INTRODUCTION TO SOUND
Course Reader | Autumn 2013 | Seth Kim-Cohen
It's as if perfectly capable curators in the visual arts suddenly lose their equilibrium at the mention of the word sound. These same people who would all ridicule a new art form called, say, 'Steel Art' which was composed of steel sculpture combined with steel guitar music along with anything else with steel in it, somehow have no trouble at all swallowing 'Sound Art'.
In art, the medium is not often the message.
If there is a valid reason for classifying and naming things in culture, certainly it is for the refinement of distinctions. Aesthetic experience lies in the area of fine distinctions, not the destruction of distinctions for promotion of activities with their least common denominator, in this case sound. Much of what has been called 'Sound Art' has not much to do with either sound or art.
- - Max Neuhaus, “Sound Art?” (2000)
Table of Contents
First Reading What is sound? A Primer (2003)
Second Reading Alan Licht, “What Is Sound Art?” (2005) “When Does Sound Become Art?” Art Review Magazine (2005)
Third Reading Michael Nyman, “Seeing, hearing: Fluxus” (1974)
Fourth Reading Alvin Lucier, selected texts and scores (1965 - 1994)
Fifth Reading Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises (1913)
Sixth Reading John Cage, excerpts from Silence (1961)
Seventh Reading Michael Nyman, “Towards A Definition Of Experimental Music” (1974) Steve Reich, “Music As A Gradual Process” (1968)
Eighth Reading Jonathan Sterne, “Hello?” from The Audible Past (2003)
Bonus Resource Craig Dworkin, Unheard Music (2009)
First Reading What is sound? A Primer (2003)
WHAT IS SOUND? (WHAT IS SILENCE? WHAT IS NOISE?) Adapted primarily from Prof. Jeffrey Hass Center for Electronic and Computer Music, School of Music Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
For the full, more technical version, go to: http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/acoustics/acoustics.htm
We live at the bottom of a sea of air. As with the ocean, the farther down one goes, the greater the density of molecules and the greater the pressure it exerts on us. Sound is produced by a rapid variation in the average density or pressure of air molecules above and below the current atmospheric pressure. We perceive sound as these pressure fluctuations cause our eardrums to vibrate. When discussing sound, these usually minute changes in atmospheric pressure are referred to as sound pressure and the fluctuations in pressure as sound waves. Sound waves are produced by a vibrating body, be it an oboe reed, guitar string, loudspeaker cone or jet engine. The vibrating sound source causes a disturbance to the surrounding air molecules, causing them to bounce off each other with a force proportional to the disturbance. The energy of their interaction creates ripples of more dense (higher pressure) to less dense (lower pressure) air molecules, with pressures above and below the normal atmospheric pressure. When the molecules are pushed closer together it is called compression; when they are pulled apart, it is called rarefaction. The back and forth oscillation of pressure produces a sound waves.
Amazing factoid #1: The threshold of human hearing, or the softest perceptible sound, corresponds to a pressure variation of less than a billionth of the current atmospheric pressure (though the threshold of hearing varies according to frequency, as you will see below).
Sound waves in air are longitudinal waves, in that the pulsating motion of the air is in the direction the sound wave travels. Physicists classically demonstrate this with the “Slinky” model, in which a quick push on one end of a slinky will cause a longitudinal wave to travel down its length. A sound wave is also a form of a traveling wave, in that the air molecules disturbed by the sound source are unlikely to be the ones hitting your eardrum, but transfer their energy to other neighboring molecules.
A sound wave, which is not impeded by another object, propagates (or spreads) out from the source as a sphere.
How fast does sound travel?
The speed at which sound propagates (or travels from its source) is directly influenced by both the medium through which it travels and the factors affecting the medium, such as altitude, humidity and temperature for gases like air. Bad news for Star Wars fans—there is no sound in the vacuum of space because there are too few molecules to propagate a wave.
It is important to note that sound speed in air is determined by the air itself. It is not dependent upon the sound’s amplitude, frequency or wavelength. For comparison, the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second or 186,000 miles per second (669,600,000 mph), which is roughly 870,000 times faster than the speed of sound. The difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound is why you see lightening before you hear it (unless you are struck by it, in which case it may be simultaneous!)
What are the characteristics of sound waves?
Sound waves can be characterized by three basic qualities, though many more are related:
Frequency, Amplitude, and Wave Shape
Some sound waves are periodic, in that the change from equilibrium (average atmospheric pressure) to maximum compression to maximum rarefaction back to equilibrium is repetitive. The 'round trip' back to the starting point just described is called a cycle. Periodic motion is classically demonstrated by observing the motion of a pendulum. The amount of time a single cycle takes is called a period.
Simple harmonic motion, the motion described by the pendulum example above, is represented in sound as a sine wave, which traces the mathematical shape of it namesake. A sinusoidal wave (which also includes a cosine wave) is the only wave shape that produces a single frequency, as we will see in the waveform chapter. With any minute deviations in the sine shape, additional frequencies will be generated.
Noise is characterized as being aperiodic or having a non-repetitive pattern. There are many different types of noise, depending primarily on the random distribution of frequencies. For example, some types of noise may sound brighter than others.
Some periodic waveforms can be complex enough to be perceived as noise if our ears cannot detect perceptible pitches. Many real-world sounds, such as the "chiffy" attack of a flute note contain some combination of periodic and aperiodic components.
What is frequency?
The number of cycles per unit of time is called the frequency. For convenience, frequency is most often measured in cycles per second (cps) or the interchangeable Hertz (Hz) (60 cps = 60 Hz), named after the 19th C. physicist. 1000 Hz is often referred to as 1 kHz (kilohertz) or simply '1k' in studio parlance.
The range of human hearing in the young is approximately 20 Hz to 20 kHz—the higher number tends to decrease with age (as do many other things). It may be quite normal for a 60-year-old to hear a maximum of 16,000 Hz.
Amazing factoid #2: For comparison, it is believed that many whales and dolphins can create and perceive sounds in the 175 kHz range. Bats use slightly lower frequencies for their echo-location system.
The perceived pitch of a sound is our ear/mind's subjective interpretation of its frequency. A frequency lowered by 400 Hz will not be perceived by us as a change equivalent to a pitch to raised by 400 Hz. Therefore, frequency and pitch should not be considered interchangeable terms.
One particularly interesting frequency phenomenon is the Doppler effect or Doppler shift. You've no doubt seen movies where a police siren or train whistle seems to drop in pitch as it passes the listener. In actuality, the wavelength of sound waves from a moving source are compressed ahead of the source and expanded behind the source, creating a sensation of a higher and then lower frequency than is actually being produced by the source.
What is amplitude?
Amplitude is the objective measurement of the degree of change (positive or negative) in atmospheric pressure (the compression and rarefaction of air molecules) caused by sound waves. Sounds with greater amplitude will produce greater changes in atmospheric pressure from high pressure to low pressure. Amplitude is almost always a comparative measurement, since at the lowest-amplitude end (silence), some air molecules are always in motion and at the highest end, the amount of compression and rarefaction though finite, is extreme. In electronic circuits, amplitude may be increased by expanding the degree of change in an oscillating electrical current. A woodwind player may increase the amplitude of their sound by providing greater force in the air column i.e. blowing harder.
Discussions of amplitude depend largely on measurements of the oscillations in barometric pressure from one extreme (or peak) to the other. The degree of change above or below and imaginary center value is referred to as the peak amplitude or peak deviation of that waveform.
When using audio gear or software, it is important to know whether your meter is a peak-reading meter or averaging meter (or neither). While there are many good reasons to keep an eye on a signal’s peak, the average is far more akin to the way we hear. Once you have an understanding of dB’s described below, the markings on the meters should make more sense.
Decibels: While power is measured in watts, the most-used acoustic measurement for intensity is the decibel (dB). Named in honor of Alexander Graham Bell, a decibel = 1/10 of a bel. A decibel is a logarithmic measurement that reflects the tremendous range of sound intensity our ears can perceive and closely correlates to the physiology of our ears and our perception of loudness. If we accept 130 dB as the threshold of pain, then humans hear sounds that range from the smallest perceptible amplitude to those that are 10,000,000,000,000 as loud or 10 watts/m2. No “standard” for the threshold of feeling or the threshold of pain has been established, and in fact ranges in the references used from 120 dB Sound Pressure Level (SPL) to 140 dB SPL, which is a huge variation of opinions and points out the differences between acoustic and psychoacoustic measurement). Younger people also have more effective protection mechanisms and so can tolerate louder sounds. Here are some vague benchmarks (which of course depend on many factors, including the listener’s distance from the sound).
Source Power (watts/m2) dB SPL Threshold of pain 10 130
Jet takeoff from 500 ft. 1 120
Medium-loud rock concert .1 110
Circular saw .01 100
New York subway .001 90
Jack-hammer from 50 ft. .0001 80
Vacuum cleaner from 10 ft. .00001 70
Normal conversation .000001 60
Light traffic from 100 ft. .0000001 50
Soft conversation .00000001 40
Whisper from 5 ft. .000000001 30
Average household silence .0000000001 20
Breathing .00000000001 10
Threshold of hearing in young .000000000001 0
Envelopes: Dynamic envelope refers to the amplitude change over time of a sound event (usually a short one, such as an instrumental or synthesized note). As a very simple example (because there is usually much more going on in acoustic sounds), a note can have an initial attack characterized by the amount of time it takes to change from no sound to a maximum level, a decay phase, whereby the amplitude decreases to a steady-state sustain level, followed by a decay phase, characterized by the time it take the amplitude to change from the sustain level to 0.
What are wave shapes and spectral content?
The shape of a wave is directly related to its spectral content, or the particular frequencies, amplitudes and phases of its components. Spectral content is the primary factor in our perception of timbre or tone color. We are familiar with the fact that white light, when properly refracted, can be broken down into component colors, as in the rainbow. So too with a complex sound wave, which is the composite shape of multiple frequencies.
So far, we have made several references to sine waves, so called because they follow the plotted shape of the mathematical sine function. A perfect sine wave or its cosine cousin will produce a single frequency known as the fundamental. Once any deviation is introduced into the sinus shape, other frequencies, known as harmonic partials are produced.
Most acoustic instruments not in the ‘noise’ category produce some combination of fundamental and harmonic partials. Bells are a category of sound that produces inharmonic partials, so called, because they do not correlate to the harmonic partials above.
What is resonance?
There is much more to what makes an instrument sound like a particular instrument, or your voice sound like your voice and not your neighbors, besides the spectral envelope of the excitation source. One such element is resonance. If you have ever stretched a string across a cardboard box and plucked it, you likely noticed the resultant timbre did not sound like a fine acoustic guitar. That is because cardboard boxes do not have the same resonating characteristics as both the material and shape of a guitar body. When a guitar string is plucked, it vibrates and creates a rich spectrum of harmonic partials. The string itself is called the excitation source. The disturbed air molecules cause the guitar body to vibrate through sympathetic vibrations. The larger vibrating surface area creates higher amplitudes by causing more substantially more air to move. The guitar body does not proportionately amplify all of the frequencies of the string. Instead, some frequencies are amplified more than others. This quality is called resonance.
What are reflection and reverb?
What is reflection?
Sound waves reflect off of objects the same way billiard balls bounce off the bumpers of a pool table—the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. A sound wave hitting a flat wall at 45° will reflect off it at 45°. The reflected wave can interfere with the incident (original) wave, producing constructive and destructive interference—it can increase its amplitude or, with phase cancellation, decrease its amplitude. In a typical listening environment, we are hearing sounds that have reflected off numerous objects and surfaces, with the reflections themselves interfering with other reflections. Just as color is determined by which frequencies of light are reflected or not, the ‘color’ or acoustic characteristics of a particular listening environment is determined by the angles and materials off of which the sound may reflect.
What is reverberation (reverb)?
The sound wave that reaches the listener's ear directly from the sound source is often referred to as the direct sound. These waves reach the listeners ears first in most acoustic environments. The first reflected sounds to reach a listener's ears are called early reflections. Since they travel a longer path, the amount of time it takes the first reflected sounds to reach our ears give us clues as to the size and nature of the listening environment. Because the reflected sound may continue to bounce off of many surfaces, a continuous stream of sound fuses into a single entity, which continues after the original sound ceases. The stream of continuing sound is call reverberation.
Reflections from surfaces that stand out from normal reverberation levels are called echoes. An echo of prominent amplitude, close in time to the original sound may be referred to as a slapback echo. Concert halls with a focusing flat back stage wall may produce slapback echoes with sharp loud sounds, such as percussion.
How does the ear work?
The structure of the ear can be divided into three main parts: the outer ear or pinna, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer structure of the ear is responsible, in part, for helping us to place the original location of a sound, be it ahead or behind, above or below us. It also helps to funnel and focus sound waves on their way to the middle ear and auditory canal. The middle ear contains the auditory canal, which terminates in the eardrum, or tympanic membrane. Attached to the other side of the eardrum, in a small space of air, are three tiny bones or ossicles, the malleus, incus and stapes (or hammer, anvil and stirrup) which then attach to a fluid-filled structure called the cochlea of the inner ear at a point called the oval window. It is in the cochlea that the vibrations transmitted from the eardrum through the tiny bones are converted into electrical impulses sent along the auditory nerve to the brain. The inner ear, which is surrounded by bone, also contains semicircular canals, which function more for purposes of equilibrium than hearing.
What is loudness?
Loudness is the way in which we perceive amplitude. As mentioned above, a particular change in amplitude is not necessarily perceived as being a proportionate change in loudness. That is because our perception of loudness is influenced by both the frequency and timbre of a sound.
The "loudness button" on a stereo amplifier is intended to boost bass frequencies at lower volume levels where the curve is the steepest. In viewing the graph, it immediately becomes apparent that much more acoustic energy is required in the lower frequencies to create sounds of equal loudness to those in higher frequencies—with a minimum around 4000 Hz, some additional energy is also required for equal loudness at higher frequencies.
What is timbre?
Timbre are the specific qualities that allow us to identify the difference between two different instruments playing the same pitch or two different voices singing the same words and pitches. Timbre is a product of the way particular sound sources generate pitch envelopes, or the relative rising and falling amplitudes of specific frequencies.
What is bit depth and sample rate?
First of all, we are talking about data: ones and zeros. Depth refers to the number of bits you have to capture audio. The easiest way to envision this is as a series of levels, that audio energy can be sliced at any given moment in time. With 16 bit audio, there are 65,536 possible levels. With every bit of greater resolution, the number of levels double. By the time we get to 24 bit, we actually have 16,777,216 levels. Remember we are talking about a slice of audio frozen in a single moment of time.
Bit
Now lets add Time to the picture. That's where we get into the Sample Rate. The sample rate is the number of times your audio is measured (sampled) per second. So the standard sample rate for CDs is 44.1 kHz or 44,100 slices every second. 96khz is 96,000 slices of audio sampled each second.
This brings us to the Bit Rate, or how much data per second is required to transmit the file, which can then be translated into how big the file is. Your CD is 16bit, 44.1 so that is 44,100 slices, each having 65,536 levels. A new Audio interface may record 96,000 slices a second at nearly 17 million levels for every slice. If you think that is a lot of data, well, you are right, it certainly is. The Bit Rate is usually expressed in Mbit/sec. Notice how recording at 24/96 more than triples your file size.
File Sizes For Stereo Digital Audio Bit Depth Sample Rate Bit Rate 1 Stereo Minute 3 Minute Song 16 44,100 1.35 Mbit/sec 10.1 MB 30.3 MB 16 48,000 1.46 Mbit/sec 11.0 MB 33 MB 24 96,000 4.39 Mbit/sec 33.0 MB 99 MB mp3 128 k/bit rate 0.13 Mbit/sec 0.94 MB 2.82 MB Should you record at a high Bit Depth and Sample Rate? Now lets get to the subjective side of how music sounds at these different bit depths and sample rates. No one can really quantify how much better a song is going to sound recorded at 24/96. Just because a 24/96 file has 250 times the audio resolution does not mean it will sound 250 times better; it won't even sound twice the quality. In truth, your non-musically inclined friends may not even notice the difference. You probably will, but don't expect anything dramatic. Can you hear the difference between an MP3 and a .wav file? If so, you will probably hear the difference between different sample rates. For example, the difference between 22.05 kHz and 44.1 kHz is very clear to most music lovers. A trained ear can tell the difference between 32khz and 44.1. But when 44.1 and 96kHz are compared it gets real subjective. But lets try to be a little objective here.
What is a Codec?
An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream of audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file format or streaming media audio format. The object of the algorithm is to represent the high-fidelity audio signal with minimum number of bits while retaining the quality. This can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file.
There are three major groups of audio file formats:
• Uncompressed: WAV, AIFF, AU or raw header-less PCM
• Lossless compression: FLAC, Monkey'sAudio (APE), WavPack (WV), TTA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Apple Lossless (m4a), MPEG-4 SLS, MPEG-4 ALS, MPEG-4 DST, Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA Lossless)
• Lossy compression: MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, ATRAC, Windows Media Audio Lossy (WMA lossy)
Second Reading Alan Licht, “What Is Sound Art?” (2005) “When Does Sound Become Art?” Art Review Magazine (2005)
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'6n8ny mau a stql (4n co ururu olmol) qnnuaatg ut teqt rrsnu,{:r^rodu;atuor;o uaJuor prlqt aqt uo g# 0961 unasnw awllt.tolAr lsuouDN aql ]D s! qf,eag Irsaqf tE uotltso(utog ru.ro;.radol aLU,ld.ollz lou plno^\ l(aya1;ag te '[.ta1lnByo seseqd a^el1 pua (gcabtdl4n Bto uaunl'mmm eru.ro;rp3;ol ,u1s:a,uunaqt tE suaf,uor uu)u aqt Jo JotJeJrp 'Duojuo! 14n'ao8spaal aottn) [.DllDg uV ,QD spaaTp sl eqt uos?ar aqt sd€qrad leqt parsaSSns[uso1e16] auzrg, 's?utpunos 11g Iq uo4olloisul tuauDuuad o IELUrrd :(y 1 aBed'!((1'a8papnog'1.ro1 'proJpuss 'pe's13v ^&rN 8 uopuoT u uallerrEl,{ raqlo puD 'Suntas IEJnlJatrqrJE sButuaddpH) 0961 arru)aT iul uro{ aronb 1 laqt.rng ue otur SuruatsrTpasoduor srql atelsupJtpu€ 'punoJ se,\\tr JauP sE sa,utrads'tadriueru ruor; uorlentrs e reaq iysnoauetlnrurs palsxe lf r\ou{ auo,(ue a;oJaq Ue qJnru se tsnf se.l\ enltts ',t1:^nor,tqg 'palee,\er teqt s>lJolalauSuruatsrl xalduor Surlee:c JAIoAUT aql tuptsur JarJqe ro1 iiep p eJUo $lJordue Surtlnsa: aLII Eueu;ouaqd pcrsnur aleraua8 ,r1uopue,Lrar,r r1lqnd tuo{ pJplerqs ipuetsuot tdal ueeq sluauruoJrlue ueqJn pue IEJnteu^\oq Jo suorle:o1dxa oJurs^SErl )l )e\) Survzapaq o>^saia qtr^\ pu€ sla^\a{ qtr^\ 'punr4 'tods uaJq e^Eq s"reel 67 Surnsua aqt ur sttalo:d ftu go y1y prelur.rlatayduor s^E-rdentrls eqt paqucsa.rd 'qtrd 'q8noua .(LuuJJq cEqsa.'ruat:adx: eqt SuItE\EJxeuodn erns , alu qtr€aun 'pres SuruatsrlpasnJoJ,{.ra,r asaqt Surlzysuerlpuu punos pue eI-Uo) eJaq perJnq ue 1. pup uEelp E ur rurLl 'paterrunruuloJ Surp.lora; pue aq plnoJ t?rit Eurqlaruos O1 AIUEJ EUqSIDI JO AN]E]S E PU€ EAJ] E]IJNOAEJ SIq JEPUN 'aurl otur saluauadxe asaqt atels^uz.tlot ue8aq I etu JoJ Surdaals se.n aq i{ep auo II€ Jo sraJs pue )^uertrs^nLu tJEpu€ uorlrsodu;or;o uJJoJe otur SutuatsrTpauJnt - uerpul tsetear8 aqt go auo aq ot pareprsuof, pu€ uas^uel jla.rure - Suruetsrl punos tuarqrrtuur su'rauudIelrsnu; Jo .ra8urs,lrepua8al aqr;o raLIJEalaLIl sr^a.)^EpueH ruE^\S 'uoildeued 'trE uortruSorar eqJ Jrsnu s,auoiue sEIeJrsnu.r eq ol repro ur punoJ '3uruats11 'Jele.erofi sz ttq.,{;a,tapeuaes spunos tuerqujE aqt sem 1 Jo paJaAOJSIp3q Je a lou paAU punob^E 'punoJ 'tslxa uaqru.'se.trI Ja^eJeql\'saurrtaruos Surualsrl;o s;a..lod aq ot 8urtrz.,t punos e i(1dru1"^s1 11r,lra e ro 'palsrxe eArtELUroJsu?Jtaqt qtr^\ passJsqoauetraq I pue tuapnts laou slsrxa Je e lr Jeqlaq.l\ punos;iue Jlas,rLupue 'a3e3 rr^lsrteJluoJ 'ertPs iqdosoirqd pue uonrsodu;or E sE^\ I o8e srza.'(r(t:og pla!)!€w !opn1 Jrsnu s€ qJns 'Ja^\sueeAItJelqns s:asoduor spunos punoJ pue eJpuv pue Sraquaqrsneg 'dueqJnc -,{1ra11nue seq punos ot uortele-l ur ,tJe, pJoI\ eqt atu JoC s^EqJns slsrl.reiq ratel pue puP ossEf,rd susluoc se qJns 'slsrlperJns'sts^rcpeg 'slsrqn3,,iq pale8edo.rd rug i\\er Jo turod tlelqo punoJ aq] ruo.lg aruergru8rs3o Surqleruos peJe^oJsrp sEq aq uaq^\ saslleal saurrla[ros tsltj€ uE tELItsr tsrlJ€ueJo JqsrJelJEJEqf,auo paJe^olsrp autlnod1&to Eulua$Il daap mtnill JJqIBJlnq pelEeJJJeAa rillEeJ sr Surqtou puE stsxa ,ipearp soJe^rTOaurTned 3u1qlfua.ta ',\aaLAJoturod rJqtoue urorC tre JroJeloqt orz pue uorteeJJ teqr go t.red E eJEspunos IIE eser qfrLI-,tAur 'l;e;o 1.rolr lsalea;3 aql eq ol paJeplsuof, saurllatuos sl u()rteeJrs,pog'.uar,t1o turod tsruoDEaJJe ruoJJ 'eLu!-uou Jo arul] [uE fE fJe (eruor)aq .lztu punos y Eunotratuory ?f DavidGrubbs For better or \\iorse.I apploach this question ltrimarilv rs a musician. Thus I m pe|petuallv trTing tO mo\.e past thinking of music as the art of souncl, BecauseI begir-rn'itl'i tl-risbias of tl-rinkingof souncl in terms of music.the cluestionI'm morc apt to ask is: 'How ckr vou clistingr:ishmusic front souncl art?' Or: 'W'l-ren cloessound become art -:tncl not ntusici,' Tb this I'cl aclclthat like n'rostpeople nho har-c an intercst in John Cage'sn,ork. I experience tlte 'music' categor\-of as an expancleclone that inclucles all l'arietr. of unintenclecl,composer- ancl musicianless souncls,Xh'sense olmusic is sufficientlvbroacl that 'music' it s clifficult to think of ancl souncl alt lrs nutuallr. exclr-rsiyetenns. So nruch for music. \{'l-ratabout sor-rnclarti, I takc Iain Forsrtl-r:urcl Jane Pollarcl souncl art to be a proposition that souncl is presented to be consiclereclin I'arious art contexts, eg the File uncler Sacrccltr{usic (200-)). Fr:rsl'tb and Pollcu'cl's context of exhibitior-r.the contc-xtof installation arL, recrealic,ttt ctJThe Crctnps' per.fortnance at Ndpd Stdte the context of time-b:rsecln'redi:r, the context of th. -llerilctl lttstitute. Calilbrrtia. irt 1978, contltues to tour clematcrialiseclartn.ork, the nithclrari.alof r,isr,ralcontent. i n tb e ['K ctn d Et rrope ( u' tL'tt'. fi Ieurt de rsacredtnt s i c.c o nt.1. etc, If sor-neoneexhibits souncl in an art context, I'm Ictin I'brs-t,tbanclJttne Pollarcl u,ill be shotL'irtg uet ganre for *-restling ri,.itl-rthe specific pnrpctsition. tt.'c,trklltis aunttnn dt Kc.tte,1,[acGcu'\,. Lortdort In the term'souncl art'. the stressfalls on art. ( +11 (0)20 761-l3909. tL,tt,u,.katemac(gdrrt'.co|]1. 'installation In souncl installation', the stress is On . tt.'t.t' tt'. i a i na n cljcurc.cottt ) A corollarv: music can exist nithout :i composer. u'itl-routan author; but cloessouncl art ever exist nitl-urut an artist?It seenrst() me tltar at this stage,).ou still need an authorialpresence - to specifi,thepropositton. CoseyFanni Tutti \\'hat is the art context in q.hicl-rthe n.ork participates? Sounclbecornes ert at its cclnception.As r.ou crcate 'an The poet George Oppen clescribeclb:rseball as souncl vou clefineits purpclse nhether it's frrr art. argllment'. The same has to be true of souncl art. popular culture. film. a TV acl etc. Hon it's thcn perceiveclbl others is the clebate. Art is alrout Dat:icJ Grubbs, 12.ftnte, 7'be Spitz. London ( +11 0)20 communication, sclf-expressionancl more besides 7392 9032. Lru'u'.spi tz.co. trk) anclI regarclanr- meclium as a facilitator for that encl. Sour-rclis a porverful mecliun frrr self'-expression rr-hicl-r.ur-rlike visual art. ckresnt nccessarilr.clepend on referring to consensualrealitr. ancl can have a clirect PaddyCollins phvsical effect on tl-relistener even if it's inauclible Sound as :rrt is a melting pot of aural icleas.M:rnt'souncl (slrb/'ultrasonics). Caroline Locke's lecent visual artists do not l-ork exclusiveh,rvithsouncl: thev take sound perfolmance piecc in ri,1-ricl-rvibrations frorr-r icleasfron-r a\ant-garcle r-isual and literan.arts and applr, acoustic transclucersstimulate the surface ()f \\.ater them to sound. ertencling the perceptions of listening to procluce patterns is an obvious example of souncl 'musical' anclcreating a nel,. icleaof souncl as art. Sounclart is as alt. It's an art installationas opposeclto a characteriseclbv installation and perfrrrmance and concert nith musiciansgenerating souncl to crcate archir.alobjects, Non'that the term has become more visual art, Throbbing Gristle hacl a different approach comm()n it seems harder tl-ranever to clefine. to sound n-ith four artists l.orking nith souncl to create The tenn sound art has been appliecl to a range of a hiatus in ltoth the music ancl ttre art rvorld. The use acti\.itiesand artists n,orking nith sound, in the areasof of souncl in art is so diverse but basicallvrvithout the avant-garclenusic. composers, sound recorclists,sound sounclxru clon't har.ethe art therefore souncl becorrrcs designersfor film TV and radio, DJs - tl-relist goes on. :rrtnhether it's in an :rrt gallen.or not. Sounclart has different meanings. diffelent aucliences, ancl is in of clangerof becoming meaningless.Sound art Cose)tFanni Titlli. B,lIa1'-21Attq, Librarl', Van Abbe is something more than the art frrrms that har.e Iluseutn, Eittdbot'en ( u:tttt'. t,ana bbemusettm. nl ) tr:aclitionallr-usecl sound.
