page_title: Spectral music
hierarchical_section_title: Spectral music
caption_attribution_description: English: Ideal harmonic spectra. Frequency = x harmonic/1st harmonic (2nd harmonic = 2/1). Amplitude = 1st harmonic/x harmonic (2nd harmonic's amplitude = 1/2 the first harmonic's amplitude.)
context_page_description: The spectral approach to musical composition was first given a name in 1979 by Hugues Dufourt, in an article he entitled "Musique spectrale". In spectral music, the spectrum – or group of spectra – replace harmony, melody, rhythm, orchestration and form. The spectrum is always in motion, and the composition is based on spectra developing through time and exerting an influence on rhythm and formal processes. Spectral music seeks to exteriorize the inner reality of sound, to project its inner dynamics into an acoustic space and time, and to transmit to the public the reality of sound in all its complexity.
  Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where compositional decisions are often informed by sonographic representations and mathematical analysis of sound spectra, or by mathematically generated spectra. The spectral approach focuses on manipulating the spectral features, interconnecting them, and transforming them. In this formulation, computer-based sound analysis and representations of audio signals are treated as being analogous to a timbral representation of sound.
context_section_description: The spectral approach to musical composition was first given a name in 1979 by Hugues Dufourt, in an article he entitled "Musique spectrale" (Spectral music). In spectral music, the spectrum – or group of spectra – replace harmony, melody, rhythm, orchestration and form. The spectrum is always in motion, and the composition is based on spectra developing through time and exerting an influence on rhythm and formal processes. Spectral music seeks to exteriorize the inner reality of sound, to project its inner dynamics into an acoustic space and time, and to transmit to the public the reality of sound in all its complexity.
  Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where compositional decisions are often informed by sonographic representations and mathematical analysis of sound spectra, or by mathematically generated spectra. The spectral approach focuses on manipulating the spectral features, interconnecting them, and transforming them. In this formulation, computer-based sound analysis and representations of audio signals are treated as being analogous to a timbral representation of sound.
  The (acoustic-composition) spectral approach originated in France in the early 1970s, and techniques were developed, and later refined, primarily at IRCAM, Paris, with the Ensemble l'Itinéraire, by composers such as Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Murail has described spectral music as an aesthetic rather than a style, not so much a set of techniques as an attitude; as Joshua Fineberg puts it, a recognition that "music is ultimately sound evolving in time". Julian Anderson indicates that a number of major composers associated with spectralism consider the term inappropriate, misleading, and reductive. The Istanbul Spectral Music Conference of 2003 suggested a redefinition of the term "spectral music" to encompass any music that foregrounds timbre as an important element of structure or language.
caption: Harmonic spectrum
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