Laura Zattra

• PhD
• Chercheuse invitée Ircam at Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music

This article starts from the assumption that musicology needs methods borrowed from philology for studying computer music. The analysis of the creative and revision process that John Chowning carried out in the realization of Stria (1977) is made possible by textual criticism and interpretation based on digital and audio sources, sketches, and oral...

Throughout the history of electroacoustic music, creative collaboration has been a constant feature due to the complexity of the technology. All laboratories and electronic music studios involved the presence of different individuals with diverse, intertwined competencies. In particular, the embedding of technological tools into the process of musi...

In this paper I will deconstruct the collaborative creative process with the computer in Prometeo. Tragedia dell'Ascolto by Luigi Nono (1984-85). Prometeo is particularly illustrative of the way in which the use of technology constructs both what is composed on paper (the score), as well as how the use of technology influences the listening (the p...

This chapter proposes knowledge acquisition on the discipline of sound design by questioning its practitioners and therefore exploring its multidisciplinary aspects according to sound designers’ profiles and practices. After presenting the theoretical framework within which this research is conducted, it provides details about the methodological to...

John Chowning a pleinement contribué au développement de l’informatique musicale dans les années 1960 en mettant au point un algorithme de spatialisation sonore et en posant les bases de la synthèse par modulation de fréquence. Il fonde au milieu des années 1970 au sein de l’université Stanford le Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics...

Quatre décennies après l’apparition du terme anglais sound design pour signifier « la création d’effets sonores » – bruit (foley), ambiance, environnement – dans l’industrie cinématographique, mais également au théâtre, le recours systématique aux effets sonores pour simuler une certaine réalité – environnement, ambiance, bruits –, de plus en plus...

My chapter focuses on the analysis of “Taras su tre dimensioni” [Taras on three dimensions], a work realized by Teresa Rampazzi in 1971-72 in the course of a transitional phase (her transition from the analogue to the computer music technology). The approximately eleven-minutes work represents an unicum among Teresa Rampazzi’s repertoire. It is mad...

This chapter focusses on the second-generation of Italian studios, the S 2F M (Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Firenze) funded by Pietro Grossi in Florence in 1963; the SMET (Studio di Musica Elettronica di Torino) funded in Turin by Enore Zaffiri in 1964, and the Gruppo N.P.S. (Nuove Proposte Sonore) funded in Padova by Teresa Rampazzi and Ennio C...

The issue of Musica/Tecnologia (XIII), edited by Stefano Alessandretti and me, is titled “La notazione della musica elettroacustica. Scrutare il passato per contemplare il futuro” (Notation in Electroacoustic Music). The journal is committed to OPEN ACCESS. https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/mt/issue/view/482/59

This is my column dedicated to the sources in the study of electroacoustic music. https://www.musicaelettronica.it/tag/laura-zattra/

This is my column dedicated to the sources for the study of electroacoustic music: https://www.musicaelettronica.it/tag/laura-zattra/

A collection that goes beyond the canon to analyze influential yet under-examined works of electronic music. This collection of writings on electronic music goes outside the canon to analyze influential works by under-recognized musicians. The contributors, many of whom are composers and performers themselves, offer their unsung musical heroes the...

Preservation and Electroacoustic Heritage in Italy: this is the focus of my third article for the blog http://www.musicaelettronica.it/ (dedicated to the sources in electronic music). Italy is home to outstanding electracoustic music stories and centers. With this contemporary grand tour I am bringing my readers on a quick journey throughout Italy...

I have used private and institutionals archives, physical or digital, in my musicological practice for 20 years. I am writing a little about this and the sources I can find when I dip into this faboulous world in my column “Viaggio tra le fonti elettroniche” for the blog http://www.musicaelettronica.it/. The first post is dedicated to old yet funda...

I am writing a column for the blog http://www.musicaelettronica.it/ about the less known or forgotten sources in electronic music. I have used private and institutionals archives, physical or digital, in my musicological practice for 20 years and this investigation never fails to amaze me. The second article is dedicated to patents and online resea...

Après une recherche méthodologique portant sur la définition du design sonore et l’activité de ses principaux acteurs (Zattra et al. 2018 ; 2019), nous présentons ici les résultats d’un questionnaire mis en ligne de juillet à octobre 2018 (108 designers sonores, 24 % de participation) et d’entretiens que nous avons réalisés par la suite. L’analyse...

The work of Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) has been influenced by computer technology since 1969 at Princeton University, and later during a short course on muSyS at the private emS (Electronic Music Studios) of Peter Zinovieff. However, it was at Ircam (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris that he could finally fully exp...

Professional practices related to sound design are not new, but they were only recognized as such during the last century. While sound design practices do not equally describe professional activities worldwide, they nevertheless may well relate to a specific research field in design sciences. As such sound design covers different domains: visual an...

