Music composition in the wild : from the horizon of

creative cognition to the time & situation of inquiry

Nicolas Donin Jacques Theureau

IRCAM CNRS/IRCAM
Institut de Recherche & de Coordination Institut de Recherche & de Coordination
Acoustique/Musique Acoustique/Musique
1, place Igor-Stravinsky 1, place Igor-Stravinsky
F-75004 Paris F-75004 Paris
donin@ircam.fr theureau@ircam.fr

ABSTRACT activity (for example: cognition and creation, musical

The theme of large temporal span of cognition is imagination, unique individual cognition), we will stress
emerging in cognitive ergonomics. We will consider it the large temporal span of human cognition. This theme
through the analysis of a musical composition process: also emerges in other recent research in cognitive
that of Voi(rex) by Philippe Leroux. After presenting the ergonomics, concerning biological research activity
data collecting method, we will consider the analysis of (Grison, 1998), appropriation processes of technical
the resulting data concerning the writing of two devices (Haué, 2004) as well as e-learning activity
movements of Voi(rex). Such an analysis will allow us: (Dieumegard, 2004), management activity in the
(1) to draw methodological conclusions about the time industrial field (Dieumegard et al., 2004) or the activity
and mode of inquiry; (2) to set out a series of organised of consultants in ergonomics (Lamonde, 2000).
constraints to be respected by a cognition theory in 1. SITUATING THE INQUIRY: RECREATING THE
order to deal with the large temporal span cognitive COMPOSITIONAL SITUATION THROUGH THE USE
phenomena. OF MATERIAL TRACES AND QUESTIONS
Keywords During the year 2002, French composer Philippe
Large temporal span of cognition, activity analysis, Leroux composed a work called Voi(rex), for soprano, 6
musical composition, situation simulation, cognition instruments and electronics, commissioned by IRCAM.
theory What remained of his composition activity? : A printed
score, along with an electronic part composed of sound
INTRODUCTION files and a concert patch using Max/MSP (a software
Time is a problem for cognitive analysis. At its very created and often used at IRCAM); The manuscript
origin, Newell and Simon (1972) proposed “to try to score; Sketches, plans and other manuscripts produced
represent in some detail a particular man at work on a and used during the compositional process; Different
particular task” and to search for “a Process Theory” of computer objects remaining in the composer’s laptop
the “human system” according to “three dimensions of (especially OpenMusic [a software for music
variation”: “tasks”, “individual differences” and “time composition] patches and ProTools [sequencer]
scales in behavioural acts”. It is easy, some thirty years sessions) and screen shots; E-mails exchanged with the
ahead, to state that the last one has been poorly singer, etc.
explored. However, many activities can be described
and explained only if several time horizons are After a preliminary methodological study, we chose to
considered. Among them are creative activities, for focus on the period of score writing. This period can be
example the activity of music composition that we will distinguished from the whole composition of that piece,
consider here. which was preceded by an extensive phase of
preparation and followed by some local improvements
The current literature about music composition as an for the concerts.
activity points out that, if the instant counts, so do the
composition of some meaningful part, the composition Data collection was made during 11 interviews of
of the entire work, and even more its place as part of the approx. 3 hours each, distributed along 6 months. The
composition of a set of works or as part of the interviews took place in a room where the composer’s
composer’s intervention in the artistic debates of the personal computer, his sketches and other documents
time-period. listed above, were put on a table simulating the
composer’s familiar space when he’s working. Our
Among various other theoretical and methodological chronological reconstruction of this activity followed its
challenges encountered by the cognitive analysis of this own segmentation into 5 phases of writing
(corresponding to the 5 movements of the work), so to the composition of the 3rd movement, that
there were approx. 2 interviews per movement. immediately preceded the composition of this
For each interview, we proceeded in 3 steps: (1) movement [mid-July 2002]; the first days of the
Selection and disposition of the materials needed for the realization of this movement, during a residence at
reconstruction of the movement composition activity; Heiligenstein in Alsace for concerts and master classes
(2) Reconstruction of the composer’s anticipations at a [second half of July].
