scientific descriptions of a music, the user can place on the frame any kind of symbol extracted form a very large library and adapt this symbols (or create new ones) to the sonogram in order to represent sound events, and not sound spectral description, the way he listens to it, creating in this way what is called an 'aural score' of a music, that permits music listening with a graphic support and from there on offers a powerful tool for musical analysis.

The other project is a new generation of SYTER that will work on a Macintosh; this implicates the construction of a new card that will be able to go beyond the actual limits of the system and permit the improvement of existing algorithms as well as the development of new ones. The GRM is actually working on this projects and information will come when they will be available.

Musical consequences

Once one has depassed the technological descriptions of systems (which I'm purposely not giving), what remains are algorithms, that are a kind of mathematical description of the principles used in acousmatic work. These algorithms represent 15 years of research, keeping always in mind their possibility to be adapted to new technological generations. But more important than algorithms: music, represents the final aim of our research.

Composition work is always very active; the GRM receives between 20 and 25 composers every year in its three production studios. Many of the works produced are later played in our series of concerts called SON-Mu or Cycle Acousmatique in the French Radio House and become part of the radio programs the GRM produces for Radio France. A very important collection of 30 CD's, and several theoretical books complete the panorama of the GRM activity.

From the beginnings of computer music in GRM, different generations of composers have come to our group producing more than 500 works using our systems with software conceived for sound transformation and oriented towards acousmatic music. This implied a very ambitious teaching program, in order to give the necessary formation to composers so to permit an extensive use of the system capabilities. Over 250 composers and musicians went through the GRM courses, and about a half of them worked on the system with a musical result.

The real-time possibilities of SYTER and GRM Tools induced several composers to make live compositions, that is, musical works including instruments whose sound is transformed by the system and remixed acoustically with the original sound, eventually using also a tape. This attitude towards acousmatic composition enlarges its possibilities since it introduces the idea of transforming the acoustic material of recognizable sound sources, creating a new perception of their acoustical identity (very often the instruments are also used in a non-traditional way).