This contribution describes an on-going project started in March 2018 entitled “Analysis of Sound Design Practices” [ASDP]. The team comprises members from the LABEX CAP (Création, Arts et Patrimoines); the ACTE Institute (Arts Creation Theory Aesthetics); IRCAM’s APM (Analysis of Musical Practices) and PDS (Sound Perception and Design) teams. By...

NB.: This is the text of the Keynote I read at the EMS2018 in Florence. I have preserved the informal tone and style of the paper, and have simply brought the bibliographical references up to date and added a few footnotes. Therefore, this is not a definitive text (which I hope to publish either on the EMS site, or elsewhere).

This contribution describes an on-going project started in March 2018 entitled “Analysis of Sound Design Practices” [ASDP]. The team comprises members from the LABEX CAP (Création, Arts et Patrimoines); the ACTE Institute (Arts Creation Theory Aesthetics); IRCAM’s APM (Analysis of Musical Practices) and PDS (Sound Perception and Design) teams. By...

This contribution describes an on-going project started in March 2018 entitled “Analysis of Sound Design Practices” [ASDP]. The team comprises members from the LABEX CAP (Création, Arts et Patrimoines); the ACTE Institute (Arts Creation Theory Aesthetics); IRCAM’s APM (Analysis of Musical Practices) and PDS (Sound Perception and Design) teams. By...

The Centro di Sonologia Computazionale was funded in 1979 at Padova University. The initial research and works in the field of musical informatics date to the beginning of the 1970s. The institute was first located at the CCA – Centro di Calcolo di Ateneo (the university computing centre). Activites were based on the collaboration between engineers...

Il titolo di questo contributo vuole dare conto della ricchezza di esperienze maturate nel corso della sua carriera da Angelo Paccagnini (1930-1999). Quando si parla di Angelo Paccagnini, infatti, non è possibile fare riferimento a una sola etichetta. Studiare la sua attività significa addentrarsi in una serie di documenti eterogenei che portano a...

The revolution of sound recording, analogue synthesis and the birth of computer music, caused the emergence of a new professional profile, the Musical Assistant-someone who collaborates with composers in the phase of researching, writing, creating new sounds, recording and/or performing live during concerts-whose presence remains hidden most of the...

Hugues Dufourt, La musique spectrale. Une révolutionrévolution´révolutionépistémologique (Paris: ´ Editions Delatour, 2014), ISBN 978-2-7521-0206-5 (pb). Spectral music is now more than forty years old. In his preface, French composer and philosopher Hugues Dufourt defines it thus: 'Spectral music' essentially represents a change in our ways of thi...

[THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN 2019 - PLEASE FIND IT AMONG MY PUBLISHED ARTICLES] The work of Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) has been influenced by computer technology since 1969 at Princeton University, and later during a short course on MUSYS at the private EMS (Electronic Music Studios) of Peter Zinovieff. However, it was at IRCAM (Institut de...

Hugues Dufourt, La musique spectrale. Une révolution épistémologique (Paris: Éditions Delatour, 2014), ISBN 978-2-7521-0206-5 (pb). - Volume 15 Special Issue - LAURA ZATTRA

The revolution of sound recording, synthesis and transformation (commenced in 1948 with concrete music and in 1950 with electronic music), followed by the birth of computer music (since 1957), caused the natural emergence of a new professional profile – someone who can work in the phase of researching, writing, creating new instruments, recording a...

The present chapter investigates Vidolin’s vision of the role of the computer music designer through a study of his collaboration on two compositions: Luigi Nono’s Prometeo. Tragedia dell’Ascolto (1981–84) and Salvatore Sciarrino’s Perseo e Andromeda (1991). The chapter is based on a series of interviews and discussions I had between 1998 and 2015,...

In this article I discuss the concepts of écriture, micro and macro forms, internal and external writing of sound, and analysis, in musique mixte. In this music, Fusion and Contrast are two opposite ends in the spectrum of the writing of sound, with various degrees of mixité between the two. In the first part, I propose this model of analysis. In t...

Stria est une pièce pour bande seule de John Chowning (né en 1934). De part l’organicité de sa composition spectrale et timbrale, elle s’impose comme œuvre de référence, car elle marque un des premiers résultats esthétiques en Computer Music qui dépend complètement, de la conception à la mise en œuvre, de l’ordinateur. Elle fait une utilisation exc...

Sound, Image and Live experience is a highly developed area of intereset. However, in the specific case of Live Electronic Music, the relationship between recording live electroacoustic music and recreating a home experience of listening, is scarceley considered. Not only as regards technical and scientific literature, but also for musicological li...

La recherche, l’identification et la préservation des sources, qui sont des étapes essentielles pour l’étude d’une œuvre de computer music, soulèvent de nombreuses questions, ouvrant un champ de réflexion que j'aborde dans ce chapitre. Je mets l’accent sur la multiplicité des approches dites « génétiques » à divers titres comme la reconstruction de...

