Sound morphology and the articulation of
structure in electroacoustic music
JOHN YOUNG
Music, Technology and Innovation, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
E-mail: jyoung@dmu.ac.uk
1. INTRODUCTION
A catalyst for the thinking in this paper is the way in
which the concentrated direct audition of materials
central to the process of electroacoustic composition
can, in conjunction with powerful tools for the decon-
struction and synthesis of sounds, influence the nature
of musical relationships that are formed. In electroa-
coustic music we have the capacity to manipulate
sound in an unprecedented number of dimensions –
especially to transform, disassemble and remix both
natural and digitally created sound objects over time.
This potential for composers to create complex sound
hybrids, and many variants of them, can make the
process of establishing and developing musically
useful relationships amongst materials a complex and
fascinatingly rich one. The fact that computer-assisted
compositional processes allow materials to be gener-
ated much faster than the time required to audition
them means that, within a short space of time, it is easy
to manufacture more hours of intrinsically complex
sound files that are minutely varying forms of each
other than one could hope to listen to in a constructive
and creative frame of mind.
For that reason I have chosen to focus analytical
examples on one particular kind of iteration-based
morphology, namely the use of impulse-based mor-
phologies and their patterning in time as pulses that
increase in speed to form an accelerando. This is a
figure which is found in instrumental music but, when
realised in the electroacoustic medium, also has the
potential to demonstrate a fluid relationship between
rhythm and pitch, as impulses can be micro-edited and
mixed (overlapped) in the manner of grains to allow
fusion into new textural and timbral constructs. Ana-
lytical commentary is used to highlight ways in which
this morphological construct can function at different
levels within the structure of electroacoustic music
and it is argued that the morphology and behaviour of
sound objects can be used to articulate recognisable
and transferable musical identities. These articulations
can be controlled by the composer and perceived by
listeners to function across different time scales in
music – from long-term direction and focus of sections
to strings of phrases as well as the unfolding in time of
Organised Sound 9(1): 7–14 © 2004 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the United Kingdom.
individual sound objects. Reference is also made to the
fact that morphological identity can spring from the
inherent shape characteristics of naturally occurring
sound objects, as well as the morphological artefacts
of signal processing routines.
2. THE ROLE OF ANALYSIS
2.1. Composer and listener
In the concrete domain of electroacoustic music,
the focus on aural methods of composition has an
inherently analytical dimension and, at least in what
we might term Franco–Anglo tradition of acousmatic
electroacoustic composition, the composer tends to
engage in an analytical discourse with materials – since
in this medium the composer is, in fact, a listener. In
the acousmatic studio, the fixity of sounds on the
medium allows us to stop and repeat sound, inviting
probing analysis of any sound object and in turn inves-
tigating the nature of our responses to and relation-
ships with sound. In addition, composers have at their
disposal a range of analytical software tools that
enable a kind of extension of the ear – to isolate and
magnify elements of a spectrum, for instance. This
heightened objectivity afforded the composer is a key
issue in disentangling the relationship between the
intention within and reception of the musical object.
In broader terms, analysis of music solely from the
basis of the aural experience and not from the written
score creates a usefully pragmatic environment emph-
asising direct aural judgement, so that we do not have
to wonder why, just for example, one serial trans-
formation was omitted from Boulez’s Structure 1a,
a work conceived purely in terms of the ordering and
mixing of serially ordered musical parameters (Ligeti
1960). Instead we can focus on forming a musical
theory based on exploration of listening mechanisms,
since in electroacoustic music the composer and
audience meet primarily through a direct aural enga-
gement with sounds. On the other hand, it is also inter-
esting that the specification of music in terms of pitch/
duration reductions does not need to lead to formal
abstraction, but can also lead to abstraction from
performing reality. Some composers of instrumental
DOI: 10.1017/S1355771804000032
8 John Young
music who create work using sequencers are effectively
working in a concrète way, to the extent that it can
be possible to allow sonic effect to precipitate leaving
a connection with the practicalities of performance
behind. For example, it is possible to envisage a
scenario where, despite the fact that a passage sounds
scintillating at 420 bpm on a MIDI-sequenced VST
trumpet, rapid shifts in register over an extended
period and rapid changes in dynamic may make it
impossible for a live trumpeter to execute. In such a
hypothetical situation, the composer’s direct engage-
ment with sound is akin to the musique concrète
composer, but with the danger of producing perfor-
mance-bound musical structures that do not translate
into the domain of performer realisation.
