Åke Parmerud (born 1953) has been a full time composer and artist since 1978. He studied music but is also a trained photographer and worked as such from 1972—75. His list of works contains instrumental music, electro-acoustic music, multi-media and video. Electro-acoustic music by Parmerud has gained a lot of international interest and his work has at several occasions been awarded in the Bourges International Festival for electro-acoustic music. For many years he worked at EMS (Electronic Music Studio) in Stockholm where many of his pieces were realized. Since 1987 he teaches computer music and composition at the Music Conservatory of Gothenburg.

"Stringquartett" is a tapecomposition in which I have sought an expression for the inner "concept" of the Stringquartett, its soul. To me, the Stringquartett as a musical form, means experiencing things in multiple layers. Numerology, myth, tradition, sounding "gestalt" etc., all bring specific and essential meanings in the total perception of music. The dividing of structures in four layers has been the main principle running through this composition. There are four layers of different sounding character (four "identities"). Together with these, four different "temperaments" evolve during the piece. One might think of these identities and temperaments as four movements coexisting in time instead of following one after the other. The piece has a strong rythmic presence which runs in a meter of 4/4.

The four sounding identities are:

1. Harmonics


2. Various types of "frictionsounds"


3. "Normal" stringsounds (arco, tremolo, pizzicato etc.) and some very short fragments of late Webern quartetts


4. Very short impulses that have been cut out from various stringsounds. These have been used as they are or to act as aggregates in different roomsimulations where the frequency content of each impulse has been "frozen" in a sustained fashion.

1. Stillness, order, balance


2. Aggression, dynamics


3. Fantasy, association, movement


4. Distance, transcendence, dissolution

1. Controlling sounding events (recorded and processed stringsounds) in time. This was done using a traditional sequencing software in conjunction with some small algorithmic functions. The sound was reproduced by three Akai S-900 samplers and mixing as well as real-time processing was done with a midi-controlled Soundtrack console and LXP-70 DSP-facility.


2. Sound editing and processing. Basically recorded material was either left as it was or was reorganized (cut and paste), processed (filtering, FFT and resynthesis, spectral shifting, spectral distortion etc.) and resampled.