Terracotta

Lewis Wolstanholme, and Francis Devine

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Terracotta is an audiovisual work specifically composed to explore the sounds of arbitrarily shaped drums. Arbitrarily shaped drums are a family of instruments that do not exist in the real world, and are instead formulated according to a mathematical specification for ideal polygonal instruments in two-dimensional space. The sounds of these instruments were simulated using physical modelling synthesis, which was used to produce a linear approximation to their varied timbral spectrums. These instruments were explored thoroughly throughout this composition, which involved experimenting with their combinatorial potential and their distinct timbral differences from the sounds of more traditional percussive instruments. During the compositional process, each of the individual drums were randomly generated, and then tuned sympathetically with one another so as to produce a timbrally cohesive soundworld. Accompanying the drums, there was also the use of a Wacom drawing tablet, which has here been turned into a inharmonic synthesiser, so as to compliment the sounds of the arbitrarily shaped drums. This tablet synthesiser works by using the horizontal axis of the tablet to determine a fundamental frequency, whilst the vertical axis is used to control the amplitude of the sound’s various harmonic partials. To create inharmonic timbres, the individual partials were evenly spaced across the frequency spectrum according to an arbitrary value, resulting in an overall timbre that is a distorted replica of the more traditional harmonic series. In accordance with these themes, the percussive instruments were also represented, distorted and abstracted visually, as part of the performative stimulus for this work. These visuals incorporate the physically modelled simulations of the arbitrarily shaped drums, as well as reacting to the temporal changes in amplitude and style throughout the performance.

Citation

Lewis Wolstanholme, and Francis Devine. 2022. Terracotta. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.7c140077 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2022_music_6,
 abstract = {Terracotta is an audiovisual work specifically composed to explore the sounds of arbitrarily shaped drums. Arbitrarily shaped drums are a family of instruments that do not exist in the real world, and are instead formulated according to a mathematical specification for ideal polygonal instruments in two-dimensional space. The sounds of these instruments were simulated using physical modelling synthesis, which was used to produce a linear approximation to their varied timbral spectrums. These instruments were explored thoroughly throughout this composition, which involved experimenting with their combinatorial potential and their distinct timbral differences from the sounds of more traditional percussive instruments. During the compositional process, each of the individual drums were randomly generated, and then tuned sympathetically with one another so as to produce a timbrally cohesive soundworld. Accompanying the drums, there was also the use of a Wacom drawing tablet, which has here been turned into a inharmonic synthesiser, so as to compliment the sounds of the arbitrarily shaped drums. This tablet synthesiser works by using the horizontal axis of the tablet to determine a fundamental frequency, whilst the vertical axis is used to control the amplitude of the sound’s various harmonic partials. To create inharmonic timbres, the individual partials were evenly spaced across the frequency spectrum according to an arbitrary value, resulting in an overall timbre that is a distorted replica of the more traditional harmonic series. In accordance with these themes, the percussive instruments were also represented, distorted and abstracted visually, as part of the performative stimulus for this work. These visuals incorporate the physically modelled simulations of the arbitrarily shaped drums, as well as reacting to the temporal changes in amplitude and style throughout the performance.},
 address = {Auckland, New Zealand},
 articleno = {6},
 author = {Lewis Wolstanholme and Francis Devine},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.7c140077},
 editor = {Raul Masu},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {jun},
 title = {Terracotta},
 track = {Music},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.21428/92fbeb44.7c140077},
 year = {2022}
}