2.2. Analysis through practice
But if the idea of aural analysis of music in its concrète
form invites the criticism that it is too filtered by what
we think we want to hear, we should be reminded,
as Alistair Williams has asserted, that ‘analysis is
always a form of subjectivity on the part of the theorist
and the text, and a failure to understand this is a
serious structuralist deficiency’ (Williams 2001: 29).
Pierre Boulez (Boulez 1991) famously suggested that
Messiaen’s analysis of the Rite of Spring in terms of
personages rythmiques is simultaneously ‘right’ and
‘wrong’ – pointing to a way in which rhythmic pro-
cesses in that work could be interpreted, essentially an
emergent individual concept of rhythmic dynamism
for Messiaen, but by no means the only approach to
analysis of rhythm in the work. A subjective analysis,
yes, but one which served a practical purpose. Analy-
sis, therefore, in its fullest sense belongs to both the
composer and the musicologist (and indeed to the
attentive lay listener). Analysis for the composer is
a process of gaining understanding of the materials
that will give rise to the musical ‘outcome’, and for the
musicologist, analysis dissects and contextualises the
final musical ‘fact’. But of course these are not mutu-
ally exclusive – the composer may be further develop-
ing ideas from earlier work, or techniques set forward
by another composer or culture, and the musicologist
may be attempting to reach and confront the musical
decisions faced by the composer. Where these con-
verge is in the attempt to articulate the creative process
for a work, or to relate a work and work practices to a
wider sphere of ideas and musicality, to understand
more generally the spirit of creativity.
In the kinds of terms put forward by Jacques Attali
(Attali 1985) we may be at a point where the ‘making’
and comprehension of technical motivations and con-
sequences are so all-absorbing, that simply ‘speaking’
musically is a sufficient level of engagement for com-
position. Yet I would argue that the contemporary
practice of remixing exisiting music, beat matching
and mixing, has an inherently analytical dimension –
which, as in the example of Messiaen, is both deeply
subjective in the apparent playfulness of the mélange,
but also coolly clinical in the separation and fusion
of materials of disparate origins, as we hear music
constructed out of ‘music’. In the end, then, the nature
of analysis itself must be analysed, so that processes
by which we create music, and by which we think
we understand music can be deepened. As Stephen
McAdams expresses it, from a music psychologist’s
perspective, ‘the starting assumption . . . is that the
structure and process of music can indicate the nature
of certain mental structures and processes’ (McAdams
1987: 2) [italics in original]. Despite the fact that
one might take issue with the singular ‘structure’ and
‘process’ of music referred to by McAdams (music,
as a collective noun, embodies many structures and
processes), it is important to acknowledge that music
reflects process at poietic and aesthetic levels. Thus the
listening mechanisms and technical/creative responses
a composer makes to materials generated through
electroacoustic operations on sounds are components
in a broad model for understanding musical ideas
and materials. And within that process of listening,
applying technical processes, speculating on possible
outcomes and reacting to the qualities of the materials
produced, a composer understands, through practice,
something of the nature of his/her musical sensibility
and musical materials per se. Likewise, the recontex-
tualisation of sounds in a remix can tell us something
about how the DJ is listening, which in turn might
tell us something about the properties of the music
that is remixed. However, even though we could aim
to simply ‘speak musically’ to each other (technolo-
gically speaking, a process greatly enhanced by the
ways in which sound materials are easily transported
by modern communications), the tremendous value
in composers articulating the listening and musical
judgement processes cannot be overestimated.
From the electroacoustic composer’s perspective,
two fundamental questions are frequently asked
during the creative process: what do I hear in these
sounds, and how can the shaping and presentation
of the materials I create convey something of my
explorations on to the malleability of sound? If a
completed work is a reduction and embodiment of the
composer’s listening and manufacturing methods,
analysis of that work is similarly not just located in the
graphics or symbols that might be used to represent
analogies, proportions or to sketch trajectories of
development, but in their ability to embody something
of the musical and compositional space that is articu-
lated. Without that, the dark at the end of the meta-
phorical tunnel will remain for as long as we wish to
continue.
