AUDIO CULTURE READINGS IN MODERN MUSIC EDITED BY CHRISTOPH COX AND DANIEL WARNERUNDERCURRENTS: THE HIDDEN WIRING OF MODERN MUSIC Published by Continuum Booka in 2002 to music magazine The Wire, this anthology of oss convents and underying thorws narchwires into t Contents Recording Aapitse The esotare oxipins of tha Rhanosraph eh Fe ow spaion aed eo nod BEL rewe 1 dot An nun ONCE Ora HEV lectin UTR cto nal mung sce dettance ‘he ntl ona: Gand bration, ance to fture jncida with the 20th anniversary of tho UK independent experimental 1, many adapted ‘rom hack issues ot Tho Wie, cullines tre key adival music cf the past 10 year. ‘he hate tor the music of tha phones fy het Tha Ragged Trowsered srtholopints Hory Seth and sorte by Bui aheer'a Pra Sie “The Solo Mh Apprduah Sum Ra, Sheckhausae, Funk, How the Uva apt tual heen tlie Humane, are Thy italy Noceceany?: Sound act, sutosiata, muSien! seuIpALt Ee Gwe tone ‘utamating The Beat: The bees a hyton Estate sear {he futabah Goss On Forever tho road with Kraftwerk, Mak Wn Wades bret hs ogk Conerter Counioreatra plage nto the aeadouy Ereen tenes ‘Duck Wicckers The turnbabie as Ensturent Grea Sipe soy Al Mes Tho Retr of Meio ere he int Lanes: Sou oct wt tiie ae ea makin tral “Tha cs Of Chance: Cage, Kail Zaen: Ghanem onmratars musical cleo ma Br fate teat Sng Faces Sometimes: Soul musie's atinners ane bachatetrs iipPae Shocta Flares Of Freudoen: Improstsstion, othemeas and ina limits of pentane fy tel Tuas ‘Generation Eoatay: Maw Yan’ tree azz continu tyler conahe Cecoeraphy wel BibixapnyAlso available from Continuum: THEODOR W. ADGRNO Philosophy of Modern Music ANDREW HULTKRAANS Forever Changes ANDY MILLER The Kinks are the Vilage Green Preservation Society JOE PERNIGE Meat is Murder STEVE TAYLOR The A to X of Alternative Music ROB YOUNG (ed.) Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music WARREN ZANES Dusty in MemphisAudio Gulture READINGS IN MODERN MUSIC Edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner 5 continuum . WHEW TORK = LONDONIntroduction: Music and the New Audio Culture Over the past half-cantury, a new audio culture has emerged, a culture af musi- cians, composers. sound artists, scholars, and listeners attentive to sonic Sub- stance, the act of listening, and the creative possibilities of sound recording, playback, and transmission. This culture of the ear has become particularly promi- nent in the past decade, as evidenced by a constellation of events. The academy has witnessed an explosion of interest in auditory history and anthropology led by social scientists who have turned their attention ta sound as a marker of tamporal and cultural difference.’ In the art world, sound art has suddenly become a viable field, finding venues at prominent museums and galleries across the globe.” And. in music, onee-marginal sonic and auditory explorers—Luigi Russolo, Jahn Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Pauline Oliveros, R. Murray Schafer, and others—have come to be acknowledged as ancestors and influences by an extraordinary number and range of musicians working across the boundaries of jazz, classical, rock, and dance music. What accounts for this auditory turn in contemporary culture? Technological innovations have certainly played a decisive role, “Sound recording. audio tracking of mowies and video, online MP3's, all have re-sounded our ways of thinking.” notes historian Richard Gullen Rath, recapitulating a view advocated by media the- orist Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s,? McLuhan argued that the amergence of electronic media was causing a shift in the sensarium, deposing the visual from its millennia-old hegemony and giving way to an immersive experience exemplified by the auditory.” In an illuminating history of musical technology, musician and the- orist Chris Cutler offers a related view. He argues that sound recording has deposed the culture of the eye exemplified by the highly literate and score-gov- emed field of European art music, and has “throw{n] the life of music production back onto the ear.” As with the orally transmitted folk music that was eclipsed by the European classical tradition, “the first matter is again Sound. Recording is memory of sound.”