precisely defined moment (which corresponded to the Before beginning to write the score, Philippe Leroux
beginning of the movement and of a meaningful part of had determined certain characteristics of this movement:
it); (3) Verbal and gestural expression over the course of to work on the absence of the voice (the general plan of
score writing in the simulated past situation. the work indicates “voice absent except at the end”); to
During this interview, we constantly used the different establish various relationships between the 3rd
materials to contradict or support the reconstruction by movement and the 1st (notably from a scenic point of
the composer of his own activity and to help him both to view); instrumental writing procedures inspired by a
retrieve his past situation of score writing and to quit his particular type of signal processing, namely spectral
present situation of a composer involved in other inversion (another type of signal processing, frequency
compositional problems, commenting his piece for his shifting, had been reserved for the writing of a fourth
students in composition class or giving interviews for movement, which, precisely at the moment of
musical journals. Every interview was recorded onto completion of the 3rd movement, was decided to be
video. The term we give to this type of interview is abandoned); to take two initially identical chords which
‘interview within situation simulation through material progressively diverge, one given to the instrumental
traces’. ensemble, the other to the electronic part (the sheet of
ideas for this movement contains schema representing
We will consider here the analysis of the resulting data this alteration, and specifies that this alteration proceeds
concerning the writing of two movements : the third one mainly through filtering – these schema already figure
and the last and fifth one. The reasons for this choice in an older sketch which listed ideas for the use of
are: During the writing of the third one, many surprises electronics throughout the piece, and in which we read:
emerged while using the materials already prepared; “instrumental held notes and the same pattern put out of
The use of previous material while writing the last one phase by the elec[tronics]”); finally, the choice of a
was dramatic; Many elements were brought forward poem from among those which he had photocopied
from one to the other. from the collection by the poet Lin Delpierre.
Through such an analysis of the composer’s writing By collecting material for the writing of the 3rd
activity concerning these two movements, presented movement, at the end of June 2002 and copying
here with a focus on the issues related to the large indications which came from various preparatory
temporal span of cognition, we will illustrate both the documents (this is the case, for example, for the schema
efficacy of the data collecting method just described, of chords) onto his sheet of ideas for this movement,
and a number of constraints the empirical phenomena Philippe Leroux is reminding himself of the major
just described set upon cognition theory. We will do this guiding ideas which are valid for the work as a whole
starting from the effects of a rereading of material (notably the ordered list of 26 chords) and he carefully
prepared for the 3rd movement, and then from those rereads the poem selected for this movement, from
concerning the 5th movement inasmuch as the writing of which he extracts the idea of being “dazzled by white
the score is constrained by the conclusive nature of this noise” (according to his note in the margins of the
movement. photocopied text) which evokes for him a process of
Unless otherwise specified, all of the passages quoting successive filtering applied to an initial chord, which
the composer are derived from the interviews of thus goes from being a rich traditional harmony to a
compositional situation simulation of the 3rd and 5th sound with a significant noise component. This
movements, which took place on April 2 and 29, 2004, rereading stage appears to be essential. All of these
and June 3 and 22, 2004 respectively. materials, initially dispersed (then later gathered
together in a folder labelled “3rd movement”) and dating
2. EFFECTS, ON THE COMPOSITION OF AN ENTIRE from very different times of constitution, are reread and
MOVEMENT, OF SITUATION PREPARATION AND
linked together to form a new compositional situation,
REREADING
while the two first movements are already written, and
The composition of the third movement of Voi(rex), in have created important divergences from the initial plan
the summer of 2002, involved several periods of of the work. To encapsulate it into a formula we could
elaboration: the accumulation of ideas in view of the say that during their fabrication, they prepared the
composition of a vocal piece, with instruments and compositional situation of the 3rd movement, but they
electronics, for which the title had not yet been fixed did not predefine this situation.