The manner in which electroacoustic music is made
also invites us to rethink the relationship between

compositional processes and analytical ones. A com-
poser’s underlying methods are generally hidden from
us, and in much electroacoustic music this is particu-
larly acute, since the absence of notation denies one
level of access to an array of well-developed potential
reductive tools. Notation of music can allow key
analytical points to be quickly and elegantly articu-
lated. For instance, the kind of reductive analysis done
by Leonard Meyer (Meyer 1994: 24–7) to contrast the
relative richness of invention in passages with similar
underlying structures by Bach and Geminiani points
to the kind of analytical process to which classical
musicians are trained to respond. Analytical tools that
can unlock musical mechanisms in the various forms
of electroacoustic music may not yet be fully identi-
fied, but I would argue that they are necessary. In the
sense set out above by McAdams, the fact that we
sympathise with these kinds of analytical reductions
indicates that the foundations they uncover and the
complexity of relationship between the deep and sur-
face structures they articulate may be a psychological
necessity for music. Meyer’s analysis is especially
elegant in that it uses the reductive processes of tonal
analysis to demonstrate the underlying similarity of
two passages, but then also demonstrates the relative
sophistication of the surface articulations and formal
implications of these structures.
Despite the fact that the noisy and unpitched nature
of much environmental sound makes it problematic
to integrate fully with traditional musical knowledge
(Truax 1996), one genre of acousmatic music which
innately demonstrates these kinds of reducible struc-
tural levels is that which uses environmental/natural
sounds as recognisable referents within a network
of morphological transformations, frequently pulling
realistic images into surreal, distended sound-imagery.
The recorded ‘scene’ provides a low-level reference – a
window on a real event which has a documentary con-
nection with lived experience that in a sense cannot be
reduced, although it can be influenced by, for example,
details of recording focus determining the rhythm
of presentation and perspectives on how we are being
offered the scene. So then if a more abstracted sound
world is developed around this using electroacoustic
transformation tools, we have in the real-world sound
event a groundwork for meaning. One musical con-
sequence of this is that the effective functioning of a
sonic image in this way can require little actual pre-
sentation time, so strong can be our vicarious under-
standing of environmental sound sources – just as in
functioning tonality where the tonic does not have to
be constantly reiterated in order for its musical influ-
ence and gravitational pull to be felt. Perhaps one
reason that the genre of recognisable natural sounds
embedded within a continuum of more abstract trans-
formations has grown considerably in the last decade
is the fact that it embodies a potential to satisfy a key
Sound morphology 9
psychological requirement in music for multiple levels
of structural differentiation.
3. INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR VIEWS OF
MORPHOLOGY
3.1. Definitions and perceptual limits
A view of musical sounds as complex morphological
events and not simply ‘notes’ of specific pitch centre
and duration is an innovative musical observation,
particularly associated with the application of elec-
troacoustic tools to music, and one that can be actively
exploited in electroacoustic composition. Denis
Smalley identifies the fact that electroacoustic tech-
nology opens ‘an alternative view (as permitted, for
example, by close recording of an instrumental note),
[which] takes the ear inside the note so that spectral
components can be heard’ (Smalley 1997: 119).
Following the pioneering work of Pierre Schaeffer
(Schaeffer 1966, Schaeffer and Reibel 1998), Smalley’s
notion of spectromorphology points to the fact that
the shaping of sound in time can be observed at differ-
ent temporal levels and with many different potential
musical implications. Furthermore, electroacoustic
technology allows aspects of sound morphology to be
abstracted, transferred to other sounds, and provides
the composer with processing routines that can impose
a new morphological imprint on an existing sound. We
may therefore take the idea of the ‘note’ to be included
within the broad general category of the boundaries
and shaping of an acoustic event, with the morphology
that it creates capable of being used to externally
reshape other sound events. A sophisticated approach
to the handling of morphological identity and behavi-
our can project musical patterns that have both an
external gestural shaping role and more internal ones
of textural quality or spectral colouration. I have
previously put forward a way of musically describing
the effects of some applications of cross-synthesis
techniques in the creation of hybrid morphologies
(Young 2002). These are described in terms of idio-
and exo-morphologies, which respectively describe the
distinguishing identity features that remain re-shaped
within a processed sound, and the re-shaping features
of another sound superimposed on it (typically fea-
tures such as amplitude profile or spectral envelope).
