MU2601

HISTORY OF SONIC ARTS

Student No. : 1119896

MU2601 History of Sonic Arts Student No. : 1119896

Iannis Xenakis : Composition Techniques and Styles

Iannis Xenakis is one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers. Avant-garde music is a term primarily used by musicologists to define the radical, post-1945 tendencies of a modernist style in several genres of art music (Nadeau, 1981). They are mostly associated with serialism in music; a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Regarded by the French, English and Germans, avant-garde works are experimental or innovative.

Amongst other avant-garde music composers, Iannis Xenakis, however, has introduced a different approach when composing his pieces. He makes use of mathematical models and initiated the use of computers in algorithmic compositions. Alpern (1995, p. 1) refers to algorithmic composition as the process of using some formal process to make music with minimal human intervention.

The Greek electroacoustic music composer, Iannis Xenakis, trained as a mathematician and architecture prior to music. As an architect-engineer with an exposure of music, Xenakis integrated music with architecture and structured them with mathematical ideas. His musical style is based on formalistic ideas and equations. For example, his piece Concret PH for 2track tape and four loudspeakers, has a title that refers to architectural design and construction material. Concret PH was conceived as an introductory event in Le Corbusier's Philips Pavilion which was presented at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958 (Scipio, 1998, p. 203). In Concret PH, the study of density and the application of stochastic functions to the calculation of articulation points for each layer of sound were the main concerns (Harley, 2002, p. 51). In Xenakis first electroacoustic work called Diamorphoses, written in the year 1957, also for 2-track tape and four loudspeakers, he uses statistical distribution of points on a plane, as one of the methods to compose it. Another brief example of mathematics and science applied to music composition is the use of a mathematical system called Markov Chain, in Xenakis instrumental piece of work called Analogique A which was written in concurrent with the tape work Analogique B.

Iannis Xenakis has composed many electroacoustic music using materials such as tape, orchestra, voices, radiophonic and multimedia. The materials he used vary along his years of
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MU2601 History of Sonic Arts Student No. : 1119896

composing. From the 1950s until early 1960s, he composed with mostly tapes and soundtracks. According to David Ewen, Xenakis explored the possibilites of simulating electronically produced sounds and sonorities with conventional instruments (1971, p. 125). Xenakis started composing for orchestra and tape, and then with multimedia in the early 1970s. With the means of his own computer system called UPIC, he then started to compose with the help of that system and then in his last years, composed using stochastic synthesis method. Stochastic music uses probability distributions to shape large masses of sounds (Agon C. et al, 2004, p. 145). Most of the works of Xenakis make use of algorithmic compositions. In early 1950s, he started to experiment with stochastic processes and use them for generating pieces without a computer.

Analogique A et B are works of Xenakis which are concurrent with each other. Analogique A was written first, for a string quartet of 9 string instruments. Meanwhile, Analogique B consists of sounds recorded on tape. Both these works are then mixed together by Xenakis to create Analogique A et B. Analogique A is the most thoroughly formalized composition of his. He uses the Markovian stochastic method to compose this piece of work. Analogique B on the other hand, is recognized today as the first effort in granular synthesis of sound ever made in musical (Scipio, 2006, p. 2). Granular synthesis involves generating thousands of very short sonic grains to form larger acoustic events, as cited by Roads (1988, p. 11). Upon listening to both Analogique A and Analogique B put together as a piece of work, there is no apparent integration between the two, no contact, no smooth transition (Scipio, 2006, p. 17). However, this piece is well-known as Xenakis work for its distinctive compositional method. It is an example to show the significance of stochastic methods in composition. Initially, these two works were composed separately; Analogique A being composed first, and then was incorporated with Analogique B afterwards. Having to combine both pieces together, shows that Analogique A was not a flaring piece on its own. This suggests that it turned out to be the least successful of Xenakis electroacoustic music. Evidence being that Xenakis never took up the particular approach again in later works (Scipio, 2006, p. 2).