[second half of 2001, beginning of 2002]; work in an
IRCAM studio, which was undertaken while the first One of the ideas, which appeals to the composer, is that
movement had already begun to be written [spring of ‘swathes of chords’ [aplats d’accords]. “Aplats
2002]; the gathering up of all of the sketches necessary
d’accords” is written in the middle of the ideas sheet for inversion” around which he drew a box in the sheet of
the 3rd movement: ideas for the 3rd movement. A box of this sort, according
“Swathes of chords, I must have written that in later (than the rest of to his personal convention, defines in his plans and idea
the sheet of ideas), but I know that there will be swathes of chords, sheets for each movement the principle modes of sound
very simple things…which come from one of the little notes I had processing attributed to that movement.
jotted down and I risked my life for it because I was listening [to the
radio] while driving on the expressway surrounding Paris, I can still By manipulating the sound files arranged in the
remember a certain bend in the road, and I was busy noting it down at ProTools work session, Philippe Leroux discovers the
the same time…”
value of conserving the original durations of certain
Not having used the idea over the course of the sounds: during the recording he felt “the need to have
composition of the two first movements, Philippe notes held quite long in order to be able to work with
Leroux decided to listen to the recording of the chords them later, and also, conversely, to have very detached
of Voi(rex) which came out of his recording session notes”; but in no way did he think at that time that he
with the musicians, at IRCAM on April 18, 2002. This would “use the maximal time of the held note, for
recording session took place at the same time as the example 15 seconds”, in the process of concretizing the
composition of the beginning of the work (which began idea of “swathes” – it is only “to be safe” that he asked
at the end of February) but was planned independently the musicians to hold their notes for a considerable
of it, and brought together at the request of the length of time. Once he was in the compositional
composer all of the performers who would be involved situation, he exploits this particularity in order to play
in the work’s premiere, in order to have them play each with the listener’s sense of orientation: on the ProTools
of the 26 principle chords of Voi(rex), each one session, he links up the first 15 second sound with the
appearing in a dozen-odd forms. This work session same sound backwards – the pivot between the two
allowed the composer to experiment and to test the being imperceptible at first hearing – in order to put in
harmony, which he had already written out, and to place the play of imitations between the instrumental
constitute sound material which he could appeal to at ensemble (which, in concert, does play the fragment of
many stages of the composition. the score used in the April 18 recording session) and
A nice surprise awaited him when he listened to the electroacoustic sounds (which, in concert, will prolong
recordings: the instrumentations, which he had hastily the sonorities produced by the ensemble in such a way
noted a few days before the recording session, produced as to make it impossible to situate clearly the transition
interesting sounds, in particular because several of the between the two).
takes by the ensemble sounded like synthesized sound This creates an unusual compositional situation with
or else like acoustic sounds modified electronically in respect to the work on the preceding movements:
real time. Listening to these sound files in his usual “It is a movement which I composed principally on the computer, by
work environment for sound processing, the software simulating what was going to happen. […] For the electronics, there is
ProTools, Philippe Leroux is at the point of reworking going to be a constant interplay between the real and the false chords
– which are in fact the same.”
them: He separates them onto different tracks of a
ProTools session in order to try various combinations The composer puts into action a logic of imitation and
(“The first thing I do is to introduce the first chord and of reciprocal simulations by using the grid of the
to have it followed by the same chord but played ProTools interface, each track of his ProTools session
backwards”). As the first trials of this type were tending to have a special function: a sound to be played
convincing, the composer decided to make the by the ensemble (track 1), a sound file to be played
recordings with the musicians from April 18 the directly (track 2), extra sound files which facilitate the
principle material of this movement, and it is at this pivot between the two preceding tracks (track 3),
point that he adds the mention “swathes of chords” in ornamentation and additions to certain passages which
the middle of his sheet of ideas: what was supposed to are richer in electroacoustic material (other tracks). It is
constitute a single element, a section, or a category, only later, over the course of the writing of the first
becomes the all-encompassing logic of the movement. minute of music in ProTools, that Philippe Leroux
This extension of the place given to the idea of “swathes begins writing onto the pages of the score, not so much
of chords” leads him also to give pride of place to one as a way to fix the scoring of the instrumental part
particular kind of signal processing, frequency shifting, (which is largely based on the orchestration of the sheet
which he had initially reserved for the writing of the of initial chords), but rather as a way to place the voice,
fourth movement, with the corollary of minimizing which was until then not taken into consideration, the
spectral inversion, which had been initially assigned to absence of which right from the second page had to be
this movement. Frequency shifting did not seem taken into account in the realization of the play between
appropriate until after having begun work with instruments and electronics (since the electronics will
ProTools. It is at this point that Philippe Leroux drew a develop throughout the movement).
