Year

2007

Degree Name

Master of Creative Arts (Research)

Department

School of Music and Drama - Faculty of Creative Arts

Abstract

I have chosen text-based music as the avenue to create music that is meaningful to both audience and composer. I conducted substantial research into models of musical communication that revealed that these models lack clarity in the way they predict meaning, and make assumptions that cannot be generalised to all music. The development of an overarching model requires more work than possible in this document. Consideration has been given to making music from sampled, complex, autonomously produced, environmental sounds, since these sounds also carry representative meanings, as well as being sources of interesting timbres that evolve over time. However, the techniques and methodology are still being explored. A recurring issue is the capacity of particular software to do particular tasks, and the amount of time it takes to learn how to do complex functions with the software. Some of the works in the folio are studies in these techniques. Much of the music in the folio uses some algorithmic generation of materials. These were often found to be lacking in expressive capacity, thus requiring some creative intervention on the part of the composer. Further work needs to be done on expressiveness in music and how this can be applied to computer music, particularly those works generated by algorithmic means. Ultimately the folio contains a number of text-based works written in both the audio and acoustic domains. The compositional concepts useful across both these domains have been compared and explored.

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.