Interface[s] Montréal

Digital Sound

Caroline Traube

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Music, Université de Montréal

Musical composition in the digital sound era

View the presentation [In French]

Music now comes in many forms: computer-generated, electronic, electro-acoustic, mixed, interactive… And the labels being applied to the music from the digital sound era continue to multiply. A wide range of technological tools derived from the digitization of sound allow today’s composers to process audio materials across several levels and apply these tools in very unique and personal ways.

Following a brief introduction on the concept of digital sound, the presentation will provide an overview of various new music technology applications using as examples the compositional approaches of several young Montréal-based composers and creative researchers: harmonic structures derived from spectral analyses, computer-assisted composition, score tracking, algorithmic processes, sound synthesis, physical modeling of real and imaginary musical instruments, hyper-instruments, real time processing, audio-digital effects, spatialization, etc.

Spectrogram of the recording of a voice saying the words “Le son numérique”

Trained as both a musician and an electrical engineer, Caroline Traube (Ir Faculté Polytechnique de Mons, Belgique, 1996; Eng. Stanford University/CCRMA, USA, 2000; PhD music technology, McGill University, 2004) is an Assistant Professor with theFaculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal where she teaches and heads research projects in the fields of musical acoustics, psychoacoustics, sound synthesis and signal processing. She is particularly interested in the cross-disciplinary approaches used in music sciences and technologies as well as in the transfer of knowledge between the scientific and artistic communities.