Composing With Microsound: An Approach to Structure and Form When Composing for Acoustic Instruments With Electronics

This chapter explores the implications of using microsound as an organizing principle when structuring composition for acoustic instruments and electronics. The ideas are presented in the context of a composition by the author for bass clarinet, flute, piano and electronics: The Sea Turns Sand to Stone (2015) (Winner of the William Mathias composition prize, Bangor New Music Festival 2015). After giving a definition of microsound, the compositional affordances of microsound are considered. Microsound is presented as an aesthetically rich tool for creating cohesion between acoustic and electroacoustic sounds, and different parameters for manipulating the sounds are presented. Issues of structure and form are discussed and the challenges of creating a coherent environment that uses both note-based and texture-based material are explored. The implications of applying different models of form to mixed compositions are considered. This leads to a discussion of the different relationships that exist between the acoustic and the electroacoustic parts of a composition. Extended instrumental techniques provide one way of creating perceptual links between the acoustic and the electroacoustic. Examples of the way such techniques have been used in conjunction with microsound to impose a structural framework on The Sea Turns Sand to Stone are given. Finally, the use of a pure sound/noise axis, mediated through the application of microsound, is presented as a viable organizing principle for structuring mixed compositions. The implications of such a model are explored, and the underlying structure of The Sea Turns Sand to Stone is presented as a practical example of the application of the process.