Paclch'Collitts ls tbe editor o/Noise Gate magazine (u'o-u.noisegate.co. ukl ancl one balf oJ'Brott'n Sierra
Third Reading Michael Nyman, “Seeing, hearing: Fluxus” (1974)
Ov !r;iil .,!i i;ii Seeing,hearing: Fluxus i!' r:l! from ?!,i lll i'liiirr:;ririil:!;l t:i musi
i!i 'sinc, the p wate soun Cage pian For Cage4'j3" was a public demonstrationthat it was impractical,if gestl not senseless,to attemptto retainthe traditionalseparation of sound whic and silence.For theaudience it perhapsproved something else: as their duri attention shifted from listening to something that wasn't reallythere, to and watching something that was (Tudor's restrainedactions) they must in r< have realizedthat it was equally senselessto try and separatehearing TI from seeing. The theatrical focus of the silent piece may have been e\pl -^^l, unintentional,but neverthelesscage knew that'theatre is all around us,' even in the concert hall. In the same year, rg52, Cage arranged T ,pure' 2 ei ol an eventwhich deliberatelymoved out beyond music into what TJ was unmistakably theatre.This was the so-calledHappening at Black wol x 'clu Mountain College,the first post-warmixed-media event. x For this star-studdedoccasion Cage provided a rhythmic structure, not 2Oiz-a t a series of time-brackets, t sep or what Michael Kirby has called compart- 2,19 ments.Once a performer'scompartment had been signalled to start,he 20 intr was free to act in ir for as long as and in any way he liked. The separate 4 dec 5 compartmentswere arrangedto overlapone anotherso that a com_ res plex of differentlytimed, complerelyindependent activities, each in its Cage' sTheatrePiece tol own time-space,was produced. (This was the precedent for all the the 'combinings' Cagehas produced - from the simultaneousperformance 'time-length' of the piecesand the various combinationspossible with vel Conceft,to HPSCHD(t96fl and Musicircus(r968) which guaranteeCage's do ideal of unfocused,interpenetrating multiplicity. ) on ,happening' The activities which the contained were as follows: pe Cagewas up a ladder deliveringa lecturewhich included programmed silences;poets M. C. Richards and Charles Olson went up another he ladderat different times and read;at one end of the hall was a movieand at the other end slides were projected; Robert Rauschenbergplayed AS an old hand-wound gramophone, David Tudor was at the piano and hr Merce Cunningham and other dancers moved around the audience, Bt while some of Rauschenberg'swhite paintings were suspendedabove es the proceedings.The seatingarrangement was special,consisting of a lr squarecomposed of four triangles whose apexesmerged towards the tt centrebut didn't meet;movement took placein the largecentre space and in the aisles,although the largerpart ofthe actionhappened outside the square.
72 Seeing,hearing
overtly visual material begins to appear in cage's compositions 'moves from this time onwards.water Music which towardstheatre from music' is a poster-sizedscore large enough for the audienceto see, 'since we're involvedwith seeingnow,' and containsinstructions for the pianistto mal 73 Erper!mentalmusic zo GeorgeBrecht's SPANISHCARD PIECE FOR OBJECTS zr Brecht'sBach SponishCard PteceJor Objects Fromone to twenty-tourperformers are arranged within view of eachother. Each has beforehim a stopwatihand a setof objectsof fourtypes, corresponding to the foursuits of Spa- nishcards: swords, clubs, cups, and coins. On_eperformer, as dealer,shuffles a deckof Spanishcards (which are numbered1-12 in eachsuit), andieals themin pairsto all performers,each performer arranging his pairs, faceup, in frontof him. At a sign fiom the dealer,each performer stads his stop_ watch,and,interpreting the rankof the first cardin eachpair as the numberof soundto bemade, and the rankof the sec_ ondcard in eachpair as the numberof consecutivefive-sec- ond intervalswithin whichthat numberof soundsis to be freelyananged, acts with an objectcorresponding to the suit of the first cardin eachpair upon an object corre-sponding to the suit of the secondcard in thatoair. Whenevery performer has usedall his pairsof cards,the pieceends. G.8r.chl Wi.te,,1959/60 nounsand verbsas painting,bathtub, dismantle, spirals, run, eueen,s Park Rangers,while another list may include Africa, catch, flowers, fishing, innocence,Mao Tse-tung.Each is realizedin any way the per- 'each former feels fit since performer is who he is' e.g. performing musician,dancer, singer - Cagechose this approachso that nobody would haveto do somethinghe could not do. But he insiststhat the performerbears in mind that this is a pieceof theatricalmusic. In thisway Cage hopes to parallelparticular kinds of ,realirymodels': 'Ifyou go down the streetin the city you can seethat peopleare moving about with intention but you don't know what those intentions are. Many things happenwhich can be viewedin purposelessways'; and the 'if more things happening the better since there are only a few ideas the piece produces a kind ofconcentration which is characteristicof human beings. If there are many things it produces a kind of chaos characteristicof nature.' ,the For GeorgeBrecht, on the otherhand, occurrencethat would be of most interestto me would be the little occurrenceson the street., While Cageinvokes the total, unpredictableconfiguration, permanent flux, and seems(theoretically) not interesredin the qualig ofindividual things, Brecht isolates the single, observedoccurrence and projects it (via rectangularcards of assortedsizes in a box entitledWateryam (rg6o-3)) into a performanceactivity, which he calledan ,event'. Brecht was a painter who in the earlyfifties formulated a number of chancemethods to breakout ofthe blind alleyofabstract expressionism and who, in r957, wrote an authoritativemonograph, entitled Chance- Seeing,hearing zr Brecht'sBach BACH THREEGAP EVENTS O Brazil missing-lettersign e. :: 5::- o betweentwo sounds o meetingagain ;t l i To RayJ. z: Brechr'sTh ree Gap Events ::llt;*tntt Imagery.ofthe historyand use ofrandom proceduresin zoth-century art. In rg58 he enrolled.along with Dick Higgins,Jackson Maclow, Al Hansen.Allan Kaprorvand others,in Cage'sclass at the New Schoolof SocialResearch. At thistime he$.as $'riting musical pieces such as candlePieceforRodios andCord Piecefor Vorcr $'hich used game materials, such as playing cards, as 'turned musicalscores. Brecht found thatthese out to bequite theatricaL when performed.as interestingvisuallv' atmospherically, as aurally'' 'purelv Becomingless interested in the auralqualities of a situation'he 'standing eventin the springof I96o: in the woods of | ':.:.tls.run, Queen's obseruedhis first rvaitingfor my b: -.:. catch,flowers, EastBrunswick, New )erse,v.u'here I livedat the time, Fordstation Fj :: rny way the per- wife to comefrom the house,standing behind ml,English it occurred tr . e.g. performing wagon,the motor runningand the left-turnsignal blinking, situation'' lL-:-.: so that nobody to me that a truly "event" piececould be drawn from the VehicleSundown (Euent): )c' -.' insiststhat the The resultof this chanceobservation was Motor on, and the drivers 3: -.r.music. a number of carsgather at dusk, enginesare switched cards. y., :'realirymodels': (performers)act according to the directionson a setof instruction performer has twenty-two, and l.' :.ople aremoving Of the forry-four types of cards each half ask the performersto F ... intentionsare. half of theseindicate silencewhile the other - some purelyvisual (r'arious tri,:,:'>SrVayS'; and the activatedifferent components of the car purelyaural (sound horn. siren, !;:: onlva few ideas Iightsto be turnedon and off), others (open closedoors. etc.). The duration of E - lharacteristicof bells,etc.), others a mixture or the indiridurl. measuredat lr.. : kind ofchaos eachaction depends on a countchosen bv a rateagreed by all the performers' \ln bor usesimilar methods in lr:: :-.--erhat would be other piecesincluded in the \l'ater a lesspublic sphere; the ritleoisrlr:i.r L.:ri Irtiriforob_1ects speaks for ts--.i on the street.' 'a in ,\lallordIlrlk eachoi ihe threeperfbrmers has to play }--:.i:ron,permanent itself.and obiectOr set Of p - . ,.in'ofindividual conyentionaln.rusical instrument. e tov.and a common class,since they could be li:::Je and projects objects'.Tovs figured Iargelr in rheNe$'School producedunhackneyed sounds, F ::::irledWster Yam playedn'ithout anV speciaiized training. 'event'. on theway to theclass. comb Music J,:: .,:t andcould be picked up ardime srores processesusing common objects F - .,:eda numberof andDrip Music are both simpleunitary - plucked,and a sourceof fr'.-,--l expressionism a comb,each prong of u'hich is successively Thesecan be done by individuals tr: : entitledChance- waterdripping into an emptvvessel. 75 Experimentalmusic z3 Brecht'sComb Music COMBMUSIC (COMBEVENT) 14 Brecht'sTwo Exercises (CombEvent) Forsingle or multipleperformance. A combis heldby its spinein onehand,eitherfree or restinq onan object The thumbor a fingerof the otherhand is heldwith its tip againstan endprong of thecomb, with the edge ofthe nail overlappingthe end of theprong. The finger is now slowly and uniformlymoved so that the prongis inevitablyreleased, and the nail engagesthenext prong. This action is repeateduntil each prong has been used. Secondversion: Soundingcomb-prong. Third version: Comb-prong. Fourthversion: Comb. Fourthversion: Pronq. G. Brecht ( l.9 59-6 2) or groups, and CombMusic is especiallyeffective when played with a number of combs: delicate,tinkling fragments, produced in irregular patterns,barely discernible out of the silence.Brecht once wrote of 'borderline 'sounds a art' - barelyheard. Sights barely distinguished. (It shouldbe possible ro missit completell,.)' David Mayor has pointed out rhat Brechr'sTwo Exercises may be com- 'Centering' ,Feel paredwith one of the pre-Zen texts: an objectbefore you. Feelthe absenceofall other objectsbut this one. Then, leaving asidethe object-feelingand the absence-feeling, realize.'whileInstruction ('Turnon a radio.At thefirst sound,turn it off.') is quiteclose to another 'Centering' 'Just rexr: asvou have the impulse to do something,stop.' While the discipline involved in performing the minimal event z5 Brecht'sDriP Music 'a activitiesmake l,voter Yam courseof studyfor experimentalmusicians' (DripEuent) (Carden'),the box is at the sametime a centraldocument in the history of Fluxus. Fluxus was an indefinablemovement about which mis- understandingsarose, according to Brecht, fromcomparing Fluxus with movementsor groupswhose individuals have hadsome principle in common,or anagreed-upon programme. In Fluxus therehas never been any attempt to agreeon aimsor methods;individuals with somethingunnameable in commonhave simply naturally coalesced to publish =6 Seeing,hearing z4 Brecht'sTwo Exercises TWOEXERCTSES Consider an object. Call what is not the object ,,other.rl 'i'ee or resting EXERCISE: ,,other,,, Add to the object, fromthe another object, to form a new object and a new ,rother.rl ).: withits tip Repeatuntil there is no more lge of the nail "other.'l EXERCISE: Take a part ts so that the fromthe objectand add it to the to form a new ',other.,' ;ia;esthe next "other," object and a new Repeatuntil there is no moreobject. I :een used. ;a ,1961 andperform perhaps theirwork. thiscommon something is a feelingthat the boundsofart aremuch wider than they have conventionaily seemed, or thatart andcertain long-established bounds are no longervery useful. (r964) According to GeorgeMaciunas, the chiefprotagonist ofFluxus (at least F: Prong. ,strive as a publishingmovement), Fluxus events for the monostructural and nontheatrical qualities of the simple natural event, a game or a gag. It is the fusion of Spike ]ones, vaudeville,gag, children's games and Duchamp.' Thus Brecht's eventsmay be simultaneouslygajs and quite seriousexercises to reducethings to their essence.Some deal with musical instruments r ,.: playedwith a as objects over and above (or berow?)their r;,:..cedin normal useas sound-producers.organ piece, whose sole instruction irregular 'organ' is isolatesthe Jr-.:: once wrote of one featurecommon to all organmusic, the instru- ment. n::., distinguished. PionoPiece ry62 (,avase of flowerson(ro) a piano,)fondly draws attentionto a genteelhabit, the mure piano as an item of furniture, a curiousl' i,'-:-,.'smay be com- shapedtable. Others are double-takes,puns on objects rather than *'ords. c-: :n object before gentr' sreeringthe audience'sexpectations away from con'enrional -..:. Then,Ieaving hazardsinro hithertounlit zones.A performercomes onto r, \\'hile Instruction the srage.dressed tbr rhe occasion,holding his instrument, and proceeds c-': .'loseto another ro take his llute to piecesand put it togetheragain in Flutesolo ('disassemblingiassembling'); l :::ething, stop., in Sorofor viorinto polish the r,. minimal event z5 Brecht's DripMusic DRIPMUSIC (DRIPEVENT) ::--::ntalmusicians, (DripEuent) r .ir in the history For singleor multipleperformance. ..:.rurwhich mis- A sourceof drippingwater and an emptyvesset are arrangedso that the water falls into the vesser. ..:. iduals have r .:.:.In Fluxus Secondversion: Dripp i n9. :' ., individualswith : .:sced G. Brecht topublish (r959-62) 77 z6a SoloJorViolin: instrument,while StringQuattet ('shaking hands') reduces this normally GeorgeBrecht tempestuousactivity to a single gestureoffriendly solidarity. z6b DripMusic: A numberofrather elaborate versions ofBrecht's events made - most GeorgeBrecht likely not by Brecht himself - for the Fluxorchestrain 1966 emphas- l--* - ize their gag potential at the expenseof their spiritual qualities. For instance in Concertofor Clarinet('nearby') the clarinet is suspendedby .*sd a string tied to its centre so that it holds a horizontal position about z6c PianoPierc, six inchesabove the performer'smouth. Without using his hands,the GeorgeBrecht performer has to attempt to play a note, either by swinging the reedend down or by jumping up to it and catchingthe reedwith his mouth; and in SgmphongNo. r ('through a hole') a number of musiciansposition themselvesbehind a full-size photograph of another orchestra,with their arms insertedthrough holescut in the photographat the shoulders 'Performers of the photographicmusicians. may hold instrumentsin theconventional way and attempt to playan old favourite.' Justas importantas the eventas gag is the eventas duration.Brecht deviseda rvholeseries of natural 'clocks'with which to 'unmeasure' passingtime. CandlePiece for Radioslasts as long as the birthdaycake candleslast; Comb Music ends when the last prong has been plucked. The duration of the secondof the 6ve piano piecesthat make up Incidental Music(see p. zr) dependson theperformer's balancing skill and thelaw of graviqr.In other eventsduration may be defined in terms of colour inTwoDwations('red/green'-which may refer to the variablelengths of -a Seeing,hearing L -.s rhisnormally L:.,riw. 3:::s made- mOSt t :-.1966 emphas- r-.r qualities.For r.. suspendedby r:. positionabout z6c PianoPiece,46z: r: his hands,the changeoftraffic lighrs): or perhapsin rermsofa change GeorgeBrecht ofphysicalstate, 1..:g inThree thereed end AqueousEuents ('icer\\.ater,,sream.): or in the unspecifiedinterval r-. .lis mouth; betweenthings -'ben'een and n'o sounds'.'berweentwo breaths,onthe !-.:ciansposition smallscale, and in ThreeTriephone El.ents on a (potentially)larger scale. i: ,,rchestra, Brecht's with eventsfuncrion or r number of differentlevels. They are r--.r: rhe shoulders truly whar Dick Higgins called rntermedia_ nota piling up of media li ;nstruments but something in that falrsbetuien different media. They inhabit the area ,..:. between poetry and performance.For poetry they offer observations, ; ::ration. and for performance Brecht the' offer observationsas instructions or material h :o 'unmeasure' for performance or art-objecrs.Thus, discover or make,,,on(to)a piano, l:.. birthday aretypical 'Event cake instructionsin a Brechrscore. scoresare poetry, through rrr'nplucked. music, getting The down to facts' Brecht once noted. But there is notfriig c.iie in up Incid,ental an event-scoreto insist that an eventmust be a public perfo.mance, r . z8 Brecht'sThree THREETELEPHONE EVENTS TelephoneEvents O f4/trenthe telephonerings, it is allowedto continueringing, until it stops. O Whenthe telephone rings, the receiver is lifted,then replaced. O \4/henthe telephonerings, it is answered. Pcrformanccnotar Each avent cohprisesa, occurr?ncas Spring,1961 within il5 C!fatron. with Cagethat'theatre takes place all the time rvhereverone is and art simplyfacilitates persuading one this is thecase.' Most ofBrecht'sevents were written bebveen r96r andz, althoughhe continuedto notatethem occasionalll,('thelater ones becameveryprivate, like lirtle enlightenmentsI wanted to communicateto my friends who wouldknowwhatto dowith them').The er,enr scores of TakehisaI(osugi werewritten for a laterperiod of Fluxus.r9 64 to 5, althoughI(osugi had organizedthe first happenings,events and activities in Tolgo in rg6owith theOngaku group. The notions of phl,sicality,space and time presented in I(osugi's scoresreflect a specificallyjapanese sensibiliqr. In Anima,z spaceas a potential for action is deliberatelyconfined and experienced directly.InTheatre Music the performer is concernedwith a simple unity oftime, spaceand bodily movement. This persistence ('keep', 'intently') takeson a savagelyphysical character in MusicJoraReuolution. 8o Seeing,hearing zg l(osugi's TheatreMusic, Musicfor a Revolution and Animaz THEATREMU SIC Keeowal king intently T.Kosuqi MUSICFOR I E:VCLLTIO\ --: :-e e,es -rr -t^.::i:', ,.-. 5,ears.i]_ -r.: :c ihe 53-€ *:-:Fe:lr€r e,e 5 years a,a.. T.Kosuqi ANIMA2 i.:" a chamber :f:. which haswindors. Ltose ail the windowsAnd doors, prrt of i::i .1lfj.::., the bodythroueh each window. ho out tromthe chamber- claSO.cr.may ]|1 be madeof a larse cloth bagwith doorand windows made of zippers. T.Kosugi Es. J Other pieces deal with more practicablemusical processeswhich are also realizableover a (comparatively) Iengthy period of time. In MicroI a live microphone is wrapped in a very large sheet of paper.. The microphone amplifies the creaking and crackling of rhe p"p.i it unfolds gradua'y' of its own momentum. In the three compositions", I(osugientided South the 'south', whole word or parts of'the word are subjectedto extension or slow-motionprocedures; in SouthNo. z, for instance,the whore *'ord is to be pronounced,during l::'. :s g11gis and art a duration of more than 15 minutes', so that the transitionsben'een the rettersare aseffortless and smoothas possible. ,: ,:d 2, althoughhe Iohn Tilbury's accounrof performing , : : --.tmevery private, Anima7. which I quote on p' r5, showsthatwhen an even'da'actionis r :.r nrvfriends who sub;ectedto a slow-motion 'l'akehisa processall kinds of unforeseen.near-crippring ; : I(osugi probremsare thrown up. This is alsotrue of the transientsof the ,south'. i:..oughl(osugi had *'ord I(osugiseems to haveused these processes not as a means c . okvoin 196owith of taking the pe-rformer outsidehimself, but of making .:: d rimepresented him more intenseryaware of interior actionswhich he norma,v performsquire instinctivery. :. rility. InAnima z As a resulthe is drawn outside the universe r: .rndexperienced of his known physical functioning. DistanceforPiano (for David Tudor) is an .,.::ha simpleunity extremeexample of this: the performer is forced into r 'keep','intently,) an unpredictablererationship with the piano becauseobstacles are placed r':--.ution. betweenhim and the instrument.The pianistpositions himselfat a fixedpoint somedistance from the piano. 8r Experimentalmusic and producessounds, not directly but by manipulatingthe objects placedbetween him and the piano (the whole of which is used as a sound-source).These objects are not extensionsofhis pianistictech- niquebut impedimentsto it, for I(osugiis lessconcerned with produc' ing new sounds than with extendingthe performer's awarenessof the processofmaking sounds. Another approachto the direct experienceoFunmeasured time withiri a monosrructuralframework is found in the compositionsthat La Monte Youngproduced in rg6oand 196r.Young had been working on thewest coastofAmerica during the fifties and he did not comeinto contactwith - Cage'smusic and ideasuntil r959 ironicallyin Darmstadt,the Euro- p."n -..." of serialism.Young acknowledges the influenceof Cagein ih. ur. of random digits and,rhe presentationof what traditionally would havebeen considered a non- or semi-musicalevent in a classical concertsetting'. But like Brechthis approachwas reductionist: whereas ,were cage'spieces generall,vrealised as a complexofprogrammed sounds and activitiesover a prolonged period of time with eventscoming and going, I was perhapsthe first to concentrateon and delimit the work to bea singleevent or objectin theseIess traditionally musical areas'. He moved into these unitary activitiesby the same route as George - chancetechniques. In vision(r959) Brecht multiple activitiesusing 3o Young'sCot Young took a time period of thirteen minutes during which eleven rg6oNo.z: Geo 'described sounds, with insistentprecision' (Cardew), had to be made' performing. a whose spacing and timing were to be worked out by consulting random number tableor telephonedirectory' The first version of Young,s next piece, PoemJor Chairs,Tab|es, and Benches.Etc.. or OtherSound Sources (196o), involved dragging, pushing, pulling or scrapingthese items of furniture over the floor accordingto has lin'irrg, determinedby the samemethods as Vision. Once a decision beenmade as to what sizedunits are to be usedto measurethe avail- - able time - a quarterof a second,hours, days,years random digits determinethe durationof the performance,the numberof events,their individuallength. the pointsat which theyare to beginand endand the assignmentof eachsound source to theselected durations. Instruments - any,thingthat can be draggedacross a floor, or anyother sound source - their arricularion,location and touch are Ieft free;any sort of floor surfacemav be usedand soundsmay be made at any point inside or outsidethe performance sPace. The comprehensivenessof Poemled, afterits earlyperformances, to this situationdescribed by Cardew: 'chamber Thervork developed into a kind of opera'in whichang activity, not necessarilyeven ofa soundvariety, could constitute one strand in thecomplex weaveof thecomposition' which could last minutes, or weeks,or aeons.In fact it wasquickly reaiised that all beingand happening from the very beginning of timehad been nothing more than a singlegigantic performance of Poem' 8z Seeing,hearing E ,:ing rhe objecrs n -ich is usedas a i...s pianistictech- e:::edwith produc- '. .:n'arenessof the Composition1960 +z Builda fire in frontof the audience.preferably, use i-. -:redtimewithin woodal_ thoughothercombustibres maybe used as necessaryforstarting s'-':s rhatLa Monte thefireor controllingthe kindof smoke.The fire*uy !" oi ri:sing on thewest any size, but it shouldnot be lhe kindwhich is associated !: .rto contactwith with anotherobject, such as a candleor a cigarettelighter. Theliqhts may ; ::.tadt,the Euro- beturned out. E:-cnce ofCage in Afterthe fire is burning,the builder(s)may sit byand watch it forthe duration ..:rr traditionally of thecornposition; howevir, he ithey) should not sit betweenthe fire andthe audiencein order :'.:;rt in a classical that its mem- berswill beable to seeand enjoy the fire. l- -:ronist:whereas Thecomposition may be of anyduration. r:::.rmmedsounds In the eventthat the performance 1,.::rscoming and is broadcast,the microphone maybe brought up close to thefire. i:..::rit thework to 5. 5. 60 !-::Jalareas'. !E :nuteas George : r Vision(1959) Young'sComposition poemis r::-: rvhich eleven 3o The compulsiveuniversality of at the oppositepole from George rg6o No.z:George Brecht r Brecht'sminuscule intersections with realiry, ::.rdto be made, performing. his universemade up of r: :. consulting a separateoccurrences. Young's single, all-embracing metaphor was con- tinued in the unitary presentationsof his Fluxus period. Early in 196r 'singular . :::rs,Tobles, and his interestin the event'led him to write all his 196rpieces 'in r.:ging, pushing, a singular manner'. He wrote (and gave a variety of dates to) the 'draw : .)r accordingto samecomposition rwenry-nine times: a straightline and follow r: -.' I decisionhas it.'This n'as,in fact, his compositionrg6o No. ro which he performed E:r.iSur€the avail- at the time bv sighringivith plumb lines and then drawing along the s - rrndom digits floor with chalk.He dre'r'the sameline everytime though it invariably 'the )..: ofevents,their came out differentlv: rechniqueI rvasusing at the time was not .