Performing experimental music by physical simulation

This paper presents ongoing work on methods dedicated to relations between composers and performers in the context of experimental music. The computer music community has over the last decade paid a strong interest on various kinds of gestural interfaces to control sound synthesis processes. The mapping between gesture and sound parameters has specially been investigated in order to design the most relevant schemes of sonic interaction. In fact, this relevance results in an aesthetic choice that encroaches on the process of composition. This work proposes to examine the relations between composers and performers in the context of the new interfaces for musical expression. It aims to define a theoretical and methodological framework clarifying these relations. In this project, this paper is the first experimental study about the use of physical models as gestural maps for the production of textural sounds.