both sides of the mirror: integrating physics and acoustics with personal experience

Both Sides of the Mirror: Integrating Physics and Acoustics with Personal ExperienceAuthor(s): Helen HallSource: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 3 (1993), pp. 17-23Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1513264 .

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A B S T R A C T

The author discusses her work as a composer over a 10-year period and how it has been influenced by recent developments in information technology, the sciences, visual arts, theatre and film. She describes her increasing understanding of music in physical, acoustic terms, which has led her to further understand music as an energy system. She also chronicles her first film project, which has a theme of incoherent energy systems, or electromagnetic pollution.

MY essential desire as a composer is to integrate my knowledge of physics and acoustics with my subjective observations and personal experience a process I think of as integrating "both sides of the mirror." Several areas of interest have converged to influence my creative work during the past 10 years from quantum physics, psychoacoustics, linguistics, information technology and systems theory to theatre, film and video. From the seminal influence of John Cage I irxherited the understanding that music is organized sound and that the entire field of sound contains infinite possibilities for music.

In the early 1980s a huge explosion of research and tech- nological innovation related to computers produced a revo- lutionary form of interdisciplinary thinking. Articles in Computer Music Journal, for example, covered a vast range of subjects, including physics, linguistics, acoustics, cognitive sci-

Helen Hall (composer), 4815A Avenue de L'Esplanade, Montreal, Quebec, H2T 2Y8 Canada.

Received 22 February 1993.

Manuscript solicited by Gayle Young.

ARTIST'S ARTICLE

Both Sides of the Mirror:

Integrating Physics and Acoustics

with Personal Experience

Helen Hall

ence and biology. The unifying theme of these disciplines at that time was general systems theory, which describes systems such as atoms, cells, bodies, families and societies as irreducible wholes. It describes the behaviour of these systems in relation to their environment the interactive way that biological systems adapt, repair and sustain themselves. In Vancouver, where I was living and studying music at the time, there was a lot of groundbreaking work with sound synthesis and computer music taking place at Simon Fraser University, where I had the opportunity to take a class with Walter Branchi, a composer visiting from Rome. Branchi introduced us to his approach to computer music, which he called Zcomposing within sound," in which the frequency ratios of a tuning system formed the basis for all the parameters of the music.

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LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 3, pp. 17-23, 1993 1 7 X) 1994 ISAST



I was very excited about the potential of computers to work within such detailed parameters of sound, but I became intensely aware of what were, to me, serious limitations. The quality of sound produced by computers was not nearly as interesting or rich as acoustic sound. There was also a physical limita- tion I had been diagnosed earlier that year with extreme environmental hypersensitivity, and I became intensely aware of the adverse effects of all electronics and computer technologies on my health due to this condition. I adopted a physical, acoustic approach to music in which my understanding of the physics of sound created a continuum between sound and music [1 ] . I also worked with intuitive mathematical patterning. This approach is based on a sense of per- petual motion or pulsation similar to, and influenced by, many of the tenden- cies in minimalist music, but the repeated pitch patterns change much more quickly and occur in more than one part simultaneously, creating several layers of counterpoint. In 1990, when I began to focus on the rhythm and pulsation of the patterning, I began to per- ceive rhythms as energy systems.

While studying linguistics, I became intrigued by the underlying structural principles that were emerging from many diverse languages. Language can be described as an arrangement of the stream of sensory experiences that result in a certain world order. In the Hopi language, for example, there are no

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tenses for past, present or future the division does not exist and there is no formal distinction between the comple- tion and incompletion of action. This way of thinking resonates with many of the fundamental tenets of contempo- rary physics, such as the idea that the contrast between a particle and its field of vibration is more fundamental in the natural world than the contrasts of space and time or past, present and future- distinctions that our own language im- poses on our understanding [2].

Desiring to integrate principles of physics with acoustic sound sources, I discovered that the voice is the acoustic instrument with the greatest potential for timbral transformation. In the rich and varied tradition of sacred chant, vocal music is structured as a stream of

vowels and consonants. This is also true of the ancient tradition of Bulgarian singing, which is based on the drone principle words are sung on a single, repeated pitch with continuous changes in timbre created by the changing patterns of vowels.