line indicating that the indications “frequency shifting” Over the course of these first days of work, more and
and “spectral inversion” were to switch places relative more sound files from the original recording session are
to the 3rd and 4th movements, and he added the mention used: either conserved and placed with more or less
“or frequency shifting” to the mention “spectral precision (depending on whether they are located closer
or farther from the beginning), or else cast out (deleted relative to the writing of this particular movement in
or relegated to the end of the ProTools session). In this this particular piece. But in fact it marks in his mind the
way, the entire movement starts to take shape: acquisition of a new “tool” of musical writing – a
“At the beginning, I finish one chord, then would go on right away to stylistic innovation in relation to a new procedure –
the next […] [but] later I project things through time, I go on to realize whose value seems to him to be attested by the success
- but not to finalize – a little passage, at [for example] the 2 minute obtained here and now:
point.”
“Freezing a chord, shifting the window inside an arpeggio, I don’t see
At the same time, the relationship between the ProTools any operation of instrumental writing that is similar to this in the past.
work session and the score becomes more complex: It inaugurates then something that is very new on the level of writing,
certain reworked sounds (notably through the freeze at least in part. However, my starting point is sound. It is not like with
MIDI instruments, in which the notes are already there, and the
function) are themselves used as models to be ‘copied’ rhythms, and all you need to do is to adjust things, or to rework the
by the instrumental ensemble – in other words, in the timbre. And neither is it purely electroacoustic sound in which you
writing of the score, Philippe Leroux undertakes have to reinvent everything.”
dictations into musical notation of sound files which “I wrote things that I would never have written on my own. For
have been modified through various electroacoustic example, that little violin thing, there, all alone in the middle
[bars 243-244]. By myself, […] I would never have written that […] It
manipulations which have rendered them considerably starts to be really fantastic then, because [after] the very hard work of
distant from any instrumental idiom. The play of inner listening, to try to really hear what’s going on, to adjust things,
imitations and simulations is progressively integrated etc., after all that, I have really gained a new writing tool which I can
into the score, leading the composer to experiment with use in fifty pieces to come, pieces which won’t [necessarily] have
anything to do with electronics.”
types of writing with which he feels unaccustomed –
with the result that the next phase of writing, during the This writing procedure is however not absolutely new.
month of August, takes place for the most part on the It already existed in emergent form or, in the
score itself. composer’s words, “globally”:
This progression would have been for the most part “In terms of a global approach, I’ve used it before. [...] For example, I
used it once for a piece that I wrote for four wind instrument MIDI
circumscribed by the compositional situation of the first controllers. It was really unusual. Later I made an instrumental version
days, whose situation was itself prepared extensively of it which is called AAA. But in that case they were MIDI
beforehand. The relevance of the recorded chords which instruments, so there was already a part of it which was automatically
Philippe Leroux listens to at the moment in which he written out. Here I start from the complete sound files which come
from instrumental sounds processed through electroacoustic
begins the writing of the movement only obtains techniques. This is a different case altogether.”
because the context of this writing is suitable for them,
i.e. because having gathered a priori the constituent Retrospectively, the composer relates moreover this
elements of the movement to be written, the composer compositional innovation to a large family of
searched for a means of crystallizing them – to put a procedures already utilized, going all the way to “pure”
great number of them into a network, or to fuse some of musical dictation of a sound file, which is a procedure
them together. In this case, it is the application of the which is far from being specific to him:
idea of “swathes of chords” (exploiting the rich material “While the fifth movement is almost pure musical dictation, here [in
obtained from the recording sessions with the musicians the writing of the 3rd movement], there is some dictation but at the
same time, in the end, I frame many things rhythmically on taleas. In
from April 18) to the entire movement and not only to a fact, what the electronic layer is doing here is something like [hums],
single determined passage, which allows for the a little haphazard. And then I rewrite everything in order to get the
elements to be instantaneously put into relation with one right notes, the right pitches, within the framework of the talea, my
another. rhythmic theme.”

The following will then be undertaken: the schema of Even if this innovation is in the end only relatively new
the two chords becoming progressively out of phase in terms of its content, it is by its potential for synthesis
with each other, the play of reciprocal imitations and imagination that it opens the way for future
between the ensemble and the electronics, being promising applications.
