Page 75 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

64 The processuality of composing

Karlheinz Essl appropriates the raw material at the start of the composition
process is shown in two diary entries:

[13 Dec 2013] First experiments with the spoken material. I choose Her-
3
beck’s poem, “Das Leben” and start stretching the length of the record-
ing (using the audio editor DSP-Quattro). I layer the various stretched
versions (by a factor of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8) on top of each other using the
DAW [digital audio workstation] Reaper. But the results don’t sound
particularly interesting – I stop the experiments. I make a further attempt
to edit the spoken recording with my own granular synthesis software.
This time the results are much more promising. As I slowly and manually
scan the sound file, I’m able to isolate Herbeck’s intonation: he speaks in
B minor!
[9 Jan 2014] Experiments with the Ircam software TRAX, which allows
me to manipulate the structure of the speech formants. For example, you
can change a man’s voice into a woman’s or into a whisper. […]I
program a software instrument called Herbeck Stretcher in MaxMSP for
further experiments: once again, the starting-point is the paradigm of the
granular synthesis, whose parameters and algorithms I’ve entirely adapted
to Herbeck’s voice. So as not to lose sight of the many creative possibilities, I
program a pre-set structure to obtain reproducible results.

The predominant activity at the start of the composition process is one of
exploring, which happens on two levels. The composer tries out different
possibilities of processing and transforming sound, and approaches the raw
material practically so as to get to know it and familiarise himself with its
particularities. This exploring is characterised by a playful trying-out, during
which sounds are generated that may or may not subsequently be included in
the work. It also has an analytical level in that Karlheinz Essl methodically
aims to dissect the sound material. With the help of software, he makes
acoustic features of the material come to the surface that would normally
elude audibility.
Exploring is preconditionally dependent on the composer’s knowledge of
tonality as a systemic foundation (“Herbeck speaks in B minor!”). This also
demonstrates that Essl’s exploring, despite its ludic nature, is both rule-governed
and knowledge-governed. It would be impossible even to embark on this type
of exploring without expertise in music software and without providers and
developers of such software as well as broad experience in purposefully
creating results and categorising them musicologically.
From the first tasks onwards, acts of valuing occur, for instance in Essl’s
choice of the poem “Life”. Essl makes no further comment on this selection
in his diary. When asked, he explained that the poem had moved him. It was
“a repetitive poem”, he said, and he found it remarkable that Herbeck
repeatedly spoke of a beautiful life despite “not having had one himself”.
Essl’s choice of the poem was, then, primarily guided by its content and not