R7NTER TREES In early 1984 I wrote a piece called Win- ter Trees for three female voices, alto saxophone, bassoon and cello. The piece is based on a poem by Sylvia Plath, and the vowels from the poem are used to orchestrate the music, providing an array of resonating spectral elements for each pitch. The voices sing without vi- brato, and the voices and instruments often alternate within a narrow frequency range of each other, creating a constant yet continuously changing series of interference patterns. The poem is integrated with the music in such a way that the ear moves freely from sound to meaning, focusing at times on a single line, following a thread of meaning as it slips from voice to voice and, at other times, allowing the assonances and dissonances to wash through it as the voices become submerged in the overall texture. The text provides a lexi- con of language sounds, as well as a thread of meaning. The overall shape of the piece is an evolution from a single spectral strand into a continuously changing stream of vowels, percussive vocal sounds and spoken and sung text.

During the time I was working on Winter Trees I was becoming more and more interested in physics and acoustics and the implications of recent scientific discoveries for sound and music. I wan- dered into a small art gallery in Vancouver one afternoon and spent hours with an installation piece that for-

* 1st cycle - tape and sparse, high pitches * 2nd cycle - gongs, drums build density * 3rd cycle- vibraphone, brake drums, cymbals

4th cycle- timpani, toms, dense rhythms * Maximum density, intensity and volume.

Fusion of pitched and unpitched, harmonic and inharmonic elements.

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ever changed my way of perceiving things and resolved some of my fundamental questions about the relationship of science and art.

NIGHT VISION #14: STARS IN THE EYES A L4NDSCAPE Catherine McTavish's work Night Vision #14: Stars in theEyes A Landscape (Fig. 1, Color Plate A No. 1) is one side of an installation piece called Both Sides [3]. The work is an 8-x-12-ft canvas that hangs from a rod in the centre of a white room and consists of microscopic points of acrylic paint that are meticu- lously structured to create a dazzling, web-like patterning. The work is a landscape an image of Vancouver Harbour with the ocean, mountains and sky rep- resenting the elements earth, air and water. The visual distinctions between elements are the result of varying degrees of density of the patterning. The web-like patterning is based on a synthesis of optical patterns and subjective observation. McTavish integrated her subjective observation of the visual field around the dimmest star in a night sky with interference patterns found in opti-

cal patterns in holography, the Fi- bonacci number series, cell patterns, light physics and colour perception. The painting contains the entire colour spectrum arranged in a detailed pattern that creates an impression of movement. From a distance the surface of the painting shimmers with silver, pale pink and blue. The entire colour range is per- ceived only from a close perspective. The painting takes the path of working with detailed patterning based on physics much further than I had imagined possible. Its complex yet visually intoxi- cating use of interference patterns and colour perception conveys a very deep understanding of the materials of colour and light.

OF RADIANT STREAMS Of Radiant Streams (1985), for four percussionists and tape, is the first of my pieces that was directly influenced by McTavish's work. I was interested in ex- ploring the physical, acoustic possibilities of percussion instruments, especially through rhythm rhythm as patterns in space and time, as cyclic repetition, as a pattern with a steady beat. I also wanted

to work with a perceptual phenomenon I had read about called "streaming":

A repetitive cycle of tones spread over a certain frequency range may be tem- porally coherent, or integrated, at a particular tempo. It is possible to gradually increase the tempo until certain tones group together into separate streams on the basis of frequency . . . the faster the tempo, the greater the degree of breakdown or decompo- sition into narrower streams until ulti- mately every given frequency might be beating along in its own stream [4].

The title Of Radiant Streams is a refer- ence to streaming a perceptual at- tribute of the auditory system in which the fission of individual elements at high speed creates several streams. The word stream is also related etymologically to rhythm; both are rooted in the Greek rhein, meaning "to flow."