= Invented in the mid-1930s, but commercially unavailable until a decade and a half later, the tape recorder revolutionized music. Early experimenters such as Cage and Schaeffer noted that this device opened music to "the entire field of sound,”' rather than merely the restricted body of sounds produced by traditional musical instruments. indeed, trained as a radio engineer instead of a composer, Schaeffer came to represent the new breed of musician: an amateur éxplorer working directly (‘concretely.” as he put it) with sound material rather than going through the detours of musical notation, conductors, and performers. And just as introduction « xii‘Schaeffer prefigured today's music producer, who manipulates sound with inex- pensive hardware and software on his or her home computer, he alsa prefigured the age of the remix. For recorded sound obscures the difference between the onginal and the copy, and is available for endless improvisatory manipulations and transformations. Finally, the tape recorder (and allied technologies such as the phonograph and the radio) made possible a new mode of listening, what Schasfter termed “acousmatic listening”: listening to sounds in the absence of their original sources and visual contexts. a listening that thus gives access to sound-as-such. A second technological revolution has contributed to the rise to prominence: of audio culture within the past decade: the advent of digital media. Compact discs. the Intemet, MP3, Napster, the CD burner—all of these digital tachnologies have led to the creation of a vast virtual archive of sound and music available on a mas- sive scale. The pristine clarity of digital sound fosters an attention to sonic matter and detail; and its replicability and microscapic malleability allows even a novice to become a sound artist or remixer. Finally, cyberspace enables the formation and flourishing of new audio communities, networks, and resources. Exploiting these technologies and networks, the emergent audio culture has achieved a new kind of sonic literacy, histary, and memory. If the traditional con- ception of history as a continuous, linear unfolding can be thought of as anaiog. this new sonic sensibility might be called a digital one. It flattens the distinction between “high art" and “mass culture,” and treats music history as a repository from which to draw random-access sonic alliances and affinities that ignore estab- lished genre categories. For example, on the track “Died,” by the post-rock quintet Tortoise, a sample from Edgard Varése's fonisation is conjoined with Jamaican dub, motoric Krautrock, and minimalist mallet music reminiscent of Steve Reich or Philip Glass. Sonic Youth links punk rock to the work of experimental music found- ers Pauline Oliveros. Christian Wolf, and Takehisa Kosugi. Derek Bailey puts free improvisation into conversation with drum ‘n' bass. DJ Spooky performs with com- poser lannis Xenakis and free jazz giants William Parker and Matthew Shipp. ‘Techno producers sample, emulate, and remix the music of minimalist masters. Musique concrete pioneer Luc Ferrari collaborates with free improviser Noél Akchoté, electronica praducer Scanner, and tumtablists DJ Olive and ErikM... ‘The combinations are myriad and the cross-fertilizations ongoing. Indeed, across the field of modern music, one discovers a host af shared practices and theoretical concerns. For example, John Cage's critique of the com- poser's authority is also explicitly an issue in House and Techno, where producers take on a protean array of aliases and make their mark by mixing and remixing the music of others. The boundary between “music” and “noise” is challenged as much by Pauline Oliveros’ environmental sound compositions as by Japanese noise composer Masami Akita’s aural sado-masochism. Issues around technology and aesthetic originality pervade the contemporary musical spectrum, from the early collages of James Tenney to the work of composenimproviser John Oswald, rock renegades Nagativiand, and HipHop turtablists DJ Q-Bert and the X-Ecutioners. Audio Cuifure attempts to map the musical terrain of this new soni¢ land- scape. Rather than offering a history of contemporary music, the book traces the genealogies af contemporary musical practices and theoretical concerns, draw- ing lines of connection between recent musical