The Computer - a Tool to Shape the Sounds

Around 1969, Max Matthews pointed out a general procedure of sound synthesis. The computer directly calculates the sound wave in every detail, comparable somehow to a direct scribing of the groove of a record. Basically, this procedure allows composing a sound to one's taste, without prior limitations or restrictions: it is enough to specify the complete physical structure of the sounds one should like to get to the computer equipped with an appropriate programme - as Music V, for instance.
I was fascinated by these promises of a ductile and open world of sounds, susceptible for use in creating new sound architectures. But this sound world does not reveal itself so easily: the computer is very demanding. It wants every detail of the desired sound numerically specified. And the first trials were disappointing: the only sounds that were possible to synthesize were without life, without dynamics, without character. This lack was due to our unawareness of the relations between the physical structure of the sounds (which has to be specified in the synthesis programme) and their sensitive effect (where audition matters). The correspondence between sound parameters and their effects - called psychoacoustics - is more complex then one believes, and in order to take advantage of the potential resources of the computer, you need to have a good knowledge of them. At the same time, though, the computer is the ideal tool for developing musical psychoacoustics. Every synthesized sound is known as far as its construction is concerned, and by listening to it one experiences the relation between the sound's structure and its effect.
Thus the studies of instrument imitations helped us understand the correlations between existence, inner tension and identity of sounds. In certain borderline cases, pitch variations may not even simply follow frequency variations: I managed to synthesize a sound pitching up indefinitely, a sequence of sounds with simultaneously climbing and sinking pitches, and a sound the pitch of which goes down as its frequencies are doubled.
Starting from four loudspeakers, Chowning managed to give the impression of elaborate sound movements in space, allowing the musician to drag his audience into illusionary spaces.
There's a wide field of research open to the studios at Stanford, at IRCAM, at Marseille ... We will need patience to conquer the sound resources of the computer, studying the auditive effects of one physical structure or the other, learning to numerically specify sensitive parameters, enriching or refining attempts too coarse or meager, in short, we will have to find ways to musically evoke and control the desired sounds. A very hurried musician might find these demands excessive, but for me the stake is worth spending time and energy. Through computer synthesis one can handle the creation of acoustic processes, enrich the material without losing the option of refined control, generally speaking, compose sounds and not only compose with sounds, having the illusionary synthetic world and the (real) instrumental world penetrate each other, letting "sound bodies" be heard although they cannot be seen and playing around with the levels of perception.

Jean-Claude Risset (F), born 1938 in Puy/France. Scientific studies and study of music at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure, piano and composition with André Jolivet. During the sixties cooperation with Max Matthews in the USA in the development of musical applications of computerized sound synthesis: imitation of instruments, synthetic sounds catalogue. Responsible for the installation of computerized sound synthesis at Orsay (1971), Marseille (1974), and at IRCAM (Paris), where he was director of the computer music department from 1975 to 1979. The next steps in his career were: director of research at C.N.R.S., Laboratoire de Mécanique et d'acoustique and at the Faculté des Sciences de Luminy.


International prizes and awards:

Prix du Groupement des Acousticiens de Langue Française 1967
Award at Dartmouth Electronic Music Competition 1970
Bronze Medal of C.N.R.S. 1971
First Prize at the computer music contest in Bourges 1980, Grand Prix SACEM for the promotion of symphonic music


Most important works:

Fantasie pour orchestre (1963)
Musique pour Little Boy (1968)
Dialogues (1975)
Inharmonique (1977)
Mirages (1978)
Songes (1979)
Aventure de lignes, Profiles (1981)
Coutours, Passages (1982)
L'autre face (1983)
Filtre pour deux pianos (1984)
Sud, Dérives (1985)


As the pioneer of Computer music and an excellent composer, Jean-Claude Risset has been symbolically awarded the Golden Nica for music by the Prix Ars Electronica '87 music jury.