Another essential element of my piece is room acoustics I mapped out a general range of resonant frequencies for performance spaces and planned to have the whole room vibrating sympa- thetically with intense sound pressure by the end of the piece. I began by estab- lishing a frequency range from the extreme registers of the highest and lowest

Hall, Both Sides of the Mirror 19

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CIRCWTS czrGuits is a piece for female voice and tape that I wrote forJoan La Barbara in 1990 and 1991. During a 10-day period we spent in New Mexico, I studied La Barbara's vocal techniques and worked intensively with the acoustic possibilities of her voice. I was particularly intrigued with her technique of circular singing- pitched singing on the in-breath and out-breath. This technique forms the basis of La Barbara's composition cirfu

lar Song, a series of ascending and de- scending pitch glissando on in-breaths and out-breaths. I was also influenced by another form of circular singing known as Inuit throat-singing, in which the singers mimic sounds of the environment, such as rivers flowing. An intrigu- ing element of Joan La Barbara's performances is the kind of energy she infuses into the music she performs. I began to think of breathing as a rhythmic energy system essential to the physical act of singing, and I wanted to integrate this energy with the physical, athletic quality that La Barbara brings to performance.

ci7TuZts is for solo voice and 24-track tape. The harmonic structure of the piece is based on the overtone structures of the most resonant pitches of La Barbara's voice . La Barbara recorded each individual track in a 24-track re- cording studio. Multitracking the same voice several times has the effect of rein- forcing the particular resonance of that voice, and it creates a kind of simultane- ity that takes the music out of a linear sense of time. The multitracked voices create a dense counterpoint that results in an equally dense, textural sound field.

The pitch groups are all based on intuitive mathematical patterning within a general mapping of the overtone series of EN. With the stark contrast of clear, resonant pitches and breathy, unpitched vocal sounds I wanted to integrate the physical demands of singing into the music itself. The entire rhythmic structure is based on a 5-sec cycle of breathing in and out La Barbara's natural breathing rhythm. In each section, the 24 tracks begin in structured time and gradually move out of it (Fig. 5). The combination of these tracks creates a feeling of dissipation. This loss of coherence is the rc-sult of each indisridual track moxring slowly out of the estab-

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instruments. The highest instrument was the glockenspiel (4,186 Hz) played with brass mallets to maximize the high frequency of the sound. The lowest was the bass drum (50 Hz). I then expanded the frequency range by taping and then playing back the original sounds at up to four times the original speed. The taped part in Of Radiar2 t Streams consists of a steady stream of multitracked, acoustic sound with continuous internal timbral modulations. The form of the piece is based on a Fibonacci spiral (Fig. 2) the total duration is 21 min, and the structural points of each recurring cycle occur at 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 min.

The piece begins with solo tape a delicate, sparse texture created with several tracks of antique cymbals (I re- moved the attack part of the sound, leaving only the resonance). I created the evolution of density and intensity in the pitched sections with fast, repeated note groups that slowly break off into separate streams. Each cycle of the piece consists of an entirely pitched or unpitched section, and the cycles alternate between pitched and unpitched

sections. At the 8-min point, the second cycle of the pitched section begins. Fast, repeated note groups (Fig. 3) begin at seven or eight notes per second, with the note groups in each part playing pitches within a close frequency range, and all within the frequency span of an octave. As the instruments play note groups of varying speed within the same frequency range, a series of interference patterns is produced, which creates the perception of a large, two-dimensional (2D) field. The note groups slowly ex- pand into a wider range and reach maximum density, intensity and volume (Fig. 4) at the 12-min point. The combination of note groups and timbres then create interference patterns with maximum intensity and the fast, repeated note groups blur into frequency ranges; the frequency ranges begin to separate into streams. Once the frequency ranges break down into separate streams, there is a complete loss of a sense of structured time; each of the percussionists plays note groups as quickly as possible while creating a large, 2D sound field where individual elements cannot be

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lished tempo and rhythm of the piece and into a freer interpretation of the material.

RITES OFDECIMATION

One of my most recent works is Rites of Decimation ( 1992), a piece for jazz/new music big band commissioned by a Toronto-based group called Hemi- spheres. When I began work on this piece I had been thinking about the dra- matic changes taking place all over the world including the recent drastic events in Eastern Europe. Such symp- toms are appearing everywhere and in- all areas of life. Our infrastructures are falling apart, causing a breakdown and remapping of everything we think of as boundaries. I wanted to create a compositional structure that would be appro- priate to our dissipative situation I now understand dissipation in the sense that Ilya Prigogine discovered it in physics: Initial conditions in the state of a system are associated with beings while laws in- volving temporal changes are associated with becoming. This is a way of understanding how a process relates to an end result [5].