- .r:rdend and the goodenough.' (other Flurus people nored young's obsessions. George : ::s.lnstruments Maciunas'Homage to Lo r{onteYoung of 196zinstructs that lines pre- r.:I'r sound source viouslydrawn atany performance ofconrposition rg6r shouldbe ,erased, : ,:rvsort of floor scrapedand washed,' another'ersion adding :rnv other lines previously 'like :. :oint insideor encountered, street-dilidinglines. ruled paper or scorelines, lines on sports fields, Iines on gaming rables.lines ruled by children on ::rformances,to sidewalks,etc.') LikePoem, the line piecebecomes an exrendedmetaphor. For a line is 'potential a of existingtime' and is rhereforerelevant to music. Thus : --:. activity,not ,to in Young's Compositiou9 6o No. 7 the notesB and F sharpare be held --- :n thecomplex for a long time'. But a line can arsobe takenas a condensation L. or aeons.In fact of any number of mono-directional, I .:i beginningof undeviatinglinear activities- walking, I r - !' of Poem. education(perhaps), marksmanship, Catholicism, La Monte young;s career,etc. 83 Experimentalmusic 3r Young's Composition Composition1960 # 5 rg6oN0.5, Piano PieceJor Turn a butterfly(or any numberof butterflies)loose in the per- TerrgRileg No.r, Piano Piece formancearea. No.r and JorDauidTudor Vvhenthe compositionis over, be sureto allowthe ,butterfly Composition n0.7. ry6o to fly awayoutside. The compositionmay be any lengthbut if an unlimitedamount of time is available,the doorsand windows may be opened beforethe butterflyisturned loose and lhecomposition rnaybe considereCfinished when the butterflyflies away. PianoPiece for DavidTudor --1, 6' B'60 Bringa baleof hayand a bucket of wateronto the stagefor the pianoto eat anddrink. The performermay then feedthe piano or leaveit to eat by itself. lf the PianoPiece for TerryRiley rFI the former,the pieceis overafter the pianohas beenfed. lf the Pushthe pianoup to a wall and latter, it is over afterthe piano put the flat sideflush against it. eats or decidesnot to. Thencontinue pushing into the you October1960 wall. Pushas hardas can. lf thepiano goes through the wall, keeppushing in the samedirection Co*porf;o,,tl60 +F? regardlessof newobstacles and continueto pushas hardas you can whetherthe piano is stopped againstan obstacleor moving. The piece is overwhen you are t. l. l,i-t.v r to,.1t-c too exhaustedto push4ny longer. ra[l"N_ 2:10A.M. f"\.,ria,g' November8, 1960 Young's196o compositions fall into a number of categories'some, like the line piece.uniquelv his, othersin line with the prevailing,often destructive,mood of otherFluxus artists. There is the obscurepoetry of PianoPierefor Dauid Tudor No, 3 -'most of them were very old grass- hoppers'.Or his full-frontalpresentation of naturalphenomena: a fire is built in front of the audience(Composition r96o No. z) and butterflies are turned loose in the concert hall (No. 5). This springs from his 'Beingveryyoung, fascinationu'ith thepoetry ofnature: I couldstill take somethingso highlypoetic and useitwithout thefear I would havenow - that invould be trampled on . . . After all, a butterflyis only a butterfly is onll' a burterfly.' Young was at that time presenting nature directly rather than analogizingnatural processes. If the fire pieceneeds any justificationthen it lies in Young'sstatement that it is good for some- one to 'listen to what he ordinarilyjust looks at, or look at things he would ordinarilyjust hear'. (GeorgeBrecht, performing the fire piece, 84 'event' young,s extractedan from naturalism:he carefullrbul.: ; :--: Itr :s) loosein the per- ofmatcheson a glasson a plateon a clothon a stool.) Along with otherFluxus composers La Monte young was fascin;le: ,L: a.,owthe ,butterfly by the audienceas a socialsituation. Three of the r96o composirion. are ostensibly'audience pieces'.In composition196o No. 3 listenersare F a--rnlimited amount told that for some specifictime or other they may do anything thev E:rs maybe opened wish. In No. the audienceis told that the lights , r-rotition 4 will be turned offfor a f* rnaybe l€;:/vay. time; the lights areswitched off, and at the end an announcemenrma' 'that (or may not) be made their activitieshave been the composition'. 6.B. 60 No. 6 reversesthe performer/audiencerelationship - performerswatch the audiencein the same way as the audienceusually watches the performers.Non-performers are given the choiceof watchingor beingthe audience.All thesepieces may be ofany duration- aswith cage'spieces the performancelasts any chosenlength ofprogrammed time. The audience,as an object of experimentalcuriosity, as something f':r TerryRiley +F1 less than passivespectators, figures in other Fluxus events,at times treated respectfully (by Young), -: to a wall and but their participation is quite ofren ; ushagainst it. engagedby a deliberatelyaggressive gesture as it is in the Audiencepieces :-s1inginto the of Ben vautier. In one of thesethe audienceis locked in a theatre,the F -3f: as you can. eventending when they find their way out; in another ticl a- blown out of variouswind instruments.The D PianoCompositionsJor SYMPHONY( NomJune Paik (r962) by GeorgeMaciunas begin with piano movers bringing the piano on to the stage,and end with their carrying it off; betweenthese eventsthe pianist has (among other things) to place a dog or cat(or both) insidethe piano,play Chopin, stretch the 3 highest strings with a tuning key till they burst, place one piano on top of anothei.Maciunas' Solofor Violin (also r96z) proposes that an old classic be played on a violin and that where pausesare notated the violin is to be maltreated- by scratching the floor with it, dropping pebbles through the f-holes,pulling the pegs out, and so on. And in a per- formanceof RichardMaxfield's Concert Suite from DromenonLa Monte Young quietly set fire to his violin while the other instruments were playing awayquite happily. Boredom,violence, danger, destruction, failure and meaninglessness tasks J-ts;I all seemto beinextricably tied up in thesephenomena; when some XFil are, on the surface,so easy,some other qualityhas to be introduced t- r\- .- or extendedto guaranteeexcitement or the unexpected.Dick Higgins LJEI has said of the opening bars of the last movementof Beethoven's gth Sgmphongthat they come 'as closeas one could come,within the harmonicconcepts ofthe day,to simplehysteria, and theywork because 'a they takethe risk ofdegenerating'.'Today' (t966), he says senseof risk is indispensable,because any simplepiece fails when it becomes --- facile. This makes for all the more challengein risking facility, yet still remaining very simple, very concrete,very meaningful.' He goes on to r I - Il u say: 'The composer is perfectly well aware of the psychologicaldiffi- - cultieswhich his composition may produce for some, if not all, of the audience.He thereforefinds excitementin insisting on this, to the point fiamt of endangeringhimselfphysically or evenspiritually in his piece.' To emphasizethis effect he wrote, between196r and 3, a series TICKITS$ of compositionscalled Danger Musics,'each ofwhich emphasizedone ORCARNE( spiritual, psychologicalor physicaldanger that seemedappropriate to the generalaesthetic I was using . . . It is very tempting sometimesto gEORG[BRECI seenot how much one can getawaywith, but how much one can use Y0UllG:C0MPC GTOR&EBREC thechallenges that 0re there.'The best-known. Danger Music No. 5. was Al-150t{KNoWI in fact written by Nam Iune Paik; it instructs the performer to crawl up LAI'iDSSERGIS 'I the vaginaof a living femalewhale. (CommentsAI Hansen: don't DICKIIIOGINS: think Paikhas ever performed this becausehe is still with us.') MIJSIC.ROBEF 'move IilSTNUMEhITS Paik it was rvho (againin Hansen'swords) would through OREHE$TRA.C the intermissioncrorvd in the lobbyof a theatre,cutting men's neckties lCfllYAt'lAGli offrvith scissors,slicing coatsdown the backwith a razor bladeand OLIVETTIAOD SOLOSFOR S' heads'.On oneoccasion he did squirtingshaving cream on top oftheir J{JN[ PAIK:0t this to the father-figurehimself, JohnCage (the piece is calledInHomage CHAMBTXMU 'this to JohnCoge); sort of thing has led Cage to wonder whether his influence on the young was altogether a good one' comments Calvin 3z Advertisement Tomkins primly. 86 Seeing,hearing ' -.cmpositionsfor CONNUCTTDBYKUNIHARU AKIYAMA : piano movers SYMPI-ISNYONCHTSTRA : -'arryingit off; L.:rgs)to placea :.r the3 highest :.-inoon top of :.::.rnold classic :.1 the violin is '.'?pingpebbles . \,.,1 :- ^ ^^- . .1rlu rrr d Pgt_ :-.:lonLa Monte l.i:Ulll€ltS W€f€ ::..rninglessness A:tan some tasks , :e introduced * * '- Dick Higgins .7LrI -: Beethoven's ^'\ L* r:::e. within the :, r|orkbecause I ...-'S 'a SenseOf 30 r*:l.rit becomes Ptfl , .. -:l:k, .,^* ^*iIl : . :!lltLy, ysL JtrIr fi. :le goeson to c.:.rlogicaldiffi- $[T ,: :tot all, of the J !.:.s. to thepoint rJrurimltlsl I s.j?st" --. piece.' i .: fi"armfi ut .- l - ^ ^^-:^^ ONSALE AT *ARNIGIN HALL BOX OTTICT .-.! J! d JtrrrED TICKHTSSfruOW l::trhasizedone ORCARNTGIE RECITAL HALL BOX OFFICT BITOftT CONCTRT c .rppropriateto j l sometimesto OSORGEBRECI{T:3 LAMP EVE\TS, EMMITT WILLIAMS:CCIUHTING SOI'IGS. LA MOHTS g5 :-: onecan use YOUilS:EOMPO SITIOI{ NU M BER . 3, I 9 60. JAM TINNTY:CHAMBER MUSIC*PRSLUOT. BRECHT:PIANOPIECE ].962 ANDDIRECTIOf't (sIMULTAilEOU5 PERFORMANSI} .t,i-_i1cNo. 5, was &rsnffE AI.ISOI.IKI{OWLES: CHILD ART PIiCE. GVORGYLISITI:TROI5 SAGATTLLES. VYTAUTAS :-.-r to crawl up LAilNSBERGI$:Y[LI.SWPIECE.tllA-CHU:PIANO PIECT ilo"}2 FORNJF. CONGO:QUARTET i.,:tsen:'Idon't blcK }IIGGI}']SICONSTELL.ATION NC.4 FORORCI{ESTRA. TAKEHISA KQSUGI: ORGAilIf, STRlilefB l"-:rs.') iriugtc.RSBrRTWATTSTS0L0 F0R FRiNCH H0RN.0lCK lllsGlltl$:MUSlC F0R lilSTRUMft{T5.JAM[S TENlr,lEY: CHAMBiR MUSIC*rNTIRLUDt. AYO:RAINBSW F0R WIHS ::tove through ORCHESTRA.GT0RG[BRECHI:COtTCERT FOR 0RCHESTRA A[10 SYMp]lOrlY ]i0'?.T0Sill ::ren's WATTS:gVEl'IT ].3' i neckties lcHlYA[lAclffi4q .J0t JotlES:MECHANICAL 0RCHTSTRA. R0BERT :.,zorblade and cllyrTTtASbit-tCM,a,CHllrlE:tNMEMoRIAM T0 ADRIANo0LtVtTTl. GIORGEBRICHT:1? TNSTFUMENTS,JOE JONES:PIECT FON WIiID OREHTSTRA. NAM .'--casionhe did 5OLO5TOR STRINCN} JIJNI PAIK:0f'l€ FfiRVl0Llil $0L0. CHIEK0SHl0Ml: TALLING fVENT. JA[if S TCNNEY: ;.lled InHomage CfiAMBNRMUSIC-POSTIU}9. PHILIP CORNER: 4TH.FINALT" G.BRTCHT: WORO TVENT. c:: rvhetherhis r':tmentscalvin 32, Advertisementfor Fluxusconcert. R= Experimentalmusic Violencewas alwaysan integral part of the unclassifiableperform- ancesof the sensationalduo ofPaik and the cellistCharlotte Moorman. Betweenrg64 and 5 GiuseppeChiari wrote a seriesofword pieces,each one nicely calculatedto suit the styleof the performersthey were dedic- atedto. Theseare often theatricalin the conventionalsense ofthe word, prescribinga seriesof programmedactions and eventsto be worked through. Don'tTradeHere, the Paik-Moormanvehicle, is, naturally,the most histrionic.First a sentencehas to be repeatedr22 times over a periodof ten minutes.after which, the scoreruns: 'Shout.Complain. Likea beast.l'ake a microphone.Bring it nearyour throat.Play with the intensin'level of theamplifier arriving alternately and simultaneouslyat sucha high levelas to causevery sharp frequencies in this loud speaker. Reduceto lorvestthe levelof the amplifier.Vomit. Or cry. Causethe vomitingor tearsmechanicallv or chemically.'Andso on. Moorman'scello has surpassedan1' other instrument,in any era,in the number of usesit has beenput to. It is attackedwhen a recording of aerialbombardment is plal'ed;it is fought with in a largebag with zipperedorifices; itis frozenin a block of ice,and then the ice bowed until it meltsand Moorman canget at the cello;*Paik's back is bowed asif it werea cello,and the instrumentitself is usedas a sexualorgan. Paik's OpiraSatronique was an attempt at the sexualemancipation of music; asa resultof the first performancein New York in rg 67 Moorman was arrestedon a chargeofpublic indecencyfor playing bare-breasted. The posterfor the performancecarried the following manifesto: Afterthree emancipations in twentiethcentury music (serial, indeterminate, actional)I havefound that there is stillone more chain to lose.That is PRE- FREUDIANHYPOCRISY. Why is sexa predominanttheme in artand literature prohibitedONLY in music?How long can New Music afford to besixry years behindthe times and still claim to bea seriousart? The purge of sexunder the excuseofbeing 'serious' exactly undermines the so-called 'seriousness' of musicas a classicalart, ranking with literatureand painting. Music history needsits D. H. Lalvrence,its Sigmund Freud. This personstill hasnot beenfound and Paikhas given up the searchin favourof experimentaltelevision systems. 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Returning to an inside performancespace at Hilfe von schrifdicher any later time, re-create,solely by meansof your voicesand instruments hlltnisse an diesenO and with the aid of your memory devices(without additions, deletions, Auffiihrung in einen improvisation,interpreration) those outside sound siruations. Stimmenund Instrua \$[hen using tape recordersas memory devices,wear headphonesto fiigen oder wegzulas avoid an audiblemix of the recordedsounds with the re-createdones. schenVerhiltnisse vo 'W'enn For performancesin placesother than Hartford, use the name of the Kassettenrt placeof performancein parenthesesat the beginningof the title. aufgesetztwerden, u Klingen zu vermei& Bei Auffiihrunga Auffiihrungsorts in X 3r6 ProseScores Verbalnotationen Fifth Reading Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises (1913) The Art of Noise (futurist manifesto, 1913) by Luigi Russolo translated by Robert Filliou 1967 A Great Bear Pamphlet ubuclassics 2004 THE ART OF NOISE LUIGI RUSSOLO ubuclassics 2004 ubuclassics ubu.com 3 classics The Art of Noise Luigi Russolo Else Press. Something by Bear Pamphlet in 1967 as a Great Originally published ubu www.ubu.com Series Editor: Tencer Michael The Art of Noise (translated from L’arte dei Rumori) My dear Balilla Pratella great futurist musician, On March 9, 1913, during our bloody victory over four thousand passé-ists in the Costanzi Theater of Rome, we were fist-and-cane-fighting in defense of your Futurist Music, performed by a powerful orchestra, when suddenly my intuitive mind conceived a new art that only your genius can create: the Art of Noises, logical con- sequence of your marvelous innovations. In antiquity, life was nothing but silence. Noise was really not born before the 19th century, with the advent of machinery. Today noise reigns supreme over human sensibility. For several centuries, life went on silently, or mutedly. The loudest noises were neither intense, nor prolonged nor var- ied. In fact, nature is normally silent, except for storms, hurricanes, avalanches, cas- cades and some exceptional telluric movements. This is why man was thoroughly amazed by the first sounds he obtained out of a hole in reeds or a stretched string. 4 ubuclassics ubu.com usic. y m sharing in human contemporar 5 5 ted dissonances of noise-sound. This revolution of revolution noise-sound. This is music ferent sounds, intent upon caressing the ear with suave harmonies. the ear with suave intent upon caressing sounds, ferent sistent and complica ted dif st of the soft and limpid purity of art looked for all, musical sound. Then Primitive people attributed to sound a divine origin. It became surrounded a divine origin. It to sound people attributed Primitive Fir To excite our sensibility, music has developed into a search for a more com- a more for into a search has developed music our sensibility, excite To ama the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise Nowadays musical art aims at the shrilliest, strangest and most dissonant amalgams of art aims at musical Nowadays approaching sound. Thus are we paralleled by the increasing proliferation of proliferation the increasing paralleled by machinery with religious respect, and reserved for the priests, who thereby enriched their rites enriched thereby who the priests, for and reserved respect, with religious the conception of Thus was developed with a new mystery. sound as something apart, and independent of from different of The result life. a fantastic world was music, this atmosphere This hieratic world. and sacred an inviolable reality, superimposed upon of the progress down was bound to slow ahead and forged so the other arts music, determined theory mathematically with their musical by it. The Greeks, bypassed have admitted, were only some consonant intervals to which according Pythagoras, limited the domain of the harmony and made almost impossible they until now music the development through did progress Ages music In the Middle of. unaware were ofand modifications system. But people kept considering sound tetracord the Greek find still conception we so persistent a narrow that time, through only in its unfolding polyphonies of complex it in the very the Flemish did not yet The composers. chord of the development exist; that to the chord parts was not subordinated the different together; the conception ofthese parts could produce but these parts was not vertical, union of the simultaneous for and the search The need for horizontal. merely differ- of is to say ent sounds (that came gradually: the assonant com- chord), the its complex, to end with some random dissonances, enriched chords by was followed mon chord up with the per it amalg plex polyphony and a greater variety of variety and a greater polyphony plex It has tried instrumental tones and coloring. succession ofto obtain the most complex thus preparing the ground dissonant chords, labor. In the pounding atmosphere of In the pounding atmosphere labor. as in the formerly silent coun- cities as well great of number a large such today create machines tryside, sound, pure that noises varied emotion. any fails to arouse now with its littleness and its monotony, ubuclassics ubu.com gy a that or anemic ener . om familiarity, and om familiarity, tion of usic maniacs jump in these hospitals f tmosphere oftmosphere Shall concert halls. mous mobiliza edom stemming fr 6 6 orld than twenty men slaving to increase the to increase men slaving than twenty orld s go inside one of his plain talk will make all m ee sorts of the extraor- and keep waiting for boredom le to consider the enor o or thr the boredom that will drip from the next bar. In this fashion bar. the next will drip from that the boredom violins? T esents without concluding that the acoustic results are pitiful. Is are the acoustic results esents without concluding that e ridiculous in the w pr . st bar is dripping with bor e them together? Let’ dly possib h will stir up a bit the somnolent a wing of etaste of . We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of circle this restrictive at all cost from break must We pure hic or , the fir hestra r c , w , thing mor Each sound carries with it a nucleus of sound carriesEach with it a nucleus sensations and foregone foreknown It is har ts y om bar to bar tw e meeo This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combina- pleasure infinitely more get we is why This . See ou a f n or e an Musical Noise Musical es y e visit one of e sip fr tions of the sounds of and loud autos and other vehicles, trolleys, or pastoral to the heroic for instance, than listening once more, crowds, symphonies This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. Theear of today. possible noise-sound is only toward This evolution an eighteenth intensity of withstood the discordant could have century man never some of the performers (whose as numerous); times three are our orchestras by produced chords all in rich to modern attuned are life, they for in it, our earson the other hand rejoice sorts of keep bigger acoustic asking for being satisfied, ears But our far from noises. and the quality of in the variety sound is too restricted musical However, sensations. of categories or five to four can be reduced orchestra The most complicated its tones. string pinched string instruments, sound tones: rubbed instruments with different and percussion wind instruments, wooden metallic wind instruments, instruments, a new vari- tries to create and vainly time in this small circle Music marks instruments. ety of tones. plaintiv their sea giv predisposing the auditor to boredom, in spite of the auditor to boredom, predisposing of all the efforts com- innovating All ofposers. the harmonies of liked and enjoyed have us years, For masters. the great fed up with are we Now deliciously shaken our hearts. have and Wagner Beethoven them. sounds and conquer the infinite variety ofsounds and conquer the infinite noise-sounds for for the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise ther moder w sounds w ubuclassics ubu.com pis- POUAH! trolleys on their rails, the their rails, on trolleys , the rising and falling of -width 50 square kilo- -width 50 square 7 7 , the loud jumping of ws vious animal spirits TAMTOUMBS hanical sa es’ sliding doors, the hubbub of the hubbub es’ sliding doors, roars the different the crowds, Immediately echoes, echoes, echoes, all echoes-quick! all echoes-quick! echoes, echoes, echoes, Immediately thing with ob mec ea whips, the whipping of the whipping whips, fun imagining our orchestra- will have We flags. partment stor engines br meters-leap 2 3 6 8 splinters-fisticuffs-headrammings-rapid fire take-it-crumble it-spread it-infinite distance to hell. In the center, it-infinite distance to hell. In the center, it-spread take-it-crumble center of these flattened Tamtoumb! Some will object that noise is necessarily unpleasant to the ear. The objection is necessarily unpleasant to the ear. noise Some will object that modern a great atten- walk together through capital, with the ear more Let’s 1 2 3 4 5 seconds the siege canons gut the silence by a chord- 1 2 3 4 5 seconds the siege canons gut the silence by de y sensation that will never materialize. Meanwhile we witness the brewing of witness the brewing we Meanwhile materialize. never will that y sensation a , the stridency of the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise tons is futile, and I don’t intend to refute it, to enumerate all the delicate noises that give noises that all the delicate it, to enumerate intend to refute and I don’t is futile, of you convince To pleasant sensations. the surprising of variety will mention I noises, starts and the away, a horse trotting leaves, streams, rivers, wind, cascades, thunder, jumps of of solemn breathing the white a carriage on the pavement, night, a city at mouth can those man’s feline and domestic animals and all all the noises made by make without talking or singing. of the pleasures will vary and we than the eye, tive distinguishing our sensibilities by ofamong the gurglings and rat- rumblings the air and gas inside metallic pipes, water, tlings of Let’s get out quickly, for I can’t repress much longer the intense desire to create a true to create desire longer the intense much repress I can’t for get out quickly, Let’s big loud slaps right and left, stepping and push- distributing finally by reality musical go out! bassoons and moaning organs! Let’s violins and pianos, ing over dinar of composed mixture heartrending of the monotony and the stupid the sensations of swooning and religious the thousandth for drunk on experiencing the audience, ecstasy. with elegant and fashionable Bhuddist patience, with almost time, of plants and power printing houses, mills, textile foundries, iron stations, railroad noises of new the very not forget must And we subways. The poet Modern Warfare. of the Bulgarian trenches Marinetti, in a letter from to me as Ariadnople described of the orchestra style, in his new futurist follows, battle: a great snapping of tion of ubuclassics ubu.com hestra very- c hos in this ec juggling -pam-pam-pam reenness cip- reenness flames flames flames flames from crawl s they bent beaten bent beaten s they odopes 1st and 2d BOUM lutes clarinets pipes e ofessor titude shade g 8 8 ungia R POUMTOUMB t fracas far from erasing drink t fracas far from ecise them out of their echoing ea hestra pr c es dong-dong-dong-ding-bééé Or otting gongs f s sitting villages standing mounts recog- er , ferocity, regularity, pendulum game, fatality- game, pendulum regularity, , ferocity, ds twitter bea ying Gr ds pastur omit them pr roundfloor boxes 2,000 shrapnels gesticulation shrapnels gesticulation 2,000 roundfloor boxes p hitting or v wn bir ying riv e ying pla la Violence wing-echoes odor-hay-mud-manure I can’t feel my feel my I can’t odor-hay-mud-manure wing-echoes gias g lo rave bass apparent slowness-scan the strange madmen the strange madmen slowness-scan apparent bass rave e up do ter of en feet stale odor r ying pla ed in the audience Maritza T z y noises r ws log her o oles b o w cip ip-zzip her fr forts over there Choukri Pacha telephone orders to 27 forts telephone to 27 forts orders Choukri Pacha there over forts Germanin turkish hello Ibrahim! Rudolf actors hello! hello! r here there there farther all around very high look-out god- high very farther all around there there here flames marvelous! flamesdamnit on the head chaak flames Madmen kee batteries batteries clowns’ jump in full sky height 200 meters it’s the gunshoot- the jump in full sky height 200 meters it’s clowns’ of guffaws ing Downwards chariots swamps laughter buffalos stings prancing of flue horses ammunition-wagons flaczang manes- bespatterings patatraak pirouettes rearings chaak chaak batallions bulgarian tinklings three neighings i i i i i i i medley Choumi Maritza bar slowly) craak (double crook- on the move officers’ knocking against shouts copper plates o Karvavena there pam ici (vite) pac over other each this g altos of agitated mad mad mad-very young-very very the battle ears My earsFury open nasals! beware! anguish breathless ear scent drink people to sense see o my is yours joy such the machine- taratatatatata everything everything everything under a thousand bites slaps traaktraak guns shouting twisting pic pac cudgellings whippings pla tin mouth wide open diameter 1 kilometer Debris of thea niz r the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise ubuclassics ubu.com the The wn of wing do ZANG- The existence ofThe existence this predomi- ough the speeding up or slo 9 9 hite handkerchiefs full ofhite handkerchiefs gold toumb- w y manifestation ofy manifestation Noise is familiar to us. our life. er Not that we want to destroy the movements and irreg- the movements want to destroy we Not that v war noises orchestra blown beneath a note beneath blown war noises orchestra zang-toumb xplosion toumb clouds-gallery 2,000 grenades Quick thundering applause hairs black very enthusiasm pulling hair quick such of golden balloon controlling silence hanging in full sky captive the fire. TOUMB-TOUMB Each noise possesses a pitch, at times even a chord dominating a chord times even Each noise possesses a pitch, at e harmonically rhythmically and and regulate score want to We Noise accompanies e Although the characteristic ofAlthough the characteristic noise is to brutally bring us back to life, ement. v the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise ular vibrations (ofular vibrations intensity) of tempo and wish simply to fix the these noises! We ofdegree or pitch other sound in its as noise differs vibration, from the predominant (in terms confuse vibrations and irregular of tempo and intensity). over the whole of the whole over vibrations. these irregular these most varied noises. the mo nant pitch offers means ofnant pitch us the technical to give is to say that these noises, scoring ofto a noise a certain variety and characterizes that without losing the timbre pitches us a can give movement a rotating through distinguishes it. Certain noises obtained thr complete ascending or descending scale art ofart reproduction. imitative not be limited to a mere noises must Noise has the power to bring us back to life. On the other hand, sound, foreign to life, On the other hand, sound, foreign to bring us back to life. Noise has the power has come to strike our ears an occasional element, no outside thing, a musical, always and irregu- gushing confusely Noise, familiar face does our eye. than an overly more out oflarly sur- innumerable to