Introduction to post-production

“Why does it sound so bad if my headphones sound so good?”

Audio post-production techniques are diverse and depend on the medium in which a material is finally played. Through a critical analysis of the different standards of dissemination of sound materials, this topic deals with how to put specific materials in an ideal context of reproduction for listening, according to the technical and conceptual characteristics of sound art projects.

With analog and digital tools, it will be seen how to optimize the materials, in that way the projects of the students of the Master in Sound Art are able to be exposed without technical problems from the preparation of the materials that finally come out through loudspeakers.

Syllabus

Shape acoustics

• Focalization
• Diffuser
• Central
• Perimeter
• Alveolar
• Global

Acoustics of proportions

• Dominant or isometric dimensions
• The number of gold
• Harmonic and inharphonic stationary waves
• Eco. Fluctuating echo

Acoustics of finishes and coatings

• Speculative, mixed and widespread reflection
• Absorption. absorption coefficient. Equivalent absorption
• Absorbent materials.
• Reverb time.
• Introduction to sound insulation of air, impacts and vibrations

Reverb calculation practice.

• Sabine’s method.
• Other methods

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Bibliography

– Augoyard, Jean François. ‘À l’écoute de l’environnement: répertoire des effets sonores’.

Marseille: Éditions Parenthèses, 1995. ISBN 2-86364-078-X.

– Beranek, Leo L. ‘Concert & opera hall: how they sound’. New York, [NY]: Acoustical Society of

America: American Institute of Physics, 1996. ISBN 1563965305 (tela).

– Daumal Domènech, Francesc. Poética. A: Daumal Domènech, Francesc. ‘Arquitectura

acústica’. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 1998, vol. 1.

– Daumal Domènech, Francesc. Disseny. A: Daumal Domènech, Francesc. ‘Arquitectura

acústica’. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2000, vol. 2.

– Daumal Domènech, Francesc. Rehabilitació. A: Daumal Domènech, Francesc. ‘Arquitectura

acústica’. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2007, vol. 3.

– Daumal i Domènech, Francesc. ‘Arquitectura acústica, poética y diseño’. Barcelona: Edicions

UPC, 2002. ISBN 84-8301-638-9.

– Schafer, R. Murray. ‘Le paysage sonore’. [S.l.]: J. Clattès, 1991. ISBN 2-7096-1-073-6.

Complementary Bibliography:

– Thorny, Susana. ‘Acoustic ecology and education: bases for the design of a new landscape

sound.’ Barcelona: Graó, 2006. ISBN 9788478274420.

– Schafer, R. Murray. ‘Voices of tyranny: temples of silence’. Indian River: Arcane, 1993. ISBN

1-89512-719-X.

– Tati, Jacques. ‘Play time’ . Barcelona: DeAplaneta, 2003.

Music & Architecture · Mathias Klenner

From the generation of sounds or the creation of pure sounds we have to build or design the sound work. There are many possible prospects for sound work. The sound is associated with the time variable as well as the space variable. To work, the sound must be inserted into the double space/time dimension.

In the prehistory of music, before the established role, philosophers and scientists cared about thinking about the musical/sound phenomenon to understand it and the first claims related the essence of sound matter to the proportions given by geometry. And at the same time the geometric proportions and other characteristics described by mathematics provided the resources to analyze and compose architecture, art in space, and establish their rules. That is, from the beginning of Western culture and art were found and addressed the relationships between music and architecture, or sound constructions and spatial constructions (architecture, sculpture, painting).

By extension we will see the analogies between sounds and images. Images are given only as shapes in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space. How to think about building music/sound in pictures. Spatial analogy such as idea, starting point, inspiration, etc.

We will deal with analogies of landscapes, paintings, buildings, architecture, physical phenomena of nature, social or human phenomena, etc.

We will draw the idea of sound work. Historically graphic music, with references to Xenakis’ work and his “out-of-time music,” to Mestres Quadreny and his random Mironian work; and in my works of a generative nature or spatial analogies, from Esclat to El silencio transcurre.