I also wanted to integrate some of my knowledge of chaos theory both with elements of randomness and with the repetitive patterns intrinsic to fractals. To do this I organized a continuum with highly structured, notated patterns on one end of the scale and free improvisa- tion at the other.

My intention was also to continue to explore my sense of music as energy systems. I began Rites of Decimation with an intuitive sense that I was creating energy systems with rhythm. I had an image of kinetic energy setting up the original impetus, and then sending it through trans- formations with repetition. Each notated section is repeated several times but only once as written. With each repeti- tionS the musicians develop the density, intensity and volume of the section. The kinetic energy that sets up the rhythmic structure of each section is created by the percussionists. The underlying har- monlc structure and pitch range for each section is indicated by a ';tonality map" (Fig. 6). The tonality map sets up a sequence of harmonic changes that occur as the music is performed, limiting the performers to a given parameter of all the pitch possibilities for any given point in the piece. The tonality map can be interpreted as a series of individual pitches or spelled out as chords for jazz musicians. All of the instruments follow

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the same tonality map within the range of their instruments, and each cyclic repetition of the notated sections develops through an expansion of the harmonic spectrum and range of the tonality map. The idea of the tonality map came from a recent computer program called Fractal Music Composer, written by Hugh McDowell [6].

THE THEATRE A ITS DOUBLE One of my most important sources of inspiration is Antonin Artaud, a poet, playwright and visionary who wrote a brilliant and influential collection of manifestos called The Theatre and Its DoubEe [7]. In his extensive writings he conceived a form of drama that would recapture the spiritual and ritual func-

tion of theater, and would transform the audience through total emotional and physical involvement. He felt that once theatre was freed from the control of text, it would become an extension of oral/verbal expression beyond words.

Three years ago I began to teach an experimental course, at the National Theater School of Canada, in which students create theater from music. We begin this work by using music in the traditional role of text, and then we add layers of other elements lighting, visual environment, movement and props- during an intensive workshop and re- hearsal period before the performance. Each element of the piece is treated as a "character": an integral element of the performance. The music functions as a foundation for the other elements.

The approach used in this experimen-


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coherence, with more and more demands being made for frequency alloca^ tions in the already densely overcrowded electromagnetic spectrum (Fig. 7). I am researching the implications of this process in close consultation with Andrew Michrowski, a Canadian scientist who specializes in issues of electromagnetic pollution [8].

Pozuertifzes integrates documentary images of power lines, power generators and transformer stations with images that I have created and transformed with Amiga-based computer-imaging systems. The film is buiit around a dancer who describes in movement her personal re- sponse to the environment and who interacts with the electromagnetic fields. Her minimal, expressionistic movements are influenced by Butoh, a dance form that emerged in post-World War IIJapan and that expresses in movement the dev- astating effects of the atomic bomb. Her interaction with electromagnetic fields will be filmed in a room with video display terminals. There will be close atten- tion to lighting, and the room will be misted with water vapour to make the radiation from the video display terminals visible. The sounds of the electromagnetic fields and the interaction of the fields with the human body will be made audible with the use of a device, created by Michrowski, that registers and ampli- fies sounds in the electromagnetic spectrum. This will reveal sounds such as those from radar installations and the microwave landing patterns of planes.

I will use computer imaging of the power lines to create a gradual disintegration of the structures themselves, leaving traces of the electromagnetic energy patterns along the power lines. The disintegration of the original images will occur with the same visual phrases as the original images. I will vary and transform the patterns of the steel structures of microwave towers with computer imaging. The variations of images of power generators that I create will be edited with the fast, mechanical rhythm of the generators, creating a rhythmic disintegration of the images.