us and it keeps in store revealed totally is never life, all noises we in selecting and coordinating feel certain that our benefit. We prises for did not suspect. they men with a voluptuousness will enrich art of that the special acoustic pleasure from power its main emotive noises will extract ubuclassics ubu.com - edom pr , haracteristic fundamental noises: the y rhythms are equally perceptible. are y rhythms oices: eams , sobs , scr 10 10 tions of of movements them. The rhythmic a ttlings e secondar , ra , moans tegories the most c h mor hic xists not only a predominant pitch, but as well a as well but pitch, xists not only a predominant e e e than combina her ound w . T ar dly mor e har e noises using animal and human v ood, skin, shouts e infinite e included in these 6 ca v s ar , baked earth, etc. laughter or the futurist orchestra that we intend soon to realize mechanically: soon to realize intend we that orchestra or the futurist cussiv e ha 5 6 3 4 1 2 1 other per whispers shrill sounds whispers shrill sounds cracks mutterings rustlings buzzings grumbles jingles grunts shuffles gurgles metal, w roars whistles roars claps snores noises of snorts falling water driving noises bellows the inspired artist will obtain in combining noises. Here are the six categories of the six categories are Here noises. will obtain in combining artist the inspired nois- es f the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise stone W noise ar inant rhythm ubuclassics ubu.com e but, rather, increase its range. increase rather, e but, 11 11 haracteristic timbr ficulties presented by the construction of by ficulties presented these instruments , half-pitches and quarter-pitches. This of variety and quarter-pitches. , half-pitches will pitches its c hes pitc hnical dif h noise of he tec ariety of e eac 6 - This new orchestra will produce the most complex and newest sonic emotions, and newest the most complex will produce 6 - This new orchestra 5 - T 1 - We must enlarge and enrich more and more the domain of the domain and more more and enrich enlarge must 1 - We sounds. musical of the limited variety replace must 2 - We of timbres the instruments by orchestral once he is rid of sensibility, 3 - The musician’s will find traditional rhythms, facile, basic pitch. a predominant noise possesses among its irregular vibrations 4 - Each priv y wide v er the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise are not grave. As soon as we will have found the mechanical principle which produces a produces principle which the mechanical found will have As soon as we not grave. are of to the laws according to graduate its pitch be able will we certain noise, For acoustics. ifinstance, it will speed it up or slow we movement, a rotating the instrument employs the size or decrease will increase instrument we When not dealing with a rotating down. or the tension of the sound-making parts. a succession ofnot through a fantas- through rather but life, noises reproducing imitative oftic association make possi- instrument must every this reason, For sounds. these varied of the changing ble or other exten- or smaller resonator larger a built-in, through pitches not de Our sensibility requires it. In fact it can be noticed that all contemporary composers be noticed that it. In fact it can of Our sensibility requires sound, they pure from away Moving dissonances. most complex the genius tend to stress only through noise-sound. This and this tendency can be totally realized need reach nearly ofthe joining and substituting sounds. musical for noises to and ofinfinite variety of timbres special mechanisms. noises obtained through in the domain of noises the means of each an easy task, since and renewal, development noise offers us the union of as its dominant one. as well rhythms the most diverse this sound, instruments meant to produce building This it easy to obtain, while will make a v Conclusions: ubuclassics ubu.com ofoundly loved ofoundly e no acoustic prefer- v t I ha ojects on a pr one day we will be able to be able will we one day ho pr usician, so tha ent incompetence, knowing that audacity that knowing ent incompetence, 12 y appar . I am not a m eoccupied with m enew everything. This is why, bolder than the bolder professional musi- than the bolder professional bolder This is why, enew everything. ks to defend. I am a futurist painter w or Luigi Russolo Painter My dear Pratella, I submit to your futurist genius these new ideas, and I invite futurist genius these new ideas, I submit to your My dear Pratella, 8 - We invite all the truly gifted and bold young musicians to analyze all nois- to analyze musicians all the truly gifted and bold young invite 8 - We 7 - The variety of7 - The variety a over possess nowadays certainly We noises is infinite. , nor w ou to discuss them with me the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise Milano, March 11, 1913. March Milano, ofDirection 61, Milano. Corso Venezia, the futurist movement: gives all prerogatives and all possibilities, I have conceived the renovation of the renovation conceived I have and all possibilities, all prerogatives gives music the Art ofthrough Noise. distinguish among ten, twenty or thirty thousand different noises. We different thousand noises. or thirty ten, twenty distinguish among rather to combine them accord- these noises but to imitate will not have fantasy. ing to our artistic ences art his will to r cian, totally unpr y es so as to understand their different composing rhythms, their main and their sec- es so as to understand composing rhythms, their different how will realize Comparing these noise sounds to other sounds they ondary pitches. and the taste, Thus the comprehension, than the former. varied more are the latter sensibility will gain futurist Our expanded noises will be developed. the passion for the engines of In a few years, has futurist eyes. ears as it already our industrial cities of factory orchestra is turned every will be skillfully tuned so that into an intoxicating noises. thousand different machines, among whose thousand different noises we can distin- different noises we thousand among whose machines, thousand different of the endless multiplication guish. With machinery, sion. ubuclassics ubu.com 13 Luigi Russolo in 1913 with his mechanical orchestra. in 1913 with his mechanical Luigi Russolo the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise ubuclassics ubu.com - 15 noise instru hestra, composed of c 14 Awakening ofAwakening a Capital Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes Dining Time at the Casino Terrasse Skirmish at the Oasis was conducting the or s 1 shatterer s 1 ster uzzers 2 gurglers uzzers 2 ur ussolo himself The four noise networks are not mere impressionistic reproductions of reproductions impressionistic not mere are The noise networks four life 3 b 2 b 1 thunderer 3 whistlers 1 shriller 2 rustlers 1 snorter In spite of some lack of on the part of experience the performers, due to the R On the 2nd ofOn the 2nd creator Russolo, the futurist painter 1913, in Modena, June, poet Marinetti then undertook the and the The futurist composer Pratella to back went the futurist painter Russolo evening, Right after this memorable st Concert ofst Concert Noise Instruments Futurist the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise around us, but rather moving noise syntheses. Through a clever variation of variation a clever Through noise syntheses. moving rather but us, around pitches, and become abstract ele- and accidental episodic quality, the noises lose their imitative small number ofsmall number perfect, and the was almost always the orchestra hasty rehearsals, voluptuousness a new sonic revealed Russolo truly startling performance obtained by to all the auditors. ments: of the Art of the first noise time the different for and demonstrated explained Noise, with the painter Ugo collaboration in and built he had just invented instruments that Theatre. 2000 persons filling up the Storchi over before Piatti defense of in the face of in a violent contradictory debate, these amazing inventions insults on the part of and uncouth abuse “passé-ists.” the that his first Noise Networks four and creating perfecting his noise instruments work, on the House, Red performed finally were Milano’s a first during noise concert at ofevening hall, the leaders of 11. Inside the large August sev- and the futurist group they this strange orchestra: eral important Italian journalists massed around were noise networks different greeted the four and hurrays with enthusiastic applause titles follow: whose Fir ubuclassics ubu.com 15 Listening to the harmonizedListening of combined pitches whistlers, the the bursters, the art ofthe art russolo luigi noise and the gurglers, no one remembered autos, locomotives or running waters; one locomotives autos, remembered no one and the gurglers, intense emotion of an experienced rather and like absolutely unforeseen futurist art, itself. nothing but ments of art. ubuclassics ubu.com Sixth Reading John Cage, excerpts from Silence (1961) SILENCE I I I Lectures and writings by JOHN CAGE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS , ;'~ i I I WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by University Press of New England Hanover, NH 03755 Copyright © 1939, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961 by John Cage Ali rights reserved First printing, 1961. Wesleyan Paperback, 1973. Printed in the U rUted States of America 15 Paperback ISBN {}-8195-602~ Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-14238 Many of these lectures and articles were delivered or published elsewhere from 1939 to 1958. The headnute preceding each one makes grateful acknowledgment of its precise source. To Whom It May Concern Other Wesleyan University Pre•• books by Jobn Cage A Year from Monday: New Le About the Author His teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, said John Cage was "not a composer but an inventor of genius." Composer, author, and philosopher, John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912 and by the age of 37 had been recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for having extended the boundaries of music. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978, and in 1982, the French government awarded Cage its highest honor for distinguished contribution to cultural life, Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Cage composed hundreds of musical works in his career, including the well known "4'33"" and his pieces for prepared piano: many of his compositions depend on chance procedures for their structure and perfonnance. Cage was also an author, and his book Saenee was described by John Rock~ well in the New York Times as "the most influential conduit of Oriental thought and religiOUS ideas into the artistic vanguard-not just in music but in dance, art and poetry as well: John Cage's books published by Wesleyan are, Silence (1961), A Year from Mandey (1967), M (1973), Empty Words (1979), which Cage also regarded as a performance piece, X (1983), MUSICAGE (1996), and I-VI (1997). John Cage died in 1992 at the age of 79. " ',',',fq' , I I I I Foreword / ix I Manifesto / xii The Future of Music: Credo / 3 Experimental Music / 7 Experimental Music: Doctrine / 13 Composition"" Process / 18 I. Changes / 18 CONTENTS II. Indetermloocy / 35 III. Communication / 41 Composttion / 57 To Describe the Process of Composition Used In Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No.4 f 57 To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music for Piano 21-52 / 60 ,) Forerunner. of Modem Music / 62 History of Experimental Music in the United States f 67 Erik Satie f 76 Edgard Varese / 83 Four Statements on the Dance / 86 Goal: New Music, New Dance f 87 Grace and Clarity /_89 In This Day .•• / 94 II Pages, lllll Words on Music and Dance / 96 On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work / 98 Lecture on Nothing / 109 Lecture on Something f 128 45' for a Speaker / 146 Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing? / 194 Indeterminacy f 260 Music Laoer' Field Componion / 274 , • " :,' FOREWORD For over twenty years I have been writing articles and giving lectures. Many of them have been unusual in form-this is especially true of the lec tures-because I have employed in them means of composing analogous to my composing means in the Seld of music. My intention has been, often, to say what I had to say in a way that would exemplify it; that would, con ceivably, pennit the listener to experience what I had to say rather than just hear about it. 'Ibis means that, being as I am engaged in a variety of activities, I attempt to introduce into each one of them aspects convention ally limited to one or more of the others. So it was that I gave about 1949 my Lecture on Nothing at the Artists' Club on Eighth Street in New York City (the artists' club started by Robert Motberwell, which predated the popular one associated with Philip Pavia, Bill de Kooning, et al.). 'Ibis Lecture on Nothing was written in the same rhythmic structure I employed at the time in my musical compositions (Sonatas and Interludes, Three Dances, etc.). One of the structural divi sions was the repetition, some fourteen times, of a single page in which occurred the refrain, "If anyone is sleepy let him go to sleep." Jeanne Reynal, I remember, stood up part way through, screamed, and then said, -~ while I continued speaking, "John, I dearly love you, but I can't bear another minute." She then walked out. Later, during the question period, I gave one of six previously prepared answers regardless of the question asked. 'Ibis was a reflection of my engagement in Zen. FOREWORD/lx At Black Mountain College in 1952, I organized an event that involved This collection does not include all that I ~have written; it does reflect what the paintings of Bob Rauschenberg, the dancing of Merce Cunningham, have been, and continue to be, my major concerns. films, slides, phonograph records, radios, the poetries of Charles Olson and Critics frequently cry "Dada" after attending one of my concerts or M. C. Richards recited from the tops of ladders, and the pianism of David hearing one of my lectures. Others bemoan my interest in Zen. One of the Tudor, together with my lua/iard lecture, which ends: "A piece of string, liveliest lectures I ever heard was given by Nancy Wilson Ross at the a sunset, each acts." The audience was seated in the center of all this activ Cornish School in Seattle. It was called Zen Buddhism and Dada. It is pos ity. Later that sununer, vacationing in New England, I visited America's sible to make a connection between the two, but neither Dada nor Zen is first synagogue, to discover that the congregation was there seated pre a fixed tangible. They change; and in quite diHerent ways in diHerent cisely the way I had arranged the audience at Black Mountain. places and times, they invigorate action. What was Dada in the 1920's is As I look back, I realize that a concern with poetry was early with me. now, with the exception of the work of Marcel Duchamp, just art. What I At Pomona College, in response to questions about the Lake poets, I wrote do, I do not wish blamed on Zen, though without my engagement with in the manner of Gertrude Stein, irrelevantly and repetitiously. I got an A. Zen (attendance at lectures by Alan Watts and D. T. Suzuki. reading of The second time I did it I was failed. Since the Lecture on Nothing there the literature) I doubt whether I would have done what I have done. I am have been more than a dozen pieces that were unconventionally written, told that Alan Watts has questioned the relation between my work and including some that were done by means of chance operations and one that Zen. I mention this in order to free Zen of any responsibility for my actions. was largely a series of questions left unanswered. When M. C. Richards I shall continue making them, however. I often point out that Dada nowa asked me why I didn't one day give a conventional informative lecture, days has in it a space, an emptiness, that it formerly lacked. What now adding that that would be the most shocking thing I could do, I said, "I adays, America mid-twentieth century, is Zen? don't give these lectures to surprise people, but out of a need for poetry." As I see it, poetry is not prose simply because poetry is in one way or I am grateful to Richard K. Winslow, composer, whose musical ways another formalized. It is not poetry by reason of its content or ambiguity / are diHerent from mine, who seven years ago, as Professor of Music at but by reason of its allowing musical elements (time, sound") to be intro Wesleyan University, engaged David Tudor and me for a concert and duced into the world of words. Thus, traditionally, information no matter who, at the time as we were walking along, introduced me without W/ll'll how stuffy (e. g., the sutras and shastras of India) was transmitted in ing to his habit of suddenly quietly singing. Since then, he has twice invited poetry. It was easier to grasp that way. Karl Shapiro may have been think us back to Wesleyan, even though our programs were consistently percus ing along these lines when he wrote his Essay on Rime in poetry. sive, noisy, and silent, and the views which I expressed were consistently Committing these formalized lectures to print has presented certain antischolastic and anarchic. He helped obtain for me the Fellowship at the problems, and some of the solutions reached are compromises between Wesleyan Center for Advanced Studies which, in spite of the air-condition what would have been desirable and what was practicable. The lecture ing, I have enjoyed during the last academic year. And he inspired the Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing? is an example. In this University Press to publish this book. The reader may argue the propri and other cases, a headnote explains the means to be used in the event of ety of this support, but he must admire, as I do, Winslow's courage and oral delivery. unselfishness. Not all these pieces, of course, are unusual in form. Several were writ ten to be printed-that is, to be seen rather than to be heard. Several others -J.C. were composed and delivered as conventional informative lectures (with June 1961 out shocking their audiences for that reason, so far as I could determine). x/SILENCE FOREWORD/xi The text below was written for Julian Beck and Judith Malina, director, of the Living Theatre, for fJ8e in the!r program booklet when they were performing at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Greenwich Village, New York. written in response ) SILENCE to a request for t instantaneous and unpredictable a manifesto on ( music, 1952 ) our ears are nothing ~ accomp•• lished by writing a piece O.f m.uSic } U bearing" « now • playing· • in excellent condition -JOHN CAGE xII/SILENCE Thli following text was delivered as a talk at a meeting of a Seattle am societV organized by Bonnie Bird in 1937. It was printed in the brochure accompanying George Avakian's recording of my twenty-five-year retrospective concert at Town Hal~ New York, in 1958. THE FUTURE OF MUSIC: CREDO I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound elfects but as musical instruments. Every lllm studio has a library of "sound eHects" recorded on mm. With a lllm phonograph it is now possible to control the amplitude and frequency of anyone of these sounds and to give to it rhythms within or beyond the reach of the imagination. Given four fllm phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide. TO MAKE MUSIC If this word "music' is sacred and reserved for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. WILL CONTINUE AND IN CREASE UNTIL WE REACH A :MUSIC PRODUCED THROUGH THE AID OF ELECTRICAL INSTRUMENTS Most inventors of electrical musical instruments have at tempted to imitate eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instruments, just as early automobile designers copied the carriage. The Novachord and the THE FUTURE OF MUSIC: CREDO/3 Solo vox are examples of this desire to imitate the past rather than construct The composer (organizer of sound) will be faced not only with the entire the future. When Theremin provided an instrument with genuinely new field of sound but also with the entire field of time. The "frame" or fraction possibilities, Thereministes did their utmost to make the instrument sound of a second, follOwing established film technique, will probably be the basic like some old instrument, giving it a sickeningly sweet vibrato, and per_ unit in the measurement of time. No rhythm will be beyond the compcser's forming upon it, with difficulty, masterpieces from the past. Although the reach. instrument is capable of a wide variety of sound qualities, obtained by the turning of a dial, Thereministes act as censors, giving the public those NEW ME'lHODS WILL BE DISCOVERED, BEARING A DEFINITE RELATION TO SCHOEN sounds they think the public will like. We are shielded from ilew sound BERG'S TWELVE-TONE SYSTEM: experiences. Schoenberg's method assigns to each material, The special function of electrical instruments will be to pro in a group of equal materials, its function with respect to the group. (Har vide complete control of the overtone structure of tones. (as oppcsed to mony assigned to each material, in a group of unequal materials, its func noises) and to make these tones available in any frequency, amplitude, tion with respect to the fundamental or most important material in the and duration. group.) Schoenberg's method is analogous to a society in which the empha sis is on the group ""d the integration of the individual in the group. WHICH WILL MAKE AVAILABLE FOR MUSICAL PURPOSES ANY AND ALL SOUNDS llIAT CAN BE HEA:JU>. PHOTOELECTIUC, FILM, AND MECHANICAL AND PRESENT METHODS OF WRITING PERCUSSION MEDIUMS FOB 11IE SYNTIIEnc PRODUCTION OF MUSIC· MU~C It is now pcssible for Percussion music is a contemporary transition from keyboard-inflU composers to make music directly, without the assistance of intermediary enced music to the all-sound music of the future. Any sound is acceptable to performers. Any design repeated often enough on a sound track is audible. the composer of percussion music; he explores the academically forbidden Two hundred and eighty circles per second on a sound track will produce "non-m~sical· field of sound insofar as is manually possible. one sound, whereas a portrait of Beethoven repeated fifty times per second Methods of writing percussion music have as their goal the rhythmic oil a sound track will have not only a different pitch but a different sound structure of a composition. As soon as these methods are crystallized into quality. one or several widely accepted methods, the means will exist for group im provisations of unwritten but culturally important music. This has already WILL BE EXPLORED. taken place in OrieDtal cultures and in, hot jazz. WHEREAS, IN THE PAST, TIlE POINT OF DISAGREEMENT HAS BEEN BETWEEN DIS SONANCE AND CONSONANCE. IT WlLLBE. IN THE IMMEDIATE FUnJRE, BETWEEN AND ANY OTHER METHODS WHICH ARE FREE FROM THE CONCEPT OF A NOISE AND SO-CALLED MUSICAL SOUNDS. FUNDAMENTAL TONE. THE PRESENT METHODS THE PRINCIPLE OF OF WRITING MUSIC, PRINCIPALLY THOSE WHICH EMPLOY HARMONY AND lTS REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR STEPS IN THE F1ELD OF SOUND, WILL BE INADEQUATE FORM WILL BE OUR ONLY CONSTANT CONNECIlON WITH THE PAST. ALmOUGH FOR THE COMPOSER. WHO WlLL BE FACED WITH THE ENTIRE F~ OF SOUND. 