The final issue of Organised Sound Volume 5 represents the first step in what one hopes will become a fruitful long-term collaboration with the International Computer Music Association (ICMA). Selected papers from workshops and panels that formed part of the 2000 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC2000, Berlin, 27 August – 1 September) form the theme for this issue. Of the ten workshops and four panels, papers are being published representing two from each category. Obviously not all of these categories could be represented in this issue. Furthermore, it was clear that many of these workshops and panels would be difficult to translate into the form of an article.

The notion of interactivity is likely to be a major aspect in the future of discussion of music technology. In a world of realtime computing, how composers, performers and other artists communicate with technology and their audiences will be an issue which could fundamentally change our approach to music making.

The definition of genres within electroacoustic music, electronic music or computer music is extremely difficult. In recent times it seems that, for some, the term electroacoustic music has become a euphemism for acousmatic composition; computer music has so many different categories that it has become a generic term hardly used at all but replaced by interactive, algorithmic and the many other sub-genres which now predominate. This is probably a natural and expected evolution through the development and globalisation of technologies and the dissemination of aesthetics, but when Organised Sound issued a call for articles relating to the use and application of computers and technology in ‘popular music’, we may have, inadvertently, guaranteed that no one would understand what we meant. We had imagined that there were many people using what to date had been seen as largely academic research tools and applications and applying them in exciting ways to new forms of commercial experimental music and electronica. We had imagined that the potential of ‘glitch’, ‘électroacoustique’ or ‘microsound’ and the many other genres of contemporary electronica would yield articles about the desires, methods and techniques of young composers and laptop performers.

This paper describes a software package developed in MAX for using the gestures of a performer as control factors for music, via Buchla's ‘Lightning’. The software not only tracks the x and y coordinates of each transmitter, but also calculates the direction, speed and acceleration of their movements in the whole space and relative to each other. The program is very configurable, allowing calibration of the data evaluation and adjustment of the sampling rate of the values sent by the Lightning. These features have been applied to composition in two different areas: an interactive choreographic environment, and a performing interface for musicians.

Contrary to the hi-tech reputation of pop, the most innovative pop musicians often use traditional, old-fashioned equipment, ignoring the latest technological developments. Musical innovation tends to precede technological innovation rather than the other way round. This article presents a birds eye view of pop experimentalism, grouping a number of influential or otherwise interesting examples into four main categories based on the type of equipment that is subject to experimentation: (i) abusing musical instruments, (ii) abusing amplification, (iii) abusing effects and mixing equipment, and (iv) ‘pop concrète’, or experiments involving tape montage techniques. The examples suggest that technological innovation may be relatively unimportant to the most innovative and musically adventurous pop musicians. Rather, they appear to need to have established some kind of relationship with their equipment before they find radically new ways of using it. Pop experiments involve the critical use of well-established typical pop machinery. This places them in an old tradition of artistic innovation.

In some informal remarks I made at a conference in 1979, I expressed a reluctance to deal with the subject of aesthetics, which historically is a product of European philosophy and which remains a troublesome concept for contemporary music where an aesthetic term such as ‘beauty’ seems to be studiously ignored (Truax 1980). In a recent, also informal article (Truax 1999) addressed as a ‘letter to a twenty-five-year old electroacoustic composer’, I predicted that the term ‘computer music’ would probably disappear since in an age where the computer is involved in nearly all electroacoustic music production, this term, which once distinguished a type of music from that made with analogue, electronic equipment, seemed today to be impossible to define rigorously. Therefore, the concept of the ‘aesthetics of computer music’, proposed as a panel discussion topic, initially seemed to me to be doubly suspect as to its meaning.

In German, the word Holzwege means ‘paths that lead nowhere but that are not inconsequential’. They are paths which, without a goal, facilitate the transforming experience of a journey that can gently, yet profoundly, touch our physical, emotional and intellectual self. In this paper, Holzwege is metaphor for a reflection on aesthetics and computer/electroacoustic music, a reflection that does not seek to demonstrate but to suggest. Thus, rather than considering and refining the abundance of concepts and definitions which seek to circumscribe the aesthetic characteristics of these musical idioms, this reflection goes beyond definitions to outline a path of no-aesthetics which highlights their creative potential.