The music integrates found, environmental sound the 60-Hz hum of power lines and transformer stations, the mechanical, rhythmic sounds of power generators, the high-frequency sounds of computers, fax machines and cellular phones, and extremely low frequencies (ELF) from video display terminals. More sounds will be recorded with Michrowski's device the sounds of traf-

Fig. 7. This cross- section of the electromagnetic spectrwn [10] shows the frequency bands and wavelengths allo- cated for communi- cation. Powerlines includes sounds from the spectrum of audio signals to the spectrum of microwave relays.

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tal course has led me to create various forms of interdisciplinary work, including Body Weather, the working title of a multidisciplinary piece (currently in the early stages of development) and, most recently, a film project.

POWERLlNES PowerXines (in progress) is the title of my film project a 16mm, 50-min experimental documentary film. The theme of the film is the deterioration of the environment caused by electromagnetic pollution and is based on my perceptions

and experience of electromagnetism. Electromagnetic pollution can be under- stood to be caused by out-of-phase elec- trical oscillations, or incoherent energy systems. The necessary radical transformation of the relationship of the electromagnetic fields to the environment will occur with the change to in-phase elec- trical oscillations, or coherent energy systems. As many North American cities are in the process of falling into their crum- bling Victorian networks of sewers, the envirnment is being flooded with electromagnetic radiation of most wavelengths and with varying degrees of

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tends to boundaries between races, gen- ders and sexual orientations and so on.

The theme will be expressed in the music and images used and, through a close relationship between the performers and the audience, created in part with interactive computer systems. The images and the music will be synchro- nized in dense, fast patterns based on dance rhythms.

Acknowledgments For valuable support, feedback and technical ad- srice during the process of writing this article I am indebted to Catherine McTavish, Shahrokh Yadegari and Gayle Young. For technical advice, inspiration and support for Powerlines I am indebted to Andrew Michrowski.

References and Notes 1. Some of the pieces (Winter Trees, Of Radiant Streams, Circuits, and Rites of Decimation) I describe here are included on my compact disc Both Sides (1994), produced in Montreal by the Societe IN'ouvelle d'Enregistrement, 10175 Meunier, Montreal, Quebec, H3L 2Z2 Canada.

2. Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought and Re- ality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1956) pp. 51-56.

3. The other side of the callvas, called The Pure Gold Baby that Melts into a Shriek (a quote from Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus") is a disturbing, vis- ceral image made with deep lacerations that scar the canvas, acupuncture Ileedles that pierce through the surface of the canvas and large splashes of SIcTasrish's own blood. It is evidence of what McTavish endured to create the "other" side-the "art" side of the installation.

4. Albert Bregman and Stephen McAdams, "Hear- ing Musical Streams," ComputerMusicJournal 3, No. 4, pp. 26-43.

5. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stellgers, Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam Books, 1984).

6. Ian Waugh, "Harmony From Chaos," Atari ST User Magazine (August 1992) pp. 16-18.

7. Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double (New York: Grove Press, 1958).

8. For more information, contact the Planetary As- sociation for Clean Energy, Inc., A. Michrowski, President, 100 Bronson Avenue, Suite 1001, Ot- tawa, Ontario, K1R 6G8 Canada.

9. Fibonacci spiral reprinted from Matila Ghyka, The Geometry of Art and Life (New York: Dover, 1977) .

10. Reprinted from Hand book for Acoustic Ecology (Vancouver: A.R.C., 1978).

Discopraphy Helen Hall, Both Sides (Societe Nouvelle d'Enregis- trement, 1994). Compact disc.

Helen Hall, "Winter Trees" alld "Stoicheia," Bridg- ing Language (Musicworks, 1986) . Cassette.

Filmopraphy Helen Hall, Powerlines (Montreal: Cinefort, Inc., 1994). Distributed internatiollally by Cinema Libre.

fic lights, car phones, radio towers and satellite dishes. I will develop more sounds with the interference patterns created with car radios in close proxim- ity to high-tension power lines. The movement of the theme toward transformation and re-integration will be expressed through a transformation of the music to a more harmonic, rhythmic language. Finally, the stage of re-integration will be expressed musically with the integration of the sampled sounds of acoustic instruments (violin, cello) and percussion instruments with computer- generated and synthesized sounds, which will be grounded in coherent rhythmic structures, and with music based on the overtone series and on principles from chaos theory.