“dazzled by white noise”, and the development of 3. THE LAST MOVEMENT. THE DYNAMIC OF
unexpected writing situations which stimulate the ACCUMULATED CONSTRAINTS
invention of the composer (in particular the idea of The reconstitution of the activity of composition of the
“instrumental simulation” of sound files, starting from a third movement which was just presented shows that the
reworked musical dictation). At the same time, many of initial plans – even when they are no longer valid, the
the initial ideas for this movement are abandoned: little notes containing jotted down sound ideas – even
“There are things which I didn’t do. For example, I had intended to when they were recopied elsewhere, the computer
use certain chords to which I had given the name “chords which are generated material – even when it was already used in a
good in themselves”, but in fact I didn’t use them/ there were a few
instances in which I wanted to use these chords in the piece, either as
past context, are all resources for the action situated at
interludes between the movements, or even in this movement itself; the moment of composition itself.
but in the end I didn’t do it, I didn’t use them at all.” This remark applies just as much to the fragmentary
The unexpected writing situation, stimulating the preparation of any given situation (fragmentation in
invention of the composer, which has just been time and also by the multiplicity of retentional media),
analyzed, might only have been of interest for him as to the global conception of a movement at the
beginning of its composition – even if, contrary to the between movements had been carefully defined before
3rd movement, it had already been defined with the writing of the work, and then progressively taken
precision in previous stages. less into account as the writings of the movements
So it is with the 5th movement, which the composer now progressed, the 5th movement was different. Although
characterizes as the concatenation of three different he has now acquired a rough idea of its global duration,
movements of the initial plan: movements VI, VII and the durations of its sections had not been defined,
VIII. This 5th movement was constructed in several neither with respect to the proportions defined for the
stages beginning from these three, in particular during former movements VI, VII and VII, nor by any other
two distinct stages of the composition of Voi(rex). means:
“I knew that I could not keep the initial proportions, and since I
Right from the moment that the 3rd movement was abandoned the idea of using multi-processes, it wouldn’t have made
finished, the composer decided to modify the general sense to keep them. On the other hand, I now have a vision of the
plan of the work: to discard movement IV, to preserve piece as a whole, so I have a good idea of the global duration. I can’t
V (which would become the 4th) and to concatenate the be mistaken about the duration of the 5th movement, give or take a
minute. […]”
last three movements conceived as a single movement
(the 5th). This concatenation was conceived as a unified The writing of the 5th movement proceeds in the same
integration of the guiding ideas of each of these way as the 3rd: the situated writing of a movement
movements (on the general plan “scat”, “propagation of depends on the writing of preceding movements. But
figures” and “multiprocesses” are the words which here this idea is all the more evident because it is the
figure just below each movement number). As the last movement to be composed : Philippe Leroux begins
composer himself states after the fact, this logic of this movement with a determinate knowledge of the
concatenation endangered the unity of the last work, which he puts in relation to what he prepared to
movement: this end and with what he had decided at the start of the
“Because as a movement, this 5th movement is not very coherent in
composition.
the way that it is constructed. But taken as a part of the piece as a As the writing of the 5th movement progresses, it
whole, it is absolutely coherent. But I think that I would have liked it
to be more coherent in and of itself. At times it almost approaches
confronts the difficulty of making concrete the
mere juxtaposition of certain things at the end. But since everything relationship between this movement and the ones which
comes from far back and was very much prepared, it works.” preceded it. From the moment of the rereading which
In the second step of concatenation, before writing the preceded the writing, it is said that operations and local
5th movement, the composer goes back to the sketches elements should refer back to passages from previous
for movements VI, VII and VIII as they were initially movements:
planned, and he recopies the significant elements onto a “[In this sketch] I am simply imagining the beginning of the 5th
movement, exactly what is going to happen. As I spoke of swathes of
unified sketch of the movement that he is about to work chords, I do want swathes of chords, but I want them to be triggered
on; in so doing, he updates his vision for their fusion at by a figure (because I want the figure to propagate later), which I take
the time of the revision of the general plan. By from the Doppler effects which I made right at the beginning, in the
recopying onto his new “plan for V” the selected first Doppler effect patch which was made long before the writing of
the 1st movement and all that. Except that I apply it to a precise chord
guiding ideas, he makes clear what he intends to and to a precise letter [a reference to the 2nd movement in which the
preserve and reorders the elements into an order composition is marked by the use of the calligraphy of the letters of
different from the one in which they would have the poem as a gestural model for the melodic writing of the score,
occurred had he decided to preserve the three using OpenMusic], the letter which will determine the speed of the
movements. Doppler effect.”