However, it has to be admitted that one of the features
of hybrid sounds is that the context for the motiva-
tions of the transformations can be ambiguous – in
particular the perception of gestural energy can in
some cases be difficult to ascribe to one or other
of the input sounds. As Michel Chion has suggested,
the idea of the ‘interior’ of a sound ‘presupposes for
the composer that the question of the limits where the
“interior” of the material starts, and where the “exter-
ior” begins is answered. However, we don’t always
know this’ (Chion 1988: 26).
10 John Young
From an electroacoustic composer’s perspective,
‘entering’ the sonic interior can mean different things.
Spectral components not normally audible as discrete
identities can be isolated or separately manipulated,
or in the time domain one might use granular methods
to synthesise new timbres with spectral signatures
that are not perceptually related to the original sound
structures. Those are processes which generate new
sound signals. On the other hand, the process of
repeated audition itself enables us to listen ‘into’
the sound ever more acutely, which can alter the
perception of the sound’s musical potential during
the compositional process, as listening contexts evolve
through generation of new materials and the process
of testing of these against each other. The musical
sense of a guiding gestural morphology is therefore
context dependent, relying on the order in which mate-
rials are presented, the subsequent patterns of their
development, and the emphases created through their
unfolding in time. The analysis of it may always be
subjectively led but it can also make us aware of
the distinction between an underlying sound object
and the organising mechanisms they project. One of
the key problems in electroacoustic composition, then,
is this issue of effectively controlling the dynamic rela-
tionship between the nature of electroacoustic trans-
formation processes and the projection of perceptually
workable generative relationships amongst source
sounds and the network of transformations developed
with and around them.1 An understanding of compos-
ers’ experiences in this matter is crucial since the way
a composer navigates through interior/exterior per-
ceptions of sound and any models of signification
formed for the transformations that allow this, may
tell us a great deal about the potential for new musical
meanings in music.
3.2. Morphological identity
In order to illustrate the ways in which a morpholo-
gical identity can function in electroacoustic music,
references will be made to a series of short sound
examples found on Organised Sound Volume 9’s CD.
The starting point is a natural sound event that has a
distinct and inherently recognisable morphological
identity (sound example 1). The identity is an impulse-
based one (the amplitude peak of each click is approxi-
mately 4 ms long). But the impulses are also organised
at a higher level of increasing frequency of impulse
producing the accelerando and also a rise in pitch
as the iterations fuse. There is also a familiar and
easily recognised image associated with this kind
of sound, as the rebound energy of the little plastic
ball is gradually expended! In this kind of sample, we
1
Wishart (2000) presents a discussion of perceived generative
relationships amongst sounds in Tongues of Fire.
tend to have a vicarious understanding of the relation-
ship between objects that produce this kind of sound
structure – whether at the level of the ‘imagery’ of the
bouncing ball, or at a more removed level of surfaces
interacting through elasticity and the gradual release
of energy. These kinds of approaches to the analysis
of sound objects in electroacoustic music are articu-
lated in the work of Trevor Wishart who, in posing the
question, ‘Is there a natural morphology of sound?’
puts forward a set of intrinsically self-defining sound
morphologies (Wishart 1996), which use metaphorical
descriptive terms to sketch a speculative set of mor-
phological archetypes. Denis Smalley’s discussion
of spectromorphological motion types (Smalley 1997)
presents another view, and are more generically
behavioural and less innately metaphorical in defini-
tion. The essential point is that a sound morphology
like this invites us to use vicarious experience of sound
energy–object relationships to relate to the way energy
is being released, allowing a likely sound source event
to be identified.
Electroacoustic technology can assist in transferring
specific aspects of a sound identity to those of another.
Here, the ping-pong ball bounce is transferred to
a sound file of rain through envelope substitution. In
this case, the dynamic characteristics of the sound
object are shaping another spectral source. The spec-
tral information has changed, but the outline of mor-
phological identity has been transferred intact. At
one level we can accept the ‘image’ of bouncing rain
as an imaginary event, but we can also infer that
a morphological identity is being reiterated (sound
example 2).
While in the first sound we can easily link the overall
morphology with the spectral qualities to form a plau-
sibly ‘real’ sound image, the second moves us to a
situation where we may have to construct a temporary
revision of physical cause and effect to accept this as
a sound image. It is also possible for an electroacoustic
editing processes itself to impart an equivalent
morphological profile, as in the next example, where a
granular stream is applied to a single saxophone slap
tongued note and constructed to have a diminishing
silence between grains which overlap as the sound
reaches continuity (sound example 3).
