief Introduction to Distributed Cognition. Brighton: Interact Lab, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences.Google Scholar
Sansom, M. 2007. Improvisation and Identity: A Qualitative Study. Critical Studies in Improvisation 3(1). http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/viewArticle/48.Google Scholar
Sawer, J. 2003. Voice Analysis in Ethnomusicology: De-Mystifying Bulgarian Singing. Bachelor of Music thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Seifart, F., Meyer, J. 2010. Bora Drum Communication, the Typology of Emulated Speech, and Prosodic Typology. Arbeitsgruppe ‘Prosodic Typology: State of the Art and Future Prospects’ DGfS Jahrestagung, Humboldt Universität, Berlin, February 24–26, 2010.Google Scholar
Serafini, S. 1995. Timbre Judgements of Javanese Gamelan Instruments by Trained and Untrained Adults. Psychomusicology 14: 137153.Google Scholar
Shepherd, J. 1992. Music as Cultural Text. In Paynter, J., Howell, T., Orton, R. and Seymour, P. (eds.) Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shön, D. 1995. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Smith, C.M. 1972. The Aesthetics of Charles S. Peirce. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31(1) (Autumn): 2129.Google Scholar
Song, H.J. 2010. Evaluation of the Effects of Spatial Separation and Timbre on the Identifiability of Concurrent Auditory Streams. PhD, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Štěpánek, J. 2006. Musical Sound Timbre: Verbal Description and Dimensions. 9th International Conference on Digital Auditory Effects, Montreal, Canada.Google Scholar
Štěpánek, J., Moravec, O. 2005. Verbal Description of Musical Sound Timbre in Czech Language and its Relation to Musicians’ Profession and Performance Quality. Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM05). Montreal, Canada: 121–26.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. 2007. The Pedagogical Imperative of Musical Improvisation. Critical Studies in Improvisation 3(2), http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/viewArticle/353.Google Scholar
Tolbert, E. 1992. Theories of Meaning and Music Cognition: An Ethnomusicological Approach. World of Music: Special Edition on Ethnomusicology and Music Cognition 34: 99119.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T. 1999. Speech, Music, Sound. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Von Bismarck, G. 1974. Sharpness as an Attribute of the Timbre of Steady Sounds. Acustica 30: 159172.Google Scholar
Zwicker, E., Fastl, H. 1999. Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models. Berlin and New York: Springer.Google Scholar

Mills and Beilharz supplementary material

Sound example 1.aac

Download Mills and Beilharz supplementary material(Audio)
Audio 9.3 MB

Mills and Beilharz supplementary material

Sound example 2.aac

Download Mills and Beilharz supplementary material(Audio)
Audio 12.1 MB