Compositional spatial sound manipulation: Historical overview and analyses

Abstract

Since all listening has inherently a spatial aspect, it was inevitable that composers would manipulate spatial acoustic perceptions for their listeners just as they manipulated pitch, timbre and rhythm. Approaches to organizing the spatial component of a musical composition over the evolution of western European art music might be organized in terms of the following techniques: alternation between locations (e.g, polychoral music tradition, call and response), suggestion of environmental contexts and distant sound sources (in both 19th century orchestral music and later, with development of artificial reverberation, in electronic music), and sound source movement. Although not manipulated directly by the composer, performance space acoustics also contribute spatially; data on the temporal-spatial diffusion of reverberation in large performance spaces will be presented. With the development of loudspeaker and headphone spatial sound reproduction techniques, numerous resources and immense possibilities for spatial manipulation have occurred, including the formation of virtual performance spaces. In particular, binaural (3-D sound) signal processing techniques, room modeling auralization and environmental mapping have affected the composition of sonic landscapes in many ways, and will continue to do so.