Acoustic and Virtual Space as a Dynamic Element of Music

Pauline Oliveros
ó 16.95

As a musician I am interested in the sensual nature of sound, its power of release and
change. In my performances throughout the world I try to transmit to the audience the
way I am experiencing sound as I hear it and play it in a style that I call deep listening.
Deep listening is listening in every possible way to every thing possible to hear no matter
what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of
oneís own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Deep listening is my life practice.

In this article I attempt to relate my experiences as a performer and composer to my

current interest in acoustics and technology. I have been involved with the use of
technology for live performance since the late 1950s. I will review several of my pieces
as they relate to the development of the Expanded Instrument System (EIS) described
below which I use in composing my solo performances and ensemble performances with
the Deep Listening Band. I will discuss my interest in acoustic and virtual space. Virtual
acoustics - a perceptual phenomenon - is created with electronic processing within an
actual physical space. Simulated walls or reflective surfaces may cause a listener to
perceive differences in room size and the tone quality of a musical instrument.

Early in my student career as a performer I noticed that I liked playing in some rooms or
concert halls much better than others. When I played my French horn in a dry hall (a
room with little or no reverberation) the sound felt stuffy and it seemed harder to play. I
would wonder why my tone quality seemed to sound poor or very thin in such rooms.
More reverberant rooms always felt better especially rooms with wooden floors and walls
as the reflective surfaces. My tone was fuller, richer and rounder and it was easier to play.
I was learning about resonance, reflections, reverberation and how to play the room
through these experiences. Analogously the situation was similar when as a composer I
worked with electronic sound. When I used dry sounds (sounds recorded directly from
the source without a sense of room space) reverberation of some kind was needed to
make the sounds seem more musical. In my first attempts at tape music in the late 50's I
recorded sounds using the reflective surfaces of a bathtub as an approach to help solve
this problem.

Music as I understand it is played in acoustic spaces. The concert hall, theaters,

cathedrals etc. all act as mechanical amplifiers which by their architectural design capture
the sounds of voices and instruments and impose resonances, reflections and absorption
which colors the sounds. Instrumental and vocal sounds are enhanced or distorted by
these mechanical amplifiers depending on the nature of the sound and the purpose of the
design. The resonance, reflection and absorption is determined by the relationships and
materials of the enclosure as well as environmental factors such as air temperature, and
humidity.
Preferred architectural designs are often associated with particular styles of music. Music
intended for reverberant cathedrals such as Gregorian Chant may not sound well in dry
halls whereas contrapuntal music needs a dryer and smaller hall for clarity of all the
contrapuntal lines. Good musicians adjust their performances to the nature of the hall as
best they can. Good audience members seek out the best seats where the balance of direct
sound and reflected sound is the most pleasing. Generally speaking the architectural
acoustic space (concert hall) is assumed to be fixed with relatively unchangeable
characteristics. Harmonies, melodies rhythms and timbres change in more or less intricate
relationships while the acoustic space does not change: It is the container of the music.
As my experience of numerous performance spaces accumulated I began to wish for the
possibility of changing the acoustic space while performing. I also wished that I could
hear like an audience member while I was performing.

With the advent of signal processors and sophisticated sound systems, it is possible to
tamper with the container of music in imaginative ways The walls of a virtual acoustic
space created electronically can expand or contract, assume new angles or virtual
surfaces. The resulting resonances and reflections changing continuously during the
course of a performance creates spatial progressions much as one would create chord
progressions or timbre transformations (changing the tone quality of an instrument while
performing a single pitch). The audience and performers can experience sensations of
moving in space as well as sounds moving through space. They can also experience the
relationship of moving in space in relation to sounds moving in the same space and while
the space itself is changing. Such audio illusions or virtual acoustics can function as a
new parameter of music much as timbre became new in Klangfarben Melodie (tone color
melody) - where the notes of a melody are distributed to different instruments
successively as in the music of Arnold Schˆenberg who coined the term and Anton
Webern. (See Five Orchestral Pieces opus 16 (1909 revised 1949) - Schˆenberg and Five
Pieces for Orchestra opus 10 (1913) Webern.)

