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    Stochastic Synthesis: An Overview: Composing Sound With Musical Procedures

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    Heoel Greop
    Stochastic synthesis is an approach to sound synthesis pioneered by Iannis Xenakis in the late 1960s that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital samples. In the 1970s, Xenakis developed dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms that varied waveform breakpoints stochastically over iterations using random walks. In the late 1980s, Xenakis further extended this technique in his GENDY3 program. Stochastic synthesis allows for fine control over timbre, pitch, and noise-like qualities in synthesized sound.

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    Stochastic Synthesis: An Overview: Composing Sound With Musical Procedures

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    Heoel Greop
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    Stochastic synthesis is an approach to sound synthesis pioneered by Iannis Xenakis in the late 1960s that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital samples. In the 1970s, Xenakis developed dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms that varied waveform breakpoints stochastically over iterations using random walks. In the late 1980s, Xenakis further extended this technique in his GENDY3 program. Stochastic synthesis allows for fine control over timbre, pitch, and noise-like qualities in synthesized sound.

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    09.2-Sergio-Luque

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    Stochastic synthesis is an approach to sound synthesis pioneered by Iannis Xenakis in the late 1960s that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital samples. In the 1970s, Xenakis developed dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms that varied waveform breakpoints stochastically over iterations using random walks. In the late 1980s, Xenakis further extended this technique in his GENDY3 program. Stochastic synthesis allows for fine control over timbre, pitch, and noise-like qualities in synthesized sound.

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    63 views5 pages

    Stochastic Synthesis: An Overview: Composing Sound With Musical Procedures

    Uploaded by

    Heoel Greop
    Stochastic synthesis is an approach to sound synthesis pioneered by Iannis Xenakis in the late 1960s that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital samples. In the 1970s, Xenakis developed dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms that varied waveform breakpoints stochastically over iterations using random walks. In the late 1980s, Xenakis further extended this technique in his GENDY3 program. Stochastic synthesis allows for fine control over timbre, pitch, and noise-like qualities in synthesized sound.

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    The key takeaways are that Xenakis pioneered stochastic synthesis, which uses probability distributions to manipulate digital samples. He began exploring this technique in the late 1960s and continued developing it until the end of his career. Stochastic synthesis aims to unify the macro and microstructure of compositions using computer synthesis techniques.

    Xenakis' initial ideas about stochastic synthesis, published in 1971, were that it should reject Fourier analysis and serialism as the basis for sound synthesis. Instead, he advocated mixing 'pure' electronic sounds with 'concrete' sounds and exploring complex sonorities close to noise.

    Xenakis' approach to stochastic synthesis evolved over several decades. In the 1970s he began experiments at Indiana University and CEMAMu in Paris. In 1977 he developed the UPIC system. In the late 1980s and 1990s he further developed his dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithms and programs like GENDY3 and S.709.

    Stochastic synthesis:

    An overview
    Sergio Luque
    Department of Music, University of Birmingham, U.K.
    [email protected] - http://www.sergioluque.com

    Proceedings of the Xenakis International Symposium


    Southbank Centre, London, 1-3 April 2011 - www.gold.ac.uk/ccmc/xenakis-international-symposium

    In the late 1960s, composer, architect and theoretician Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) began his research on stochastic
    synthesis: an approach to microsound synthesis that uses probability distributions to manipulate individual digital
    samples, as if they were indivisible elementary particles. Xenakis continued with this research for most of the 1970s
    and from the late 1980s until the end of his career. This paper gives an overview of the aesthetic origins and of the
    development of this non-standard synthesis technique, including a straightforward description of the dynamic
    stochastic synthesis algorithms (from 1977 and 1991). In addition, a new extension of these techniques is put
    forward: the stochastic concatenation of dynamic stochastic synthesis.

    In the mid 1950s, Iannis Xenakis introduced the use of stochastic functions in musical
    composition. In the 1960s, he started using computers to accelerate and automate the
    numerous operations that these methods require. At the very same time, Xenakis was
    speculating about the possibility of using stochastic techniques to synthesize sounds:
    Although this program gives a satisfactory solution to the minimal structure, it is, however,
    necessary to jump to the stage of pure composition by coupling a digital-to-analogue converter to
    the computer. The numerical calculations would then be changed into sound, whose internal
    organization had been conceived beforehand. (Xenakis 1992, 144)

    Composing sound with musical procedures


    Since the appearance of computers with digital to analog converters in the late 1950s, some
    composers have been interested in synthesizing sound through the manipulation of individual
    digital samples. In this process, amplitude and duration values are obtained through musical
    procedures and not based on any acoustical model. This approach, often referred to as non-
    standard synthesis (Holtzman 1978), reflects a willingness to explore the sound synthesis
    possibilities unique to computers.
    Three non-standard synthesis strategies that appeared during the 1970s are: “New Proposals
    in Microsound Structure” by Iannis Xenakis, SAWDUST by Herbert Brün and SSP by Gottfried
    Michael Koenig. These approaches have the following goals in common: to unify the
    macrostructure and the microstructure of compositions, to use synthesis techniques idiomatic
    to computers and to open an experimental field in sound synthesis.

