An Analysis of the Compositional Techniques in John Chowning's Stria

摘要

This article describes an analytic study of the process used by John Chowning for the composition of Stria. This article is intended to complete the description of the compositional process given in a previous work (Meneghini 2003), largely restated by Bossis in a subsequent paper (Bossis 2005). Stria was composed in 1977 and was fully generated by means of computer algorithms (Chowning 1977c) and the corresponding input files (Chowning 1977a, b): all the parameters of the sounds generated in Stria are determined and calculated by these algorithms on the basis of specific mathematical rules and of numerical parameters chosen by Mr. Chowning as input for the programs. For this reason, an accurate analysis of these algorithms is fundamental for a complete comprehension of the compositional process.