In my experience as I gradually became more and more sensitized to acoustic phenomena

and its effects on my sound as a performer and composer I began to listen carefully to
each space I encountered. I noted that changes in position and height or the direction of
an instrument could effect the tone quality. enhancing or detracting. I worked back and
forth from acoustic sound to electronic sound. Beginning in the early 60's I strung tape
from the supply reel of one machine to the take up reel of another so that the tape passed
both heads of two to three tape machines. This tape delay process allowed me to return
the signal from the playback head to the record head in a variety of configurations to
create varying accumulating layering, echoes and rhythms. These techniques were used
for enhancing electronic sounds and for performing processing with acoustic instruments.
Systems and techniques are described in my book Software for People: Collected Essays
1963-1980 in the article Tape Delay Techniques for Electronic Music Composers (1969)
- Smith Publications 1984 Baltimore.

A seed idea appeared in an early work The Bath (1966) for Dancer's Workshop, Anna
Halprin Director, in San Francisco. I wanted to create the music for this dance out of the
intentional and unintentional sounds made by the dancers during the course of the
performance. Additionally I wanted to change the acoustic characteristics of the
performance space as well. In order to accomplish this I used several tape recorders to
collect the sounds the dancers made during the first part of the piece without introducing
any other sonic elements. For the second part of the piece I used the feed back from
playback head to record head to create a virtual reverberant space which seemed to grow
in size gradually as I increased the amplitude of the feedback while I continued to record
the sounds of the dancers. For the third part of the piece I played back earlier parts of the
piece overlapping segments selectively into this new version of the space. Repeated
material was transformed by the virtual space and the layering. The density and textures
grew increasingly complex as the reverberations colored the materials.

I worked extensively with tape delay and became quite involved with timbral
transformation in real time with delay and mixing techniques. I discovered that repeated
layering of a single tone contributed to a transformation of it's quality. I of IV (1966 ) and
Bye Butterfly (1965) are recorded examples of real time electronic pieces from the 60's
which came out of this involvement.

After using tape delay systems for some years for live acoustic instrument performance,
in 1983 I acquired a pair of pre MIDI Lexicon PCM 42 digital delay processors. These
instruments gave me the opportunity to apply my knowledge of tape delay techniques to
my solo accordion performances with the capacity to smoothly vary settings in real time
with greater ease. The PCM 42 is a real time performance instrument. Partly analog in its
nature it is possible to change delay time with foot pedals which allowed the bending of
delayed sounds. (Not easily possible with tape delay) Other functions including mix
control, feed back and capture can be accessed by pedals as well. Modulation with sine
and square waves can be handled with front panel knobs. Unfortunately this performance
oriented direction was discontinued by Lexicon.Though I still use it the PCM 42 is no
longer manufactured.

I used a PCM 42 delay processor for each accordion playing hand and quickly wanted to
have multiple delays for each hand. Multiple delays can more nearly simulate the
numerous reflections in an acoustically interesting space. I performed using a variety of
configurations. Sometimes with as many as four processors per hand. I liked the results
and called the accumulating collection of mics, amplifiers and signal processors
manipulated in complex networks through matrices and mixers the Expanded Instrument
SystemÆ (EIS). I wanted more. I wanted control over the apparent acoustic space
represented by the multiple delays. I wanted my maneuvering of the delays of direct
sound to be heard as new acoustic spaces. I wanted to stay and dwell in a selected space
or change spaces as rapidly as the limits of the processors allowed knowing that the
changes would color the sound or transform the timbre of any acoustic instrument
utilized. I was interested in hearing how a bat might perceive sound as it sends out signals
on the fly. or the nuances of whale song as it reverberates in great underwater locations.

With the EIS I loved the challenge of increasing the amount of information that I could
deal with as a soloist. Whatever I played could come back as a delay and be layered with
the present moment or be modified by pitch bending or modulation. At the same time I
had to be anticipating the future of the sound that I was making in the present moment.