forms and earlier moments of xiv © intraductionaudio experimentation. It aims to foreground the various rewirings of musical composition and performance that have taken place in the past few decades and to provide a critical and theoretical language far this new audio culture. As such. the book poses, and seeks to answer, questions such as: What new modes of production, circulation, reception, and discourse are mobilized by vanguard musi- cal production today? How do musical practices within the new audio culture complicate the definition of “music” and its distinction from “silence,” “noise,” and “sound’? In what ways do they challenge traditional conceptions of author- ship. textuality, and ownership? How are musical strategies such as indete! nacy, minimalism, free improvisation, tumtablism, and éléctronic experimentation employed by artists from different backgrounds? The texts included here are drawn from a heterogeneous array of sources. Statements by composers, improvisers, and producers are printed alongside 5 by thecrists and critics who provide lines of connection and historical con- exis. Excerpts from books sit beside magazine articles, liner notes, and interviews that first appeared on the World Wide Web. This heterogeneity reflects the fact that the new audio culture is 2 discourse, a loose collection of terms, concepts, and statements gathered from across the cultural field. This discourse not only chal- lenges aesthetic distinctions between “high art” and “popular culture.” In the age of the Intemet, it also flattens traditional hierarchies between “high” and “low” ven- ues for publishing. Most of the texts were written within the past half-century, though the book also includes several older texts that have been reanimated by the new audio culture. The group of faxts in Part One explores some key ontological and epistemo- logical issues that have shaped music and sound over the past few decades. These texts investigate the shifting definition of “music” and examine the various modes of listening necessitated by the contemporary soundscape. Several texts discuss changes in the production and reception of sound that have resulted from newer technologies such as the Walkman, thé sampler, and the laptop computer. and from reappropriations of older technologies such as magnetic tape and the phonograph. The incursion of music into everyday life and the spaces of everyday living raises political issues concerning the ways in which sound constructs us as human subjects and locates us in particular social and cultural contexts; hence, several texts in Part One suggest strategies far navigating the current sonic tand- scape. Part Two more closely examines a spectrum of musical practices that are cur- rently providing resources for musicians from different generatians and back- grounds. Practices such as cpen-form composition, free improvisation, and experimentalism are taken here nat as fixed historical entities but as ongoing musi- cal strategies that are continually being adopted and reshaped for new contexts. Hence, each section attempts to give a sense of the particular practice as a gen- eral strategy, to trace some of its genealogical strands, and to examine some of its current inhabitations. Throughout the book, we have tried to foreground the ways in which these theoretical concems and practices, though to some degree distinct, significantly overlap or flow into one another, All tha issues in Part One are interlinked: musical ontology is shaped by musical technologies and by modes of listening and aural attention. The practices explored in Part Two similarly overlap. At its limit, open- introduction « xvform composition becomes experimental music; Reich's early tape works and Alvin Lucier's Music on a Long Thin Wire propel experimental music into the mini- malist domain; and minimalist methodologies drive a great deal of contemporary electronica, Turntablists such as Christian Marclay, Otome Yoshihide, and Marina Rosenfeld, merge DJ Culture with free improvisation, which is also currently prac~ ticed by electronica producers such as Spring Heel Jack, Marcus Schmickler, and Christian Fennesz. And, indeed, all contemporary music is, in same sense, elec- tranic music; hence, texts on electronic music are not only