He goes from a “logic of movements in which the From the preceding paragraphs, we see that the problem
concept of scatting would have been used for the whole of unity is posed on two levels simultaneously
movement”, to a synthesis of heterogeneous elements: throughout the writing of this movement: on the level of
“Now that [the scat] is no longer a movement, it has to the movement (for which the unity must overcome the
be a part of a gesture, a musical content”, which leads heterogeneity of the previously planned but abandoned
him to make it the central section of the new movement, movements from which it emerges) and on the level of
which contains successively elements from VII, VI and the work as a whole (for which the concluding
VIII. movement must give closure and/or complete, in a
balanced manner, the network of relationships springing
“In order to continue, that [plan for V with a list of elements taken
from the last three movements] is the most important, because I see
from the resemblances and contrasts between the
there that I am saying: ‘from VI I’m going to keep the scatting, I’m preceding movements).
going to keep the melody which follows the shape of the letters and
uses rhythmic elements from III, I’m going to keep moments of rest
The writing of the 5th movement accumulates
with the swathes of chords (but in fact, that’s not what I did), and also relationships with older periods of activity, during
some Doppler effects and some breaks in the scatting, things which which plans as well as material were elaborated, at the
hover a little (marked ‘floating [planements]’). Next, from VII, I keep same time as ideas and projects which did not yield any
the propagation of figures, delay patterns/”
inscription or leave any traces. These ties range from the
The question of unity does not only come into play in realization of a passage which had been planned long
the issue of the order of succession, but also in the before, to seizing a good opportunity to create a relation
proportions of the movement. While the proportions
a posteriori with an element from a preceding “Where are [the melodies imitating the letters of the alphabet used in
this passage of the 5th movement]? [searches in the computer, opens
movement. the OpenMusic program] Oh wait! No, I didn’t rewrite them because I
A detailed analysis of the anticipation of the idea of the already had them. For example, ‘i’ of chord 1. I must have changed
scat which was previously presented, would show that the chord, I removed this one and imported chord 1, and then I took
the unfolded letter.”
even when dealing with an essential idea of the work
like that of the scat, it can only be defined and given It is the use of the operation “Save as…” which allowed
content in the lead-up to the movement in which it the composer to select the most successful letter-
occurs. drawings when he was working on the 2nd movement,
which made use of this procedure; and it is this very
However, anticipation can be more determinate in terms same operation which allows him to adapt the results
of its content and more indeterminate in terms of the which were obtained at that time for a new harmonic
suitable moment for its future use. This is the case with context (i. e. by crossing the same profile with a new
occasional links made with preceding movements: every chord) which is what he does in the 5th movement.
opportunity is used to make reference in a detail of the
writing to characteristics and/or ideas from one of the Engaged in creating numerous connections with
preceding movements – a drone which makes reference preceding movements, the composer goes about reusing
to the 1st movement, a melodic profile of a letter which an element from the 3rd movement which is neither a
refers back to the 2nd and 4th movements, etc. These sound file, a patch nor a motive, but a structure – a
anticipations are generally only formulated at the instant structure resulting from the 3rd becoming the
of their being filled in the situation. But the writing of infrastructure of the 5th. The fact that it was saved into a
the 5th movement also leads the composer to complete, different file of the session(s) of the 3rd allows then for a
modify, or to ‘tally up’ lists of things to do. He does so recycling of the structure of the 3rd as a formal guide for
by basing himself on elements carried over, from the the writing of the 5th:
writing of a preceding movement, from a sketch “In point of fact, you’re following, section by section, the structure of
concerning this movement to elements reserved for the 3rd movement. Do you then have [the corresponding passage in the
score] in front of you? How do you do it?
what was to come next:
No, what I have in front of my eyes is the [ProTools] session of the
“There are several things that I wrote when I was working on the 3rd:
3rd. I don’t reuse elements from the writing of the 3rd .
