Stephen Gard

Nasty Noises: Error As a Compositional Element in Electro-acoustic Music Stephen Gard

''Glitch'' is a stylistic mannerism within electro-acoustic composition that emerged in the late 1990s. Glitch, or ''microsound'', as it is known in the academic context, observes the conventions of music concrète, drawing on material sampled from the real world, and fashioning this into sonic narratives. Its signature is the ''sound of failure'', sonorities characteristic of electronic devices malfunctioning or mis-used: clicks, crackles, distortions, fractured digital files. Glitch/microsound has already diminished from a movement to a mannerism, but its legacy is a refreshment of our palette of sonorities, and an interrogation of the very act of listening. ''Nasty Noises'' is an examination of the use (and nature) of noise, error and the disjunct as musical ingredient, and the significance of glitch/microsound for electro-acoustic composers