Practice work: sound/image correspondences. From sound work to spatial or graphic image and vice versa. An author’s work will be performed graphically and then worked on a sound work from this spatial image.

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Space, Movement & Sound · Sònia Sànchez

syllabus

• 0. Social and political implications in the definition of sound art
• 1. Ethics and politics of sound art.
  • 1.1 Art, ideology and economy or the reinvention of experience.
• 2. Political and social derivations.
  • 2.1 Reading Bruits by Jacques Attali and listening to Merbow.
  • 2.2 Radio art: art and politics. From the Russian avant-garde to the radio texts of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno.
  • 2.3 Listen to our environment and acoustic ecology. R. Murray Schafer

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bibliography

BENJAMIN, W., “La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica”. Obras, Libro I, Vol. 2. Madrid: Adaba Editores, 2008.

BOULEZ, P., Penser la musique aujourd’hui. París: Gallimard, 2005.

BUYDENS, M., Sahara. L’esthétique de Gilles Deleuze. París: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2005.

CAGE, J., Silence. Lectures and Writings by John Cage. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.

CHARLES, D., Le temps de la voix. París: Editions Universitaires J.-P. Delarge, 1978.

DELEUZE, G., Différence et répétition. París: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968.

— i F. GUATTARI, Mil mesetas. Capitalismo y esquizofrenia. València: Pre-Textos, 2008.

FELDMAN, M., Give My Regards to Eighth Street. Collected Writings of Morton Feldman. Cambridge: Exact Change, 2000.

FOUCAULT, M., Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1991.

McLUHAN, M., La Galàxia Gutenberg. Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1973.

PARDO, C., Las TIC: una reflexión filosófica. Capellades: Laertes, 2008.

—, La escucha oblicua: una invitación a John Cage. Editorial de la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 2001.

PRITCHETT, J., The Music of John Cage. Nova York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

SZENDY, P., Grandes éxitos. La filosofía en el jukebox. Vilaboa: Ellago Ediciones, 2009.

Summary

This module deals with much more practical questions than in Psychoacoustics and Experimental Music. It makes sense: we needed to lay the foundation for a language to accurately refer to the behavior of sound in its natural place: space. This required a lot of theoretical information. For space, however, we not only understand traditional spatial dimensions – which are only applicable to the domain in which we move voluntarily – but we will add time to this turn, since sounds and music also take place over time, whatever time it ends up, after all, being. In other words, physicists still argue about their actual existence.

Due to these considerations, we have structured the theme into four large modules: Environment and Dissemination, Gesture, Generation and Time.

