Documenting acousmatic music interpretation. Profiles of discourse across multiple dimensions

Date14 January 2019
Published date14 January 2019
Pages99-119
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2018-0037
AuthorGuillaume Boutard,François-Xavier Féron
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Documenting acousmatic
music interpretation
Profiles of discourse across
multiple dimensions
Guillaume Boutard
École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de linformation, Université de Montréal,
Montréal, Canada, and
François-Xavier Féron
Laboratoire Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du Son,
CNRS-IRCAM-Sorbonne Université-Ministére de la culture, Paris, France
Abstract
Purpose Extending documentation and analysis frameworks for acousmatic music to performance/
interpretation, from an information science point of view, will benefit the transmission and preservation of a
repertoire with an idiosyncratic relation to performance and technology. The purpose of this paper is to
present the outcome of a qualitative research aiming at providing a conceptual model theorizing the intricate
relationships between the multiple dimensions of acousmatic music interpretation.
Design/methodology/approach The methodologyrelies on the grounded theory.A total of 12 Interviews
were conductedover a period of three years in France,Québec and Belgium, groundedin theoretical sampling.
Findings The analysis outcome describes eight dimensions in acousmatic performance, namely, musical,
technical, anthropological, psychological, social, cultural, linguistic and ontological. Discourse profiles are
provided in relation to each participant. Theory development led to the distinction between documentation of
interpretation as an expertise and as a profession.
Research limitations/implications Data collection is limited to French-speaking experts, for historical
and methodological reasons.
Practical implications The model stemmingfrom the analysis provides a framework for documentation
which will benefit practitioners and organizations dedicated to the dissemination of acousmatic music.
The model also provides this community with a tool for characterizing expert discourses about acousmatic
performanceand identifying contentareas to further investigate.From a research point of view, thetheorization
leads to the specification of new directionsand the identification of relevant epistemological frameworks.
Originality/value This research brings a new vision of acousmatic interpretation, extending the literature
on this repertoires performance with a more holistic perspective.
Keywords Grounded theory, Cultural heritage, Acousmatic music, Discourse profile, FRBRoo,
Music information objects, Performance documentation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The development of electroacoustic music during the second part of the twentieth century
raised new questions concerning live performance in concert. Could a musical piece which is
fixed on a physical medium and diffused through loudspeakers be interpreted? In 1997,
the Académie Internationale de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges dedicated their
proceedings to Maurice Leroux, the first interpreter of electroacoustic music, who performed
the collaborative work entitled Symphonie pour un homme seulby Pierre Schaeffer and
Pierre Henry at the Théâtre de lEmpire in Paris on July 6, 1951 (Schaeffer et al., 1955).
Leroux performed with a device called the Portique potentiométrique de Relief,which was
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 1, 2019
pp. 99-119
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-03-2018-0037
Received 1 March 2018
Revised 16 July 2018
Accepted 26 July 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The authors would like to thank all participants as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insightful
comments. This research was funded by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS) Humanités Mathématiques Sciences de lInformation (PEPS HuMaIn) projects.
99
Documenting
music
interpretation
conceptualized by composer Pierre Schaeffer and designed by engineer Jacques Poullin.
The interpreter held a transmitter coil which he moved within a space defined by four
receiver coils. His movements allowed for the creation of sound trajectories among multiple
loudspeakers positioned in the concert hall (Poullin, 1955, p. 16). Sound systems used for
diffusing electroacoustic music became more and more sophisticated until the development
of the loudspeaker orchestra in the 1970s. It was here that the term acousmatic music first
came into usage.
First employed by Schaeffer, it was adopted by François Bayle in the 1970s to
equate acousmatic music with an art of projected sounds (Bayle, 1993). In 1973, at the
Groupe de Musique Expé
rimentale de Bourges (GMEB) in France, Christian Clozier
developed the GMEBaphone, which is considered to be the first loudspeaker orchestra.
In performance, sound material is divided into frequency bandwidths which are allocated
to specific groups of speakers. Through the use of a mixing console, the performer is able
to control the level of each speaker group (Clozier, 1998). The following year, in 1974, the
composer François Bayle developed at the GroupedeRechercheMusicale(GRM)hisfirst
acousmonium (see Plate 1), which, according to his definition (Bayle, 1993, pp. 45-46), is an
ensemble of various loudspeakers with different timbral qualities, placed throughout a
concert hall.
The question of musical interpretation of a work fixed on a physical medium has given
rise to much debate. Barrière (1998) notably insists on the fact that, contrary to many
preconceived notions, the performance of an electroacoustic work is never the same from
one concert to another(p. 205). Following this statement, we may consider the impact of
interpretation on the preservation of cultural heritage: an interpretation, a performance
(in electroacoustic music as much as in instrumental music) never destroys the work, even
when it is excessive. On the other hand, the absence of an interpretation can kill the work,
Boesch (1998) comments (p. 221).
Source: Adapted from Bayle (2007), Photo Magison
Plate 1.
François Bayle in
front of the GRM
acousmonium
installed in
RadioFrance (Paris)
100
JD
75,1

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