This paper offers a critique of what are seen as key issues which are problematised within the field of interactive dance, centring on the role of the various artists and technologies involved in the development of interactive dance systems, the notion of interactivity versus non-interactivity, and the influence of traditional single art-form practices. The paper proposes that it is only through identifying the particular motifs promoted by the technology itself that a way forward can be found, and an interactive dance aesthetic can begin to emerge in earnest. The arguments presented in this paper are framed within the context of the authors' long-term work and collaboration within the area of interactive dance, and provides a detailed case study of the piece Lifting Bodies (1999).

This article discusses the compositional strategies of turntablist DJs working within the hip-hop genre, focusing on processes developed by these musicians such as mixing, scratching and beat juggling, all of which are carried out on turntables. Since the development of the gramophone at the turn of the century, the turntable has become an instrument of creation as well as reproduction, resulting in the ground-breaking compositional strategies of hip-hop music. Hip-hop DJs create original music from a range of existing musical texts and in doing so, raise questions concerning originality and authorship as well as questioning the division between composer and performer. Hip-hop music is regarded by authors such as Poschardt (1998) as one of the final avant-gardes of the twentieth century; this article will explore and discuss the ground-breaking nature of the genre with reference to new compositional strategies and the turntable technology with which they are carried out.

The applications of technology in instrument design contribute to the resulting sound on many levels, particularly in the context of new evolutions representing the traditional instruments of our culture. Materials technology is seldom given consideration in the description of Western string instruments, but our choices of woods, metals and synthetics can dramatically alter the sound without altering the substance of instrumental performance. In the design of modified string instruments which mimic features of natural acoustic predecessors, new technology is applied on many levels. A taxonomy is proposed for the past, present and future of instrument design. Due consideration is given to the music which results from the new sound world, especially that involving interactive electronic processing. The advantages and disadvantages of directions in instrument design for the future are evaluated within the proposed schema. Some extended techniques on the cello are proposed to be further extended with electronics, and audio examples and descriptions are provided. A model for future collaborations between composer, performer and engineer is proposed.

In his work Contropasso (1998–9) Michelangelo Lupone collaborates with Massimo Moricone in the dance showcase piegapiaga achieving direct interaction between dancers and live electronics performance. The choreography takes advantage of acoustic events as generated by three dancers and further elaborated on via computer by the composer through use of granular algorithms and digital filtering, allowing the construction of the musical events to occur in real time. The live electronics performer changes sound parameters in relation to the dancers' movements by use of the program SDP – Sonorous Drawing Plane (S. Lanzalone) – created specifically for the control of different synthesis algorithms allowing them to be processed on systems such as Fly30 (CRM) and Mars (IRIS). SDP reads and converts computer mouse data as the operator creates lines corresponding to performance gestures, thus creating both visible and audible output. This software allows a single gesture to control more than one parameter, thus creating complex changes in the audio programme output. The article deals with different compositions, performances and didactic situations the author has experienced using SDP.

Starting from a distinction between music creation and sound or pre-established methods of form and sound manipulation, this paper discusses the use of some typical procedures in computer-aided composition. A critique of common-sense procedures sets out to show that musical creativity may be threatened and put at risk in the name of a community's immediate acceptance of what is considered to be of musical value.

This article considers the notion of the invention as an instrumental concept in designing an interactive music system. The derivation of the idea is traced from Dreyfus' Bach and the Patterns of Invention. Issues of the nature of the interactive musical context are problematised on the basis of ideas from Adorno and Lyotard. The invention is presented as a mechanism for implementing the concepts of the embodiment and distribution of musical activity, which are shown to be generalisable. The relationship of composer and computer is considered in the light of a ‘prosthetic culture’. It is suggested that a crucial property of the invention is that of self-simulation.