'I1IE CHEAT FORM Of' TIm FUTURE WILL NOT BE AS IT WAS IN.THE PAST, AT 4/SILENCE THE FUTURE OF MUSIC, CREDO/5 ONE TIME TIlE FUGUE AND AT ANO'l1lER THE SONATA, IT WILL BE RELATED TO The foUowing statement wo.s given .. an addre.. to the convention of tho THESE AS THEY ARE TO EACH OTHER: Music Teachers Natiorwl Association in Chicago in the winter of 1957. It wo.s printed in the brochure accompanying George Avakian"s recording of my twenty-five-year retrospective concert at Town HaU, New York, in 1958. Before this happens, centers of experi mental music must be established. In these centers, the new materials, oscillators, turntables, generators, means for amplifying small sounds, film phonographs, etc., available for use. Composers at work using twentieth century means for making music. Performances of results. Organization of sound for extra-musical purposes (theatre, dance, radio, film). THROUGH THE PRINClPLE OF ORGANIZATION OR MANS COMMON ABILITY TO TlIINK. EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC Formerly, whenever anyone said the music I presented was experimental, I objected. It seemed to me that I"'mposers knew what they were doing, It was a Wednesday. I was in the sixth grade. I overheard Dad saying to Mother, "Get ready: we're and that the experiments that had been made had taken place prior to the going to New Zealand Saturday." I got ready. I read everything I could find in the school library about New Zealand. Saturday came. Nothing happened. The project was not even mentioned, that day or any finished works, just as sketches are made belore paintings and rehearsals succeeding day. precede performances. But, giving the matter further thought, I realized that there is ordinarily an essential dillerence between making a piece of M. C. Richards went to see the Bolshoi Ballet Sbe waS delighted with the dancing. She said, "Irs not music and hearing one. A comp6ser knows his work as a woodsman knows what they do; it's the ardor with which they do it.'h I said, c'Yes: composition, perfonnance, and audition or a path he has traced and retraced, while a listener is confronted by the observation are really different things. They have next to nothing to do with one another." Once, I told ber, same work as one is in the woods by a plant he has never seen before. I was at a house on Riverside Drive where people were invited to be present at a Zen service conducted by a Japanese Roshi. He did the ritual, rose petals and all. Afterwards tea was served with rice cookies. And then the bostess and ber busband, employing an out-of-tune piano and a cracked voice, gave a wretcbed Now, on the other hand, times have changed; music has changed; and performance of an excerpt lrom a third-rate Italian opera. I was embarrassed and glanced towards the Roshi I no longer object to the word "experimental." I USe it in fact to describe all to see how be was taking it. The expression on his lace was absolutely beatific. the music that especially interests me and to which I am devoted, whether someone else wrote it or I myseH did. What has happened is that I have A yOWlg man in Japan arranged his circumstances. so that he was able to travel to a distant island to study Zen with a certain Master for a three-year period. At the end of the three years, feeling no sense of become a listener and the music has become something to hear. Many accomplishment, he presented himseH to the Master and anaounced his departure. The Master said, "You've people, of course, have given up saying "experimental" about this new been bere three years. Why don't you stay three months more?" The student agreed, but at the end of the music. Instead, they either move to a halfway point and say "controversial" three months be stilllelt that he had made no advance. When he told the Master again that he was leaving, or depart to a greater distance and question whether this "music· is music the Master said, "Look now, you've been here three years and three months. Stay three weeks longer." The at all. student did, but with no suc<:ess. When he told the Master that absolutely nothing had happened, the Master said, '"You've ~ here three years, three months, and three weeks. Stay three more days, and if, at the end of that time, you have not attained enlightenment, commit suicide." Towards the end 01 the second For in this new music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are day, the student was enlightened notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the 6/SILENCE EXPERIMENTAL MUSlC/7 written music as silences, openin~ the doors of the music to the sounds that used not simply to record performances of music but to make a new music happen to be in the environment. This openness exists in the /lelds of that was possible only because of it. Given a minimum of two tape recorders modern sculpture and architecture. The glass houses of Mies van der Rohe and a disk recorder, the following processes are possible: 1) a single record reBect their environment, presenting to the eye images of clouds, trees, or ing of any sound may be made; 2) a rerecording may be made, in the grass, according to the situation. And while looking at the constructions in course of which, by means of filters and circuits, any or all of the physical wire of the sculptor Richard Lippold, it is inevitable that one will see other characteristics of a given recorded sound may be altered; 3) electronic things, and people too, if they happen to be there at the same time, through mixing (combining on a third machine sounds issuing from two others) the network of wires. There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty permits the presentation of any number of sounds in combination; 4) ordi time. There is always something ~o see, something to hear. In fact, try as nary splicing permits the juxtaposition of any sounds, and when it includes we -may to make a silence, we crulnot. For certain engineering purposes, it unconventional cuts, it, like rerecording, brings about alterations of any or is desirable to have as silent a situation as possible. Such a room is called an all of the original physical characteristics. The situation made available by anechoic chamber, its six walls nlade of special material, a room without these means is essentially a total sound-space, the limits of which are ear echoes. I entered one at Harvard University several years ago and heard determined only, the position of a particular sound in this space being the two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer result of five determinants: frequency or pitch, amplitude or loudness, in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in overtone structure or timbre, duration, and morphology (how the sound operation, the low one my blood in circulation. Until I die there will be begins, goes on, and dies away). By th~ alteration of anyone of these sounds. And they will continue follOwing my death. One need not fear determinants, the position of the sound in sound-space changes. Any sound about the future of music. at any point in this total sound-space can move to become a sound at any other point. But advantage can be taken of these possibilities only if one is But this fearlessness only follows if. at the parting of the ways, where willing to change one's musical habits radicaily. That is, one may take it is realized that sounds occur whether intended or not, one turns in the advantage of the appearance of images without visible transition in distant direction of those he does not intend. This turning is psychological and places, which is a way of saying "television," if one is willing to stay at home seems at Ilrst to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity-for instead of going to a theatre. Or one may fly if one is willing to give up a musician, the giving up of music. This psychological turning leads to the world of nature, where, gradually or suddenly, one sees that humanity walking. and nature, not separate, are in this world together; that nothing was lost when everything was given away. In fact, everything is gained. In musical Musical,habits include scales, modes, theories of counterpoint and har terms, any sounds may occur in any combination and in any continuity. mony, and the study of the timbres, singly and in combination of a limited number of sound-producing mechanisms. In mathematical terms And it is a striking coincidence that just now the technical means to these all concern discrete steps. They resemble waIking-in the case of produce such a free-ranging music are available. When the Allies entered pitches, on steppingstones twelve in number. This cautious stepping is not Germany towards the end of World War II, it was discovered that improve characteristic of the possibilities of magnetic tape, which is revealing to us ments had been made in recording sounds magnetically such that tape had that musical action or existence can occur at any point or along any line become suitable for the high-fidelity recording of music. First in France or curve or what have you in total sound-space; that we are, in fact, tech with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, later here, in Germany, in Italy, in Japan, nically equipped to transform our contemporary awareness of nature's and perhaps, without my knowing it, in other places, magnetic tape was manner of operation into art. I/SILENCE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC/' Again there is a parting of the ways. One has a choice. If he does not variance with the ultiruate performance in time may be used. The total field wish to give up his attempts to control sound, he may complicate his musi of possihilities may be roughly divided and the actual sounds within these cal technique towards an approximation of the new possibilities and aware divisions may be indicat;ed as to number but left to the performer or to the ness. (I use the word «approximation" because a measuring mind can never splicer to choose. In this latter case, the composer resembles the maker of a finally measure nature.) Or, as before, one may give up the desire to control camera who allows someone else to take the picture. sound, clear his mind of music, and set about discovering means to let Whether one uses tape or writes for conventional instruments, the sounds be themselves rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expres present musical situation has changed from what it was before tape came sions of human sentiments. into being. This also need not arouse alarm, for the coming into being of something new does not by that fact deprive what was of its proper place. This project will seem fearsome to many, hut on examination it gives Each thing has its own place, never takes the place of something else; and no cause for alarm. Hearingsounds which are just sounds irumediately sets the more things there are, as is said, the merrier. the theorizing mind to theorizing, and the emotions of hUlpan beings are continually aroused by encounters with nature. Does not a mountain unin But several effects of tape on experimental music may be mentioned. tentionally evoke in us a sense of wonder? otters along a stream a sense of Since so many inches of tape equal so many seconds of tirue, it has become mirth? night in the woods a sense of fear? Do not rain falling and mists more and more usual that notation is in space rather than in symbols of rising up suggest the love binding heaven and earth? Is not decaying flesh quarter, half, and sixteenth notes and so on. Thus where on a page a note loathsome? Does not the death of someone we love bring sorrow? And is appears will correspond to when in a tirue it is to occur. A stop watch is there a greater hero than the least plant that grows? What is more angry used to facilitate a performance; and a rhythm results which is a far cry than the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder? These responses to from horse's hoofs and other regular beats. nature are mine and will not necessarily correspond with another's. Emo tion takes place in the person who has it. And sounds, when allowed to be Also it has been irupossible with the playing of several separate tapes themselves, do not require that those who hear them do so unfeelingly. The at once to achieve perfect synchronization. This fact has led some towards opposite is what is meant by response ability. the manufacture of multiple-tracked tapes and machines with a corre sponding number of heads; while others-those who have accepted the New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand something sounds they do not intend-now realize that the score, the requiring that that is heing said, for, if something were beipg said, the sounds would be many parts be played in a particular togetherness, is not an accurate repre given the shapes of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds. . sentation of how things are. These now compose parts but not scores, and the parts may be combined in any unthought ways. This means that each Those involved with the composition of experimental music find ways perfonnance of such a piece of music is unique, as interesting to its com~ and means to remove themselves from the activities of the sounds they poser as to others listening. It is easy to see again the parallel with nature, make. Some employ chance operations, derived from sources as' ancient as for even with leaves of the same tree, DO two are exactly alike. The parallel the Chinese Book of Changes, or as modem as the tables of random num in art is the sculpture with moving parts, the mobile. bers used also by physicists in research. Or, analogous to the Rorschach tests of psychology, the interpretation of iruperfections in the paper upon It goes without saying that dissonances and noises are welcome in this which one is writing may provide a music free from one's memory and new music. But so is the dominant seventh chord if it happens to put in an iruagination. Geometrical means employing spatial superimpositions at appearance. IO/SlLENCE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC/11 Rehearsals have shown that this new music, whether for tape or for in This article, there titled Experimental Music, first appeared in The Score and struments, is more clearly heard when the several loud-speakers or per I. M. A. Magazine, London, issue of June 1955. The inclusion of a dialogue formers are separated in space rather than-grouped closely together. For between an uncompromising teacher and an unenlightened student, and the addition of the word "doctrine" to the original title, afe references to this music is not concerned with harmoniousness as generally understood, the Huang-Po Doctrine of Universal Mind. where the quality of harmony results from a blending of several elements. Here we are concerned with the coexistence of dissimilars, and the central points where fusion occurs are many: the ears of the listeners wherever they are. This disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about dis order, is simply a hannony to which many are unaccustomed. Where do we go from here? Towards theatre. That art more than music resembles nature. We have eyes as well as ears, and it is OUf busi· EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC: DOCTRINE ness whUe we are alive to use them. Objections are sometimes made by composers to the use of the term And what is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not deal experimental as descriptive of their works, for it is claimed that Ilhy ing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the experiments that are made precede the steps that are finally taken with form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play. This determination, and that this determination is knowing, having, in fact, a play, however, is an affirmation of life-not an attempt to bring order out particular, if unconventional, ordering of the elements used in view. These of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of objections are clearly justifiable, but only where, as among contemporary waking up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets evidences in serial music, it remains a question of making a thing upon the one's mind and one's desires out of its way and lets i~act of its own accord. boundaries, structure, and expression of which attention is focused. Where, on the other hand, attention moves towards the observation and audition of many things at once, including those that are environmental-becomes, that is, inclusive rather than exclusive-no question of making. in the sense When Xenia and I came to New York from Chicago, we arrived in the bus station with about twenty-five cents. We were expecting to stay for a while with Peggy Guggenheim and Max Ernst. Max Ernst had met of forming understandable structures, can arise (one is tourist), and here us in Chicago and had said, 'Whenever you come to New York,. come and stay with us. We have a big the word "experimental" is apt, prOviding it is understood not as descriptive house on the East River." I went to the phone booth in the bus station, put in a nickel, and dialed. Max Ernst of an act to be later judged in terms of success and failure, but simply as of answered. He didn't recognize my voice. Finally he said, "Are you thirsty?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, an act the outcome of which is unknown. What has been determined? come over tomorrow forcocktaUs.» I went hack to Xenia and told her what had happened. She said, "Call For, when, after convincing oneself ignorantly that sound has, as its him hack. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose." I did. He said, "ObI It's you. We've been clearly defined opposite, silence, that since duration is the only character waiting for you for weeks. Your room's ready. Come right over." istic of sound that is measurable in terms of silen,ce, therefore any valid Dad is an inventor. In 1912 his submarine had the world's record for staying under water. RUnning as structure involving sounds and silences should be based, not as occidentally it did by means of a gasoline engine, it left bubbles on the surface, so it was not employed during World traditional, on frequency, but rightly on duration, one enters an anechoic War 1. Dad says he does his best work when he is sound asleep. I was explaining at the New School that the . chamber, as silent as technologically possible in 1951, to discover that one way to get ideas is to do something boring. For instance, composing in such a way that the process of hears two sounds of one's own unintentional making (nerve's systematic composing is boring induces ideas. They By into one's head like birds. Is that what Dad meant? operation, blood's circulation), the situation one is clearly in is not objec- 12/SILENCE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC, DOCTRINE/!3 / tive (sound-silence), but rather subjective (sounds only), those intended taken), obscure (you !DiU never be able to give a sotisfactory report even ~and those others (so-called silence) not intended. If, at this point, one says, to yourself of ;ust what happened). "Yesl I do not discriminate between intention and non-intention: the splits, In view, then, of a totality of possibilities, no knowing action is com subject-object, art-life, etc., disappear, an identification has been made with mensurate, since the character of the knowledge acted upon prohibits all the material, and actions are then those relevant to its nature, i.e.: but some eventualities. From a realist position, such action, though cau A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another tious, hopeful, and generally entered into, is unsuitable. An experimental sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has no time for any consideration-it is action, generated by a mind as empty as it was before it became one, thus occupied with the performance of Its characterisiics: before it has died in accord with the possibility of no matter what, is, on the other hand, prac away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its Wudness, its tical. It does not move in terms of approximations and errors, as "informed" length, its ooertone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself. action by its nature must, for no mental images of what would happen were Urgent, unique, uninformed about history and theory, beyond the set up beforehand; it sees things directly as they are: impermanently in imagination, central to a sphere without surface, its becoming is unim volved in an in£nite play of interpenetrations. Experimental music- peded, energetically broadcast. There is no escape from its action. It does QUESTION: -in the U.S.A., if you please. Be more specific. What do not exist as One of a series of discrete steps, but as transmission in all direc you have to say about rhythm? Let us agree it is no longer a question of tions from the field: s center. It is inextricably synchronous with all other, pattern, repetition, and variation. sounds, non-sounds, which latter, received by other sets than the ear, oper ANSWER: There is no need for such agreement. Patterns, repetitions, ate in the same manner. and variations will arise and disappear. However, rhythm is durations of A sound accomplishes nothing; without it life would not last out the any length coexisting in any states of succession and synchronicity. The instant. latter is liveliest, most unpredictably changing, when the parts are not Relevant action is theatrical (music [imaginary separotion of hearing fixed by a score but left independent of one another, no two performances from the other senses] does not exist), inclusive and IntentionaUy pur yielding the same resultant durations. The former, succession, liveliest poseless. Theatre is continuaUy becoming that it is becoming; each human when (as in Morton Feldman's Intersections) it is not fixed but presented being is ot the best point for reception. Relevant response (getting up in in situation-form, entrances being at any point within a given period of the morning and discovering oneself musician) (action, art) can be made time.-Notation of durations is in space, read as corresponding to time, with any number (including none [none and number, like sUence and needing no reading in the case of magnetic tape. music, are anreal] ) of sounds. The aatomatic minimam (see above) is two. QUESTION: What about several players at once, an orchestra? Are you deaf (by natare, choice, desire) or can you hear (externah, ANSWER: You insist upon their being together? Then use, as Earle tympani, "'byrinth. In whack) P Brown suggests, a moving picture of the score, visible to all, a static vertical Beyond them (ears) is the power of discrimination which, among line as coordinator, past which the notations move. If you have no particu other confused actions, weakly pulls apart (abstraction), ineffectaally lar togetherness in mind, there are chronometers. Use them. establishes as not to suUer alteration (the "work"), and ansklllfaUy pro QUESTION: I have noticed that you write durations that are beyond tects from interruption (maseum, concert hall) what springs, elastic, the possibility of performance. spontaneous, back together again with a beyond that power which is ANSWER: Composing's one thing, performing's another, listening's a fluent (it moves in or out), pregnant (it can appear when- where- as third. What can they have to do with one another? what-ever [rose, naU, constel"'tion, 485.73482 cycles per second, piece of • • • string]), re"'ted (it is you yourself In the form you have that instant 14/SILENCI EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC. DOCTRINE/l5 QuEsTION: And about pitches? chanically, electronically) In producing a sound. You won't lind it In the ANswER: It is bue. Music is continually going up and down, but no books. Notate that. As far as too loud goes: "follow the general outlines of longer only on those stepping stones, live, seven, twelve In number, or the the Christian life." quarter tones. Pitches are not a matter of likes and dislikes ( I have told QuESTION: I have asked you about the various characteristics of a you about the diagram Schillinger had stretched across his wall near the sound; how, now, can you make a continuity, as I take it your intention is, ceiling: all the scales, Oriental and OcCidental, that had been In general without Intention? Do not memory, psychology- use, each In its own color plotted against, no one of them identical with, a ANSWER: "-never again." black one, the latter the scale as it would have been had it been physically QuEsTION: How? based on \he overtone series) except for musicians In ruts; In the face of ANSWER: Christian Wolff Introduced space actions In his composi habits, what to do? Magnetic tape opens the door providing one doesn't tional process at variance with the subsequently performed time actions. lnunediately shut it by Inventing a pbonogtlne, or otherwise use it to recal1 Earle Brown devised a composing procedure In which events, following or extend known musical possibilities. It Introduces the unknown with such tables of random numbers, are written out of sequence, possibly anywhere sharp clarity that anyone has the opportunity of having his habits blown In a total time now and possibly anywhere else In the same total time next. away like dust.-For this purpose the prepared piano is also useful, espe I myself use chance, operations, some derived from the I -Ching, others from cially In its recent forms where, by alterations during a performance, an the observation of imperfections In the paper upon which I happen to be otherwise static gamut situation becomes changing. Stringed Instruments writing. Your answer: by not giving it a thought. (not string-players) are very lnsbuctive, voices too; and sitting still any QuEsTION: Is this athematic? where (the stereophonic, multiple-loud-speaker manner of operation In the ANSWER: Who said anything about themes? It is not a question of everyday production of sounds and noises) listening ... having something to say. QuEsTION: I understand Feldman divides all pitches Into high, middle, QUESTION: Then what is the purpose of this "experimental" music? and low, and simply Indicates how many In a given range are to be played, ANSWER: Nopurposes. Sounds. leaving the choice up to the performer. QUESTION: Why bother, since, as you have pointed out, sounds are ANSWER: Correct. That is to say, he used sometimes to do so; I haven't continually happening whether you produce them or not? seen him lately. It is also essential to remember his notation of super- and ANSWER: What did you say? I'm still subsonic vibrations (Marglrud Intersection No.1). QUESTION: I mean-But is this music? QUESTION: That is, there are neither divisions of the "canvas" nor ANSWER: Ahl you like sounds after all when they are made up of "frame" to be observed? vowels and consonants. You are slow-witted, for you have never brought ANSWER: On the contrary, you must give the closest attention to your mind to the location of urgency. Do you need me or someone else to everything. • hold you up? ~y don't you realize as I do that nothing is accomplished • • by writing, playing, or listening to music? Otherwise, deaf as a doomall, QUESTION: And timbre? you will never be able to hear anything, even what's well within earshot. ANSWEl\: No wondering what's next. Going lively on -tIu'OUgh many a QuEsTION: But, seriously, if this is what music is, I could write it as perilous situation." Did you ever listen to a symphony orchestrll? well as you• • • • ANSWER: Have I said anything that would lead you to think I thought QUESTION: Dynamics? you were stupid? ANSWER: These result from what actively happens (physically, me- 16/SILENCE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC: DOCTRINE/17 L Seventh Reading Michael Nyman, “Towards A Definition Of Experimental Music” (1974) Steve Reich, “Music As A Gradual Process” (1968) Eighth Reading Selected Projects from Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation, Lely and Saunders (eds.) (2012) '(196t)tuarg ]raLtano alqel-aturf pup (6561))rsnw alqef-aLuL'tq)atg aBtoag 79 JO uorlEsrJPOJluEtlt.l JrJt suorslJeP ,{\JJJrll lroqs .(ia.,rileJorE ul ',alurloLuos,,,letnb ., a;rnbor sJei{to .,JUo Sur.rnpaf,uo, ,.auot J '1atnb .uoqs (.tan tai, ,'l ra8uol to seJueruJ(jl eorqt Jo asrnoJ aqt L tu a^1 alqe!-ew!! pue r.renr{ elqeJ'.alJ/'u:frelueu tuo) Jo sarJJs e .ro) amrt uJotsa.\\r{lJoN tE oJEs ,slue^f, lo ul6Fo eql -i3rro se,n arerd aq1 (LqOL)rue^Z elqe1.atr;4 pue (656!l >FnW elqeleur4 r s.erard oqt Jo txatuo:) -rssod aql Surpro.le,.p ur, ]ELII Sluaruruor ra3 Surrnp raqlo aqr Bur:r aratd eqr Jo puo eqt r '.eterd aql Jo pua aql e6tooD roqE teql roqler lnq .: ]Llrol8 tou seoP eJoJsaqf .tr TIME-TABLEMUSIC Forperformance in a railwaystation. Theperformers enter a railwaystation and obtaintime-tables. Theystand or seatthemselves so as to bevisibletoeach oth- er, and,when ready, start their stopwatches simultaneously. Eachperformerinterprets the tabled time indications in terms ofminutesand seconds (e.9.7:16 = 7 minutesand 16 sec- onds).He selectsone time by chanceto determinethe total durationof his performing.This done, he selectsone row or column,and makes a soundat all pointswhere tabled times withinthat row or columnfallwithin the total duration of his performance. George tsrechi Sudmer,1.959 TIME.TABLEEVENT to occurin a railwaystation A time-tableis obtained. A tabled'timeindication is interpreted in minutesand seconds ( 7:16 equalling, for example,7 minutesand 16 seconds). This determinesthe durationof the event. Spring.1961 G.Brccht '(ool s;aqto ,ro1)reded 'Surruaur.radxe uo ureql Surund ;o (11asdu.ro;) ru;o1 E punoJ ,{1uo I Jo epotu '..rauaddeq, e ueeq s.