Angelo Paccagnini (Castano Primo, 17/10/1930 – Milano, 02/07/1999) was an Italian composer and intellectual. He wrote instrumental and electroacoustic music and was the director of the Studio di Fonologia della RAI in Milan from 1968 to 1970.He was an intellectual catalyst in the rediscovery of Ancient Music during the Sixties and the Seventies, wr...

This paper bears on Agostino Di Scipio's work from the years 1987–2000. Early computer-generated pieces like Punti di tempo (1987) and Estensioni (1988) seem to reflect a kind of double artistic individuality. In the first piece, the musical structure is fragmented and the sound micro-structure is split in random particles. In the second (the only...

Agostino Di Scipio in interview with Laura Zattra.

http://www.mshparisnord.fr/JIM2013/

This multidisciplinary work aims to investigate the problem of the computer music analysis. It is based on the analysis of a computer music piece: Winter leaves, created in 1980 by Mauro Graziani at the CSC in Padova, using Music360 software. Listening, sonogram analysis and digital score analysis, represent the counterpart of the attempt to automa...

This paper reports on research undertaken to transcribe a performance of Luigi Nono’s A Pierre. Dell’azzurrosilenzio, inquietum for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet and live electronics (1985). The performance took place at the Banff Centre (Canada) on 28 February 2009. The purpose of the project is to provide a reliable and stable record of o...

Demetrio Stratos (1945-1979) was a singer known for his creative use of vocal techniques such as diplophony, bi-tonality and diphony (overtone singing). His need to know the scientific explanation for such vocal behaviors, drove him to visit the ISTC in Padova (Institute of Cogni-tive Sciences and Technologies) in the late Seventies. ISTC technical...

Che cos’è e come si può studiare la computer music? Con l’avvento dell’epoca attuale in cui tutta l’arte dei suoni passa per il digitale, si chiude l’era della computer music che va dal 1956/57 al 1999-2003. Il volume illustra le caratteristiche storiche, geografiche, tecnologiche e collaborative di questo repertorio e propone una metodologia di i...

Madre e musicista? Moglie e compositrice? La vicenda di Renata Zatti (1932-2003) riproduce i dubbi di molte donne che esitano tra famiglia e lavoro. Annotate su centinaia di carte rimaste pressoché nascoste negli armadi fino alla morte, le sue certezze e le sue fragilità si rispecchiano nelle partiture. La lettura e l'analisi di questi testi – cons...

http://www.musimediane.com/numero4/LZattra/index.html L’idée de créer une application pour l’analyse philologique de la musique fonctionnant par alignement audio est née de l’observation musicologique que la création musicale des œuvres électroacoustiques présente des caractéristiques communes avec la création utilisant la notation conventionnelle...

The analysis of electroacoustic music may benefit from the design and development of tools for automatic audio matching, allowing musicologists to compare different versions of the same work and to draw the artistic path from the synthesis of fragments to the creation of a complete work. Music alignment has been explored as a tool in many areas, fr...

The analysis of electroacoustic music may benefit from the design and development of tools for automatic audio matching, allowing musicologists to compare different versions of the same work and to draw the artistic path from the synthesis of fragments to the creation of a complete work. Music alignment has been explored as a tool in many areas, fr...

Preservation, restoration and critical editing of music start becoming aspects which concern even the youngest musical genre made with digital techniques. It can already happen that a CD is illegible, a program language is obsolete, computer data used to produce a piece twenty or thirty years ago are no more available. Some disciplines such as the...

An electroacoustic musical work is a complex network of processes and elements: technical, musical, human, etc.; therefore, while the aesthetic perception is unified, its definition is fragmentary. This observation compels us to intensify our study of a taxonomy of agents and processes, with the aim of clarifying the identity of this music. The dis...

Electroacoustic music analysis is a complex and heterogeneous discipline depending on one musical genre which includes a large typology of subgenres: from tape music to computer music, from concrete music, to mixed music, live electronic music, laptop music, etc. Even though there are personal approaches, which causes musical analysis to be a delic...

Fifty years down the line, the analysis of computer music is still a very complex issue, highly dependent on the identity of computer music itself: the variety of software, the lack of a common musical notation for scores, the absence or presence of computer data. This has led to the emergence of a multitude of analytical methods, including aesthes...

La recherche vise à tracer un parcours comparatif sur le plan esthétique et historique entre la production musicale du CSC de Padoue (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale dell'Università di Padova) et de l'IRCAM de Paris (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) pendant les années 1975-1985. Dans la première partie l'ambiance culture...

Teresa Rampazzi (1914-2001), pianist and composer , is one of the pioneers of electronic music in Italy and the first Italian woman to produce and promote it. She started her career as a pianist; in the 50s she attended the Darmstadt's Ferienkurse, she played in the Bartók Trio and was a member of the Circolo Pozzetto. She was deeply convinced of t...

In the realm of electronic music institutes, CSC's activity goes back to digital prehistory and marks the birth of computer music production in Italy. This article briefly summarizes an historical overview of the centre showing technological advances and diverse musical works. Section 2 presents the status of preservation following a scheme which g...