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Blog Entry
Listening conditions
Composer Stefano Gervasoni came to seminar this week. One of the ideas he discussed resonated in me. The idea that it is not enough for a composer (or for him at least) to define the sound sequences; one should also define the listening conditions. There are many listening conditions a composer cannot control, but there are some that he can. The choice of instrumentation is itself a listening condition. It is not the same experience to hear a sound X coming from a device A (e.g. a violin) than to hear a sound X' (very similar or identical to X) coming from a device B (e.g. a general purpose computer). A program note handed in at a concert or written in a CD booklet is another listening condition very much controllable by the composer...