Another work of Xenakis which is quite an interesting piece of work is a multi-channel electroacoustic music called Persepolis, unrelenting in its density and continuously evolving architecture (Harley, 2001, p. 92). It involves 59 loudspeakers, 92 spotlights, and 2 lasers installed in the presentation of the work. He incorporated a designed site construction as part
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MU2601 History of Sonic Arts Student No. : 1119896

of the work to go along with the respective music. This reflects his idea as an architectoriented music composer. Admittedly, Xenakis was a pioneer in electronic music, as well as in the use of computers to organize compositional method (Kanach, 2012, p. 7). With his concentration on formalized composition of music, Iannis Xenakis had devised a music composing system called UPIC, which could translate graphical images into musical results (Hugill, 2008, pp. 95, 182). It is a computerized musical composition tool which he used for his piece Mycnes Alpha written in the year 1978. By designing noisy waveforms and complex envelopes, and also by layering as many as several hundred notes, interesting sounds can be obtained with UPIC (Harley, 2002, p. 51). With the use of UPIC, Xenakis was able to compose his electroacoustic works. UPIC however, will not be able to produce the sound that he composed; instead, it provides probabilities using graphical images that he will use as his springboard to create music or composition guidelines and references.

The UPIC system has been widely used by several composers including the renowned and influential electronic composer, Aphex Twin. Xenakis concepts and technique of composition has made an important influence in the development of computer and electronic music. Other than that, Iannis Xenakis also conceived a computer program called GENDYN which is the software implementation of dynamic stochastic synthesis, a rigorous algorithmic composition procedure (Hoffman, 2000, p. 31). His first compositional product from this GENDYN program was his work named GENDY301. He used stochastic function with this program at a level of the macrostructure in his work of GENDY301. Xenakis has a thorough continuity of musical approach (Scipio, 1998, p. 27). He composes both sound and music at once, as in the case of his work, GENDY301. Afterwards, he composed another piece of work, also by means of GENDYN, which is called S.709. S.709 has less harmonic structure and sustained tones compared to the piece GENDY301. In fact, harmonic and sustained notes in S.709 are thoroughly absent. Most of the time, the music has only one layer sounding at a time. However, even with some consistencies, there were several transformations in some voices, both gradually and in sudden shifts (Harley, 2002, p. 56).

MU2601 History of Sonic Arts Student No. : 1119896

Given these points, it shows that Iannis Xenakis has his own innovation and style of electroacoustic music composition. He approaches electroacoustic music composition in a diverse way from other known electroacoustic music composers. He experimented composing music with the integration of mathematics and sciences. By developing his individual theories and techniques, Xenakis showed his knowledge as an architect-engineer and an electroacoustic music composer while putting them in his compositional techniques. With that, he composed formalized electroacoustic music which portrays his own originality. Apart from that, he also created and produced computer software and program to aid formalistic music composition. The works of Iannis Xenakis are thought of as historically significant. Utterly individual and unique, he was enormously admired by musicians, and exceptionally so by practitioners in other disciplines (Steinitz, 2002, p. 5).

MU2601 History of Sonic Arts Student No. : 1119896

References
Agon, C. et al. (2004). Formal Aspects of Iannis Xenakis' "Symbolic Music":. Journal of New Music Research, 33 (2), p.145-159. Alpern, A. (1995). Technique for Algorithmic Composition of Music. [pdf] Hampshire College. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.23.9364&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed: 02/03/2013]. Scipio, A. D. (1998). Compositional Models in Xenakis's Electroacoustic Music. Perspectives of New Music, 36 (2), pp.201-243. [online] Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833529 [Accessed: 02/03/2013]. Scipio, A. D. (2006). Formalization and Intuition in Analogique A et B, Definitive Proceedings of the International Symposium Iannis Xenakis. [pdf] Available at: http://iannis-xenakis.org/Articles/Di%20Scipio.pdf [Accessed: 05/03/2013]. Ewen, D. (1971). Composers of tomorrow's music. Dodd, Mead. Harley, J. (2001). Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis. Computer Music Journal, 25 (1), p.92-93. Harley, J. (2002). The Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis. Computer Music Journal, 26 (1), p.33-57. Hoffman, P. (2000). The New GENDYN Program. Computer Music Journal, 24 (2), p.31-38. Hugill, A. (2008). The Digital Musician. New York: Routledge. Kanach, S. E. (2012). Xenakis matters: contexts, processes, applications. Hillsdale, N.Y., Pendragon Press. Nadeau, R. (1981). Modern Music: The Avant Garde since 1945 by Paul Griffiths. Music Educators Journal, 68 (4), pp. 63-64. Roads, C. (1988). Introduction to Granular Synthesis. Computer Music Journal, 12 (2), pp.11-13. Steinitz, R. (1981). Tributes to Iannis Xenakis. Contemporary Music Review, 21 (2/3), pp. 58.