    New Proposals in Microsound Structure


    It was during his tenure at Indiana University in Bloomington, from 1967 to 1972, that Xenakis
    first used a computer for stochastic sound synthesis. In 1972, he continued these experiments
    at the Centre d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris.
    However, in 1977, with the advent of the Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu (UPIC)
    system, Xenakis postponed his stochastic synthesis research until the late 1980s
    (Barthel-Calvet 2001).
    Xenakis’s first concrete ideas about stochastic synthesis were published in Formalized Music
    (Xenakis 1971), in the manifesto-like chapter “New Proposals in Microsound Structure.”
    In it, he starts by rejecting:
    • Fourier analysis as the basis for sound synthesis.
    Now, the more the music moves toward complex sonorities close to “noise”, the more numerous
    and complicated the transients become, and the more their synthesis from trigonometric functions
    becomes a mountain of difficulties, even more unacceptable to a computer than the permanent

    1
    states. It is as though we wanted to express a sinuous mountain silhouette by using portions of
    circles (Xenakis 1992, 244).

    • “pure” electronic sounds: “Any electronic music based on such sounds only, is marked by
    their simplistic sonority” (Xenakis 1992, 243).
    • serialism in electronic music: “The serial system, which has been used so much by
    electronic music composers, could not by any means improve the result, since it itself is
    too elementary” (Xenakis 1992, 243).
    Instead, he advocates:
    • mixing “pure” electronic sounds with “concrete” sounds: Only then “could electronic
    music become really powerful” (Xenakis 1992, 243-244).
    • the use of stochastic processes to efficiently produce sonorities with “numerous and
    complicated” transients: “It seems that the transient part of the sound is far more
    important than the permanent part in timbre recognition and in music in general”
    (Xenakis 1992, 244).
    • an approach in which sound synthesis is performed only in the time domain; starting
    directly from the sound pressure curves, defining them by means of stochastic
    variations: “we can start from a disorder concept and then introduce means that would
    increase or reduce it (Xenakis 1992, 246).

    Polytope de Cluny
    Xenakis first used the results of his experiments in stochastic synthesis in Polytope de Cluny
    (1972); he was proud to be the first in France to use digitally synthesized sounds (Harley
    2004, 70). Decorrelated stochastic synthesis opens the work (just after a brief introduction in
    the third channel, intended for when the audience entered the performance space), and it is
    present for about 6 minutes, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes receding to the
    background, as it is inhabited by the other sounds: ceramic windchimes, thumb pianos, low
    stringed instruments bowed with extreme overpressure and other sounds sources that are
    hard to identify. All the sonorities have a very rich spectrum and are full of buzzes, rattles and
    distortion.

    Random walks in instrumental music


    Xenakis used the plotted graphs of stochastic synthesis in his instrumental music. In Mikka
    (1971), N’Shima (1975) and Mikka “S” (1975), he read the horizontal axis of the graphs as
    time and mapped the vertical axis onto a grid of quarter-tone pitch values (Xenakis 1976).

    Dynamic stochastic synthesis (1977): La Légende d’Eer


    In 1977, Xenakis composed La Légende d’Eer, which was the musical component of Le
    Diatope. Most of the sound materials used in this piece are very similar to the ones used in
    Polytope de Cluny, although a greater prominence is given to synthetic sounds: analog and
    digital (stochastic).
    In this piece, Xenakis started using a new technique for stochastic synthesis that he named
    Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis. This technique had its origin in the methods presented in “New
    Proposals in Microsound Structure,” and introduced an important conceptual development: the
    waveform as the basic unit to be varied stochastically at each iteration.
    In this model, waveforms are constructed by linearly interpolating a set of breakpoints (Fig. 1).
    Each breakpoint is defined by a pair of duration and amplitude values. At every repetition of
    the waveform, these values are varied stochastically using random walks: Any probability
    distribution can be employed to determine the size and direction of the steps. There are as
    many pairs of duration and amplitude random walks as there are breakpoints in the waveform
    (Xenakis 1992, 289-293).

    2
    The fluctuation speed of a parameter is directly proportional to the step size of its random
    walks: the smaller the steps, the slower the rate of change in that parameter. Depending on
    their speed, the perception of these fluctuations in duration and amplitude can be located on a
    continuum ranging from slow glissandi and subtle variations in timbre to noise.

    Figure 1. Breakpoints linked by linear interpolation.

