In this issue’s first article, Mattias Sköld describes his notation system called Sound Notation, which is an adaptation of Lasse Thoresen’s spectromorphological analysis notation. Sound Notation is similar to traditional Western staff notation but is designed to accommodate electronic sounds by summarizing their acoustical characteristics, such as spectral width, spectrum components, amplitude envelope, and other time-varying aspects. In previous publications, Sköld has described the notation’s use for analyzing electroacoustic music. Here, he focuses on its utility in composition. A central goal is to allow an electroacoustic composition to be represented as an abstraction amenable to different realizations, just as traditional notation represents instrumental and vocal compositions whose ultimate sound relies on different performers' interpretations. The article also presents the data format, similar to that of MIDI messages, that underlies his software for algorithmically generating Sound Notation scores.
Reflecting the topic on this issue’s front cover, the article by Sullivan, Wanderley,...