Composing For Loudspeakers

Musical Assumptions

Music for loudspeakers does not, necessarily, require the composition of a notated score. Further, normal notational elements of music (i.e. a specification that an oboe should play a C# mezzo forte and staccato on the 2nd beat of measure 27) do not exist. The palette for loudspeaker sound is in fact the range of audible raw sound materials, a range of choice that is often so large as to be daunting. Audio signals are created via the use of synthesizing devices, the manipulations of recordings and elaborate signal processing chains.

The primary compositional musical assumption has been that “anything goes,” and that non-referential, non-pitched and/or “original” sounds are desirable. Original juxtapositions of traditional materials, transmuted materials and original materials are also generally held to be highly desirable.

Compositional Traditions

Compositional traditions for electronic music have in many respects mirrored those of traditional composition, with the observation that the act of composing electronic music has considerably more in common with the act of sculpting than does the more traditional composition process. The electronic composer creates, shapes and assembles “sounds” which are then “played” for the listener by a mechanical medium. In general, electronic music composition has not led to new musical forms that are inherent to the medium, although it is particularly suitable to a musical character I call “machine music,” the audible working out of mechanical processes. Much music composed in the 20th Century for all media has been “machine music,’ including a great deal of dance music.

To date, composers have devoted themselves primarily to the sound generating processes, the synthesizers, the tape recorders and the signal processors they find of interest. They have used these to create more or less “traditional” works, i.e. works of typical length and scale to be played either by conventional commercial loudspeaker arrays (i.e. stereo) or in “installations” where speakers are distributed throughout a space, often by a sound contractor and usually not as part of the compositional design. An interesting variant of this is called a “diffusion,” wherein a stereophonic electronic music composition is adapted for playback by a complex multichannel array of loudspeakers.

The point about all this is that the loudspeakers and their configuration have not generally been treated is organic primary elements in the compositional process, nor have the compositions generally focused on what is idiomatic for loudspeakers.

Differences between Loudspeaker Performance and Live Performance

In my earlier paper, I made the following observations about the relationship between loudspeaker music and live performed music.

Live music is public and usually occurs in crowded venues, while loudspeaker music is generally performed in private.

• Live music is highly social and ritualized, while loudspeaker music is casual, ubiquitous and often extremely private and intimate.
• Live music has a strong emotional interaction between listeners and performers, while loudspeaker music has no interaction at all between listeners and performers.
• Live music is mostly limited by human capabilities for performance (except when sound reinforcement is used), while loudspeaker music is not constrained by human performance limitations.
• Live music is a one-time event not under the listener’s control, while loudspeaker music is under the direct control of the listener, who can vary it’s spectrum and level at will. It can be played on demand, stopped, restarted and repeated exactly, ad infinitum.
• Loudspeakers can play indefinitely, at any reasonable level. Loudspeakers can play higher, lower, louder, softer, faster and slower than any other musical instruments.

These insights suggest the possibility of new musical genres and forms, disconnected from the constraints and benefits of the concert experience.

The Curious Case of Stereophony

Also in my earlier paper, I proposed one possible characterization of the loudspeaker as a “Universal Sound Generator.” Interestingly, due to the unique quality of loudspeakers of being able to operate in phase-locked synchronous arrays, I also noted that they can function as “Universal Sound Environment Generators.” This remarkable quality is, of course, the foundation for stereophony.

It has been my experience that we casually accept the powerful sensory quality of stereophony without much question about its actual mechanism or meaning for humans, and that we have devoted little compositional time and effort to a consideration of the sensory implications of such phase-locked synchrony and arrays.

Nonetheless, one of the most powerful and unique aspects of loudspeaker music is that it can be used to generate unique sensory environments (and movements through such environments). To date, such qualities have not been exploited much beyond what is easily possible in commercial stereophonic arrays.