Musical Computer

Abstract

A new page in the manifestation and
demonstration of expressive means of musical
sound has been opened by the computer
as a musical instrument, or the “musical
computer.” Contemporary musicians have
endeavored at the attempts at connecting
composition with the theory of information,
the unification of musical and acoustic
parameters, having realized the idea of a
regulated poly-dimensional sound space, a
multilevel compositional model applied for
sound generation with the use of concisely
differentiated modulations of parameters of the
level of frequencies, durations and dynamics.
In the present lecture the author turns to the
main stages of the evolution of the concept of
“musical computer” reflecting the changes in
the sound and the musical material during the
course of the development of the practice of
composition and music-making; questions are
examined in connection with the particularities
of development of the computer synthesis of
sound; a retrospective analysis of technical
and technological experiments made by
musicians in their interactions with computer
technologists, who have enhanced the
development of the musical computer as a polyfunctional
musical instrument, including the
capabilities of its use as a means of providing
the symphonic organization of music by means
of stereophonic panorama setting of musical
space; a broad range of issues is touched
upon in connection with the peculiarities of
musicians’ thinking and perception, including
the impediments to a consistent acquisition
of possibilities of the programmed musical
instrument existent in the sphere.