The morphology of the accelerando of impulses is
therefore a kind of virtual morphology that can be
found in the physical world in the form of an elastic
object such as a ping-pong ball gradually expending
energy when dropped. It is also robust enough to be
perceived as a gestural identity even when abstracted
from its original causal context and imposed on a
sound source that in its natural physical context would
not behave in that way. These are relationships with
which the composer can experiment and continuously
refine but, as a morphological primitive, it offers a
fundamental level at which a listener might identify

with a sound-generating process and therefore engage
enquiringly with a musical object. So the saxophone
granulation may not make us think of a ping-pong
ball, but our knowledge of such a common physical
interaction provides some low-level grounding for
framing the sound.
This kind of approach to process as morphology can
also be used to ‘interact’ with the components of the
original sample, as in this case where the sample has
distinct spectral change within it and, where the grain
length is shorter than the original file, producing a
stepping through the sample, ‘revealing’ and enlarging
the phases of the sound within a new imposed mor-
phological frame (with a similarly diminishing silence
between grains, leading to overlap and micro-mixing
of grains). Again, this allows us to further separate the
overarching morphological design from the spectral
change within it. The original sample is presented
first – a vocal syllable enunciated with tongue click
(sound example 4).
So from this we can assert that although a sound
may have a very specific identity of morphological
evolution, this can also be framed within a broader
pattern of morphological behaviour. Thus the sound
has both an outer and inner morphology and the
potential to separate these aurally within a musical
gesture makes this a potentially powerful composition
tool, since the outer morphology is separable from the
spectral character that it articulates. In a composi-
tional process, then, we have the potential to transfer
the distinctive characteristics of a sound morphology
across different elements in the design of a work. In the
broadest terms, this transference may operate through
the cross-fertilisation of the intrinsic morphological
qualities of the sounds themselves, or the imposition of
a process-based external morphology.
4. SOUND MORPHOLOGY AS A STRUCTURAL
CATALYST
The idea of morphological behaviour and its potential
to influence structural design is taken up here with
analytical reference to three works: Wind Chimes
(1987) by Denis Smalley, and Tongues of Fire (1994)
and Imago (2002) by Trevor Wishart.
4.1. Wind Chimes
Denis Smalley’s Wind Chimes is a work which invites
us to listen at different levels within sound objects
and structures. With a primary focus on samples of
ceramic wind chimes, the work presents the dense
textures of ceramic chimes along with more abstractly
designed morphological constructs, such as that high-
lighted in the next example. The following phrase from
the first minute of the work comprises three streams of
sound: a series of spectrally rich attacks which form an
accelerando gesture of quickening pulses, splashes of
Sound morphology 11
more rhythmically free ceramic chimes, and a mid-low
frequency drone (sound example 5, Wind Chimes,
17"–35").
Within the external morphology of the accelerando
gesture we hear shifts in spectral focus. The upward
smearing of the mid-range frequency partials in each
attack gradually stabilises to bring about an increas-
ingly focused projection of pitch, rooted on a pitch of
‘B’. This creates a sense of ‘morphology within mor-
phology’ – the accelerando accumulation of the pulses
encourages us to ‘listen ahead’ in the expectation of a
rhythmic ‘vanishing point’ (where continuity of sound
may be achieved), while the spectrum of each pulse
becomes more focused in pitch, and fuses with that
of the underlying drone. The spectra of each of these
attacks also vary in more subtle ways with shifts in
pitch and duration of high-frequency partials, impart-
ing a naturalistic quality to the attacks, as though a
resonant object is struck in not quite the same place
each time. The essence of the spectral dimension to
these changes could easily be expressed through a con-
tinuous energy profile, but in the form presented by
the composer allows a two-dimensional projection of
musical motion towards a decisive attack (0'26"). The
temporal pattern of the accelerando is also a transfer-
able rhythmic feature – an external morphology which
gives a vigorous articulation to the shifts in internal
spectral colours it articulates. It also functions impor-
tantly as a stylised rhythmic identity that stands in
relief against the freely articulated splashes of wind
chimes’ freely textured rhythms. The gestural strength
and multi-layered nature of this passage early in Wind
Chimes has influence on the way we can perceive
subsequent parts of the work.