Syllabus

• 1. Space. Soundscape
  • 1.1. Concept and usefulness
  • 1.1.1 Methodological dimension of the soundscape
  • 1.1.2 Narrative dimension of the soundscape
  • 1.2. Sound diffusion. Speakers as a musical instrument
    • 1.2.1. Types of speakers and forms of spatial stimulation
    • 1.2.2. Directionality
    • 1.2.3. Speaker designs
      • 1.2.3.1. Stereophony
      • 1.2.3.2. Quadraphony and octophony
      • 1.2.3.3. Special broadcasting systems
        • 1.2.3.3.1. Gmebaphone
        • 1.2.3.3.2. Acousm-nium
        • 1.2.3.3.3.   Kupper Domes
      • 1.2.3.4. Ambisonics  and Vector Based Amplitude Panning – VBAP – VBAP
      • 1.2.3.5. Wave Field Synthesis – WFS
      • 1.2.3.6. Manifold – Interface Amplitude Panning – MIAP
• 2. Interactive systems. Interaction and real time. Hardware devices
  • 2.1. In the virtual world
    • 2.1.1. Between applications on the same computer
      • 2.1.1.1. Sound apps
      • 2.1.1.2. Sound, visual and other applications
    • 2.1.2. Between dedicated computers
      • 2.1.2.1. Computers dedicated to sound applications
      • 2.1.2.2. Computers dedicated to sound, visual and other media applications
    • 2.1.3. On the network
  • 2.2. In the physical world
    • 2.2.1. Sensors
      • 2.2.1.1. Microphones
      • 2.2.1.2.Capt mechanical  trainers
      • 2.2.1.3.Electromagnetic  radiation captors
        • 2.2.1.3.1. Photo-resistance
        • 2.2.1.3.2. Infrared detectors
        • 2.2.1.3.3. Video cameras and microscopes
    • 2.2.2. Actuators
      • 2.2.2.1. Speakers
      • 2.2.2.2. Plates
      • 2.2.2.3. Solenoids
      • 2.2.2.4. Motors
      • 2.2.2.5. Other actuators
• 3. Sonification
  • 3.1. Sound depending on the image
    • 3.1.1. Color identification
    • 3.1.2. Luminosity identification
    • 3.1.3. Identification of movement
    • 3.1.4. Color location
    • 3.1.5. Location of luminosity
    • 3.1.6. Location of movement
  • 3.2. Data-driven sound
    • 3.2.1. GPS
    • 3.2.2. Internet. The case of Carnivore
    • 3.2.3. SRTM – NASA ground elevation data
    • 3.2.4. Cassini – Dynamic Explorer – Terrestrial Electromagnetic Field Data
    • 3.2.5. Stock values
    • 3.2.6. State of the Sea Data
    • 3.2.7. Climate Status Data
    • 3.2.8. Demographics of the planet
    • 3.2.9. Geological activity data
    • 3.2.10. Decoding two-dimensional and QR arrays
• 4. Generating images depending on the sound
  • 4.1. Displaying musical parameters
    • 4.1.1. Height/Time
    • 4.1.2. Dynamic/Time
    • 4.1.3. Bell/Hour
    • 4.1.4. Space/Time
  • 4.2. Displaying sound parameters
    • 4.2.1. Frequency/Time
    • 4.2.2. Amplitude/Time
    • 4.2.3. Spectre/Time
    • 4.2.4. Location/Time
    • 4.2.5. Encoding sounds in two-dimensional arrays and QR
• 5. Joint generation of sound and image
  • 5.1. User-independent processes
    • 5.1.1. Classic numerical behaviors
      • 5.1.1.1. Series of famous numbers
      • 5.1.1.2. Famous functions
    • 5.1.2. Fractals
    • 5.1.3. Cell automatons and Conway matrices
    • 5.1.4. Parametric surfaces. Matrix mixing
    • 5.1.5. Computational agents
      • 5.1.5.1. Boids
      • 5.1.5.2. Docks
      • 5.1.5.3. Fireflies
    • 5.1.6. Genetic algorithms
  • 5.2. User-dependent processes. Interactivity and real time. Real-time human action on computational parameters
    • 5.2.1. Interactive perspective on the use of fractals
    • 5.2.2. Interactive perspective on the use of Conway cell automatons and matrices
    • 5.2.3. Interactive perspective on the use of parametric surfaces and matrix mixing
    • 5.2.4. Interactive perspective on the use of computational agents
      • 5.2.4.1. Boids
      • 5.2.4.2. Docks
      • 5.2.4.3. Fireflies
    • 5.2.5. Convolution and flows
• 6. Time
  • 6.1. Timelines
  • 6.2. Directionality
  • 6.3. Closed work
    • 6.3.1. Musical forms
  • 6.4. Open work

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bibliography

BARLOW, C., F. BARRIèRE, J. M. BERENGUER, et al. Time in electroacoustic music. Bourges: Actes 5, Mnemosyne, 1999-2000.

BARRET, N., “Spatio-Musical Composition Strategies”. Organised Sound, Vol. 7 (3) (CUP), 2002, pp. 313-323.