    Each random walk is forced to remain within a predefined space by means of two elastic
    barriers that reflect excessive values back into the barrier range (Xenakis 1992, 289-293).
    These barriers provide control over the frequency and amplitude of the waveform: the larger
    the space between a pair of barriers, the larger the variation that is possible in that parameter
    (i.e. the bigger the potential size of glissandi and the amplitude of the waveform); if the two
    elastic barriers of the duration random walks are set to the same value and the amplitude
    values fluctuate slowly, then gradual and independent variations in the amplitude of the
    overtones of a fixed pitch are heard.
    Previously, Xenakis worked with individual duration and amplitude values that were either
    independent or dependent on the preceding value (e.g. random walks) (Xenakis 1992, 246-
    249; Serra 1993, 240). The new approach evidences Xenakis’s interest in having a finer
    control over the periodicities (duration) and symmetries (amplitude) of stochastic waveforms.
    This technique is described in the chapter “Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis” of Formalized Music
    (Xenakis 1992, 289-293) and is often mistaken to be the explanation for the dynamic
    stochastic synthesis algorithm implemented in the early 1990s as part of the GENDY program.
    Also, it is important to remember that, for Xenakis, this method was just an arbitrary starting
    point that he used in La Légende d’Eer (Xenakis 1992, 293).

    Dynamic stochastic synthesis (1991): GENDY3


    It was not until the late 1980s that Xenakis continued with his research on stochastic synthesis
    (Harley 2004, 215). He wrote a program that implemented an extended version of the
    dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithm used in La Légende d’Eer (Xenakis 1992, 296). This
    program was written in the BASIC programming language, with the assistance of Marie-Hélène
    Serra, and was called GENDY (a portmanteau constructed from the French words génération
    and dynamique) (Serra 1993, 239).
    The only difference between the new implementation of the algorithm and the previous one is
    the use of second-order random walks. A second-order random walk consists of three
    elements: a probability distribution and two random walks. The probability distribution
    generates the step sizes of the primary random walk; the successive positions of the primary
    random walk are the step sizes of the secondary random walk. The successive positions of the
    secondary random walk are the values of the second-order random walk (Xenakis 1992, 304).
    This technique is described in the chapter “More Thorough Stochastic Music” of Formalized
    Music (Xenakis 1992, 295-322) and is the one used by Xenakis in GENDY3 (1991).

    3
    S.709 (1994)
    Three years later, Xenakis modified the program used for GENDY3, adding the possibility of
    modulating the parameters of the dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithm. With this version of
    the program, Xenakis created S.709 (1994) (Hoffmann 2000, 31).

    Stochastic concatenation of dynamic stochastic synthesis


    [A]ny theory or solution given on one level can be assigned to the solution of problems of another
    level. Thus the solutions in macrocomposition (programmed stochastic mechanisms) can engender
    simpler and more powerful new perspectives in the shaping of microsounds (Xenakis 1992, vii).

    After writing an implementation of Xenakis’s 1991 dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithm in


    the C programming language, as a plugin for SuperCollider, I have been looking for ways of
    extending this model. The stochastic concatenation of GENDYs (i.e. the dynamic algorithm
    from 1991) is a procedure that almost immediately started to yield very promising results. In
    this technique, a signal is constructed by concatenating the waveforms of a set of GENDYs,
    one iteration at a time. For example, Fig. 2 shows a sequential concatenation of two GENDYs.

    Figure 2. A sequential concatenation of two GENDYs.

    Conceptually, there is no limit to the number of GENDYs in a set, but I have found that 72 is a
    reasonable limit.
    Any stochastic procedure can be used for selecting GENDYs from a set; the most fruitful ones
    that I have used so far are: tendency masks, sequences of second-order random walks,
    Markov chains and probability distributions. Each of these procedures gives its own character
    to the resulting sounds, which range from continuous textures to differentiated arrangements
    of microsounds to timbres that exhibit interesting behaviors over time.
    This approach is very close to SSP’s use of Selection Principles for the creation of Permutations
    (Berg 2009, 83-85).
    A more detailed explanation of the techniques mentioned in this paper can be found in Luque
    (2006, 2009).

    References
    Barthel-Calvet, Anne-Sylvie. 2001. “Chronologie.” In Portrait(s) de Iannis Xenakis, 25-80. Paris:
    Bibliothèque National de France.

    Berg, Paul. 2009. “Composing Sound Structures with Rules.” Contemporary Music Review 28(1):75-87.

    Harley, James. 2004. Xenakis: his life in music. London: Taylor & Francis Books.
    Hoffmann, Peter. 2000. “The New GENDYN Program.” Computer Music Journal 24(2):31-38.

    Holtzman, S.R. 1978. “A Description of an Automatic Digital Sound Synthesis Instrument,” In D.A.I.
    Research Report No. 59. Edinburgh: Department of Artificial Intelligence.

    4
    Luque, Sergio. 2006. "Stochastic Synthesis: Origins and Extensions." Master’s Thesis, Institute of
    Sonology, Royal Conservatory, The Netherlands.
    Luque, Sergio. 2009. "The Stochastic Synthesis of Iannis Xenakis." Leonardo Music Journal 19:77-84.

    Serra, Marie-Hélène. 1993. “Stochastic Composition and Stochastic Timbre: GENDY3 by Iannis Xenakis.”
    Perspectives of New Music 31(1):236-257
    Xenakis, Iannis. 1971. Formalized Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Xenakis, Iannis. 1976. “Foreword.” In N’Shima [score]. Paris: Editions Salabert.

    Xenakis, Iannis. 1992. Formalized Music. (Rev. ed). Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press.

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