The control channels of instrumental playing in computer music

Abstract

We are concerned here especially with the instrument/instrumentist relation in the playing time, more generally in musical instrumental experiments. Three channels at least support this relation: the gestual channel, the acoustical, and the visual ones. We shall first propose a comparative analysis of them as “intentional” ways or control ways. Schematically, we can say that gestual and visual channels are devoted to control purposes, whereas the acoustic channel bears expressive intentionality. In traditional practice all these functions are implicitly assimilated and coordinated during primitive learning. In the context of real-time digital synthesis of sounds, we have to consider explicitly these different aspects. We shall propose a preliminary study of the specificity and complimentarity of these channels. Then we shall present the problems set by specific transducers to be built and connected to real-time synthesizers. Concerning gestual control we shall introduce a typology of instrumental gesture taking into account its bilateral aspect (as transmitter and as receiver). We shall describe corresponding “gestual transducers with mechanical feedback.” Concerning visual control we shall present a real-time modelization of musical instruments corresponding to their pertinent visual elements during playing. All these studies are correlated with the CORDIS system developed by ACROE research group in Grenoble (C. Cadoz et al.).