The PRIE MIDI Environment

Abstract

Commenting on Anton Webern's music, Pierre Schaeffer addressed the concept of a musical expression that is highly organized but at the same time capable (by means of timbre and textural variations) of hiding or showing part of its internal structure-even exposing something other than its internal structure (Pierret 1969). Similarly, MIDI allows composers to organize musical ideas while hiding elements of structure. Because sounds reside in external devices, manipulation of MIDI data can be based on a set of abstract methods that frees composers to expose the derived structures according to their personal aesthetic. (Relationships with adopted synthesis techniques, although fundamental, are not of interest here.) A direct consequence is that MIDI can support note-oriented as well as object-oriented techniques, and all the nuances between these two poles. However, composers frequently dismiss MIDI because of its symbolic representation and levels of manipulation of musical materials, particularly for object-oriented conceptions. Working at the object level often requires the ability to create and edit events by moving from the general to the particular. This also often necessitates symbolizing the flow of materials and relationships with a form-driven logic and at different degrees of magnification. Furthermore, it is important to be able to operate in a fully graphical environment. Though this point may appear to be unimportant, composers are rarely willing to develop large quantities of code or to invest a significant part of their time in learning how to carry out the computerbased part of their work. PRIE has been developed to address these issues. (Related previous literature includes works by Greussay 1973; Ambrosini 1982; Koenig 1983; Provaglio et al. 1991; and Haus and Sametti 1991.) PRIE