Jean-Claude Risset, French composer, Died at 78

  Music

Jean-Claude Risset was born on March 18, 1938, in Le Puy-en-Velay, France and died on November 21, 2016, in Marseille.

He was a French composer,

He was best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music.

Risset was a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs.

While he worked at Bell Labs, New Jersey in 1964, he used Max Mathews’ MUSIC IV software to digitally recreate the sounds of brass instruments.

Risset made digital recordings of trumpets and studied their timbral composition using “pitch-synchronous” spectrum analysis tools, revealing that the amplitude and frequency of the harmonics (more correctly, partials) of these instruments would differ depending on frequency, duration and amplitude.

Risset was also credited with performing the first experiments on a range of synthesis techniques including FM Synthesis and waveshaping.

Following the discrete Shepard scale Risset created a version of the scale where the steps between each tone are continuous, and it is appropriately called the continuous Risset scale or Shepard-Risset glissando.

Jean-Claude Risset passed away at 78 years old.