Phainesthai : Auditory Processes as Tools for Musical Composition

The human auditory system can become an active agent in the production of sound when stimulated with specific tone combinations. The resulting auditory distortion products can be amplified and drawn attention to by employing certain just intonation practices – a compositional technique that may serve as a powerful catalyst for reaching different states of mind in listeners. In this thesis, those psychoacoustic phenomena critical to the act of tuning are explored. An experiential tuning protocol is introduced and supported by insights from physiology and neuroscience research. Based on the tuneability of musical intervals, a harmonic framework involving harmonic and subharmonic relationships is analyzed and exemplified via the accompanying composition XV XXVII III XXI IX: Variations. From a phenomenological perspective, the research extends to broader contexts, investigating potential social, ethical, cultural, and political implications of such a practice.XV XXVII III XXI IX: Variations by Luka Aron is a work in 5 parts in which a selected acoustic instrumentation, consisting of bass clarinet, contrabass, euphonium, foghorn organ, harpsichord, serpent, shō, and trumpet coalesces with analog as well as digital synthesis, into one unified mass of sound. By tuning sustained tones towards precision upon occupying the same pitch space, the various timbresare as much canceled out as reinforced, resulting in flux states of spectral fusion. This effect is further achieved through traversing a labyrinth of multiple closely related overtone series, serving as a harmonic framework for the piece’s ever-shifting bedrock. A careful selection of partials is presented, stimulating additional tones in the perception of the listener, making use of a psychoacoustic phenomenon, commonly referred to as otoacoustic emissions, or combination tones. Heavy distortion is then applied to the source signal, allowing the combination tones to materialize in the physical space. Through this, a secondary structure (that, in fact, exposes theundertone series) is gradually unveiled: like light rays meeting the surface of water, partially reflecting back to air, and refracting at once, as they pass from one medium to the other. On a structural plane, the piece stems from complex multi-layered golden mean relationships that permeate to all levels of the composition, ranging from the overall arc to the formal as well as rhythmical aspects of each individual variation, where every sound event is spiraling out of the previous one, and the endpoint is determined right at the initial stroke, before ever unfolding over the total playtime of 43 minutes. With Aron operating the Buchla 200 and EMS VCS3 synthesizers, in addition to the SuperCollider andPure Data coding environments, the cast of musicians includes an array of Stockholm-based artists, such as Mattias Hållsten on shō–a japanese mouth organ–and Susana Santos Silva on trumpet (both members of CC Hennix’ Kamigaku ensemble), just intonation contrabassist Vilhelm Bromander, along with Amina Hocine and her unique self-built foghorn organ. Frequent collaborators Fabian Willmann on bass clarinet and Raphaël Rossé on serpent and euphonium join from the electroacoustic group MINUA, which Aron co-founded. For this occasion, the piece will be diffused on an arrangement of 31 speakers.Den klingande delen är arkiverad.Luka Aron är artistnam för Luca Aaron Pusch.