Space, motion and metaphor in electroacoustic music
This submission discusses the development of a compositional language which is expressive of 'lived' experience with relation to the works on the enclosed compact discs, Fal/out, Nesting Stones, Invisible Crowds, Bath, Hidden Lives and Scan. The main features of this language are a musical production of space which is mimetic of non-musical experiences of space, and the development of gestural metaphor. Through a process of metaphorical transduction, this links image schema derived from a variety of lived experiences of space and motion with the manipulation of richly associative sound material in order to express emotional and psychological experiences through the production of musical works. The thesis starts by looking at changing concepts of space, the ways that we experience space using our senses, different types of space and the features and qualities of some of those spaces. These topics are then investigated in relation to musical composition and a variety of possibilities are discussed, some of which are related to aspects of the compositional practice in the works presented. This is followed by a discussion of sound material and the use of various structuring devices to create sound worlds, both generally, in terms of contemporary practice, and specifically, in terms of the works presented. A survey of the possibilities of the compositional uses of motion and metaphor completes the consideration of the individual features of this compositional language. The final chapters of this thesis are devoted to the consideration of how the elements already discussed work together in a gestural metaphor and how its use as a structuring device develops and changes in the works presented.
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