{em1eeleq stue^E E peli€tr uaeq s€q ,leqr ueql tuerutearl peuarq8rlua eJour selJasap oq,u '.no.rde) uEIIV 'eldtuexe lol ,se ,,tsrue-tuela, (.eqr, as.lom ;o) ue pe11erSuteg ;o rorror{ E Jo lno A\oLrot dn rr popto.re a.req '.slLreAO, I tnoqe olrr,&\IIr^A I teqt arurt tsEI eqr llqeqo.rd pue lstq rqt sr srql NOUqV) JO 310N V - AlJVtA 1Ht Or ('uersaroJeq lou 'ro; plnor uortesrl€erJo sarlrlrqrssodeLIl tELIt ast.rdrns tueseal4) lrp.{\ot perl 'uedef nodtq8noqr I sacardeqt Jo suorlesrlea-rrrlqnd opetuperl sreqto pue ur 'eloqny 'r8nso;'y'pue13u3 'oruerg Ituolqs ur ^\rpre3 snrleLrloJ pue lueu.raS 'asudrns 'uo rrr seunrle1[ a8.roa3 ]€qt peuJeol 1 .,(ruor raqtrr ratel 'Suruaddeq e ro iuanf aplqa\ tololN ilI1 r>lrlun 'rurLll qtr,u op ot lEr{.4\.&\oul plno^\ 'ate.r.ud orllA spuaiJJdru ol alerrunururoJot patue,\\ 1 sluauruarg8rluaelrl .,{.re,r.arueceq sauo relel eql'-{lsnoun3'(uagr pue A\oueuo atrr,{\Ilrts 1)teql ;aqe s.reedl€re^es roJ pa^rrrepue dlsnordol eurer serof,s-tuoleeqr 096t uI '(luanEl (peqsrus umopuns aplqay rcpW aql se.^A.tuela, ue se 'uoBEnlrs PaltD.{ltrlrldxo orard tsJg eqt retpl sqluoru eerql aql luory u,r\erp 'Surlurlq eq plnol alerd ,tue.ra,.(ynrr u trrll rru ot pallntf,o lr leu8rsurnr-r;a1 oqr pue Suruunrrotou eL[]'uo8e.u uortels prog gstlSuEtrru purqeq Surpuers 'osnoq 'atuu 'dasraf eqt ruoJJeruof, ot o;r.lrdru .ro;Sunrelt aqt tp pelrl I eJeql\ 'lrr.trsunrg '0961 .rrag tseg ur spoo^\ eqt ur Surpuels ;o 8urrd5 aqr uy 'raglo .{ue uerll ur petsereturse.&\ I ef,uerradxa(1eror) .{rosuas 'sluanV -nlnlu er{t ot JasolJsE.&\ (luole, pJo^{\aqt leqt Sureq lq8noqr hu '.t.ra1ir:3 spftmol (>1;o.nnpatuerro-rrafqo e.ioru dru 1o uagnegrq] lE) ^\oqstsrg 'nouentrs dru 11erot peprroppeq I 656I Jo IIeJ aqr dg reqt os e Jo senrlenb s! lerne dla.rnd oql uo srsegdruouE rltr.&\pegsrtessrp .{l3ursra.rrur se.u 1 5d 'elqrssodse 'ssnyrinrl sp qtr^\ truouorr JO L{f,nrusE rltr.{\ peruroJredara,u ,{aqr q8noqr '.{11e.rnese (llerr.raqdsoute lP: 'd11ensr.t 'paru.io;.rad -3 SuDsareturse uaq.u Ief,rJleeqtetrnb tno peu.rnt sa:ard 'Qttorl 5U F aq1 to] atat4 p,ra3) setots lerrsnu sEsprel Surdrld sp qlns sturiuele arue8Sursn rc'(sorpaA,LoJ atat4 apuaS) sauopaururralap-e.rd u€qt raqler 'ri1 -q suorternp etrueqf,ur-tlrng qlr.tr sarerdIEJrsnu Surleru se sruelqo.rdr.{f,ns ur '1;oa rra.\\ uaql stseralurdlag ^\oN ur qrreaseUIErloS rot Iooilts .&\eNaql lE 5r I rrsnu Iptueuuadxaur sosseltrs.a8e3 ugof Surpuer]Espl\ I 656I pup 8S6I uI 016LFn6nV'tqtatg aaroeg ,slue^f, lo u!6!ro eql tt|. lHllu8 l9uo:D lua|r|elels (Ot,OZ)fi11stan1u1 edg qle1 rc! suolt)n)+sul 5f)NVWUOIUfd 3)f rd ru3)NO) tL JO CUO)fU Pu€ uoilualtE Jo r tEqt esuJS aql Lrr..: 'esrJ;axJ ua>1odsrc ouo o)o^ a2atd llu roqteqltr\ 296 WORD EVENTS RECORDOF 13CONCERT PIECE PERFORMANCES ... sincemost pieces consistof just titles or very short instructions, passing words as to how they were performed previously has become a habit... HIDE PIECE Hide. This piece was first performed in NewYork, Carnegie Recital Hall, 196I, by completely turning off the light in the concert hall including the stage and a girl hiding in a large canvas sheet on the stage while two men made soft voice accompaniment. In I962, Tokyo, also in total darkness, performers hid behind various things on the stage, while a male solo performer struggled to get out of a bag on the stage he was put in. In NewYork, 1965, performers and audience, using Canal Street subway station as a place of performance, hid from each other by using their own methods. In London, I966, Jeanette Cochrane Theatre, Yoko Ono brought out a 3 foot pole on the center of the stage and hid behind it % hr. SWEEP PIECE Sweep. This was first performed I962 in Tokyo, Sogetsu Art Center by a solo male performer during 4 hour concert of works by Yoko Ono. The performer covered the areas all around and in the concert hall. It was performed again 1966 London, Jeanette Cochrane Theatre, as a solo piece byYoko Ono, sweeping from one end of the stage to another. 'ouo ( 'uopur 'uelsrl ol ^poq s,rer{}o pue pun, r{cpa uo 6ut[1 pue e6els uo Eururoc aldoed l(q'4rol1arre11 rlq s4rorrl 'erleeq;, pug lspg aql le 996l ur peurolrod lsrg serri srq;, roluac l, 'leeqlreeq e ol ualsrT 3C5Id JV:ITI eqt l( 'arl' U.{LlO I aceld e s sroturo eruo/v\ e eq ol a^eq 6eq e;r '.ralo.{v\oq'raurro;rad lou saop eq;'ll eTpl pue (e411deql 'a6e1s eq1 r: 'euo 'e6e1s areqrn{ue) 6u51go1creq Jo uo4rod e lnc pue r(q euo aql uo dn etuoc ol ecuorpne eql 6ur4se pu€ raq Jo luorJ lJos ap ur srossrJs 3o rred e Furceld'uorlrsod burprs e ur pue e6e1s eur6u oql uo 6urruoc ou6 o4oadq poruroJrad l(1pnsn sr lI'uopuoT uI lql pue {rol/$eN'oI{oI'o1ol(;tr ur paruroJred seru,ecerd srq;, er6r .lnc 3C3rd JnC S:I L6Z ONO O>O 298 WORD EVENTS WIND PIECE Make a way for the wind. This was first performed in 1962 Sogetsu Art Center, Tokyo, with a huge electric fan on the stage. In 1966 Wesleyan University, Conn., audience was asked to move their chairs a little and make a narrow aisle for the wind to pass through. No wind was created with special means' PROMISE PIECE Promise. This was first performed in Jeanette Cochrane Theatre in London, I966.Yoko Ono, as the last piece of the night, broke a vase on the stage and asked people to pick up the pieces and take them home, promising that they would all meet again in I0 years time with the pieces and put the vase together again. Second performance was by a male performer in Tokyo calling a female performer in NewYork, 1964, at the Plaza Hotel; third performance by a solo performer calling a person in Kitazawa flat, I962; fourth performance by a man in Chinatown phone booth, NewYork, calling a person at Chambers Street loft, NewYork, 196I;fifth performance, an elephant in Paris calling a parrot in New Guinea, 1959 - all calls being about future meetings' Call or write about future meetings or any other plans. 'rueql roJ parederd sroppel pala^al lueroJJlp eql JJopodunl pue a6e]s oqt uo dn eruec oq/a ecuarpne eql dq ,erleeq;, auerr{co3 ..r(earr elleueaf le uopuoT ur ure6e pauuo;red se.nr\lI uano rar{/sn{ ur /yrog1q6ru eq1 papue}le oqarruosrad qcBg .?96I ..l(relpg 1e3's6u enbreg'orbloJ ur poruroJred seaaecerd srq;, lsrq .tltroNur lc qlJg:' ,(tt 6uqp: acueu.roJj 3C3Id TTJ reru-roJ ': le'tg6I reurro;rad a1 asen eq1 lnd IIE plno/n. 'ecuerpne eq1 Fuoure seurl eerql pessed aq1 dn 4crc sefl\,eql€orq,,6urr(es 6urre11e1fieurs qluv\ prec e6re1 V.996I ,lt{6Iu ''V'S'n ''uuo3'dlrsrelrun ul ueda1sel1 1epeuro;red lsrrg ur erlPorl 'aqlParg :IC3Id HIVSUTI 'ocuorpne eql uI uosrad lspl eql soqceor lr uo pessed Ilun lr alpq o1 6ur4se pup reo qocuelpne ue olur 'q6norql ssr pro/tA alou € ro e Euuedsrqar teuuoyred eql l(q peuro;red P Srreqc rraql 'secerd dlpnsn sr 11 qlnou-Jo-pro/ra aql;o 6uqrels eq1 uedalse se/yrpue 'ecard auoqdalel e pailec ll1pur6rro serurecard srq;, 'oI>1o;,'ra1ui 'redsrq6 33:IId U:IdSIHM 662 ONO O)OA 3OO WORD EVENTS QUESTIONPIECE Question. This piece, was first performed in Tokyo,I962, SogetsuArt Center, by two people on stage asking guestions to each other and not answering. At the time it was done in French, but it can be done in any language or in many different languages at one time. The piece is meant for a dialogrueor a monolognreof continuous questions, answered only by questions. It was also performed in English on Voice of America Radio Program, Tokyo, I964, and in Japaneseon Irl'[V (JapaneseTelevision) by six children from the audience, 1964. DISAPPEARING PIECE Boil water. This piece was first performed in NewYork, 1966, by only five people. This was not deliberate, but probably due to the subway strike in NewYork at the time. The water was boiled in a still, until it came out of the other side of the still, which took two hours. In London I966, Mercury Theatre, the boiling of the water, the size of the pot in which the water was boiled, etc., was announced on the stage. The actual boiling of the water was performed at a Notting Hill Gate flat' The complete evaporation of the water was announced from the stage as the ending of the piece. uorJ paJl 'leu alec n 'snroqc e oueceq qcF1/rr\ocueruroJred eq1Furrnp IPnpe ,,lE&Xrolrg Jo o6pug,, Jo 6uos euraql ar{l allsilU$ol pe}rels rolP.&r( aldoed'uopuoTul'u/v\ep grl 6urueaeuorJ palsel ll'tg6I aq 'o1or(;ur eldrrre;, rfuezuelquI'srnoq o/vUrelo serurleluos qcq/n'III ol solnuflu uel roJ roqlo qseo soqcnol ocuorpneeql pue JJo pslroq sE/ 1ndare s1q65eq1 ltlensn'uedef pue salels palgn'edorng oql ol anp ur seceld luoroJJrpur sorurl r(ueurpeurro;rad sem ecerd srq;, dluo dq 'qcnoJ 3C3td HCOOI (uorsuel 'go sao6 urele oql illun lre.tt{\ol po{se sr ocuerpne 'tue;6ot. pue e6e1s eql reluec eql uo peceld sr >Icolc e f1pnsj Jo osle sP/v\lJ'1 I E 3o en6olour ru le se6enbrrt li lj ll lnq'qc' raqlo rlcpe gy nslel 33:IId XCOTC Loe oNo o>o,\ { trr' Instructions for Bath Spa University (2O1Ol { 115Y.ao 1. Performone of thefollowing pieces in the way you have decided to perform. fra-,.ltll,h 2. Report to someone how the performancewent and share your experience in that e(n1). manner. 3. Burya set of recordsof your performancein a place only you will remember. yoko ono June 2010 Tape PieceI CollectingPiece EarthPrece SnowPiece Map Piece MirrorPiece Piecesfor Orchestra 'u^\o rraqt oIeru ot srrr{lo arrdsurIlr.\\ >lro,\\.{ru ;r paseold.{ra.t aq 1lrlt 1 '3ur1eaqspaau dytuaS.rn plro.{\ 'Surpeq 'plro^\ 'retq8nep 'uos eqr puy snoeuetlnursur e^erlagI eqt puu ltu 'e;o;araqt 'eur 'orurt .(ru pue iEaL[o] aruesaql re Surlurll] tr >lurJppue JJ]E.\\ realr Jo sse13e la8 rsnl IIr.r\I ]urqr y hou rq8rA'996I'I'N ur arueru;ol;ad '8ur1rog e sp prp I se - alerodele -rale,tteql rple.\\ pur splrarr1atr,rur tq8rru 1 'aed oro;eg errr upep ol retE^\ osn rg8ru 1 pue ruoorrlteg aqt ot oB tq8rur 1 'arrtn 'atat4 eLItte errtol suteur JetE.{\leg'r -,{e,uaLIt ur ruJo1JadIIt^ I n|a,yru1 'ur algplroJruorIaeJ no.{ ourssruerd;o aa-r8apaql pug or e^?q no,t 'orurssruerd.{e1d s.,{es uoDetou agt yr 'serorsf,rsnuJ Lrr e1r1 rsnf :{]r,trlea.rr rno.,{asn ol areds e noi sa,rr8lr tnq 'palelou aq .(eru seJors pro.{\ oql 'uorlf,g-allrans alrl - p1-ro,nlenrdc)uo.r eqt ol 'ot pa8uoleq,{1uo reqr Surgteruosse.\\ tr ro sueerueql r^Erl lou plp J esnplaq Jeqtre- ezrleal ot oru JoJ olqrssodtolr cJo.\\qrrq.tr reded uo seapr lnd 1 's.reqlo.{q,paruroyradTpaleld, 'crsnru 'sa;otrs eg upf,lr os e1r1rsn[ euoJeq UBJIJo.{\ ]JV terlt eepreqt e)rl I 'tno lr etrJ.\\ot erun eLIlseryt ,tluo r1 dy1:rnbtr-ral euor .taq1 'usrqppng uaz u o.{3 or prtelar qrnru .{.ro.nere ru;o;;ad or olqrssodrur,(pueredde erp qrrq,{\ seratd asoql 'srar{to roJ suorlrnrtsur Jo looq e sel.l'ynla(u.t2 'nlreq qtr.\\ Petlaulrof qrnru .,(;a,r.Illls sr tr ;o lrrrds 'ruaod rqt qBnoqr nlreq E uerit Ierururru ssal ueryo otrnb a-resuolttrn;tsul leqL!i 'etu - 'suoll .{ru rng JoJ ruo.rJoureJ tr oJJrl.,\\ s8urqt Jo aprs ruJoJ eql sr lerll -fnrtsur 'reod '.{yqerrrul '0107) euoraq .,(1rseaa,Leq plnor srueod asoql n>lretl€ sem 1 ]eq] ur elueue( ,{usra.\Iun ' url ojl e 6002raqopo zz'ouo o\o^ ed5 qlug ro1 suoDJnllsul 'ouo lueu|elels oioL 9II e0€ oNo o)o,^. CorneliusCardew The Great Learning, Paragraph 6 (1968-71) On the Role of the Instructionsin the Interpretation Thc GreaL of IndeterminateMusic Lear Commentary: The Great Learning,Paragraph 6 FROM Mal 80 CorneLiusCardetu, The Great Lean"rir"rg,Paragraph 6 (1968-71). > <'(tz-sgar)s,t,l \ tls Mollgpue asrnpdlpr?rr"6 e-rglreM cNV ure. rlq pr1 er ed s o *r rsu; 1pL[I ; :#"]'lfiyf'J 1$ ?qJ-'SPunosruql " qlyvl.ll ;qollg pue ash€d.;e.raurab Jlqloue r+ 'buolro ?q+'Palelosl lleM'spunosJn$ Pnol Prlql puo)as ufllnal.n'o|1o} pue ?sr€d "q+eJ+ltpil 'punosp?IeL^I lpraueD'sPunos Al9NlS lPuoq Walk (19691 CommentaryzWalk TALX for ar Each F each c randor i\ 111 L All be first 8et tc f igure at all for ar the in set of choice Always Cont in 1.1.6MichaelParsons, \Xralk (1969). ) ',. <'(6961)IIP,r\ 'sr(aurnof Jo raqanu paar8e ue palaldmoa a^eq IIE Irtun anurtuoC 'afnor lJa.r.tp tsoE aqt dq txau aq1 ot lulod auo no.rt oB sr(eAlv '(aarJ sr dauJnof qcea ro] of aAoB of sturod E Jo t.C aql Jo qrTq! Jo aJroqJ :luTod ts.rrf arll or lf,eq ro) tulod raqloue roJ i{I3urprof,f,p }}o las 'sa:ntry .aur1 pue yo .r1ed puoaas rnod pea.r lo qftuaT pat?f,rpur aql roJ araqf palTEA Put palrrre Eutaeq :stulod uasoqa ]nod ]o Jaqtoue ro] 'paads paurEJalap aqf f? .JJo fas uaqJ .(aETt SuoI {raa a =6 rllp f" astrf ou =O) paqDsar lurod aqt tB {Bts ol tuol Aoq no{ sllat arn8r3 puocas aqt :(dIAoTs fraa =5 .1sey d-ral =O) tulod lxau aqg ol ta8 .sa.rn81g ot aAou ol tsEJ 6oq nod sllat afn8rJ tsxTf aqI 1o rled ls.r11 .sfurod rno( peal uasoqJ rno( Jo auo tp Surpuefs ..taqfaSol u;8aq 119 'paqJear 1u:od aqt te IIIts Eulpuels fuads anrt lo qlEual (TI txau aqt o1 lurod auo Eort tu111ea 3o paads (l :au'frtrJafap of, sJaqurnu uesoqJ {IEopue.r 'slurod .raqfo yo s:1ed tursn asaqf Jo -raqtouE of auo t8o:J sIIeA pue qJpa .sluTod .e tnorJ aJuEtsrp lenba .{1q3no: Jo S ro t sesoor{J uosrad qceg .areds uado a3.re1 e ur 3u1:11ea aldoad ;o raqunu due :og suosred laeqf,rx xTnt { GavinBryars Far Away and Dimly Pealing ('1970) On Verbal Notation Commentary: Far Away and Dimly Pealing IAI._At.lAY_-S Cause soun Do not use The sound (the only train seve 70 Gauin Bryars,Far Away and Dimly Pealing(LSZO). ) \ '@ZAf < )Brrr1ue.1 '(apeu eq of sEA punos eqt (qa:aqa sueau aql Surranas urB:l ssardxa uE .{q pat:Bnqt sEA s1qt tB apeu lana 1 tdualle dTuo aql) :au:o;rad aqr (q preaq aq ot aTqe aq plnoqs punos aqJ .nod :oJ punos aql a)iPu of asla auoauos AoTTe tou op pu" sanrsoldxa asn 1ou oq .rau:o;:ad aqt uorJ aTlur auo fsP31 lE rn3f,o of spunos asn"3 s:edrg urneg SNrMd r.'i}^lrocNv lvllv uvr 6r ir i 130 ,',ORD EVENTS Two Attempts rt In November2008, John Lely and I made a realisationof the pieceas part ir of a seriesof performancesof Gavin Bryars' music hosted by Bath Spa \i7hen h University. preparing a realisation of Far Aud1, pealing, and Dimly (' we found that two principal, ar.rdinterdependent, decisions needed to be \ made:how, and n'here.It seemedimpossible to fix one without attending lt to the other as they er-rforcernutual constraintson the performance.our startingpoint for the realisationwas ro begindiscussing how we might make u the piece.while it would havebeen straightforward enough ro use recenr T( technology,we felt that thereneeded to be somethingof the originalconrext for the pieceretained in our performance. The accourt of the failedfirst attemptin rhe scorealso hints at a physical t tr connectionbetween tl-re performer and the sound,so we beganby exploring practicalways to achievethis. we settledalmost immediately on rhe useof .l a suspendedbell attachedto a long pieceof string.This was implied by the .t score,is a cost-effectiveway to makethe piece,is easyto setup, and should h be fairiy robustgiver-r suitable materials. After researchingvarious types of srring,we bought 3 km of three-ply s sisalin four 750m balls(which were abour the sizeof footballs)ro makesure t lvc had enough.Thc stringneedcd to be strongin .rder ro preventsnapping when put under rension,but nor so heavythat it would be impossibleto pull. As it turned our, overbuyir-rg(a mile is c. 1660m) was a good decision: during the first attemprI would run our of string after unfurlingthree balls - supposedlycontaining 2250 m of string- some250 m short of the distance required.The string was ro be attachedto rny father's old Great Eastern Railwaystation bell. In preparingthe performance,we madenumerous resrs with short lengthsof string tied to the clapperro determinethe optimal mcansof producingthe sound. \(/e were awarerirat the weight of the string might be such that once rhe clapperwas pulled,the stringcould preventir from returningto its original position,givir-rg us only one chanceto make the bell sound.By anglingthe bell with the handlepointing awayfrom the directionof pulling, the weight of the clapperwould provideit with the bestchance of multiple strikeson 'We reieaseof the string. mounredthe bell on a wheeledtripod, placing it about a metreoff the ground. Oncewe had decidedhow to makethe sound,our principalproblem was to find a sitewhere we could try a rcalisation.Bryars'parenthetical comment in the scoreserved as a u'arninghere: the likelihoodof interferencewas high along what would most likely be an unguardedstretch of land. Sabotage could not be ruled out in a public space,so we looked at siteswhere either therewas no public access,or the probabilityof beingdisturbed was low: it would most likely be a privateperformance. ril/e considered beaches, remote parts of Norfolk, and open countrysidebefore settling on an airfieldas the most practicallocation. Theseare not generallyaccessible and havelong straiqhttarmac runwsvs. -/ rirp 11n;c ro1 a8rrq: Jo arrJ plegrrr ar.ltol ssrJJr Eurpr.rordro] runDroslro] Jrrqspro]xo LIlroN Jrll pue uolduBH r{lrus uequE-I urlo-) o] e:r a.1 . 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'punos plno.^Auloq rIE aql pue 'ra88t.it eqr uo u.ttop qsnd '1a.nop ol lod.la,uog eql asner plno.^aseuots eqt ;o rq8ra.n aqr agr .(e.tredrqlt 'palind '1a.nop pyno,la,Suuls egr url{.{\ reql os aql Jo Puo luorJ rqt uo IooL{ E 'selqqed ot Surrls Jo elrru rno Jo puo auo pelr erN qreag a8-re1qtl^\ Pallg uoqr 'rj 'aqnl s?,\\ eqnt aql perroddns {a.\\op aqt a.req.tr ar{t oPlsur u.uop paddo;p '.ra38r.rl se.u tod.ra.ra.ogrrrseyd y uJoq-JIE otlt oloqe lsnl pJtroursod sem'rr leql '4req os ot tuo.U ruorJ eqnl eqr gBnotqr ,{11eruozr.roqPetresul s€'&\lemoP Jo 'adrr 'q8norqr arard y qlr.tr uro;re1d eqr ol pexg sE^\ egnt PrEoqPrEt aq1 elod or lrrd ,uroq, aql ^\olle or tuor' aql lE po^oruor eqnt aL[] Jo uollres € 'n.ioq 'ru;ope1d qtrl eql ro^o .{1prrr.ra.tpera.{\ol se^\ egnt PrEoqPrEr a3.re1y '.(eltun; I?leu e uo eql Jo pue rEJ aql Sunu; peceld sE,\\urotl rIE eqJ dpernb ;r',{pe:p orrnb p-reaqrq plnol urotl rrE rqt tnq'rlqrPnEur sE,trurrElE leuos-r:d eq1 denun; aqt Jo pua rerllo rr{l uor1 alglpne aro.tt .,{aqrtou to rJtllrtl.\\ rEeLI 'u.roq o1 .,tipnueru sof,Ilep qtog palrl a,\\ pue .rte pestrnssard E Puu ru.iele 'suortnlos leuosred e dnlceq omt 3uo1e rq8no;q peq e,{\ dlateunl.rog i{e,nunr aql rPunos E e>lelu Jo puo dru uor; olgrpneul IIIrs s?.\\ IIaq aql tnq rePnol qrnul ol pe,rord srql 'a>llrrs tlter rrUE osealer retlag E ure8 pue a;ou pa11ndaq 'pupts '.tpernb or IIeq eql 8ul^\olle eqt JJo se>lprqorll >lool oq os .,{1.ttu;rtaqle '8ur8ur.r '8ur1-rol\ se.tl ly sE.{\IIJq eqr a;ns oIEIU ot tI Pslsel pue .,{e.uun;aqt E€T SUVAU€NIAVD 134 WORD EVENTS tension was taken up gradlrallli before a final tug releasedthe pebblcs.From a mile awal; the air horn n'as just auclibleu.ith its initial blast, which quickly subsided. I continued to watch thc instrument from nearby and after a while the rveight of the pebblcs unexpectedlv caused more of the compressedair ro graduallv seepout, and moments later the air l-rornregained er-roughpressure to make a second, sustained,dying and slorvlvfalling sound, n'hich again was audible a mile away 76 John Lely redlises Far Awa,v and Dinil,v Pealing Ninth Reading Jonathan Sterne, “Hello?” from The Audible Past (2003) Bonus Resource Craig Dworkin, Unheard Music (2009) craig dworkin unheard music information as material Unheard booklet.indd 1 31/8/09 22:57:30 Published in 2009 by information as material to accompany a film by Simon Morris pavel büchler making nothing happen © 2009 Craig Dworkin www.informationasmaterial.com Front cover: Pavel Büchler, 3'34" installation version Kunsthalle Bern, 2006 Back cover: Pavel Büchler, LIVE installation view Ateliergemeinschaft Gramophon Hannover, 1999 Unheard booklet.indd 2 31/8/09 22:57:30 Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. John Keats John Cage: 4'33" (1952). The classic. In three movements. Premiered by David Tudor on piano, although it sounds pretty good even in transcriptions. Not to be confused with either the showier 0'00" (1962), “to be performed in any way by anyone” “in a situa tion provided with maximum amplification,” or the watered-down Tacet (1960), which “may be performed by (any) instrumentalist or combination of instrumentalists and last any length of time.” Recommended recordings: Frank Zappa’s acoustic rendition on A Chance Operation [Koch 7238], or Lassigue Bendthaus’ electronic version on Render [KK Records 115]; the definitive recording of 0'00" is by Peter Pfister [hat ART CD 2-6070]. For real range and lots of artistic license (well, lots of license at least), check out Roel Meelkop’s compilation of nine different performances on 45:18 [Korm Plastics 3005]. Pavel Büchler: 3'34" (2006). Shrewdly collected silences from the lead-in tracks on ten John Cage albums from Büchler’s record collection. These grooves are like the canine musicians in Franz Kafka’s 1922 Forschungen eines hundes: “sie redeten nicht, sie sangen nicht, sie schwiegen im allgemeinen fast mit einer großen Verbissenheit, aber aus dem leeren Raum zauberten sie die Musik empor [they did not speak; they did not sing; each of them re mained silent — almost concertedly silent — but they conjured music from thin air].” That thin air, as well as the music conjured from it, is what Duchamp would term “l’inframince [the thinner than thin; literally: below the thin].” Duchamp said that l’inframince could not be precisely defined but only approached by examples, such as “le bruit ou la musique faits par un pantalon de velours côtelé comme celui ci quand on le fait bouger [the noise or music Unheard booklet.indd 1 31/8/09 22:57:30 made by corduroy pants like these rubbing when one moves]; “Pantalons de velours—/ leur sifflotement (dans la) marche par/ frottement des 2 jambes est une/ separation infra-mince signalée/ par le son [velvet trousers—/ their whistling sound (in) walking by/ brushing of the 2 legs is an/ infra-thin separation signaled/ by sound].” Kafka’s dogs, accordingly, make their own silent music by moving their legs: “Alles war Musik, das Heben und Niedersetzen ihrer Füße” [Everything was music: the lift and lower of their limbs].” In 3'34" the lifting and lowering of the tone arm conjures the music: a barely audible phonographic hiss, whistling like fur or velvet, above the persistent crackles and the odd reports of needle- hopping pops which return the listener with a jolt to Duchamp’s other example of the “séparation infra mince entre le bruit de détonation d’un fusil (très proche) et l’apparition de la marque de la balle sur la cible [infra thin separation between the detonation noise of a rifle (very close-range) and the apparition of the bullet hole in the target].” As this example suggests, the inframince is related, in Duchamp’s lexicon, to “delay” — precisely what the lead-in track is meant to effect — and it is only the slight delay of the tone arm’s descent, the inframince moment of deferral between the drop and the playback, that preserves the silence in this project, since the crunchy noise of scratch and wear becomes louder with every spin. Indeed, even the sounds of the original master are an index of how often Büchler listened to his Cage albums; the disc is as much confession, or proof, as concept. And as a concept, it is a nearly perfect gesture, in which even the flaws of deteriorating vinyl provide sonic interest. The only possible improvement to 3'34" would be an adjustment to the total timing, which is tidily palindromic but not quite there. Had Cage been more sanguine about recordings of his work during the LP era, or Büchler more of a completist, he might have managed three more albums — enough for another 59 seconds of silence [Kunsthalle Bern]. Although the resulting track is of negligible musical interest, mashup enthusiasts should note that Matt Wand sampled Büchler’s Unheard booklet.indd 2 31/8/09 22:57:31 disc for his contribution to Soundtrack for a Mersey Tunnel, a tribute album produced by Alan Dunn to honor the Number 433 bus, which travels the Mersey Tunnel between Liverpool and Birken head [limited edition CD-R, hors commerce]. Alphonse Allais: Marche funèbre pour les funérailles d’un grand homme sourd (1897). The great granddaddy of silent pieces. Allais — something of a cross between Erik Satie, Raymond Roussel, and Joel Stein — is probably best known for pioneering fiction structured on holorhymes, but he was also a composer. Sort of. The first movement of his Funerary March is simply nine empty measures [see the Album Primo-Avrilesque (Paris: Ollendorf, 1897)]. No recording, to date, but a scaled-down version for string quartet was premiered at the FestivalManké (Nice) in 2000, under the direction of Ismaël Robert (who perhaps took a cue from Henry Flynt’s 1961 Fluxus score, which reads: “The instructions for this piece are on the other side of this sheet.” The other side, of course, is blank). Stephen Vitiello: Fear of High Places and Natural Things (2004). Like a substantially more animated dance mix of Allais’ Marche, Vitiello’s installation at the Long Island City Sculpture Center visualizes sound in a mute choreography. An array of speaker cones hung from above in a semi-circle pulse and bulge, deforming with the powerful sounds that they’re making. But try as you might — head cocked, ear cupped — you can’t hear a thing: those sounds are at such a low frequency they can’t be heard by human ears. The huffs and puffs of expended air, however, can actually be felt as the woofers pant with the exertion, dancing on, without a sound, eternally suspended in the grand jeté of their aerial ballet. James Whitehead (aka Jliat): Still Life #5 (2000). Six types of silence, all sounding the same but all empirically different. And potentially damaging to boot. The medium is the message, and Unheard booklet.indd 3 31/8/09 22:57:31 in the case of the 16 bit 44.1khz compact disc the message can have 65,536 types of silence, none of which are the same: different data but all sounding null. In Still Life, Whitehead wrote those data directly to a PCM file, creating 6 ten-minute pieces with all of the values in a given track set to the same binary values. As Whitehead explains: pausing the playing of a track will show this to be so, for the data being played is halted and the CD system jumps back to zero — resulting in a click (if the value ‘playing’ was not zero or near to it). Interestingly this click is heard but is not actually on the recording — it physically doesn’t exist! It is the interference of the continuous stream of data which causes the sound. The second track, “Swing” [+16383], is my favorite. Since the CD player translates every one of the continuous set of binary values to DC voltage, playing the disc can actually damage the speaker- system coils and electronics in direct-current coupled equipment. Play at your own risk [Edition... 