BAYLE, F., Musique acousmatique, propositions… positions. París: Buchet/Chastel—INA-GRM, 1993.

BOULANGER, R., The Csound Book: Perspectives in Software Synthesis, Sound Design, Signal Processing,and Programming. The MIT Press, 2000.

CHOWNING, J., “The Simulation of Moving Sound Sources”. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 19 (1), 1971, pp. 2-6 (Computer Music Journal, June 1977, pp 48–52).

CLOZIER, Ch., “The Gmebaphone Concept and the Cybernéphone Instrument”. Computer Music Journal, Vol. 25 (4), 2001, pp. 81–90.

COLE, H., Sounds and Signs: Aspects of Musical Notation. Oxford University Press, 1974.

COLLINS, N., Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking. Routledge, 2006.

DAVIS, M. F., “History of Spatial Coding”. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 51 No. 6, June 2003, pp. 554–569.

EMERSON, S. (ed.), The Language of Electroacoustic Music. London: MacMillan Press, 1986.

DOHERTY, D., “Sound Diffusion of Stereo Music over a Multi Loudspeaker Sound System: from First Principles onwards to a Successful Experiment”. Journal of Electroacoustic Music (SAN), Vol. 11, 1998, pp. 9-11.

GHAZALA, R., Circuit-Bending: Build Your Own Alien Instruments.John Wiley & Sons, 2005.

GRITTEN, A. i E. KING (eds.), Music and Gesture. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

KEANE, D., Tape Music Composition. Oxford University Press, 1981.

MANNING, P., “Computers and Music Composition”. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 107, David Greer (ed.), 1980–1, pp. 119–131.

OWSINSKI, B., The Mastering Engineers Handbook. MixBooks, 2000.

SCHAEFFER, P., De la musique concrète à la musique même. París: Mémoire du Livre, 2002.

WANDERLEY, M. M., Non-Obvious Performer Gestures in Instrumental Music. Heidelberg: Springer, 1999.

Sound installation

Sound installation is a multidisciplinary practice, based on concepts of space and sound. This theoretical and practical subject is imparted by a team of teachers composed of a sculptor, a composer, an architect specializing in acoustics and a performer working in the audiovisual space. The subject will teach the fundamental concepts to develop practical work in which the syntax of three-dimensional space intervenes; spatial organization in urban space and in the natural environment; the organization of sound, project management in the acoustic space and critical research that interrelations historical aspects and the practical realization of a collaborative sound installation by students.

This module is lectured by the professors Pedro Alcalde; Luz Maria Sanchez; and  Cabo San Roque,  with the following structure and contents:

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Space – Luz Maria Sánchez

4 sessions of 3h.

This part of the topic will address the syntax of three-dimensional space and spatial organization in urban space and in the natural environment. Spatial structuring will be studied through narrative routes and space sequences and introduced into the materials, construction techniques and artistic processes required for understanding and practical experimentation in sound sculpture and installations in three-dimensional space.

– Geophonies of silence

Sound identity of the place, sound environments and active listening. Sound drifts, sound walking, solitary walkers, flaneurs, walking artists and poets. Genius loci or the spirit of the place. Shinrin Yoku, microsounds and inaudible sounds. Silences in literature. Silent installations, performances and happenings.  

– Sound mapping and geolocation

Frontiers, levels and sound layers in urban space. Urban spaces defined by dynamics and mobility. Spatial and temporal trajectories. Sound compositions of urban spaces. Artistic mapping: maps of sounds, feelings and sensations. Graphical representation systems, reading codes, classification, processing and transmission of information. The city as text and stage, with multiple reading possibilities.

– Expose sounds

Experience sound with the timbre of materials and shapes. Notions of Rhythm, Composition, Symmetry, Harmony and its interrelationship in the plastic, performing, musical and three-dimensional arts. Cymatics, draw with sounds, images of how sound propagates into materials with geometric paths and patterns.