A further example of the transference of this mor-
phology through the structure can be found at 5'00",
where the pulsing resonances in the short section that
follows are characterised by accelerando articulations,
leading to a foreground statement of the accelerando
gesture at 5'20" (sound example 6, Wind Chimes,
5'–5'40").
This brief section provides a simultaneous view
of the accelerando archetype as both quasi-granular
behaviour and as rhythmic statement. That is to say,
one is closer to the domain of textural behaviour, a
more ‘internal’ projection of the pattern (the grains
can slow down and speed up and still be perceived as
part of a granular stream), while the other is a more
‘external’ gestural projection. Both examples project
rhythmical interest, however, as the flow of time is
articulated through the shifts in pace encouraging us
to listen towards points of arrival defined by an intr-
insic knowledge that increase in iterative speed will
eventually transform the nature of the energy and
the resultant sound (just as it did with the mundane
example of the ping pong ball).
The next example shows clusters of attacks initiated
with a quasi-random shuffled character, but these
12 John Young
stream out into pulsed accelerandi. In this extract we
can hear the accelerando as a rhythmic tendency of
the iterative streams, with one stream emerging as a
decisive gestural strand leading to a section under-
pinned by slow evolution of spectra. The emergence of
the accelerando morphology represents a resolution in
time of the relative ‘unpredictability’ of the texture
that initiated them. In the unfolding of the subsequent
section (beyond the short example presented here),
streams of tremolando groups, individual pitched
attacks and fricative noises are coexistent, with rhy-
thmic focus provided by the pulsing of resonances
(sound example 7, Wind Chimes, 7'09"–7'33").
In the last extract from Wind Chimes, prominence
is given to a ‘fricative’ noise rising in pitch with an
accelerando tracing a helical spatial motion, melding
into high-frequency inharmonic spectra that are arti-
culated by accelerando and ritenuto patterns. In this
way, the accelerando morphology has been transfer-
red from the accumulation of impulses into the speed
of spatial motion (sound example 8, Wind Chimes,
9'28"–10'38").
In the more spectrally stable final stages of this piece
(from ca. 12'50"), these patterns of the speeding up and
slowing down in the amplitude surges of layers of reso-
nance remain a behavioural feature of the texture. In
Wind Chimes, the accelerando pattern is a rhythmic
signature that is transferred across a range of sound
materials. Because it has an essential rhythmical and
behavioural identity it can function at the level of
both gestural figure and the articulation of granular
textures.
4.2. Tongues of Fire
Trevor Wishart’s Tongues of Fire presents even more
overt and concentrated use of consistent morphologi-
cal patterns of this kind as a broad shaping identity. In
Tongues of Fire, the initial vocal expletives establish
a model for the iterative exposition of material and,
from the first pitched attack at 20", the rhythmic
character is dominated by a series of accelerando
rhythms carrying a progressive shift in timbre (sound
example 9, Tongues of Fire, 15"–53").
In Tongues of Fire, the accelerando/ritenuto are
figures which give consistent focus to the repetitive
patterns that facilitate many of the transformational
processes in the work, enabling the metamorphosis
of one identity sound into another by imposing a
distinctive and goal-oriented morphological shaping.
Once established, this kind of higher-level morpho-
logical organisation provides a structural plane pro-
viding a context for the steering of transformational
processes and a key behavioural pattern for the work’s
motion in time. For example, in the section based on
groups of resonated vocal sounds with pronounced
sibilance from 4'05", the repetitions might appear ini-
tially to be moving erratically towards the previously
established accelerando morphology – a plausible
implication of this section, since repetition has already
been associated with that morphology earlier in the
work. Certain repetitions initiate extensions of the
sibilant attacks, which in turn evolve through trans-
formation into contrapuntal streams of more con-
tinuous morphology (for instance at 4'18"). In fact
the phrase stops at 4'31", leading to the sequence of
erratic rhythmic patterns discussed above, leaving
the listener’s assumptions about implied potential for
morphological accumulation unresolved and marking
a point of tension in the work. In the section following
4'31", the initially erratic rhythmic constructions
coalesce into a noisy granular stream at 4'53", which
then accelerate and reach a pitched state at 5'07" as
grain delays tighten into resonance. Again, the mor-
phological pattern of the accelerando moves in an
easily comprehensible transformation from gesture to
texture to resonance (sound example 10, Tongues of
Fire, 4'05"–5'17").