My exploration as a soloist trying to control the equipment while performing reached an

early limit. It became necessary to engage others in the process of developing the EIS. I
knew that I would need software and controllers in order to satisfy my imagination and
advance the EIS. From 1987-93 Panaiotis, a young composer and musical engineer
helped in the development of the EIS. My direct and processed sound was further
processed and routed to multiple speakers by Panaiotis during performances. We
explored endless equipment configurations. Different configurations offered varieties of
sonic possibilities. This work resulted in two compact discs: The Roots of the Moment
(1987) issued by HatHut and Crone Music (1988) issued by Lovely Music Ltd.

Two development residencies focused on control possibilities for the EIS. At the
Exploratorium in San Francisco in 1989 Panaiotis and I experimented with a foot
controlled track ball to send control information to the PCM 42s. Larry Shaw of the
Exploratorium designed an interface circuit between the track ball and the PCM 42s for
direct control of the PCM 42s. The track ball worked in our demonstration and we were
able to send control information on the X and Y axis so that more than one function was
available simultaneously. The track ball ultimately proved to be impractical. We hoped to
have more functions available to the performer with a computer interface.

During a residency in 1990 at the Banff Centre in Alberta I worked with computer
programmer Cornelia Colyer to develop a super simulated foot pedal program. We used
for the first time a digital interface for direct program control of the PCM 42s constructed
by David Ward of Pan Digital Inc. based on Shaw's circuit. I wanted to have a program
that would simulate and go beyond what I could physically do with my foot pedal. The
result was used in a piece called The Lightning Box for four performers. Sound output
from each player was processed by the computer controlled digital delays. The delay
times were changed by the program effecting transposition and pitch bending in a variety
of forms and speeds impossible to accomplish by the slower foot pedal as controller. The
piece calls for each player, as they are listening to their sounds being repeated and
modified, to respond to the modifications as well as to each other. Each player could also
effect the sound to a limited extent with a foot pedal. The ensemble was conducted in
entrances and exits by a computer controlled lighting design also programmed by
Cornelia Colyer with my advice.

In 1988 Stuart Dempster invited me to record with him in an underground cistern at Fort
Worden in Washington State. We have shared an interest in unusual acoustic spaces for
many years. Dempster's solo trombone recording In the Great Abbey of Clement IV
issued by New Albion is an underground cult classic. The reverberation time is 14
seconds. The Fort Worden cistern has a reverberation time of 45 seconds. Dempster has
clocked certain resonant frequencies responding to his trombone at 72 seconds. When I
played in the cistern my impression was that I had encountered the smoothest reverberant
chamber ever. It was nearly impossible to distinguish direct from reflected sound.
Panaiotis joined us with his voice in the recording session which resulted in the CD Deep
Listening issued by New Albion. We dubbed this trio the Deep Listening Band and took
on the mission of performing in unusual spaces and trying to simulate these spaces with
the EIS in our concerts. This also meant a continuing research commitment to evolving
the EIS.

David Gamper joined the Deep Listening Band in 1990 and begin to help with the
research for the EIS. The experience of processing more than one instrumentalist
presented a new challenge. Panaiotis and Gamper were the central controllers of the
processed sounds. There was a growing need for all the performers to independently
control their own processing as I had done earlier. Panaiotis and Gamper experimented
with widening performer control through a central computer which was also being used
to control specialized digital and analog signal processing. The customized interface
constructed for the performance of The Lightening Box at Banff was used again to
interface the veteran PCM 42s to the computer. This system was used in several Deep
Listening Band concerts and for Inside/Outside/Space (1991) for fifteen players, a piece
commissioned by Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne of Montreal, Lorraine Vaillancourt
Director.

Inside/Outside/Space instructs the performers to listen for subtle acoustic phenomena, the
effects caused by the sounds they are playing and the nature of the performance space
such as beats between notes, difference tones (tones resulting from the difference
between two frequencies), phasing and other variations. The result of this continuous
meditative interaction produces cloud like textures which move throughout the hall
giving the audience a sense of expanding and contracting spaces. All of the sound is
generated by the acoustic sounds of the performers in real time. Each player effected real
time transformations of their sounds with foot pedals supported by a computer program
helping to access different functions. During the performance September 1992 at the
Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto spatial distribution of the acoustic sounds was
accomplished by Gamper and Panaiotis at the mixing consoles and with the conductor
who also used foot pedals.

