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Ferruccio Busoni as Architect of Sound presents the composer as an innovator inspired not only by past musical traditions but also by a contemporary interest in experimentalism. In the twentieth-century, Busoni wrote pieces where sound radiates from different directions, created montage formal structures, and freely used all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale without avoiding consonances. This book reveals how he also applied his understanding of tangible architectural spaces, buildings, and floor plans to his music, reconciling the spatial and temporal divide in music through an interdisciplinary approach. His innovation prompted and inspired new trends in pitch organization, the spatialization of sound, and the expansion of formal structures. Transcending physical boundaries of compositional innovation, Busoni also engaged in a rich exchange of ideas with contemporary architects and artists. Through a broad analysis of Busoni's compositional activities, musicologist Erinn E. Knyt brings Busoni's music into dialogue with more recent accounts of modernism in music that move beyond elitist esotericism and notions of rupture with the past. In addition, she facilitates a discourse between Busoni and other twentieth-century artists and explores how Busoni's spatialized architectural music left a lasting imprint on future generations of musicians and early film pioneers.

Xenakis Creates in Architecture and Music describes the collaborative interaction of internationally acclaimed composer Roger Reynolds, musician Karen Reynolds, and musically inspired composer, engineer, and architect Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) to create a house design, The Reynolds Desert House. The process combined aesthetics and intuition with mathematical systems, showcasing how art and science are balanced—by way of music and architecture—to address the essential technical aspects of music along with the role of emotion and energy. The book analyzes three representative chamber works and presents a trove of primary sources: letters, diaries, notes, photographs, sketches, and person-to-person conversations. What emerges are patterns of direct parallels between how Xenakis characterized the process of musical creation and his design of The Reynolds Desert House. Xenakis Creates in Architecture and Music is a testament to the singularly innovative and creative mind of Iannis Xenakis.Supplementary materials—including color reproductions of black and white images in the book—can be found at: www.rogerreynolds.com/xenakisreynoldsroutledge.html

Nesta obra examinei relações entre a Arquitetura e a Música. Reflexionando sobre alguns elementos formais utilizados por ambas as artes, busquei métodos de aproximação entre elas. Como resultado, apresento o processo de desenvolvimento de um programa de computador que traduz elementos geométricos a formas musicais (ou pseudomusicais). O nome do mecanismo programado é Caixa de Música. O conteúdo é resultado da tese de doutorado defendida em 2009 na UFRJ/Proarq, trabalho que apresento revisado e atualizado. Trata-se de uma incursão da disciplina conhecida como Desenho Assistido por Computador (CAD) dentro do campo da Composição Assistida por Computador (CAC). Desenvolvi diversas técnicas de composição a partir da tradução de objetos geométricos tridimensionais modelados dentro do popular ambiente gráfico AutoCAD. Apresento as diversas técnicas e critérios de manipulação formal utilizados para capturar e traduzir os objetos geométricos. Os instrumentos utilizados são a linguagem AutoLISP para manipular os objetos de AutoCAD e o Compo Music para processar musicalmente os objetos geométricos. A modelagem plástica do som, partindo de uma matéria-prima geométrica, visa a um objetivo maior que é o da qualificação sonora dos espaços arquitetônicos. Como referência principal, foi estudada a obra teórica e os fundamentos filosóficos e políticos do compositor grego Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001). Em especial, as suas especulações acerca das noções de estrutura musical outside-time e a teoria dos sieves. O estudo foi me levando, seguindo um enfoque epistemológico, para a problemática da relação entre Arte e Ciência. São apresentadas noções simplificadas de teoria musical e o instrumento matemático que serve para realizar as operações de tradução: a aritmética modular. Teorizo sobre diretrizes que permitam estender o uso da técnica como instrumento de qualificação espacial.

Experimentations provides a detailed historical and theoretical analysis of the first three decades of experimental composer John Cage's aesthetic production (ca. 1940-1972). Paying particular attention to Cage's inter- and cross-disciplinary engagements with the visual arts and architecture during this period, the book sheds new light on some of Cage's most controversial and influential innovations, such as the use of noise, chance techniques, indeterminacy, electronic technologies, and computerization, as well as upon lesser known but important ideas and strategies such as transparency, multiplicity, virtuality, and actualization. Ultimately, it traces the development of Cage's avant-garde aesthetic and political project as it transformed from the emulation of historical avant-garde precedents such as futurism and the Bauhaus, to the development of important precedents for the post-World War II movements of happenings and Fluxus, to its ultimate abandonment in the aftermath of problems encountered in the vast, multimedia composition HPSCHD (1967-69).

Sonic Rupture applies a practitioner-led approach to urban soundscape design, which foregrounds the importance of creative encounters in global cities. This presents an alternative to those urban soundscape design approaches concerned with managing the negative health impacts of noise. Instead, urban noise is considered to be a creative material and cultural expression that can be reshaped with citywide networks of sonic installations. By applying affect theory the urban is imagined as an unfolding of the Affective Earth, and noise as its homogenous (and homogenizing) voice. It is argued that noise is an expressive material with which sonic practitioners can interface, to increase the creative possibilities of urban life. At the heart of this argument is the question of relationships: how do we augment and diversify those interconnections that weave together the imaginative life and the expressions of the land? The book details seven sound installations completed by the author as part of a creative practice research process, in which the sonic rupture model was discovered. The sonic rupture model, which aims to diversify human experiences and urban environments, encapsulates five soundscape design approaches and ten practitioner intentions. Multiple works of international practitioners are explored in relation to the discussed approaches. Sonic Rupture provides the domains of sound art, music, creative practice, urban design, architecture and environmental philosophy with a unique perspective for understanding those affective forces, which shape urban life. The book also provides a range of practical and conceptual tools for urban soundscape design that can be applied by the sonic practitioner.

In this book the concept of functionalism, well-known in 20th-century architecture and design, is used to investigate the musical thoughts of two of the leading composers at the time of the Bauhaus, the time of Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. Functionalism may be characterized by the functional treatment of the chosen material, by functional design, and by a focus on the work's intended function. This tripartite requirement also defines the concept of musical functionalism as developed in this study, and it serves as the foundation for a presentation of Schoenberg's and Hindemith's thoughts on the subject. Examined through the lens of musical functionalism, common traits between thetwo composers become evident, despite all their individual characteristics as artists of noticeable integrity. Discussions of the musical material, of musical form, and of the function of music allow the author to reveal a sharedepistemological base underlying the external dissimilarities of the two composers'style and language.