‘for the voice, folding over of the high notes (for conjoint motion)’,
‘reuse elements from the rhythmic writing of III’, ‘make moments of That session, you rework it a lot, you remold it as you like. So you
calm with swathes of chords cf. III’”. have the intact session of the 3rd in front of you?
He also does so by verifying retrospectively an aspect of Yes, and from time to time I take something from the 3rd, I look at it in
detail, and I put it into the 5th. In the work session on the 5th, I have the
the composition by making a list (“by putting a dot on session of the 3rd (at the beginning) in its entirety; and then what I did
those real time techniques that I used in the preceding was either to enlarge some things, or/ (…) I recopied many things in
movements – in order to see what I was going to reuse order to do my dictations in a practical way/”
at the end”). The exploitation of this procedure on the scale of a large
Without using notations produced over the course of the part of the 5th movement is tied to elements from the
writing of a preceding movement, the composer can compositional situation of this movement such as the
also make use of elements already used in the course of need to save the voice before the scat section and the
the writing of a preceding movement but which were in desire to establish solid ties with the 3rd movement. It
the end not included in it, having been replaced by must also be understood as a confident exploitation of
variants which were more appropriate to the context. the compositional innovation of the 3rd movement, but
This reuse of elements strongly linked to the context of on a larger scale than the first time around. In this sense,
another movement allows him, when he uses them for this innovation is confirmed to be fruitful in this test
other purposes in the 5th movement, to exhaust material situation defined by the urgency to finish the manuscript
which he judged to be particularly interesting and which in order to submit it to the publisher, without spoiling
constituted for him a reservoir of potentially applicable the efforts of preparation of the three movements
elements. This is especially true of elements produced initially planned, nor to reduce the relationships
via computer, because the computer allows for the between the 5th and the preceding movements. Our
identical reproduction of objects which can each be characterization of this “new writing tool” in the
altered in a different way while still conserving some of analysis of the 3rd movement would not have been
its previous aspects. complete if we had not taken into account this ‘second
time around’ which confirms a process of emergence-
Therefore, this reuse of elements, often undertaken
creation-recognition of innovation.
directly on the technological medium which allowed
them to be generated, explores possibilities which were 4. QUESTIONS OF METHOD AND CONSTRAINTS
not relevant beforehand, but which were already FOR THEORIZATION
available and at-hand. The OpenMusic patch in which For Newell & Simon (1972), the phenomena of human
the composer can produce melodic profiles by crossing problem solving in the laboratory asked for a
a set of notes with the contours of a drawing (in this methodology that is “Empirical, Not Experimental” and
case the letters of the alphabet), constitutes at once a “Non-statistical”: “Because of the strong history-
tool and the memory of these operations: dependence of the phenomena under study, the focus on
the individual, and the fact that much goes on within a shows the limits of the simulation situation: the de facto
single problem solving encounter, experiments of the monopoly accorded to the activity theme that was
classical sort are only rarely useful. [...] Thus, the dominant. What is remarkable is that the access by the
analysis of verbal protocols is a typical technique for same methods to their effects during the writing of the
verifying the theory...”. Following these authors, what 5th allowed them to be recovered.
kind of methodological consequences have the Similarly, it is only during the compositional situation
characteristics of long temporal span cognition simulation for the 5th movement that the process of
phenomena? compositional innovation of the 3rd movement turns out
For these authors, the same phenomena asked also for a to be made explicit and thus recognized (as an operation
theory that is “Dynamically Oriented”: “The natural common to the two stages of writing with a wide
formalism of the theory is the program, which plays a interval of time between them).
role directly analogous to systems of differential One thing that we could anticipate in principle but not
equations in theories with continuous state spaces”. in terms of its realization is that the compositional
What kind of a theory, the phenomena of long temporal situation simulation of certain movements allows us to
span cognition asks for? discern certain globally shared characteristics of the
It is these two questions which we will now consider. activity of composition. This is particularly true of the
5th movement. For example, it sheds light on the
A/ On the Method and Time of an Inquiry
“intimate knowledge” for a movement that the
Phenomena of large temporal span of cognition seem to
composer gained after the writing of the preceding ones:
us to point towards a methodology of analysis of verbal
protocols collected within a situation simulation through “There is a very important thing there, and there’s no trace of it
anywhere; that’s the fact that I just composed the four first
the material traces of the activity that we presented here movements, so I have intimate knowledge of the time of my piece: I
above. The kinds of analytical elements which we have reread it often, and what’s more, for the 3rd, a simulation in time is
presented are not presently available to music listeners. available, so I feel / I see very well the balance / if such and such a
They were not immediately available to the composer section might tend to unbalance the piece as a whole, I would feel it
right away. It is at the beginning, perhaps, that that type of thing is the
himself either, at least not in detail or in their most critical. After, I could almost continue with my eyes shut. […]”
construction. They show how fruitful the investigation
situation that was practiced in this study turned out to Also by way of example, the logic of collecting,
be. The validity of the data collected is essentially transferring and transforming which is put to use by the
assured, during the interviews and after them, through composer is particularly evident in the writing of the 5th
the confrontation of the affirmations of the composer on movement because it gives closure to Voi(rex).