The usefulness of this system was limited by retaining the paradigm of centralized signal
processing (although with somewhat more distributed control) and the lack of visual
feedback for the performers.

In 1993, Gamper developed a configuration which distributed audio processing, computer

control, and visual display of controlling parameters among all performers. In addition,
he experimented with ways to allow the performer to control many parameters with one
controller. Although this configuration mostly eliminates the option of using individual
processing units for more than one performer, it returns to the performer total control
over the processing. In addition, it puts many of the interconnection options of all the
processing units under real time performer control. While not eliminating the possibility
of sending audio signals to each other, each performer has exclusive control over their
sound processing until it emerges from the speakers into the performance space. In an
interesting regression, this configuration returns the PCM 42s to their original smooth
and beautiful analog control and features them as front ends to the whole signal
processing chain. This decision arose from dissatisfaction with the "sound" of the PCM
42s under digital control. Development of a next generation interface may finally allow
the best of both worlds.

Areas of future development include:

ï improving hands free performer controller options (currently stuck with foot
pedals)

ï adding the capability to record and/or playback performer

control information

ï exploring sharing performer control with computer control

ï increasing interconnection options using more sophisticated

audio and digital matrixing devices

ï continuing to discover beautiful ways to process live sounds in

real time and to shape virtual space as a dynamic element of music.

Bibliography

Software for People: Collected Writings 1963-1980 Pauline Oliveros 1984 (Smith
Publications - Baltimore)
Expanded Instrument System (EIS)Æ Authors: Oliveros, P. and Panaiotis in the
(Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference 1992).
Harmonielehre 1911 Arnold Schˆenberg
The Science of Musical Sound - John R. Pierce (New York: Scientific American Library,
1983)
On the Sensation of Tone (London 1875; 2nd edition, 1885; Revised: New York: Dover,
1954)
Music, Acoustics and Architecture Leo L. Beranek (New York: Wiley, 1962)
The Physics of Music: Readings from Scientific American, Carleen Maley Hutchins (San
Francisco: Freeman, 1978

Discography

Bye Bye Butterfly -(1965) Pauline Oliveros, included in New Music for Electronic and
Recorded Media 1750 Arch Records (1979) (Out of print)
I of IV -(1966) Pauline Oliveros: Electronic Works - Paradigm 1997 also included in
New Sounds in Electronic Music Odyssey 32 16 0160 (1968) (Out of print)
Pauline Oliveros: Alien Bog and Beautiful Soop (1967)- Pogus 1997
The Roots of the Moment (1987)- Pauline Oliveros with Panaiotis HatArt(1988)
Crone Music (1988)- Pauline Oliveros with Panaiotis Lovely Music.(1989)
In the Great Abbey of Clement VI (1976)- Stuart Dempster New Albion (1987)
Deep Listening (1988) - Deep Listening Band New Albion (1989)
Troglodyte's Delight (1990)- Deep Listening Band øWhat Next?(1990) Assigned to
O.O. Discs 1998
Ready Made Boomerang (1990)- Deep Listening Band New Albion(1991)
Pauline Oliveros & American Voices (1992) Pauline Oliveros - Mode Records (1994)
Deep Listening Sanctuary (1995) - Deep Listening Band - Mode Records (1995)
Tosca Salad (!992-95)- Deep Listening Band - Deep Listening (1995)
Suspended Music (1994)
Ghostdance - 1994 Pauline Oliveros - Deep Listening (DL7 1998 CD)
Non Stop Flight (1996) - Deep Listening Band - Recorded live at Mills College 1996 -
Music & Arts (CD1030 - 1998)

Update:

The Roots of the Moment:Writings 1982-1996, Pauline Oliveros, Drogue Press 1998

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:© Copyright Pauline Oliveros 1995
This article was written for the Leonardo Music Journal

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