instrument and a contemporary one, and to try to bring together the two sound worlds.

In Points of Departure scales and arpeggios reminiscent of a baroque toccata (senza misura) slowly coalesce and fan out over the entire keyboard. The harmony is consonant but not tonical, shifting around a series of centres that irregularly freeze or settle, disturbing the flow. The image is of an insect flitting across the surface of an initially still pond that becomes increasingly agitated. The ripples spread from the points of contact – the live electronics throw the sound around the space, as well as reflecting and diffracting the colours.

Electroacoustic music is a product of the western tradition and its preoccupations with (in the French tradition at least) timbre. In an instrumental sense it has no ‘performance practice’, although the art of sound diffusion is an important contribution to its success. At the time of the composition of Points of Continuation I was researching for both this tape work and the live electronic work for Inok Paek. My aim was to examine in the electroacoustic work some issues raised by my understanding of the performance practice and its associated ‘expression’ (including timbral nuances). Also – most importantly – to contrast, yet bring into contact, the worlds of the harpsichord and kayagum (which in some earlier ‘mythic time’ might have met). These issues include a strong pitch argument: trying to reconcile the strongly chromatic world of the harpsichord with the pentatonic universe of the kayagum. A timbral link was the noise components of the two sounds: the harpsichord’s attack and kayagum ‘scrape’ sounds, both processed. These sounds both preserved a strong association with their sources and also projected a strong sense of space and distance.

Points of Return is still strictly a ‘work in progress’ at the time of writing and will form the object of a ‘super-score’ as discussed above. The method of composition was more intense than in earlier such works. I visited Inok Paek many times, recording each session for detailed analysis. This process is more fully documented in Emmerson (2000). My belief in leaving control of expressive detail to the performer is clearly articulated in this score (as in Points of Departure) as the performer dictates all aspects of the timing of the work to the performer of the live electronics. The role of the live electronics is to add a polyphony not present in the original (but a polyphony of foreground and background in which the live soloist remains the dominant partner) and also to place the instrument in a sense of landscape and ‘real’ space (in a sense outside the concerthall).

4.  Conclusion

As artists we can use technology sensitively as a tool to enhance rather than destroy the vast range of musical manifestations across the world. But this can only be true if we understand the limitations of our own score-based tradition in this process. We may never fully understand the processes that lie behind the performance of an Indian raga or a Korean sanjo – yet at the same time an overcautious do not touch approach of the purist deprives us of a wealth of experience as creative musicians. This experience is vital for there juvenation of western art music.