– Notions of space

Perception of space, physical, mental and sensory. Surfaces, territories and boundaries. Lines and routes in space. Trajectories, spatial and temporal stages. Rhythmic transitions and successions between spaces. Sound sequences, geometry of spaces and materials. Sound design of the space.

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Sound – Pedro Alcalde

4 sessions of 3h.

This part of the topic is interconnected with “Space” in shared sessions. Sound will be considered both, as a temporal flow, as in its relationship to space and all projects that involve a multi, inter or anti disciplinary interaction with other arts or events.

– Playing with values and intensities

Sound wave and perceived sound: magnitudes and parameters. Practical creation exercises with isolated parameters: frequency, intensity, duration, partial spectrum, envelope and hood. combinatorial. Random roulette.

• Debate: sound and light, listening and vision, other senses.
• Practice: SCREEN SOUND COMPOSITION, short video with image and sound based on different games with sound parameters.

Texture maps

Graduation of the sound event flow: compositions with textures. Phrase and paradigm: horizontal timeline (opacity /clarity) and vertical density line (homogeneous/heterogeneous). Types of textures and ways to combine and juxtaposition.

• Debate: sound sources, attributes, morphologies, symbolism, aesthetics, ethics.
• Practice: REAL OR IMAGINARY SOUND MAP, mapping with audio files.

– Instructions, Scores, Annotations

Sound procedures, rhythms and developments. Tools: magnify, minimize, modify, give other use, rearrange, combine.

• Debate: regulatory categories: linear / nonlinear, unit / multiplicity, durable / fleeting, objective / subjective, collective / individual, order / chaos, closed / open.
• Practice: GRAPHIC SHEET AND SOUND DIARY, with audio materials.

– Sound scenes

Sound in interaction: installation, performance, video, cinema, net-art, dance, theater, public spaces, urban planning, landscaping, architecture… The different stage functions of sound will be worked: structural (association, continuity, punctuation), emotional, referencing, factual, symbolic and aesthetic in relation to different elements: theme, characters, action, space and time.

• Debate: sound “in”, “out” and “off” – image / sound: identity, complementarity, opposition.
• Practice: SOUND SCENE theme (AUDIO / VIDEO), duration and free format.

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Project Management – Pedro Alcalde

2 sessions of 3h.

The Project is the set of activities performed by a person or entity to achieve a certain objective or outcome. These activities can be interprofessional and therefore very interrelated. The project is based on different knowledge that is displayed through diagrams, drawings, graphics, schematics, sketches, models and other kinds of representation, this information is presented in print and/or digital format, developed to determine in some type of support, such as a work or an installation. Since the objective pursued by the project must be fulfilled within a certain period defined above and respecting specific budget and conditions of execution in the place and / or workshop, transfers, insurance, etc., is necessary a contract of legal clauses, descriptive and technical reports, graphic documentation, status of measurements and budgets, which sometimes must be very detailed.

– Project management

• Preliminary draft
• Project
• Descriptive memory
• Technical memory
• Floor plans, heights and sections. Detail maps
• Specifying technical conditions
• Measurement status
• Budget
• Promotion
• Contract (terms of completion and billing)
• Billing. Management and taxes

– Reading plans

The scale

• The plant and top floor plan
• Heights
• The sections
• Perspectives and renders
• Demolition and new construction
• Models

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Sound Installations – Luz Maria Sanchez / Cabo San Roque

4 sessions of 3h.

The installation, the sound work organized in space, arises at the intersection of many practices that have arisen radical ideas about new ways of creating art, since it has moved to the space of everyday life. We explore the resonant bonds of these interdisciplinary relationships and see how the spatial and relational qualities of sound have been fundamental to the birth of the immersive environment by artists from many disciplines in the context of the stories and methodologies of experimental music, performance, film and video. Following a collective research process that seeks to promote critical thinking and provide a conceptual basis aimed at creating a final collective practical project, we immerse ourselves in the non-chronological analysis of installation works and relevant texts. A work by Maryanne Amacher from her “Long Distance Music” sheet music series will be recreated in the classroom, as part of a special research into creative strategies for the live telematic presentation of sound art, expanding the concepts of space. The course concludes with the creation and production of a collaborative sound installation project with the participation of all class members.

