ABSTRACT
Discrete continuation describes such sounds as a single drum-stroke or a dry pizzicato on a stringed instrument. Most sound-objects which people encounter in conventional music have a stable intrinsic morphology. Once the sound is initiated it settles extremely rapidly on a fixed pitch, a fixed noise-band or more generally on a fixed mass in the case of, for example, bell-like or drum-like sounds with inharmonic partials. Composers who have weighted their activities towards live electronics rather than studio-based synthesis seem to the author to have been strongly affected by the fact that a morphology imposed upon electronic sound-objects through the monitoring of performance gesture can be much more refined and subtle than that resulting from intellectual decisions made in the studio. Sounds undergoing continuous excitation can carry a great deal of information about the exciting source.
