The means of creating a new complex sound in the electroacoustic music by Ostap Manulyak

Abstract

Statement of the problem. In the 21st century, modern artists got the opportunity to use new technologies related to the field of the computer industry. Total digitalization led to the creation of a new sound space with new possibilities of sound engineering. The musical space, the center of which is the computer, provides an opportunity to influence the musical process, participate in it, create and observe the transformation of sound material. Hence, one of the most important issues of modern music science is the studying of new sound, in particular, those characteristics and features of its functioning that arose in the field of electroacoustic music. The study of the creativity of Ukrainian artists who also work in this direction seems to be an urgent task. Objectives, methods, and methodology of the research. The purpose of the article consists in discovering the way of creating a new complex sound in the electro-acoustic music of the modern Ukrainian composer Ostap Manulyak. In this investigation, we relied on the methods of description and analysis of a sound object created with the help of certain programs, elements of semantic analysis and spectromorphological analysis by D. Smalley (Smalley, 1997), taking into account the comments and clarifications of the composer Ostap Manulyak, which allow us to single out purely content transformations different types of timbre-sound forms. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, Ostap Manulyak’s music appears as a subject of analysis. Research results and conclusion. The article gives examples of certain computer programs that provide various possibilities for the realization of a new complex sound. One of the ways of its forming is demonstrated on the example of O. Manulyak’s work «Aeolian Processes». The study takes steps towards the application of certain specific means of analyzing electronic music (according to D. Smalley’s concept) and identifying the special semantics that arises from the new complex sound. The composer’s strategy for transforming the characteristics of natural phenomena described in the program to the work into the music space presented by acoustic instruments and electronic sounds, interacting with them is considered. In particular, the spectral analysis and the combination of its results allow the composer to influence the pitch values. Treating sound as an object allows the composer to form complex tonal layers. It is concluded that the musical composition’s peculiarities are due to both the use of a certain computer program and the author’s artistic task, which determines the quality of the sound object. Ostap Manuliak’s way is the way of synthesizing acoustic and electronic sound. The specific qualities of the new sound of the 21st century create a wide field for further experiments, the goal of which should be, first of all, a high artistic level of new, in particular, electroacoustic music.