011]. Ken Friedman: Zen for Record (1966). Blank phonograph record in homage to Nam June Paik’s Zen for Film (1964): a 16mm film consisting only of clear leader (often claimed to be an hour long, the screening I saw was advertised as 10 minutes, though it clocked in at closer to 8). Not to be confused with Christine Kozlov’s Transparent Film #2 (16mm) from 1967, or Madison Brookshire’s 2007 sound film Five Times, an audio update of Ernie Gehr’s 1970 History (“five rolls of film, unedited, spliced one after the other,” as Brookshire describes his version: “The only images and sounds come from the light that reaches the film when it is loaded into and taken out of the camera”). The incidental soundtrack to Paik’s film is a lot louder than Friedman’s disc. If you get a chance, sit near the projectionist; even after only eight minutes you’ll never forget the nervous clack and twitter of the shutter, blinking like a blinded Cyclops in the noonday sun... Unheard booklet.indd 4 31/8/09 22:57:31 Christian Marclay: Record Without a Cover (1985). Issued without a sleeve or cover, and with the stern instruction “do not store in a protective package,” one side of the 12" 33rpm disc contains music made by “manipulated records on multiple turntables recorded 4-track at Plugg New York City March 1985” (as the inscription on the verso of the grooved side reads). Though museums and collectors probably take pretty good care of their copies, the inevitable damage to the unprotected vinyl was intended to increase the nonmusical noises over time, in a collaborative duet between chance inscription and the carefully recorded turntable improvisations. On initial release, the former member of that duo is entirely silent. While the side engraved with written text remains silent, its legibility decreases in an inverse ratio to the audibility of the grooved side’s aleatory duet [Recycled Records/reissued by Locus Solus in 1999]. In contrast, Marclay’s sophomore release, Record Without a Groove (1987) was issued in a swank suede protective package. In mint condition it reportedly sounds a lot like a Coil B- Side. Edition of 50 [Ecart Editions]. W. Mark Sutherland: Scratch (2002). Piero Manzoni meets Christian Marclay. In a more articulate version of John Berndt’s neoist performance at the Berlin Apartment Festival (1986), in which he vandalized a blank record with intentional scratches, Sutherland ruined a perfectly good metal master by scratching the word “scratch” into the plate, from which two-hundred phono graph records were pressed. With no recorded sound to guide it, the needle skates across a frozen vinyl lake, tripped up by written ruts in need of resurfacing, as the LP spins to a unpredictably post-bob syncopated set of skips and pops. Recursively iconic, the work repeatedly performs its title: a hastily written [scratched] word canceling [scratching] the master and producing chance [scratch] music, with oblique references to the cultural history of the phonograph as it cut across musical genres, from jazz [the scratch, or money, that commercialized recording promised and too frequently denied to the players and composers themselves] to Unheard booklet.indd 5 31/8/09 22:57:31 hip hop [the DJ’s scratching of the phonograph in a quick manual shuffle for cross-faded rhythmic effect] [Koffler Gallery]. Steve Reich: Pendulum Music (1968). Like your high-school physics lab, but without fudging the results. Several microphones (no input) are suspended from a cable over a loudspeaker, with amplifiers arranged so that they generate feedback only when the microphone and loudspeaker are in alignment. The mics are set swinging along their pendular paths, honking briefly each time they pass the speaker and coming naturally to a droning stop. Pre miered in Boulder by Reich and William Wiley, the performers for the 1969 Whitney concert were Reich, Bruce Nauman, Michael Snow, Richard Sierra, and James Tenney. Two good recordings from the Ensemble Avantgarde (two versions) [Wergo 6630-2] and Sonic Youth on Goodbye 20th Century [SYR4]. Matmos: “Always Three Words” (1998). First word: 4-channel tape recorder. Second word: walkie-talkie (no input). Third word: another walkie-talkie (no input). Both of the hand-held walkie- talkies are put in transmit mode and moved over the recorder; producing interference which can be manipulated with gestural sweeps. Last word: smart and funny and it’s got a beat [Quasi- objects, Vague Terrain 001]. Jarrod Fowler: 70'00"/17 (2004). A precision stopwatch without that irritating ticking noise nagging at you constantly — or any noise at all, for that matter — Fowler’s disc is a template with which the compact-disc player functions merely as a clock, without any sonic decoding. With seventeen tracks timed to exactly four minutes each, it’s intended to explore bounded aspects of space and extension, but it’s also handy for timing a brunch’s worth of perfect soft-boiled eggs when they come cold from the fridge. Limited edition CD-R [JMF 002]. Similarly silent chronographic projects have included audio-file translations of texts, in which one page of the source equals one second of playing time, and Unheard booklet.indd 6 31/8/09 22:57:31 a mashup audio translation of Heidegger’s Being and Time and Sartre’s Time and Nothingness, which results in an empty file. Clicking on the link from Fowler’s website provokes Quicktime into placing a transparent question mark over its clock-like logo Q in an angst- ridden existential shrug of the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 shoulders. The result is probably a lot like what La Mort was listening to while composing Nudisme at the Café des Poètes in Cocteau’s Orphée. “Aucun excès,” as Orpheus is admonished, “n’est ridicule!” Haco: Stereo Bugscope 00 (2004). Like ripping the pickups out of Taku Sugimoto’s guitar and running them over Toshimaru Nakamura’s no-input mixer. The avant-pop chanteuse gives up her surreal, after-dinner crooning and ‘80s fashion frock, dons a crisp white lab coat and grabs a couple of induction microphones to amplify the normally unheard electromagnetic noises generated from common consumer electronics: a cell phone’s hibernating heartbeat clicking off the seconds even in the sleep mode; a wireless router sending out its fluttering protocol pulse; cooling-fans and mini-discs in spin; the tug and stretch of bootstraps as computers start themselves up and shut themselves down, still in constant hum even when dataless and asleep; the interior integrated circuits of their motherboards and lithium-driven real-time clocks oscillat ing with nearly silent currents. Unplugged and idle, the electronic world surrounding us on standby is in constant whine and chatter, tiny poltergeists and banshees and lorelei with luring whispers in the near dark night of small red indicator lights [IMJ 523]. Mattin and Taku Unami: Shyrio No Computer (2004). Haco may have taken her inspiration from Basque artist Mattin, who has been playing the computer in that manner for years, and Taku Unami may well be doing much the same thing on his disc Intransigent Towards the Detectives of Capital [w.m.o./r 8] though I downloaded the tracks and to be honest can’t really hear what’s going on over the noise of my own computer. On Shyrio [the Shinto term for the spirit of the dead acting on the living], Mattin and Unami facilitate Unheard booklet.indd 7 31/8/09 22:57:32 the studio improvisation between a speaker cone and the computer feedback that drives it, self-generated when the input and output ports of the same machine are connected in one of Mattin’s trade mark perverse loops. The result is like the placid burble of electric brooks, barely audible inside a slumbering laptop dreaming of Arcadian runnels. Twigs snap now and then, there’s a rustle in the leaves just beyond the field of vision, from somewhere a panting picks up, too late the dreamer and the nightmare inextricably meld, prey and pursuer merge, the pacific pastoral shatters, awakened by outbursts of autophagic choke and failed squelch, the electric ouroboros gagging in an outraged roar and leaving you shaking with the unshakable dream of a inhuman silence we can never attain. Compare with the earlier Mattin and Unami duet Attention (1997), on which they turn up the volume on what it means to listen to a CD in the first place [h.m.o./r 01 and h.m.o./r 3 respectively]. Mike Batt: “One Minute of Silence” (2002). The kind of thing that gives the avant-garde a bad name. Third-rate excerpt from Cage’s 4'33", impatiently arranged by British impresario Batt and included on the album Classical Graffiti by The Planets. An imposter child of Silence and slow Time, Batt was promptly sued by Cage’s publisher for copyright infringement. The suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed six-figure sum [EMI 5 57316 2]. Leif Elggren, Per Jonsson and Kent Tankred: “60 Seconds of Silence for Per Jonsson” (2004). Far superior to Batt’s similar-sounding composition, decidedly quieter than Hoyland’s equally-timed minute, and less maudlin than Semper’s, Per Jonsson’s piece plays as a deep sigh of recuperation, relief and fortification programmed between two works of loud theatrical absurdity. Collectors should note that in an inversion of The Phantom Pregnancy’s technophobia the steely studio digital silence is available only on the CD release, and is not included on the 12" record from which the opening Fylkingen performance was remastered [UGN/MAT, Ash International 5.3]. Unheard booklet.indd 8 31/8/09 22:57:32 No Noise Reduction. “0'0,060" for a Rock and Roll Band” (1995). Rowdy post-punk thrash from Tina and The Top Ten, featur ing the enthused guitars of Johnny Santini and Paulo Feliciano, with all the amps set to 11. The precision edit by Portuguese conceptualist Rafael Toral captures the band at their top-volume full-blast blow-out for exactly 60 milliseconds — just long enough to jolt you up out of the mosh pit and give a palpable sense of the band’s early exuberance and de-skilled attack. The rest of the piece is an ironically skillful 15 seconds and 40 milliseconds of si lence. Careful listening reveals that band-member Mimi is sitting those milliseconds out, and unfortunately is not heard on this track [Moneyland records, MR0495]. Yves Klein. Symphonie Monoton-Silence (1957). Meant to provide a sonic equivalent of his monochrome paintings, the second movement of Klein’s Symphony consists of twenty minutes of silence — just enough time to give the audience a chance to shake the sense of ringing from their ears: the first twenty minutes consist of a sustained D-major chord. The work was originally conceived for full Wagnerian orchestra, but performed in 1960 at the Galerie International d’Art Contemporain by a small chamber orchestra who memorized the score on short notice (though perhaps after peeking at the scrupulously notated version prepared by Pierre Henry a few years earlier). There is also a later, atmospheric version scored for mixed choir, strings, flutes, oboes, and horns. Not to be confused with the similar-sounding conclusion to Guy Debord’s filmHurlements en faveur de Sade (1952), which stretches aggressively on for a full four minutes longer. Though he denies any influence, Klein, not coincidentally, was present at the premiere screening. There are rumors that Klein also issued a completely silent recording, in 1959, of a Concert de vide [Concert of Vacuum] (not to be confused with Sir Malcolm Arnold’s roughly contemporaneous concert of vacuum cleaners [Op. 57, 1956]). Unheard booklet.indd 9 31/8/09 22:57:32 David Hoyland: “A Minute’s Silence for the Queen Mum” (2002). The inverse of Klein’s Symphonie, in some respects. Or dis respects. The unpatriotic Brits at this football match cheat the Queen out of about 12 seconds, but the pompous anthem that follows, with its slightly sour brass, makes one nostalgic for every second of preceding quiet. The unshielded mic picks up a lot of wind noise, so this lo-fi recording is primarily of documentary historical interest [Sonic Arts Network SA301-2]. Jonty Semper: The 1 Minute Silence from the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (2001). Mawkish tabloid silence captured in Hyde Park on 6 September, 1997. Ecouteuristic document of private emotions put on public display as they aspire to the bathos of private tragedies published as national spectacle, with every second scripted and conscripted in turn. Limited signed and numbered edition (of 250) on 7" vinyl. Semper’s Minute Silence stands as a contemporary free-verse lyric proem to his historic epic Kenotaphion (2001). Taking the long view of Matt Rogalsky’s one-day sample, Kenotaphion fills two CDs with absences culled from seventy years of BBC, British Movietone, and Reuters broadcasts of the annual two-minute silences during Britain’s Armistice Day ceremonies. Each year, while telephone and telegraph exchanges idled, trains braked to a stop, and factory machines powered down, the BBC did not just cut its signal but continued to broadcast what at any other time would be the journalistic sacrilege of dead air (a state that is in fact finable in the UK at a rate of £25,000 per minute for stations that continue in silence without alerting their listeners). Unlike the Cenotaph at Whitehall, these recordings are far from empty, with Big Ben drowning out the coughs and uncomprehending children of the reverent, amid atmospheric weather effects, broadcast static, startled birds and rifle reports. The only truly silent Armistice minutes occurred during the Second World War, from 1941 to ‘44, when the ceremony was suspended. Absent from Semper’s discs, those years speak the loudest and are by far the most moving. Joint productions between Charrm and Locus+ [CH060887 / KENO1]. 10 Unheard booklet.indd 10 31/8/09 22:57:32 Jean-Luc Godard: Bande à part (1964). In a moment of boredom, unable to think of how to entertain themselves and too agitated to indulge in a true French ennui, Franz (Sami Frey) proposes that the bande take “un minute de silence.” Godard obliges by cutting the soundtrack [la bande sonore mise à part]. “Une vraie minute de silence, ça dure une éternité” [a real minute of silence can last forever], Franz notes, but Godard’s lasts only 33 seconds. Accessible, funny, narrative reprise of the acerbic mean- spirited abstract silence from the final twenty-four minutes of Guy Debord’s Hurlements en faveur de Sade (1952). The Situationists would denounce Godard’s version as a “tardily plagiarized and useless [...] pretentious false novelty” but they were never known for their sense of humor, and it’s really pretty funny. A similar and even shorter composition, presumably by Michel Legrand, accompanies the tabletop finger performance of the film’s iconic dance scene, in which Odile and Arthur negotiate the steps they’ll soon dance to Legrand’s hipster swing number “Le Madison.” In mono. John Cage: Silent Prayer (1949, unrealized). Hints at the neo-dada origins of 4'33" and its latent corporate critique. Cage’s plan was to “compose a piece of uninterrupted silence and sell it to Muzak Co. It will be three or four and a half minutes in length — those being the standard lengths of ‘canned music’.” Cage, that still unravished mariée, would have mise à nu canned music and translated it into a Duchampian “hasard en conserve [canned chance].” Always seemed to be playing in the elevator in my old building. Coil: “Absolute Elsewhere” (1984 et seq.). Reichian music (though that’s Wilhelm, not Steve), Coil’s EP is the sonic equivalent to the architecture of an orgone box: a lot of attitude and BS with no thing inside. In this case, BS stands for B Side: the verso of the 12" The Soundtrack to the Program HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS: Ritual Music for the Accumulation of Male Sexual Energy (a long way of saying what T. Rex summed up with “bang a gong; get it on”). Unlike the gong-show A Side, “Absolute Elsewhere” manifests itself — de 11 Unheard booklet.indd 11 31/8/09 22:57:32 pending on the particular pressing — as a track of sheer noise, a constant quarter-hour tone, a series of lock-groove test tones, or a smooth grooveless slab (that is, a record with no “coil” at all). The CD version (1999) consists of one second of silence [L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords LAY05]. Telium Group: Record 1 (1991). Occasionally listed as self- titled or “t” (from the retro lowercase letter encircled on the silk screened cover), this Magnatone Records release is a grooveless 7" (edition 354). And I mean grooveless: George Clinton would be mortified [MGT 700-7]. Reynols: Blank Tapes (1999). Yep. Pieces made by the digital and analog processing of blank magnetic tapes. But special blank tapes, some of which had been saved, with a kind of touching sen timentality, since 1978. A lot noisier than the Argentine trio’s first release, Gordura Vegetal Hidrogenada, which was a “dematerialized cd” (it came as an empty jewel case, reprising Psychodrama’s 1984 release No Tape, a cassette shell that did not, as promised, contain any tape [the band’s best release to date]). That (lack of a) debut CD was appropriate for a group whose leader, Miguel Tomasin, occasionally asserted that they don’t exist. Tomasin, whose Down’s Syndrome misprisions were taken as oracular pronouncements by his partners Alan Courtis and Roberto Conlazo, also regularly announced that the United States doesn’t exist either. Which substantially cut down on his touring there. As Tomasin also says: todo afrazarmo de lo spolido cintas [TrenteOiseaux 002]. Linear Regressionists: Living on the Regression Line (1990). The statistical tool of linear regression analyzes the relation of independent variables for some quantity of interest. Here the variables include an unrecorded compact disc (X) drilled with holes (Y). The quantity of musical interest rapidly approaches zero (0), while the quantity of collectors’ interest rises over time. Observable data plots the current value to collectors at $30 (+/-$10). Find the 12 Unheard booklet.indd 12 31/8/09 22:57:33 sum of squares who will make the purchase (HINT: the slope is downward and the intercept rare). Edition of 50 [rrr 02]. Peeter Vähi. Supreme Silence (1999). The third movement of this Estonian composer’s piece is indeed scored for silence, which was probably a nice break for Kristjan Järvi and the men of the Estonian National Choir. Not to mention the listener who has to sit through the new-age orientalist mysticism of the other movements (the first of which, just to give you an idea, is entitled “Mandala Offering”). Fine silence, to be sure, piping to the spirit ditties of no tone, and it’s nicely recorded on this disk, but “supreme” is prob ably overstating the case [CCnC 182]. *0: 0.000 (2002). Actually not so rigorous as the title (or the pseudo nym of Nosei Sakata) suggests, but rather the subtle hum and the molecular waver of air from frequencies just beyond the threshold of human perception: an ultrasonic 20200hz and a subsonic 14hz (or, in the case of one raucous track, the overtone produced when the two are combined). Though even that relatively lower frequency isn’t likely to be reproduced on most sound systems. If you’ve got a good stereo, turn it up really loud and see how the neighbor’s dog reacts [Mu-Label 002]. Mieko Shiomi: A Musical Dictionary of 80 People Around Fluxus (2002). Music worthy of the OuLiPo, in which Shiomi “describes” each of those people either by realizing one of their works, put ting a signature compositional method into practice, or through a general pastiche of technique or timbre, but in all events using only the pitches available from the letters in the dedicatee’s name. The disc from Galerie Hundertmark doesn’t match the rigor of its concept with musicianship — a few selections feature Shiomi’s lackluster keyboard work, while others are left to an equally im passioned computer-driven synthesizer. “Oh no,” you’re thinking, “eighty people?” Oh, yes, but the best piece is #56, for Yoko Ono, whose name wisely refused to supply any notes [? Records 10]. 13 Unheard booklet.indd 13 31/8/09 22:57:33 Though no definitive recording ever emerged, the anti-expressivist wing of the Japanese onkyo-kei [sound reverberation school] brand of minimal gesture had been moving toward working entirely with non-networked equipment before the moment passed. The musicians themselves would object, but you might think of it as ap plied zen. More ascetic than spiritual, some performances matched Otomo Yoshihide and Akiyama Tetzui on empty turntables with Sachiko Matsubara at the sampler, but with no samples (only its sine-wave test) — all mixed together by Toshimaru Nakamura’s mixer without any input. For reference, audition Good Morning Good Night (2004) [Erstwhile 042-2], which sounds like an old grade- school hearing test, deep in some cinderblock nurse’s office, mis administered with faulty equipment. Then again, it may be better to meditate on the idea than to actually listen; try to imagine the hand of one clap sounding (in applause). Institut für Feinmotorik: Penetrans (2002). Following Martin Tetreault’s minimalist work directly with tone-arm pickups, this Southern German collective of turntablists spin their machines without any records. The record players, however, are very well prepared, in the Cagean sense of the term, with household items: rubber bands, tape, a toothbrush, et cetera. As the hearts of the hochwertige Discoplattenspielers beat away, a few wheeze and cramp with the repetitive stress, some begin to click and thrum, and before you know it the resultant low-tech techno creates a wry roots electronica. Most astonishing of all, though, is that what might have been an inspired conceptual gesture or a ’pataphysical investigation into “precision motoricity” has been going on for years now and led to nine (!) albums. Put on your narrow black- rimmed glasses and check one out [Staubgold 25]. Ervín Schulhoff: “In Futurum” (1919). Manic, anxious silence. The influence of early jazz and dada cabaret songs is palpable in the third movement of the Czech modernist’s Five Picturesques for piano. Though entirely silent, the score bristles with 14 Unheard booklet.indd 14 31/8/09 22:57:33 notation: from long, angst-filled tacets to jittery quintuplet rests. The counting is tricky, and with any but the most accomplished pianist it can detract from the work’s potential for emotional out pouring; according to the composer’s headnote, the piece is to be played with as much heartfelt expression as desired — always, all the way through [“tutto il canzone con espressione e sentimento ad libitum, sempre, sin al fine!”]