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Publications


Personal Expression Through Algorithmic Composition
Roger Alsop

Opening Paragraphs

Computer music is music that exists only as a result of computers. This definition includes music in which the computer is an integral agent in the generation of the music. This definition excludes music that uses computers or computer based equipment as a surrogate for a musical score or for other instruments.

Music is an area evolved almost to stagnation. This is shown by the relatively few and minor changes made to non-computer based musical instruments over the past hundred years. Music must exist within the confines of the instruments being used to express it. For example, sustained sounds are not possible when the musical instruments are two rocks. Musical instruments such as violins, guitars or rocks, produce sounds as the sounds are being conceptualized; the computer is slowly evolving into a musical instrument capable of this.

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 Leonardo Music Journal
Volume 9 (2000) with Compact Disk
 Special Issue: Power and Responsibility: Politics, Identity and Technology in Music


 Exploring the Self Through Algorithmic Composition
 Roger Alsop pages 89-94

ABSTRACT: The author discusses his views on musical composition in the late twentieth century, focusing on the influence that communication and computer technology have had over his pursuit. He goes on to describe his use of computer-based algorithmic composition and how this particular approach enhances and refines his understanding of his own musical self-expression. He describes four computer algorithms, used in recent compositions and improvisations, that reflect his particular musical interests.

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Presented at: 
Australasian Computer Music Conference
Canberra 2000

Teaching Electro-Acoustic Composition to the Uninitiated
 Roger Alsop

 Abstract

This paper discusses the introduction and teaching of electro-acoustic (EA) music at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) The topics discussed here include: the different processes used in introducing composition tools; developing an aural acuity; introducing EA concepts and ability with software and hardware; the collaborative approach to composition required by the situation; and how the general audience receives the EA offerings of the students. The software and hardware available, and the reasons for those choices, in the Production Centre are also discussed.

The VCA provides a rich environment of people actively involved in the creative process and who are continuously producing works in a wide variety of arts fields. This fever of creativity rubs off on Production Centre students, who may initially come to learn the more prosaic aspects of performance production and feel less able or inclined to approach their studies from a creative and personally expressive position. Fortunately this position changes during the student's tenure to that of being a vital cog in a creative engine or, more often, as an inspiration for, and creator of, fine artistic creations.

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Presented at: 
World Forum of Acoustic Ecology
Melbourne 2003

The Ineluctable Modality of the Audible: Exploring the sound worlds of James Joyce’s Ulysses
Roger Alsop

Abstract

James Joyce’s Ulysses takes us into the world of Leopold Bloom; we see through his eyes, hear through his ears and think through his thoughts. We develop an intimate relationship to the interior and exterior world of the man. Through the work Joyce puts the question “Where do we live?” and answers it through making concrete the interdependence of our experiences, inner and outer, which provide our total ecology. This paper explores how Joyce uses word sound to define physical and psychological place, offering the reader a subtle, yet potent, path through Bloom’s day.

Joyce does this through an acoustic means, speech. This is the sound to which humans are most attuned and through which we communicate most clearly. It fills our world inside and out, describing ourselves to ourself and to others. Joyce uses the facets of speech, its sound, its meaning, its understanding, to develop an environment for the reader to inhabit.

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Presented at: 
Australasian Computer Music Conference
Perth 2003

Compositional Processes in Developing Poly-Media Performance Works
 Roger Alsop
Abstract

In the performance arts it is now almost de rigueur for arts makers to include many media in what was once a single, or at most dual media work; this is in part due to computing power being more available and software interfaces becoming more transparent and standardized. For the arts maker it is now possible to develop works in a media outside their training. This is especially so in computer based music, where a choreographer, actor or fine artist, for example, has access to equipment that allows them to create fully realized musical works. 

The product of this process is often of varying quality; the most successful works offer a developmental process and consequent result that expands the musical oeuvre. One reason for this success is that the musical works are often created as an adjunct to a work primarily expressed through another medium. Another reason is that the compositional processes used are that of another medium and there is rarely a more than intuitive understanding of typical music composition practices.

This paper discusses aspects of poly-media art making and the possible reasons for the development of successful works. It then explores the processes used in collaboratively developing the works of three choreographers and computer-based composers and the resulting music

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Presented at: 
Australasian Computer Music Conference
Adelaide 2006

Weaving relationships between sound and image in improvised performance.
 Roger Alsop & Paul Fletcher

Abstract

Integrating video and audio elements in improvised performance can be problematic in that the conventions of both media cause expectations in both the improvisers and their audience. These problems are magnified when more than one improviser is at play. A system that has roots in musical, narrative, and/or linguistic structures can be a starting point from which to form semantic zones. Within these zones, improvisers are free to react to the visual and aural elements resulting from the improvisation, while influencing those elements as the improvisation develops.

This paper discusses methods of building semantic zones; possible structural analogies between music, narrative, and language; and the development of an improvisational system based on those precepts.

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Presented at:
the International Conference on Music Communication Science
Sydney 2007

INTEGRATING TEXT SOUND AND VISION IN AN INTERACTIVE AUDIO VISUAL WORK.
Roger Alsop

Abstract

This paper describes the integration of text, sound and vision in the development of an interactive audio-visual-textual work titled 'Yelling at Stars'. It explores points of intersection between text, vision and sound and possible ways in which the performer and viewer can draw relationships between physical, visual and sonic gestures, developing links between each of those elements and seeing each as having equal prominence in the work.

The paper then outlines the algorithmic processes used in developing the work, in particular the considerations made when developing the web of interdependent links between text, vision and sound.