SITE-SPECIFIC MUSIC COMPOSITION AND THE SONIFEROUS GARDEN
Morse, Barry Ray
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90059
Description
Title
SITE-SPECIFIC MUSIC COMPOSITION AND THE SONIFEROUS GARDEN
Author(s)
Morse, Barry Ray
Issue Date
2016
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Professor Erik Lund
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Professor Sever Tipei
Committee Member(s)
Associate Professor Gayle Sherwood Magee
Professor William Sullivan
Department of Study
School of Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
A.Mus.D. (doctoral)
Keyword(s)
site
specific
music
composition
barry
morse
soniferous
garden
Language
en
Abstract
Imagine strolling through a garden that not only is designed with the usual sights, scents and (tactile) sensations but that also whispers and sings, and which, if you are so inclined, will communicate musically with you: a soniferous garden! Now imagine that the garden’s acoustical elements are mapped just as assuredly as its topography and horticultural delights and, knowing this, composers everywhere could write music to be performed in and with this garden as if it were an organic orchestra. Such a garden would be a celebration of sound. Just how we could accomplish this integration of landscape and sound is the object of my thesis. I will first survey many musical compositions throughout history that have some degree of site-specificity and order them into categories according to their relationships with architecture and landscape and according to degree of specificity. Next, I will present a great number of natural materials and designed objects with acoustical properties that can be placed into landscapes for musical interactions. Finally, I will propose an original landscape master plan of a hypothetical acoustical park along with an excerpt of a musical composition vitally linked to that, and only that, plan as demonstration models of high end site-specificity. The uniqueness of this proposed acoustical park, an extension of composer R. Murray Schafer’s “soniferous garden” concept, could be the focal point of a yearly festival of site-specific musical composition attracting composers, landscape designers and tourists from far and wide: the economic benefits alone would be worth the effort. But what is more, perhaps we will begin to rediscover the magic and mystery our prehistoric ancestors experienced with sound in the landscape.
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