. Richard Eigner: Denoising Noise Music (2007). The laboratory findings of Eigner’s Master’s Thesis at the Fachhochschule Salzburg, these two discs document the use of noise-reducing technologies on a range of soi-disant “noise music” — from Iannis Xenakis and Merzbow to Luigi Russolo’s Risveglio ii una città and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Intended to clean up non-musical sounds and restore damaged audio signals, the denoising algorithms set diligently to work on an entire genre. With few structural clues or melodic sequences to alert the denoising software to the presence of “music,” the original compositions were carefully erased and only a few stray signals survived the cleansing. Occasional and soft, squeegeed squeaks and muted bleeps break unpredictably from the granulated quiet like sonar pings from the sunken impulse of the avant-garde, stifled under the slowly shifting sands of some abys mal oceanic basin. The once desperately deafening SOS broad casts of the most strident musical extreme barely break the surface of Eigner’s discs in dreamy liquid echoes, a few drops of cleanser still clinging from the scrub [Wald 01]. Pavel Büchler: LIVE (2003). The audience applause from the three-hundred-and-fifty-one “live” albums in Büchler’s collection, with none of the music. Although anyone can hear the occasional rowdy rock crowds and stoned, 70s country, folk fan inclusions, con noisseurs will note that most of the audiences seem to be composed of avant-jazz hipsters, with a number of distinctive acoustics dis cernible among the open seaside spaces of Newport and Antibes: the heavily curtained converted hockey rink in Victoriaville, Canada; 15 Unheard booklet.indd 15 31/8/09 22:57:33 the wood-beamed and paneled concert hall in Willisau, Switzerland; the concrete and flagstone bandshell in Montreux; the deep-echoing cave created by the balcony at the old Fillmore East. Ranging from 1957 to 1998, the recordings utilized by Büchler, not coincidentally, correspond to the major historical shift in jazz audiences and their responses, as the gin-soaked swingers who rallied the band for certain tempi and communal intensity gave way to the more intellectual responses of the post-bebop era, when jazz fans stopped being alcoholic dancers eager for entertainment and hoping to hook up and instead became frowning brow-creased introverts, more inclined to subtle, aloofly knowing head nods than any sort of vulgar foot- stomping. In The Sound, Ross Russell pinpoints the moment when the demographics shifted to the ‘alligators’ of the late swing period, those serious types, self-styled students of American jazz, who used to edge up to the orchestra shell and remain there all night, indefatigably listening. [...] They gave the impression that they had never danced a step in their lives, nor had any intention of so doing (54). Despite the historic sweep of LIVE, certain key jazz recordings are absent. At the beginning of Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus [America Records AM6082], the authoritarian eponym admon ishes: “ladies and gentlemen [...] restrain your applause [...] don’t even take any drinks, or no cash register ringing, et cetera.” The audience compliance was perfect, and so can’t be heard on LIVE (although I suppose Mingus Presents wouldn’t have made the cut anyway, since despite the bandleader’s chatter it was actually a studio album, which made it a lot easier for the chastened audience to keep themselves in line). An album such as Pharoah Sanders’ 1972 Live at the East [Impulse! AS-9227] presents a trickier decision, since — pace the title — it was actually recorded in the studio when the logistics of transporting recording equipment to The East Afrocentric cultural center in Brooklyn proved too costly; but the habitués did tramp across town from the center to the studio instead. Similarly, The Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s 1966 Live at 16 Unheard booklet.indd 16 31/8/09 22:57:34 “The Club” [Capitol ST-2663] was also recorded in the studio with an imported audience, this time paid with free alcohol. Putting the “lie” back in “live,” the disingenuous album title was a favor to Adderley’s friend, club owner E. Rodney Jones (beautifully enough, unbeknownst even to jazz insiders the Quintet had indeed been recorded live at The Club a few months earlier, although that album wasn’t released until 2005 when the forgotten tapes were discovered, and so it isn’t on LIVE either). However Büchler might resolve these conceptual issues, the result is visceral: the waves of collaged applause are giddying. With all the emotional triggers of anticipation and catharsis but never a recognizable moment for cathexis the listener is continually buf feted from an eager expectation that builds but never climaxes to dénouements that always ring false. LIVE, in this respect, is thus a thorough and rigorous anticlimax. The ultimate effect, however, is euphoric: all the optimism of crowds expecting a good perfor mance to come and all the gratitude for the performance just past, but with none of the wrong notes, botched timings, or annoying feedback. The album, however, is also a philosophical proposition posing as conceptual art: what does it mean to be (a)live? The title prompts one to wonder what might constitute a recording that was not live. But then again, on reflection, as the cheers and whistles and clapping continue, one starts to wonder what recording might ever in fact be truly “live”: experienced for the first vibrant time and not merely a recorded document of something always already termi nated, of some guaranteed past in which the performers, however vital at the moment of registration, might now no longer be living. Büchler’s disc, like his 3'34", would seem to answer both questions at once: pre-recorded sounds reanimated in their unprecedented new context, as they have never been heard before. A paradox that resolves itself, LIVE now lives as a not live live album. Limited edition (to 351) [FACT]. Pavel Büchler: Encore (2005). Once more, from the top, with feeling: a 7" vinyl reprising LIVE by including the audience respons 17 Unheard booklet.indd 17 31/8/09 22:57:34 es on the opening and closing tracks of the fifty-two live albums added to Büchler’s record collection since October, 1999 (when the LIVE project was produced). Arranged in the order of acquisition over a playing time of four minutes and thirty-three seconds, this is a collector’s edition of collected editions, limited to a pressing of 433 discs. Put it on before going to the next big show and practice shouting out requests for “Freebird” [Kunsthalle Bern]. Christopher DeLaurenti: Favorite Intermissions: Music Before and Between Beethoven — Stravinsky — Holst (2007). Illegal, undercover surveillance as musical composition. DeLaurenti went wired to classical music concerts, making bootleg binaural recordings of everything but the programmed music: laughter and footsteps and the scrape of chairs on an emptied stage, the audience mill and mumble, the returning musicians’ arpeggiated warm-up scales, all sorts of noodlings and tunings and autistic snippets of melodic lines. Heavy on percussion, woodwinds and low brass, one wonders what the string players are all doing backstage during these breaks. The result, in all events, often sounds suspiciously like a composition by Carl Alessandro Landini. The album ends with a public- address announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Maestro and orchestra will not stop between the Ravel and Strauss, please hold your applause.” Such programming not only prevents DeLaurenti from sneaking in a bonus track from that concert, but it also ensures that the recording won’t show up as part of an encore to Büchler’s Encore. Two editions (neither to be mistaken as the audiobook version of the eponymous Victor Borge memoir), the first with a cover designed in the mode of classic Deutsche Grammophon albums, the second redesigned to satisfy the lawyers at Universal Music Group (DG’s parent corporation) [GD Stereo]. The Phantom Pregnancies: “Project P.KO.” Riot Grrl meets Mike Batt. Nearly a minute of pregnant silence, the phan tom sound on this contribution to the Damaged Goods comp Hey Mom, The Garage Is On My Foot is apparently not the result of some 18 Unheard booklet.indd 18 31/8/09 22:57:34 deskilled mastering oversight but rather a manifestation of the PP’s hatred of digital technology, manifested in a refusal to contribute anything other than mardy silence to a CD project. Best track on the comp: garage punk never sounded so good, and here it finally lives up to the pretenses of its attitude [DAMGOOD 102]. Nick Thurston: Erased Motion Poems (2008). In the audio equivalent of airbrushing a photograph to remove blemishes, Thurston edited out the poems of England’s Poet Laureate from the 2005 Poetry Archive CD Andrew Motion Reading from His Poems, evacuating the vacuous verse and leaving only Motion’s introduc tory explanations of what the poems are about: “This next poem is called ‘A Blow to the Head,’ and is about just that.... This poem is called ‘The Spoiled Child’.... This next poem is called ‘Goethe in the Park’ and is a kind of miniature biography of a bit of wood....” The best erasure here is a poetic retelling of Jonty Semper’s 1 Minute, “a short poem about the death of Princess Diana.” The great paradox of the project comes from what Cleanth Brooks called “the heresy of paraphrase”: if poetry, by definition, is what cannot be paraphrased, then Thurston hasn’t really removed any poetry at all [self-released mp3 file]. Language Removal Service: Static Language Sampler (2003). State of the art in speech elimination, LRS cleans and pu rifies recordings of all language. Sources from their archive include entries from various categories: “divas” (Callas, Monroe, Dietrich), “critics” (Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky), “musicians” (Mingus, Monk, Cage), “artists” — well, I guess they’re actually all divas once you think about it. In every case, LRS takes out the words but leaves all the other sounds untouched: air whistling in buccal cavities, the pool and drain of saliva and phlegm, the glottal pops and deglutinations that punctuate the inframince spaces between even the most rapid speech. With that speech liberated from the distracting clamor of language, the cleansed recordings let ye soft pipes play ever on. With a good pair of headphones you can almost 19 Unheard booklet.indd 19 31/8/09 22:57:34 imagine the aolean echo of inspiration and the calcinated drip off stalactites in the caverns of bucolic grottos... [promotional CD]. Matt Rogalsky: S (2002). Like the LRS but even cleaner. Rogalsky plays Doktor Murkes with this project, actually collect ing the gesammeltes schweigen [collected silence] that Heinrich Böll’s character supposedly splices together on tape. Doktor Murkes works in a radio studio, and S, not coincidentally, compiles all of the silences in one day of BBC radio broadcast. Testing both the proposition that “the tedium is the message” (as Darren Wershler- Henry phrased it) and that “silence is golden,” the result was released as a limited edition boxed set (24 audio CDs and a CD- ROM documentation) priced at £300. No doubt feeling some pressure from the masses, Rogalsky later used filtering software to distill the set into a single disc of excerpts — a “best of ” album, of sorts, containing only the quietest silences — which was later released in a more democratic unlimited edition (though still kinda pricey at £15). Although they congratulated themselves on treating the whole project lightheartedly, the BBC did assert its rights to the silences, risking a showdown with Cage’s publisher. Tac: Lapse of silence (2003). A project of such conceptual integrity that the already very quiet recordings are not compromised by au dible events. The result is a sort of “virtual aurality” untainted by sound. A distinctly romantic pastoralism, however, can nonetheless be felt. With a clear echo of Yoko Ono’s 1963 Tape Piece I (“Stone Piece: take the sound of the stone aging”) and Snow Piece (“Take a tape of the sound of snow falling./ This should be done in the evening./ Do not listen to the tape....”), the seven brief tracks on Lapse document the sounds of shadows moving, sun shining, ice melting, water evaporating, grass growing, candles burning, and — in a nice nod to Cage — mushrooms dropping spores. With this do-it-yourself kit Tom Cox takes the tac out of tacet. Limited to an edition of only 50, the 3" self-released CD-R comes in a unique sculptural encasement of papier-mâché and eggshells [taccdr 006]. 20 Unheard booklet.indd 20 31/8/09 22:57:34 Jens Brand: Stille-Landschaft [Silence–Landscape] (2002). Real, authentic, documentary silence. The soundtrack to Brand’s video installation (a full-circle pan across a desert landscape) is almost as empty as the view, which records a spot in Botswana that is one of the few places in the world where, at certain times, there is indeed almost absolute silence. Since the only way to really hear what was there is to not hear it, a full appreciation of the soundtrack requires its site-specific installation in an anechoic chamber. Brand’s video art is less in the tradition of the 19th-century landscape painting or the spectacle of the panorama than the philosophical proposition: if there are no trees in the forest to fall...? Joseph Beuys: Grammophon aus knochen [Record Player of Bone] (1958). A higher-fidelity version of Beuys’tonband in filzstapel [audio tape in stacked felt], the stummes grammophon [mute phonograph] displays a covered phonograph record, perhaps with a recording of Beuys’ felt-wrapped piano (felt, of course, is a material known for damping sound, as it’s used around the hammers inside a piano). Though we’ll never know, because the swing-arm and needle have been replaced by a bone, bluntly inverting Rainer Rilke’s halluci natory dream of playing the jagged coronal suture of the skull with a phonograph cartridge. Baudouin Oosterlynck: Variations du silence, Opp. 73-104 (1990-1). Twenty-three preludes, five oratorios, three overtures and a sonata — a quarter century of confessional, romantic, egotistically autobiographical silence. Following extensive research covering 15,000 kilometers over western Europe, Oosterlynck documents silent locations that were of particular importance to him. Not sufficiently outsider to excuse the visionary pretentiousness, Oosterlynck is like Joseph Beuys without all the dead rabbits and felt (but keeping the goofy haberdashery in a silent tip of the hat to the German master). 21 Unheard booklet.indd 21 31/8/09 22:57:35 Pierre Huyghe: Partition du Silence [Score of Silence] (1997). Who says you can’t get something for nothing? Huyghe took a digital recording of Cage’s 4'33" and used computer software to enlarge the scale of the digital print. Like blowing up a photograph to reveal what couldn’t be seen, the result of Huyghe’s magnifica tion amplified what was previously inaudible. Huyghe then scored those sounds using traditional musical notation to create a playable transcription of Cage’s piece. Like a map drawn to a scale that’s greater than one-to-one, the Score is thus simultaneously a grossly inaccurate distortion and a minutely faithful facsimile. In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg convinced Willem de Kooning to give him a drawing, which Rauschenberg promptly and studiously erased (playing out a dada performance from decades earlier, in which André Breton chased Francis Picabia around a sheet of paper, immediately erasing whatever Picabia drew, as soon as it appeared). Now you can hear the conversational version. Finding that he had accidentally erased an interview he’d just conducted with J. G. Ballard, Jeremy Millar exhibited it as the Erased JG Ballard Interview (Nothing Exhibition, Rooseum, 2001). Just enough metallic hiss to make Reynols reunite and head back to the studio. While it’s nice to see a stupid mistake transformed into a genius installation, it would have been better if he’d wiped out a specially commissioned electroacoustic composition from someone at Dartmouth, or given a full performance of Maciunas’ Homage. George Maciunas: Homage to Richard Maxfield (1962). A student in John Cage’s composition course at The New School For Social Research (and the first professor of electronic music in America when he took over the class as Cage’s successor), Richard Maxfield must have heard the story Cage liked to tell about his own student days: “One day when I was studying with Schönberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, ‘This end is more important than the other’.” Maxfield, who seems to 22 Unheard booklet.indd 22 31/8/09 22:57:35 have taken good notes, was best known for using the erase button on the tape machine as a compositional tool. Maciunas’ Homage, accordingly, instructs the musician to follow a performance of one of Maxfield’s compositions by flippantly flipping the erase switch while rewinding Maxfield’s master tape. There is no record that Maciunas’ piece was ever performed, although he did provide a “chicken variation on the same theme” (“just rewind the previously played tape of R. Maxfield without erasing”), thus exponentially increasing the likelihood of a performance and opening the possibility for an encore. Maciunas’ self-canceling composition became a kind of tombeau in 1969 when Maxfield performed a fatal defenestration. Wandelweiser Group. New York (School) by way of Vienna, on a direct flight with one of those noise-canceling headphones on. Founded in the early 1990s by Burkhard Scholthauer and Antoine Beuger (later joined by Jürg Frey, Michael Pisaro, Radu Malfatti, and Manfred Werder among others), the group has recorded seminal performances of John Cage’s Branches and Christian Wolff ’s Stones. Given the formal conceits of their own compositions — works with durations extending from only four seconds to more than a week, compositions for two CD players, nine minutes of lead-in silence, et cetera — one might mistake them for post-Fluxus avant-garde pranksters (minus the squeaky toys and smashed instruments). But despite the overuse of tubas and accordions, these guys really seem to mean it. These are not just silences, but rigorous, deliberate, purposive silences. Dissertations on phenomenology, architecture, and memory, Wandelweiser compositions come off as philosophical investigations into the negative ontology of silence. And yet, in the patiently controlled quiet of the performances they manage to end up as more weighed than weighty, more studied than studious. Taken together, their recordings are arguments for musical planning (along the lines of “family planning”): none of the pauses here are pregnant. 23 Unheard booklet.indd 23 31/8/09 22:57:35 Robert Watts: non-vinyl records (1969-72). Starting with the String Record, Watts began manufacturing records with various groove depths and material properties, but with no sound reproduction, to played at a number of speeds. As Watts explains: I began experiments with the manufacture of a series of records in different materials such as metals, plastics, wood, clay and latex. Most of these were made on a machine lathe at Rutgers University, and I thought of them as being sound portraits of this machine. At 20rpm, with lots of ripping scratches breaking the drone, the String Record sounds like the cabin noise of jumbo jet as its aluminum skin suffers a catastrophic structural failure. Tim Ulrichs: Schleifpapier-Schallplatten (1968). A series of monaural discs made from thirteen grades of commercial sand paper in a nuanced mood-music suite orchestration of V. A. Wölfli’s industrial noise composition “Pferd/Horse/Elastic,” named after the Pferd company’s steel-cutting discs. Wölfli apparently just slapped a hundred of the construction-duty grinding wheels inside record covers (safe to 5100rpm if you can crank the player that fast, but try only at your system’s risk). Putting the dust in industrial, the anarcho-duchampians Dust Breeders (Michael Henritzi with Thierry Dellès and Yves Botz, aka Mickey H and Youri Potlatch), issued their first single, “Sandpaper Mantra” (1989), as a 7" piece of sandpaper guaranteed to elevage de poussière when run under a diamond stylus. Their 1995 dance classic “I’m Psycho 4 Yur Love” then swapped the materials, so that vinyl was housed inside a sandpaper record sleeve, making the psychedelic noise even noisier every time the disc is removed [rrr062/EPP02]. An anonymous release in 1980 had used the same strategy on a microhouse track, issuing a blank grooved disc inside a sandpaper sleeve of Adolor/ Norton P80 G21 abrasive sheets; starting as minimal techno, the track becomes increasingly glitch with repeated play (variable speed). These discs are all introverted and considerate versions of various antisocial packaging for albums from The Durutti Column 24 Unheard booklet.indd 24 31/8/09 22:57:35 (1979: The Return of the Durutti Column [FACT14]); Illusion of Safety (1999: Illusion of Safety [Mort Aux Vaches 2]); and Feederz (1984: Ever Feel Like Killing Your Boss? [Steal 1]). Housed in sandpaper covers with the abrasive surface on the outside, in homage to Verner Permild’s design for Guy Debord and Asger Jorn’s book Mémoires, they deface the albums next to them with every reshelving. Alvin Lucier. “Quiet Coffee.” Undercaffeinated composition by the master of conceptual music. I suppose it’s the sonic equivalent to those sleepy early-morning moments lost staring at the steam rising from the coffee mug, but to be honest, I can’t hear much going on here — even wide awake with headphones and the volume turned up all the way. But it does gives me a excuse to mention the collection A Call for Silence, curated by Nicolas Collins for Sonic Arts Network. Though it often confuses quiet with silent, the compilation highlights include Christian Marclay’s Unused Space, which would make a good encore for an Institut für Feinmotorik show, and Matt Rogalsky’s “Two Minutes and Fifty- Five Seconds...,” in which he bullies George W. Bush into rushing through a patriotic performance of Cage’s masterpiece and gets him to say a lot more than usual in the process. The CD also contains a couple of tracks in homage to Lucier’s famous I Am Sitting in a Room: the Kapital Band’s raucous party game “How Many People Are in This Room” and Richard Beard’s contrarian “I Am Not Sitting in a Room.” The latter is not quite silent either — you can hear the tick-tock allusion to Lucier’s Clocker as well as some shuffling and fidget — but it demonstrates with conviction that Beard isn’t going to take this kind of avant-garde nonsense sitting down [SA301-2]. John Levack Drever. “Pastoral Pause.” Another track of note from the Call for Silence CD, this is ominous, edge-of-your-seat silence recorded on location in Dartmoor. A sudden epic opening, in medias res, just moments after a car has passed over a cattle grid in the sonic foreground: the drum-roll clang and reverb of the grating die with 25 Unheard booklet.indd 25 31/8/09 22:57:35 a quick decay and the motor fades into the distance, replaced with some solitary birdcalls, the sluice of a rill, and the sound of wind over an unimpeded expanse (Drever’s work is not for the agoraphobic). But wait, what was that? A noise in the distance? The approach of another car? Who could be coming? Et in Arcadia ego? The suspense builds, but we never hear what happens when it gets to the crossing. With an echo of the crop-duster scene in North by Northwest, this is environmental art reimagined as a horror movie. Terrifying. Jacob Kirkegaard: Four Rooms (2006). Alvin Lucier meets Andrei Tarkovsky. Sounding at first like the title-menu cue music to a creepy science-fiction film — with slowly pulsing drones, metallic-tape abrasions, disquieting high-frequency crackles, and ominous echoing pings reverberating like inhuman cries in empty space — the looping of Kirkegaard’s tracks comes not from failing to press Play but from the recursive logic of their own construction. The spaces summoned by the sounds, however, are indeed haunted. Kirkegaard made his recordings in four of the silent, evacuated public spaces of Pripyat (and neighboring Krasno), Ukraine, ground zero for the nuclear reactor that served Chernobyl until 1986. Recording the silent spaces deep inside the deserted Alienation Zone for ten minutes, he then played back the tape inside the same space, recording again; the result was played back again, recorded, and so on, proceeding like Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room, but without the narration and in rooms where no one can sit for long. The results sound like the gravely static of a Geiger counter, stretched to the thirty-year duration of a Cesium half-life. The narrative pull of the increasingly laminar sonic spaces is compelling, and suspenseful, but the tracks would have been just as effective without their irradiated mise-en-scene: all spaces are haunted by their own interiority [Touch Tone26]. Braco Dimitrijevic: Njeqove Dovke Glas [His Pencil’s Voice] (1973). Pre-post-historical work from the Sarajevo-born conceptualist, who has written: “I want a style as neutral as possible, a kind of universal 26 Unheard booklet.indd 26 31/8/09 22:57:36 writing.” In this case, the neutral style takes the form of a stylus, the carbon of the diamond transformed into a softened graphite: the universal phonography here was done with a sharpened pencil on a piece of white cardboard, creating a unique variable-speed phonograph record (16, 33, 45, or 78 rpm). I’ve never heard this one (well, you know what I mean), but apparently the album was exhibited in Zagreb and Chicago in the ‘70s. Whereof one cannot speak.... Nick Thurston: 33 1/3 (2009). Like machine-age assembly- line versions of Dimitrijevic’s Old-Master, hand-sketched artisanal craft object, Thurston’s concentrically ridged paper records — pressed from a precision, laser-etched template — play the paper itself rather than transmitting any prerecorded sound. While the matrices are smooth and hard-edged, the irrepressibly rough grain of the paper is an order of magnitude larger than the clean die of the template pressed into it (not to mention the minute wavers of a typical phonograph groove), and so offers itself up as a source of amplified variance and vibration. With its recording filter larger than any information it might be required to record, the substrate of the phonograph is manifest as “noise” in both the audio and media-theory sense. The medium itself, in the absence of any in formation from the matrix, gladly supplies the message. With a similar turn, Thurston’s project establishes a mode of mechanical reproduction in which the original master cannot make replicas: each disc sounds distinctly different, depending on the chance ar rangement of its pulp’s pressed fibers and the type of paper used. Like Apollinaire’s Merlin, the enchanted needle makes “des gestes blancs parmi les solitudes,” spinning like a desert dervish toward a centrifugal collapse as the stylus surgically incises, slowly abrades and ultimately cuts through with sufficient playings, revealing the black humor of Ubu’s spiraled gidouille beneath. Sized so that the needle completes its course in exactly sixty seconds (when spun at the eponymous thirty-three-and-one-half revolutions per minute), these inflexibly flexible pages are little clocks each timing a perfect minute waltz. 27 Unheard booklet.indd 27 31/8/09 22:57:36 Vasilii Gnedov: “Smert’ Iskusstvu” [“Death to Art”] (1913). Sound poetry reduced to the blank page. “Silence in this sense, as termination, proposes a mood of ultimacy,” as Susan Sontag would write about the rhetoric of silence in 1967, framing the post-war aesthetics of silence as a reductio of modern art: the logical conclusion of Greenbergian modernism arriving at a “point of final simplification.” As James Sherry has observed, a blank sheet of paper is worth about 4 cents, but as soon as you print a poem on it, it’s rendered economically worthless; “Smert’ Iskusstvu,” accordingly, keeps its value and is worth every cent. While one might consider Jason Kahn and John Müller’s 2004 Papercuts [Crouton 22] or Steve Roden’s 2005 Forms of Paper [Line_007] to be versions, the definitive recording of Gnedov’s page was realized by Miguel Molina in 2007 and pressed by ReR Megacorp in 2009 in an edition of 150 personalized copies, strictly hors commerce. An historically informed production that would make all three Kuijken brothers proud, that disc records playback from an unregistered wax cylinder, recreating the sound of silence circa 1913. Molina’s realization thus transforms Gnedov’s poem into a cenotaph for the particular silence of wax, which was replaced by amberol celluloid plastic in 1912, just as Gnedov composed his text. Following the recitation of Gnedov’s alternate title, Poema kontsa [“Poem of the End”], the disc hisses and pops with the vacuum squall of a brittle wax wind for 93 minutes and 55 seconds. As Molina’s CD-R evinces, Sontag’s vanishing point is always a point of departure as well; Gnedov designated his work as an epic poem (poema), rather than a lyric (stikhotvorenye), and his histrionic declamations of the work were immensely popular with audiences who clamored for renditions at poetry readings and brought down the house with their applause. All of which must have sounded a lot like a Pavel Büchler album. 28 Unheard booklet.indd 28 31/8/09 22:57:36 Earlier and substantially shorter versions of this essay appeared in the WPRB Program Guide (Vol. 10, September 2003); UbuWeb; His Voice 3 (Prague, 2006), and Western Humanities Review (vol. 60, no. 1 [2006]). Thanks to John Cage, Barry Esson, Barry Weller, Kenny Goldsmith, Jannon Stein, everyone who sent me music and scores over the years, and all my colleagues at WPRB. Craig Dworkin Professor of English The University of Utah Unheard booklet.indd 29 31/8/09 22:57:36 30 Unheard booklet.indd 30 31/8/09 22:57:37