The environmental element in Barry Truax's compositions

Abstract

The Canadian composer Barry Truax has played an important role in the study of environmental sounds, their effects and their functions. Preferring to call his electroacoustic compositions ‘sonic environments’, Truax attempts to establish a link between musical composition and the sound research and design proposed by the World Soundscape Project (WSP). I propose to clarify this link, and the way it may be perceived by a listener, by means of music analysis. To what extent does Truax make use of the characteristics of environmental sound? Which characteristics are important for the music to be perceived as environmental? By analysing three compositions, each representing a particular stage in the development of his Poisson Ordered Distribution (POD) system of computer programmes, an answer to these questions is sought and related to the composer's composition methods.