the one hand between them, on the other hand with the Actually, its characteristic of being a concluding
material traces available. This fruitfulness and this movement shed light on the properties of the activity of
validity, which are of course not without limits, composition over the course of the writing of all of the
although nevertheless efficacious, we anticipated them preceding movements.
from past theoretical and methodological experience These interviews within situation simulations through
concerning the analysis of the activities in work material traces, could obviously be held throughout the
situations, in sports and in education (Theureau, 2003). writing of a work (or any other long term cognitive
What we did not anticipate at first is that it was only process). This is as a matter of fact the method we are
during the reconstitution of their use in the composition adopting today as part of a new research project on the
of the 5th movement that we were informed that during activity of musical composition.
the writing of the 3rd movement but in preparation for B/ Constraints for Cognitive Theory
the 5th, the composer noted (in sketches for the The analysis which we have presented here of the
movements VI, VII and VIII which were replaced by activity of composition of the 3rd and 5th movements
the 5th), certain elements intended for the 3rd which he reveals also some empirical constraints which a
removed from that movement, as well as developments cognitive theory interested in the large temporal span of
envisioned for other elements of the 3rd. Despite our human cognition should take into account:
asking the composer to document all of his activity,
• Not only must the training-development be described,
these elements produced in relation to activity themes
appealed to punctually, whereas the dominant activity but also the appropriation-individuation of existing tools
and procedures;
theme was the writing of the 3rd, were only mentioned
when reconstructing the moment of their final • A central place must be given to the perception-action
utilization: loop and to its development into a discovery-creation
“I wrote that at a point in which I was writing the 3rd movement; I said loop; this applies just as much to the realization of a
to myself: what I am doing at this moment, such and such an work (surprises from inner or auditory hearing – writing
operation, for example, possesses such and such a development which and electroacoustic signal processing) as to the
will fit in perfectly at the end” [Interview about the writing of the 5th
movement].
procedures of composition;
The fact that they were forgotten during the situation • An essential role must be given to anticipation and
simulation for the composition of the 3rd movement especially to the vague anticipation which characterizes
“ideas”, as is the case for the different types of sound work), in this case inspired by the composer listening to
and musical ideas, for which the possibility of his own work. This technological aspect of the study is
realization at various degrees is left open; in relation with all of the empirical challenges raised by
• In relation to this vague anticipation, at least two types it (cf. the introduction) and not only to that of the large
of long-term emergence must be described: the temporal span of cognition which is presented here. Its
publication is forthcoming.
emergence of claims and actions, and the emergence of
procedures;
• Next to the resolution of problems imposed on the REFERENCES
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CONCLUSION
Through this empirical study of Philippe Leroux’s Theureau, J. & Donin, N. (to appear). Comprendre une
activity of musical composition of Voi(rex), large activité de composition musicale : essai
temporal span of human cognition appears as a méthodologique sur les relations entre sujet,
challenge in terms of data collecting methods and activité créatrice, environnement et conscience
cognitive theory. préréflexive dans le cadre du programme de
recherche ‘cours d’action’. Barbier, J.-M. &
This empirical study is undertaken in relation with a Durand, M. (ed.), Les relations sujets-activités-
technological project known as “signed listening” environnements. Presses Universitaires de France,
(Donin, 2004), which aims at the development of active Paris.
listening multimedia environments (in particular the
production of and the listening capabilities for
imaginative variations concerning aspects of the given Translated from the French by Jonathan Goldman