Through a discussion of the installation piece, The Trade / Oro por Baratijas, we address the theoretical issues behind the development of ecologically based compositional work. We discuss whether ecologically based music can be studied using linguistic tools. The concepts of potentiality and actuality are situated within the perspective of individual–environment interactions. A process that describes the relationship between an individual and his specific social context is proposed: the personal environment. Consistency is discussed in relation to environmental sound listening processes and ecological modelling work. The first part of the paper concludes by suggesting that form-creation is dynamically determined by a process of mutual adaptation between listener and environment. The second part focuses on compositional methods and contextual elements as they are used in The Trade. This work has been developed through a multilevel approach where visual and sonic materials stem from social and historical issues. The organisational processes of the sound piece are based on the micro-temporal and spectral properties suggested by the visual elements in the installation. The meso-temporal dynamic is organised through ecologically constrained events. The macro-structural shape and the sources used in the piece make reference to a specific historical context, i.e. the conquest of the American continent by the European armies during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Based on a composer's psycho-acoustic imagination or response to music, system dynamics modelling and simulation tools can be used as a scoring device to map the structural dynamic shape of interest of computer music compositions. The tools can also be used as a generator of compositional ideas reflecting thematic juxtaposition and emotional flux in musical narratives. These techniques allow the modelling of everyday narratives to provide a structural/metaphorical means of music composition based on archetypes that are shared with wider audiences. The methods are outlined using two examples.

Chaosynth is a cellular automata-based granular synthesis system whose capabilities for producing unusual complex dynamic sounds are limitless. However, due to its newness and flexibility, potential users have found it very hard to explore its possibilities as there is no clear referential framework to hold on to when designing sounds. Standard software synthesis systems take this framework for granted by adopting a taxonomy for synthesis instruments that has been inherited from the acoustic musical instruments tradition, i.e. woodwind, brass, string, percussion, etc. Sadly, the most interesting synthesised sounds that these systems can produce are simply referred to as effects. This scheme clearly does not meet the demands of more innovative software synthesizers. In order to alleviate this problem, we propose an alternative taxonomy for Chaosynth timbres. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the basic functioning of Chaosynth. It then presents our proposed taxonomy and ends with concluding comments. A number of examples are provided on this volume's Organised Sound CD.

The SndObj Sound Object Library is a C++ object-oriented audio processing framework and toolkit. This article initially examines some of the currently available sound processing packages, including sound compilers, programming libraries and toolkits. It reviews the processes involved in the use of these systems and their strengths and weaknesses. Some application examples are also provided. In this context, the SndObj library is presented and its components are discussed in detail. The article shows the library as composed of a set of classes that encapsulate all processes involved in synthesis, processing and IO operations. Programming examples are included to show some uses of the system. These, together with library binaries, source code and complete documentation, are included in the downloadable package, available on the Internet. Possible future developments and applications are considered. The library is demonstrated to provide a useful base for research and development of audio processing software.

In this paper the ingredients of computing auditory perception are reviewed. On the basic level there is neurophysiology, which is abstracted to artificial neural nets (ANNs) and enhanced by statistics to machine learning. There are high-level cognitive models derived from psychoacoustics (especially Gestalt principles). The gap between neuroscience and psychoacoustics has to be filled by numerics, statistics and heuristics. Computerised auditory models have a broad and diverse range of applications: hearing aids and implants, compression in audio codices, automated music analysis, music composition, interactive music installations, and information retrieval from large databases of music samples.

We compared six sound analysis/synthesis systems used for computer music. Each system analysed the same collection of twenty-seven varied input sounds, and output the results in Sound Description Interchange Format (SDIF). We describe each system individually then compare the systems in terms of availability, the sound model(s) they use, interpolation models, noise modelling, the mutability of various sound models, the parameters that must be set to perform analysis, and characteristic artefacts. Although we have not directly compared the analysis results among the different systems, our work has made such a comparison possible.

In this review of Jonathan Harvey's In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music, special attention is given to the question of how the musical domain may be related to the spiritual one, e.g. by representation (‘giving a picture’, ‘portrayal’), symbolism, parallelism, mediation and ‘overlap’. Harvey's sources and personal experiences are discussed, and the relationships between the different parts the author plays in his book assessed: the spiritual seeker, the thinker about music, and the composer. A possible conflict between spiritual search and professional music composition is pointed out, given an implicit tendency in the former to surrender, and in the latter to mastery and control. One of the questions looked into is how music, especially by articulating contrasts, may convey insight into ‘unity’. Other issues discussed are the possible addiction to music as a spiritual means at the expense of the spiritual quest itself; the alleged special role of electronics and spectrality in the composition of spiritual music; the possibility of developing spiritual listening; and possible modernist overtones in the notion of making progress as a composer while mediating spiritual insights and experiences.