confined to the final section but are spread out over the entire book. Moreover, most of the authors and musicians presented in the baok are linked to one another via myriad networks of influence or collaboration. Several of these—Jahn Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, and Brian Eno, for example—torm key nodal points to which most of the developments in contemporary music can be linked. Hence, theit names are ubiquitous and con- stantly cross-referenced here. It will have been noticed that what we are calling “contemporary music" or “moder music” has a peculiar character. Though it cuts across classical music, jazz, rock, reggae, and dance music, it is resolutely avant-gardist in character and all but ignores the more mainstream inhabilations of these genres. In our view, it is the vanguard fringe within each of these generic categories that is fully and richly challenging prevailing assumptions about the nature of music and sound, and challenging these genre categories themselves. These vanguard practices desta- bilize the obvious, and push our aesthetic and conceptual sensibilities to their lim- its. They force us to confront the unheard core of all music: the sonic and auditory as such; and, hence, they provide the musical currency of the new audio culture. NOTES 1._ Prominent examples include: Richard Cullen Rath, How Early America Sounded (Ith- aca: Cornell University Press, 2003); Jonathan Stema, The Auolbie Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham, NC; Duke University Press, 2003); John M. Pitker, Victorian Sounc'scapes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of America: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002}; Mark M. Srnith, Listaning ta Ninetaenth-Cantury America {Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Caralina Press, 2001): Leigh Eric Schmidi, Hearing Things: Religion, Musion and the Amasican Eniightenment (Cambtidge, MA: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 2000}: James H. Johinsan, Listering in Paris; A Cultura History (Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1995): Alain Corbin, Villago Bolts: Sound and Maaning in tha 12"- Century French Countryside. trans, Martin Thom (New York: Columbia University Press. 1998); and David Howes, ed., The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropofagy of the Senses (Toronta: University af Tarane Press, 1994). 2. Arecent sampling includes: Treble. SculptureGenter, New York City, May-July 2004: Sounding Spaces: Nine Sound Installations, NTT InlerCormunicatian Center, Tokyo, duly— September 2003; Sonic Proves: A New Geography of Sounds, Contra Pompidou, Octatrer, 2002—January 2003; $.0,8.; Scenes of Sounds, Tang Museum of Ari, Octaber 2000- January 2001; Volume: Bed of Sound. PS. 1. New York City, July-September 2000; and Sonie Baom, Hayward Gallery, London, ApritJune 2090, 3. Richard Cullen Rath, interviewed by Emily Eakin in “History You Can See, Hoar, Smell, Touch, and Taste,” New Yor Times (December 20, 2003) 4, This view is presented most fully in Marshall McLuhan and Bruce A. Powers, The Global Vilaga: Transformations in World Life and Media Jn the 2% Century (Oxtord: Oxford University Press, 1989), particularly the chapter “Visual and Acoustic Spaco” (chap. 12, xvi + introductionbelow). See also Walter J. Ong, “The Shifting Sensorium,” in The Varialies of Sensory Expe- rence. 5. See Chris Cutler, “Necessity and Cholca in Musical Forms,” File Under Popular: The- oretical and Critical Writings on Music (New York: Aulonomedia, 1993), 93, For a related gccount, see Mark Poster. “Authors Analogue and Digital,” What's the Matter with the Intemes? (Minnoapalis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). 6. John Gage, “Future of Music: Credo," chap. 6 below. 