Abstract
The theme of large temporal span of cognition is emerging as a key issue in cognitive anthropology and ergonomics. We will consider it through the analysis of a musical composition process, that of Voi(rex) by Philippe Leroux, in which sketches and score writing are articulated through the use of different kinds of computer software. After presenting the data collecting method, we will consider the analysis of the resulting data concerning the writing of two movements of Voi(rex). Such an analysis will allow us: (1) to draw methodological conclusions about the time and mode of inquiry; (2) to specify the notion of situated cognition in situations essentially pre-established by the actor; (3) to set out two families of theoretical results relating to large temporal span cognitive phenomena: the first concerns the notion of an idea and its role in the development of the creative process; the second deals with the notion of the appropriation of tools and the making of situated individual cognition.
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Notes
Our institution, IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), includes both a music studio (including production capacity, a nation-wide concert season and concert tours) and a laboratory for research and development (computer music tools and the musical sciences).
A few more details could be of use to the reader of what follows: these two programs were inspired by a formalizing approach to musical composition which was a result of practical and theoretical research in contemporary music from the 1940s through the 1980s, and with which IRCAM has in turn orchestrated an encounter with the technological possibilities of computers. Through its graphic interface, OpenMusic allows a user to execute operations of complex calculations on MIDI information (that is musical parameters encoded according to the protocol of Musical Instruments Digital Interfaces (established in 1983) which allows for musical data to be circulated between different machines and electronic instruments). A patch is a combination of algorithmic operators, equipped with one or several inputs and one or several outputs, and fabricated by a user as a way to realise any given compositional or pre-compositional procedure.
See Fig. 3 and footnote 11.
[Trans. note] The word « anticipation » in French connotes both the passive expectation with regards to a future event as well as an active project for a future action. Throughout I use the word “anticipation”, even if the passive connotation dominates in the English cognate.
The question of whether the data analysis of the writing of the piece as a whole and its full temporal deployment would support the results presented here, would be impossible to address in the space of a single paper. It will be tackled in a forthcoming book.
Middle of left hand column: “At the end, the voice comes back and does the opposite of the beginning: spatial trajectory-->singer-->the sound disappears backstage (by making the gesture of catching the elect[ronic] sound and throwing it backstage?)” [“pour la fin la voix revient et fait l’inverse du début: trajectoire spatiale-->chanteuse-->le son disparaît en coulisse (en faisant le geste d’attraper le son elec[tronique] et de le lancer dans les coulisses ?)”].
As can be seen in the annotation added to the box, another type of signal processing, “frequency shifting”, had been planned, but in the end had been reserved for the writing of a fourth movement, which, precisely at the moment of completion of the third movement, was decided to be abandoned.
These two schemas already figure in an older sketch which listed ideas for the use of electronics throughout the piece, and in which we read: “instrumental held notes and the same pattern put out of phase by the elec[tronics]”.
[Translator’s note] In speaking of “aplats d’accords”, Leroux is using a visual arts metaphor. An “aplat” is a flat patch of uniform colour in a painting. Throughout, this word has been rendered, however imperfectly, by the word “swathe”.
[Translator’s note] “Scat” or “scatting” is a term used in jazz, which refers to a singer’s use of meaningless syllables to intone a melody in imitation of a solo instrument.
The interface of this type of sequencer consists of a number of horizontal audio tracks which can be listened to simultaneously or individually, and in which stereo sound files can be positioned in various ways according to a linear representation of time which is common to all of the tracks. A session is a collection of files (with their respective positions) brought together into a single workspace using this interface. In ProTools, a series of plug-ins also enable certain manipulations of the audio signal without having to export the files into a sound-editing program and then to re-import them back into the sequencer. Philippe Leroux uses plug-ins designed by the G.R.M. [Groupe de Recherches Musicales], a French institute of music research specialising in the composition and study of electroacoustic works fixed onto a recording medium.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Thomas Bottini for having re-read this paper, Jonathan Goldman for having translated it, and Samuel Goldszmidt for his longstanding collaboration on the Philippe Leroux project.
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This article develops a communication presented at the EACE 2005 Conference: Donin and Theureau (2005).
This article was translated by Jonathan Goldman.
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Donin, N., Theureau, J. Theoretical and methodological issues related to long term creative cognition: the case of musical composition. Cogn Tech Work 9, 233–251 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-007-0082-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-007-0082-z