The sound installation is not presented here as an established artistic category or product type, but as a question “why the installation?”

Sound installation – Concept

What about the artistic or aesthetic in a work made of ideas, phenomena or concepts that are interesting in themselves and that can be considered beautiful? Can sound create space? What questions do we ask about what we hear? The Event, Fluxus, the long-time frame of minimalism.

– Sound installation – Place and time

As Max Neuhaus stated, in a sound installation “sounds are placed in space and not in time”. The space can be social or political, gender or postcolonial, real or virtual, and can move through multiple moments and places.  Streaming, mutational space.

– Sound installation – Intermedial

Sound installation originates from the relationships between music, architecture and intermediate artistic practices. It is often based on the integration of sound with other media, especially the audiovisual environment. The image projected as an interface.

Sound installation – Production and public presentation

The practical sessions will be dedicated to the tutoring of the final sound installation project, with the advice of Francesc Daumal, lecturer of Acoustics.

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Bibliography

1. Sound installation – Concept

• Brown, DeForrest. Afropunk Interview: Kevin Beasley. March 8, 2019. https://afropunk.com/2019/03/afropunk-interview-kevin-beasley/
• Cox, Christoph. Sonic Flux Sound, Art, and Metaphysics. The University of Chicago Press, 2018.
• Essay: Concept Art, www.henryflynt.org/aesthetics/conart.html.
• Kisselgoff, Anna. New York Times review of 1988 revival of “Rainforest”,
• http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/03/arts/dance-merce-cunningham-s-rainforest.html.
• LaBelle, Brandon. Background Noise Perspectives on Sound Art. Continuum Books, 2008.
• Larson, Kay. Where the Heart Beats, John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists,The Penguin Press, 2012. Chapter 9: “The Infinity of Being”.
• Lucier, Alvin. Thoughts on Installation. http://kunstradio.at/ZEITGLEICH/CATALOG/ENGLISH/lucier-e.html.
• Lucier, Alvin, and Douglas Simon. Chambers: Scores by Alvin Lucier. Wesleyan University Press, 2012.
• Reid, Tiana. “Hearing the Trauma You Can’t See”. Review, The Nation  https://www.thenation.com/article/hearing-the-trauma-you-cant-see/
• Rogalsky, Matthew R. “Idea and Community: The Growth of David Tudor’s Rainforest, 1965-2006”, Ph. D. diss., City University London, Music Department, 2006. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42628585.pdf.
• Young, La Monte and Jackson Mac Low. An Anthology 1963. YoungLa_Monte_Mac_Law_Jackson_eds_An_Anthology_of_Chance_Operations.pdf

2. Sound installation- Place and time

• Amacher, Maryanne. Selected Writings and Interviews. Blank Forms Editions, 2020.
• Blesser, Barry, and Linda-Ruth Salter. Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture. MIT Press, 2009.
• Cox, Christoph. Installing Duration: Time in the Sound Works of Max Neuhaus. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009.
• DeLanda, Manuel. “A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, 2011”. https://barbaraheld.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/e2809cmil-ancc83os-de-historia-nolineale2809d-de-manuel-delanda.pdf.
• Glover, Richard, et al. Being Time: Case Studies in Musical Temporality. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
• Gottschalk, Jennie. Experimental Music since 1970. Bloomsbury Academic, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.
• Hu Fang. Towards a Non-Intentional Space. 2015.  http://www.e-flux.com/journal/towards-a-non-intentional-space/.
• Kuball, M., & Lersch, G. H. (2019). Res.o.nant. Berlin: Sternberg Press.