The structural and aesthetic capacity of sonic matter : remarks on sonic dramaturgy

• Main Author: Chrysakis, Thanos
• Published: Goldsmiths College (University of London) 2010
• Subjects: 780
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539852

This research study focuses on my compositional practice and its related creative strategies. It describes a series of ideas relevant to the structural and aesthetic capacity of sonic matter and the notion of sonic dramaturgy. Its thread of enquiry is based upon transformational logic and the inner nature of sound. The ontology of sound matter, its intrinsic nature and perceptual and cognitive effects, is of primary relevance. This can be contrasted with a permutational approach – the ars combinatoria – that has prevailed in Western Music after the Renaissance. There are four boundaries in which my conceptual compass operates: 1. The intrinsic logic of the sound-material 2. Form as organisation immanent to sonic matter 3. Form as Sonic Dramaturgy 4. The relevance of listeners’ perceptual and cognitive capacities. It is easily understandable that an empirical and experiential attitude manifests itself from the above. My aim is to examine in practice, that encounter and that creative friction which occurs between sound-matter and the human mind, and as a result a priori schemas have been avoided.