I will create the transition to more coherent energy systems visually with images based on principles that represent coherent energy systems. For example, I plan to use images of the U.S. pavilion ( now known as the "biosphere ") from the Expo '67 site in Montreal, Canada. This structure was designed by Buck- minster Fuller and is based on harmonic, geometric principles. Other images include the symbol of the Sri Yantra a Hindu symbol that represents an ordering of chaos seen as a simulta- neous, rather than a linear time process. In the context of the film, the symbol represents the integration of the individual with the environment. These images will be subjected to as many computer-imaging and optical-printing techniques as possible, in order to create endless variations and to put the images themselves through a process of transformation and re-integration.

I am developing the basic building materials of the film the music, visual images and dance contrapuntally and grounding them in rhythm. I am arrang- ing the relationship of the different elements in the form of a "score," in which each element is notated and organized in layers. The music, visual images and dance will evoke disintegration and deterioration by functioning somewhat in- dependently; throughout the film, these three elements will go through a process of transformation. As part of this process they will become re-integrated and syn- chronized. I think of each element as an independent instrument, or part, that interacts with the other parts contrapuntally and rhythmically through time.

CONCLUSIONS With Powerlines I have begun to trans- pose compositional techniques of multitracking, counterpoint and rhythm to film. I am interested in working in greater detail with rhythm as an energy system through the soundtrack for this film. I hope to find a way to work with rhythm that defies gravity, creating a rhythmic structure whose centre cannot be fixed just as the rhythm of breathing in and out formed the structural basis of Circuits, and an image of kinetic energy formed the starting point for Rites of Decimation, setting up an original impetus and sending it through trans- formations. Tonality has a sense of a loss of gravity when a harmonic structure is missing the fundamental pitch, and I would like to create a sense of a loss of gravity with rhythmic structures that em- phasize the beat while transcending it.

BODY WEATHER My next project is Body Weather, a multidisciplinary piece for which I will create music entirely from computer- generated and sampled acoustic sound sources. The music will be combined with digitally processed images and a sound system that completely surrounds the audience to create a form of multisensory experience. This experience will create a sense of disintegration by surrounding the audience with fast, dense, rhythmic music and images re- sulting in a matrix where the boundaries of the self do not apply.

The theme of Body Weather is disintegration the positive aspects of the loss of the boundaries between the individual and the environment, of the breakdown of the immune system and the loss of individuality. The theme is based on my experience of the disintegration of the boundaries between my- self and the environment, caused by my environmental hypersensitivity. This experience resonates with one of the basic tenets of systems theory, which describes the boundaries between the organism and the environment as being very fluid. The positive aspects of such an experience are that we become aware that we are an integral part of a system much larger than ourselves and that the more integrated we are with this larger system, the more differentiated we become. This disintegration of boundaries then ex-




_ - No. 2. Richard M. Povall, John D. Mitchell, Kathleen Smith and Jeffrey R. _ Thomson, 17ze Last Garcfen, intermedia performance combining experimental _ movement, music, video, visual design and technology, 1993. This work uses two _ interactive computer-music systems, a virtual stage set created by three channels

= _ of interactive laser video disc, one channel of prerecorded video and MIDI-

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No. 1. Catherine McTavish, Niot Htsion #14: Stars i I I/lll/llli-1 | El 0//g 1N20gwe- - S li -g w i - 8 I in lFe Eyes A Landscape, detail, acrylic and mixed l | 11 g I @l l 1. . _- I-=l- _ media on canvas, 396 x 244 cm, 1981-1984. E > . T: C-2 ' ' @ 1 | | R

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No. 3. Kristi A. Allik and Robert C. F. Mulder, Eulogy for an Elm Tree, Part I, Skyharp installation in the marsh near a footbridge at the Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area in Kingston, Ontario, inJuly 1991 1 _____

No. 4. Jack Ox, Ursonate, oil-painted image on mylar over xeroxed underdrawings (detail), 30 cm x 200 m, work in progress. (Photo: Bernhard Schaub) The sections were collaged according to musical and phonetic information taken from Kurt Schwitters's performance of the Ursonate.

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both sides of the mirror: integrating physics and acoustics with personal experience

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