My current research can be divided in three main areas.

Exploration of the dimensions of Time and Space in music.

This part expands on a presentation which I did in March 2003 entitled: Tricking the ear in 5-D, and an essay which I wrote entitled Counterpoint in Electroacoustic Music where I laid out the foundations of my ideas. This should lead to the development of a unified theory Counterpoint in Electroacoustic Music. The term 'counterpoint' does not only refer to 'note-against-note', but also to changes in timbre and sound movement within space (migration of sound). All this happens in time. This might also be applicable to acoustic music though there is more control in Electroacoustic music.This area of my study deals with the aesthetic part of sound movement, whereas in the next part, more technical issues will be dealt with.

Software for sound synthesis and design and for music composition

In this part of my studies, I will be concentrating on software which can be used for synthesis and sound design. In particular, I want to compare software produced and distributed under the GNU/GPL and similar licenses with similar commercial products, and assess their viability.Other software which needs to be explored are those which give control over the spatial distribution of sound, especially those which make use of no more than two speakers. The idea to stick to only two speakers is that although multi-channel systems exist, they cannot be carried around. The majority of consumers still use two speaker systems. Most radio receivers are stereo, as well as most televisions and hi-fi systems. My aim is to define those elements which are most useful in helping to develop a system that enables a composer to easily and automatically encode a sound signal projected from only two speakers so that it realistically appears to move in space. Another factor which I have to keep in mind is the area where the listener may be as I want to achieve as large an area as possible. I want to obtain better results than what can already be achieved by just using panning and adding reverb. There is still a lot to be learnt about audio perception from the psychoacoustic field of study. For a list of software which I already used, am in the process of exploring, or would like to explore in the future, please refer to the separate software list. Note that this is an area which is continually developing. New software is being developed all the time and thus this list can oly be partial. Most of the software listed run on MS Windows, but some run on multiple operating systems. I would like to explore other operating systems as well, Linux in particular, as it is gaining an always larger percentage of computer sales - thus diffusion. A lot of software is already available for this operating system and these do not encompass only software to be used to compose songs in the popular styles of music but also professional multimedia systems as they are already being employed in the film industry such as those used at the Hollywood studios.

Development of a compositional theory derived from Pitch-class set theory and axis tonality.

Here I am sorking on developing a way akin to the analysis-resynthesis techniques used in electroacoustic music. One will use a method both for analysis and for the composition of new material. This will lead to diversity in unity. I already showed that this is possible in one of my composition presented as part of my MMus portfolio, namely Slide Show. I would like to continue to explore its possibilities and to combine it with other compositional methods.

+++++++++++++++++====================+++++++++++++++++

One of my compositions, Crystal for Piano solo has been recorded, performed by Clive Williamson and can be found here.

Next Page

More details can be found at my other website.