Animated Notation, Score Distribution and AR-VR Environments for Spectral Mimetic Transfer in Music Composition

This paper seeks to make a case for a compositional ideal (the mimetic transfer of a recorded or synthesized sound to the instrumental/vocal domain) which today's technologies for animated/distributed musical notation have made more realistic than when it first appeared as a general aesthetic (with composers such as Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey, or, in the realm of computer music, as with the practice of Jean-Claude Risset), simultaneously with the birth of the digital era in the 1970s. The concept of mimesis is here examined both as a (post) spectral compositional technique and as a common feature of many forms of musical score/representation. These theoretical considerations are then exemplified by musical examples and software demonstrations extract from the "In memoriam Jean-Claude Risset" cycle of compositions, scored for ensembles of various sizes (small chamber music group with players wearing head-mounted displays, choir and electronics, large instrumental groups with choir, and for the performance of an opera), all performed with the help of the SmartVox Score distribution system