Unsayable Music: Six Reflections on Musical Semiotics, Electroacoustic and Digital Music

279 Pages·2014·5.883 MB·English

by  Paulo C. Chagas

Unsayable Music
Six Refl ections on Musical Semiotics,
Electroacoustic and Digital Music

Unsayable Music
Six Refl ections on Musical Semiotics,
Electroacoustic and Digital Music
Paulo C. Chagas
LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
© 2014 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire
Pers Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of
this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data fi le or made public
in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 978 90 5867 994 9
D / 2014 / 1869 / 34
NUR: 663
English language revision: Stacia A. Raymond
Cover design: Friedemann Vervoort
Foreword
Th e role of the composer in society has gone through many transformations
over the past 1500 years or so. In his De Institutione Musica, the sixth-
century philosopher Boethius perceived three distinctive types of musician,
arranged in descending order of importance: the critic, the composer, and the
performer. But composers have seldom been confi ned to a single category of
musical activity. Th roughout the Middle Ages, they were often responsible
for important breakthroughs in theoretical (i.e., critical) knowledge, e.g.,
Philippe de Vitry’s seminal advances in rhythmic notation, meter, and
isorhythm (talea and color), which laid the foundation for the Ars Nova of
the 1300s. Prominent among later composers who contributed greatly to our
critical understanding of musical practice was the eighteenth-century theorist
Jean-Philippe Rameau.
However, it was in the nineteenth century that composers frequently
undertook to write about the role of music in society, as well as about
themselves. Schumann and Berlioz were renowned as writers about as well
as of music, but most notable—and notorious—in this regard was Wagner,
who racialized musical thinking and projected his imaginings about stylistic
evolution into the future. Th e phenomenon of the literary composer persisted
into the twentieth century, with writings by Schoenberg, Hindemith,
Messiaen, and Cage, among many others, dealing not only with their approach
to composition but their personal worldview and philosophy as well.
Paulo Chagas is one of those remarkable composers well versed not only
in the methods and means of musical creation but also in theoretical issues
of aesthetics, semiotics, mathematics, and philology. Th is book displays an
exceptional grasp of a wide range of complex theoretical and philosophical
issues, all of them nonetheless directly connected to the act of composing
music.
Indeed, it is precisely because of his passionate intellectual engagement
that Chagas’s music always exhibits emotional immediacy as well as technical
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Unsayable Music
sophistication. Both his works and his ideas draw their inspiration from
the wellspring of daily life and its frequently harsh realities. Chagas was a
victim of political violence when, at age 17, he was arrested and tortured by
the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1971 for collaborating with opposition
groups fi ghting for democracy. He has described to me his ordeal in the
following way:
I was put in the “fridge,” a small room, refrigerated and acoustically
isolated, and completely dark and cold. Various noises and sounds—
howling oscillators, rumbling generators, distorted radio signals,
motorcycles, etc.—shot from loudspeakers hidden behind the walls.
Incessantly, the electronic sounds fi lled the dark space and overwhelmed
my body for three long days. After a time, I lost consciousness. Th is
auditory and acoustic torture was then a recent development, partially
replacing traditional methods of physical coercion that killed thousands
in Latin American prisons between the 1960s and 1990s. Such sounds
injure the body without leaving any visible trace of damage. Th e
immersive space of the torture cell, soundproofed and deprived of light,
resonates in my memory as the perfect environment for experiencing the
power of sound embodiment.
He was freed from prison only after the intervention of a military offi cer who
was a friend of his parents. His works continue to explore themes of power,
violence, and control, using the latest technology and theoretical approaches.
Th us, Chagas’s music emanates from a place within himself that is not
only highly personal but also something he shares in common with the
rest of us. Th e human condition and the relationship between music and
society are recurring themes in his music. His philosophical writings are not
arid speculations written in abstruse academies from the lofty heights of an
ivory tower; rather, they exhibit the same immediacy and involvement with
the world of ideas that his compositions do with the world of sound. Th us,
theoreticians, composers, and lovers of music will all benefi t from the insights
and wisdom contained within the covers of this book, which is the product of
nearly fi fty years of asking questions, seeking answers, and creating expressive
sound.
Walter Aaron Clark
Professor of Musicology
Director, Center for Iberian and Latin American Music
University of California, Riverside
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Table of Contents
Introduction 9
1. Musical Understanding: Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Aesthetics 13
2. Spectral Semiotics: Sound, Temporality, and Aff ect in Chopin 43
3. Communication and Meaning: Music as Social System 65
4. Th e Creativity of Electroacoustic and Digital Music 103
5. Th e Temple of Electronic Music:
Th e Electronic Music Studio of Cologne in the 1990s 159
6. Audiovisual and Multimedia Composition:
Th e Relationship between Medium and Form 203
APPENDIX I
WDR Studio of Electronic Music:
Works produced from 1987 to 2000 251
APPENDIX II
WDR Studio of Electronic Music:
Studio equipment used from 1990 to 2000 257

Bibliography 265
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Introduction
Th is book presents critical refl ections on key topics of contemporary music
and aesthetics and represents nearly forty years of study. Th e six refl ections
elaborate a myriad of themes emerging from both my artistic experience as a
composer and my research on musical semiotics, electroacoustic and digital
music, audiovisual and multimedia composition. Diff erent approaches are
off ered, including from philosophy, sociology, media, and critical studies.
In this sense, the refl ections can be used as a guide for navigating through
today’s complexities and uncertainties while seeking musical understanding.
Th e fi rst chapter investigates musical understanding through the lens of
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy. What is musical understanding? How can
we communicate that we understand a melody? Th e chapter provides cultural
background on Wittgenstein, and analyzes his contribution to logic, ethics
and aesthetics. Wittgenstein’s philosophy uses music as a tool for refl ecting on
the understanding of language and understanding in general. It places ethics
at the core of the aesthetics and recognizes the role of a culture in shaping
aesthetic understanding. Th e insight on Wittgenstein’s musical universe
leads to questioning the relevance of applying his philosophical method to
investigating contemporary music.
Th e second chapter introduces my own theory of spectral semiotics, applying
it to the analysis of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1. Spectral semiotics
elaborates ideas from Husserl’s phenomenology of time consciousness, Varela’s
theory of neurophenomenology and Tarasti’s existential semiotics. It explores
digital tools such as sonograms for analyzing Chopin’s music, showing how
his composition relates sound to aff ect by building fractal spectral patterns at
diff erent temporal levels, which are connected to diff erent scales of aff ection.
Chapter three develops a view of music as a social system of communication
based on Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems, including his thoughts
on art and media. Central notions such as the distinction between system
and environment, the concept of form as the calling of a distinction (Spencer-
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