Discussing Three Models for the Visual Representation of a Recorded Song

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to discuss some methodological and theoretical perspectives in popular music studies and musical analysis, focussing on the relationship between the use of standard notation (transcription process) and three visual forms of representation (spectrogram, waveform, soundbox transcription). The methodological reflections are interrelated with the sound analysis with digital technologies concerning three case-studies of recorded songs from an Italian canzone d’autore production. The analysis explores the specific ways in which experimentationand manipulation practices occur on a micro-rhythmic level and in the spatial dimension, in connection with the evolution of recording and sound technologies. In the first and third part of the paper the focus is on instrumentation and sound sources in general and on the possibility to represent those aspects thanks to a visual representation of music which goes beyond the staff: what instruments sound like, how they work together, where they appear to be situated in the soundbox, including other aspects in the experience of listening to sound (like echo and reverberation) that enable the construction of sound space. The second part examines how specific decisions made during the recording sessions by musicians, engineers and producer have an impact on the micro-rhythmic discrepancies. The sound analysis and visual representations of specific musical details give the opportunity to discuss some aspects that relate to the description of grooves and micro-rhythmic discrepancies as a means to distinguish each work from the other and to convey a distinct authorial production identity.