Another example of this kind of process can be
found at 10'14" where, although the sequence of dis-
persed attacks from that point has a degree of unpre-
dictability informed by the variety of sound identities
that are articulated, the tendency of the sonic frag-
ments and streams to coalesce (albeit imperfectly)
encourages the expectation that these may at some
point collectively converge into a continuous sound
structure. Also significant here is the fact that, as
a degree of stability is reached (for instance in the
noisy vocal derivatives that merge at 10'46") at 10'54",
a new sound identity of smoother noise-sweeps rein-
troduces the accelerando morphology archetype so
that, although a change in sonic identity is introduced,
the underlying morphological ‘theme’ is being reiter-
ated. This in turn brings an expectation that the com-
pression of energy-surges in the sound will ‘lead’ to a
point of coalescence or fusion into continuity. In this
case, though, they are truncated into ‘clucky’ attacks
where, at around 11'06", the attacks seem to fuse,
unexpectedly, with a subordinate identity of grainy
fragments that in the build-up to that point provided a
distant counterpoint to the accelerando sweeps (these
fragments present as vestiges of the noisy attacks from
10'46"). This is a good example of the way musical
expectations are developed and exploited in this
work. The accelerando morphology drives much of
the motion and transformation within the work but,
because this is perceived as a rhythmical/behavioural
pattern independent of the timbral identities articu-
lated within it, the composer is able to subvert and
divert the transformational progressions of sounds at
different level. In other words, the accelerando is a
global morphological identity which can project broad
patterns of gestural and textural motion, within which

the transformations and progressions of timbral iden-
tities are nested (sound example 11, Tongues of Fire,
10'02"–11'15").
In the coda (18'18"–end), pitched attacks, modu-
lated vocal grains and pulsing resonances coexist with
a range of other sounds, including voice-like gestures
in cycles of energy onset–release which define a broad
structural morphology of strong attack-based events
(sound example 12, Tongues of Fire, 18'18"–19'35").
An interesting formal consequence of this pattern-
ing in the work is found toward the end. From 22'22"
the broad energy onset–release cycle of the structural
morphology is broken by the interjection of erratically
developed vocally based expletives, creating an un-
expected tension toward the very close of the work as
established patterns are ruptured. However, the inter-
ruption and rupture of texture through this interjec-
tion does not necessarily affect the sense of closure,
since an overarching pattern of attack–dissipation of
energy is re-established. For instance, by 23'23" the
vocal stream is suddenly accumulating again through
cyclic extensions of the sounds, but through this the
rate of morphological evolution moves into a more
concentrated timescale (sound example 13, Tongues of
Fire, 22'10"–).
4.3. Imago
The ‘attack and dissipation’ is used as a core morpho-
logical identity that also dominates Wishart’s Imago
(2002). While there are spectacular sonic transforma-
tions in the course of the work, the whole is powerfully
bound by a focus on the groupings and behaviours of
attacks as rhythmic constructs and granular streams.
An approach to morphological organisation is estab-
lished at the opening through the series of attacks
(suggesting the clinking of drinking glasses) and in
particular the fusing of attacks into a rising pitch in
the gesture of two heavy glasses struck together with
sustained hand pressure (at 0'47") (sound example 14,
Imago, 47"–54").
The essential low-level morphological unit of the
attack draws attention to the patterning and grouping
of these, which range from regularly iterated pulses to
accelerandi and ritenuti to more erratically articulated
chime-like attacks. That is to say Wishart has analysed
a naturally occurring sound phenomenon and used
this as a basic morphological pattern that helps to
inform the evolution of the work at fundamental
levels. This can be heard in the section from 5'32"–
7'20". Here accumulating iterations move towards
continuity leading to a resonant underpinning of a
sequence of these gestures which reflect, on an
extended timescale, the behaviour of the naturalistic
iteration-to-pitch transition heard in the opening
example (sound example 15, Imago, 5'32"–7'20").
Sound morphology 13
A key feature of the musical interest in this passage
is the use of the accelerando figure to inject and sustain
new timbral identity, whilst building on an established
morphological behaviour. The passage preceding this
(4'24"–5'23") also illustrates the accelerando/ritenuto
gestures integrating with registral and timbral dif-
ferentiation to create a contrapuntal streaming of
material. The speeding and slowing rhythmic articula-
tions help to draw the attention to the individual
streams as evolving strata (sound example 16, Imago,
4'24"–5'23").
