Peer-reviewed article, published in the 'Digital' special focus issue of www.seismograf.org, 31st March 2014
In Danish and in English

ABSTRACT

Many composers work today with fluid creative work processes that oscillate between musical notation and digital audio. This article proposes a broad formulation of composition as sonic writing, in which the resonance of recorded sounds from diverse sources contributes to forming the nature of works as much as the composer does when notating sounds. Further to the notion of sonic writing, the term écriture is invoked, inspired by Cixous, to underline the continually developing aspect of composition that is enhanced when the flexibility of digital audio is involved. The multi-track digital editing session is regarded as naturally prompting a proliferation of sonic contexts, guiding the goals of compositional work away from the limited signifying economy of internal ontological coherence to a multiplicity of wide-ranging points of reference. Finally, after exploring the metaphor of vibration for this oscillatory practice, the article offers an analysis of the meeting of natural and synthetic vibrato in my recent opera Turbulence.