Melodic photography: relations and intevalic calculations

Author(s)

Guilherme Antonio Celso Ferreira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Artes
• Defense date: 2012-01-20

Examining board members

Silvio Ferraz de Mello Filho; José Augusto Mannis; Maria Cecilia Calani Baranauskas; Rogério Vaconcelos Barbosa; João Pedro Paiva de Oliveira

• Advisor: Silvio Ferraz de Mello Filho

Abstract

This work is in the field of Computer Aided Composition (CAC), more specifically in the generation of pre-compositional material in the symbolic level. Our use and ownership of this technological capability were however influenced by the philosophy of Vilém Flusser, "Towards a Philosophy of Photography". We had as goals of this research both a contribution, via Flusser, to the debate on the current composition environment, and the use of compositional resource most notedly characteristic (computer) of that environment to resolve an issue of pitch structure and the ordering of musical events. The treatment of pitch structures in post tonal music favours in its generality and abstraction, approaches more analytical than practical. Hence, we have introduced the concept of Interval Difference Table (IDT) like photography of intervallic relations in a timeline that incorporates both intervals between successive event and between nonadjacent events, somewhat reviving a proposal of Ernest Ansermet (1987). From this concept (IDT) we formalized and algorithm capable of generating new temporal ordinations with the same intervallic content in a non-tonal context. This procedure has proved to be a practical resource for composition capable of introducing into the intervallic calculation a dimension of temporal organization. In testing the feasibility of this procedure in our compositional practice we found that it was also able to be developed as rhythmic and harmonic organization strategy. We pesent in this work four compositions using this algorithm which we hope will contribute as ressources available to contemporary music composers (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 07/00331-6 - Re-encountering sound: use of apparatus and musical composition
• Grantee: Guilherme Antonio Celso Ferreira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)