These sections exemplify the notion of a morpho-
logical field, which in this case is characterised by
the overall construct of the accelerando (and to some
extent its inverse, the ritenuto) as a core external
morphology. Although we are taken a considerable
distance from the timbral identity of the initial sound,
the projection of consistent patterns of guiding iter-
ative energy offers the potential for us to view the
transformations in this work as a series of enlarged or
microscopic views of the ‘glass-clink’ phenomenon.
In broader structural terms, the general rhythmic
organisation of attack and iteration morphologies
provides a fundamental level at which sensations of
musical suspense and motion are handled. An example
can be heard in the progression from the texturally
sparse section at 7'20", in which points of pitched
grainy attack form a loosely evolving melodic contour
of inharmonic spectra,2 to the section commencing
at 8'59" where accelerating and decelerating streams
of impulses are reintroduced. A feature of the section
that follows (and numerous others in this piece) is the
clear projection of the spectral profile of the original
glass clink as an emergent colour within a morphologi-
cal string, such as in the time-smeared accelerating
attacks at 9'16"–9'20" that are end-articulated by the
glass-clink spectrum. In the section following from
10'10", a series of loud punctuative attacks herald
sequences of granular streams whose iterative energy
moves towards textural fusion through erratic pat-
terns of accumulation. A strong example of this is
at 11'30"–12'23", where granular streams articulate
gestural patterns of accumulation and dissipation.
Although the tendency toward the accelerando mor-
phology is apparent within the rhythmic organisation
of streams within this phrase, a formation of them into
a decisive accelerando morphology is only fleetingly
achieved in conjunction with a surge of pitched reso-
nance at 12'23" with an additional emphasis on it
through accelerating pulsations of the saturate granu-
lar noise at 12'50". In the context of accelerando
formations presented earlier in the work, the potential
for streams of sound to fuse in this way provides a
2
Wishart’s Red Bird (1973–1977) deals with large scale differentia-
tions of morphological structure and organisational types in a way
that projects metaphorical meanings (Young 1996).
14 John Young
notional morphological ‘goal’. The motion of sounds
around this potential morphological construct engen-
ders a pattern of tension and release through the pas-
sage presented in this next example (sound example
17, Imago, 11'30"–12'55").
5. CONCLUSION
In the examples taken from these pieces, a significant
general distinction can be made between the intrinsic
identity of sound materials and the broad patterns of
gesture and rhythmic accumulation that define their
structural behaviour. In Tongues of Fire, the identity
of the vocal source is clearly significant, but the accu-
mulation and dissipation that shape granular recon-
structions of the sounds allow them to be quickly
transformed into new timbral constructs, often with
several strands of activity or transformation simulta-
neously. In Imago, the simple attack morphology of
the opening, and in particular the clustering of attacks
into pitch in a natural acoustic event, provides a
framework for the work’s gestural organisation, and
Wind Chimes is characterised by strong gestural foun-
dations which are transferred through the formal
evolution in more subtle but no less effective ways. In
each case, the projection of multiple dimensions of
morphological interaction in the early stages provides
key patterns for the subsequent treatments and pro-
liferation of material. The approaches taken to the
design and projection of the morphology of sound
objects and their groupings in these works lends
organic integrity to the structure of the music, allow-
ing the gestural surface and many of the transfor-
mational processes to be referenced to a consistent
morphological pattern. In addition, the tendency to
make reductive judgements that lead to associative
and connotative relationships with sound are a natural
and holistic part of listening that help to breath imagi-
native life into the dazzling array of morphological
sound-play that is created in works such as those
discussed here.
I hope what I have presented here illustrates a way
in which features of electroacoustic works can be dis-
cussed through aural perception of the musical objects
themselves in conjunction with an analytical focus that
draws on an understanding of the way a specific sound
behavioural model operates. A composer’s knowledge
of sound transformation tools is important, and an
awareness of the dimensions of electroacoustic sound
manipulation, exemplified in this paper by the contin-
uum of sound construction from impulse to continuity,
must not only be the province of the composer. As the
musicology of electroacoustic music continues to be
informed by explanations and discussions of compo-
serly practice, the potential for anyone to experiment
and empathise with the capacity for digital techniques
to render sounds malleable in unprecedented ways
can only enhance the ability of musicologists and non-
specialist listeners to appreciate and comment on the
wider creative directions and enrichment of musical
experience offered by the electroacoustic arts.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.