7. Tortoise, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Thrill Jockey THRILL 025; Sonic Youth, Goodbye 20" Century, SYR 4: Derek Bailey, Guitar, Drums ‘n' Bass, Avant AVAN O60; lannis Xenakis, Kraanerg, Paul D. Miller and the ST-X Ensemble. Charles Zacharia Bomstcin, ‘Asphodel ASP 0975; Various Artists, Reich Remixed, Nonesuch 79552-2; The Orb, “Little Fluffy Clouds,” The Orb's Adventures Beyond tie Ultrawortd, Big Lite BLR 98; Nol Akchoté! Roland Auzel/Luc Ferrari, Impro-Micro-Acoustique, Blue Chopsticks BC 12 CD; and perform- ances with DW Olive, Scanner, and Erk M in 2003. introduction « xvilPart One THEGRIESThe’ concept of naise vas a by-product of the Industrial Rewclufion, Throughout the jecry- ‘built ahd"already shabby proletarian living. quarters and*workplaces of Europe:in.the 1840s and, 7850s, iherd was acorstant din of onstruelion and pounding. of the'shrieking-ohmetal Sheets befng’ cht and.the endless. thump of prass tnachingny of, ear Splitting lasts’ from. huge, steam ivhistles, sirens, ahd’ electric bells thab beckoned and distnisstd’shifts, of first- gentration uranized laborers from their ‘unending and repetitive dais. The hatmal Sands af rural fife—ihe bidating' of doaresticated animals, the chiqiing of. birds ane! insects, the ping of hand-held tools shapingWvobd ‘and stonawhether pleasant oF hat.hete, all tecagnizable» Hare, ‘however the*cacophony of Sounds in thé ninéteenth-cantury street, factory stiap,.and mine— seemingly randOml and réaningless—could not, be easily isolated’ or idantified: They became: novél.and potentially dangeraus, intrusions of the overworked, human, mind, “Mel Gorton’ ‘The fventieth century is. amon ‘other things. "the, Agé of Noise» Physical nbise; mantsi noise, ‘andenoise Of esiré—we. Hold frisiory’s record for-them.’ Afd ‘no wonder, forall the résdurces of our almost miraculous teefadlogy have heer thrown inte ths Current assault against silence That mast fogular and influential of all réceht Inverttions; the ‘radio. is nothing but’ Conduit ‘throvgh which, pre-fabricated: din can'tiow 'inta our homes. And this dif goes, far'deeper: ot course; than the edr-drums..tt penetrates’ the-mind; Tiling it'wth @ babel ofdistractions—news jteots, Tootually inrelevantbits of infortaation, blasts of corybantic of séntimental music, contin- ually’ répeaisd doses of dramarthat bringerio catharsis, but merely create a craving idr,daily, or even houtly emotional ahemas, And where, as in most tollatties, the broadeastind statioris suppom*themsebves by’ selling time toadvertisars,, the noise is carried front the. ears, through the réalfis’ of phantasy’ knowledge and feeling to the ego's central core of wishdnd desire Spoken or printed, broadcast’ over the ther. or, 00 \wodd-pulp. all advertising. copy has butane purpes2—16 prevent the will from ever achieving: silence. lade Hinday? Ldok'at'it this \way: there arz-marty hete acfonb.ds for whom the life force i$ Best represented by thé livid twitching of on2 torured nerve crevena full-scale anxiety, attack. donot subseribe {0 this point of vie (00%, bUt | uAdérstard it, Nave, lived mt Thus the Shriek.:the’catarwaul, the. Chainsaw’ gniarlgnashing, the yow! and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the advert ‘turous, or emotionally damaged a8 mellifllols bursts, of unarguable affinnation. Lester Bangs? [PJost-Renaissance. music differs*irom nearly -all other musics..vvhich’ lave’ to use-ngise— «Sounds, that is. of nosprecisé pitch dr Gefinite hatmontc siructure—as ‘well Bs those pliches which fie betwéer! ole fwélvé divisions bf the cetaveyand which but music considers to be “out. ‘of we” [. ],Past-Renaissance musicians could fat toleraie ihese acoustically ilidgital and unclear sounds, saurids’ which. ¥ere,nat’susceptible to total conirai.’ “Christopher Smail* Edgaid Varese: desribell nimselt. as, an “organizer ot Solind."THat'cdncept is probably hate Valid tdday, than in any previous era. lon Zon‘There is:fo SuGh thing as an empty’ sade onan ‘ering tines Ther ‘see, something, to fear.* [nv fact? iry_as we may to make, a. silence, we" canrat® For’cetiain * » engineering purposes: itis "desirable ta have as’silent 2 situation, as. possible. Such arbom isGalled an anestiolG-chamber [: ,].a fodm.without ecnoss, | Eniered oneal Harvard? Univer. sify.sevbral yéars dgo afd heard ttvo’sdurids. ohe’higit and.cné low. Whefvl described them, to thé-enqineer in otarge. neeintormed me sthat tha nigh ‘one, was _my*neryous system.in. ‘ Opefailon’ the low one'ray blood tn circulation: ist tie tere will be" saute, Ane! they Wwille « continue fallowing my death. " otatete” . ‘ ’ * SiloninCager Noisé may’ have lost its adweér to offend: Silence hasn'te - . . a ? * Dan Warbbrtoa" ‘The fear of silence is nothing new.‘Silence’surraunds the dark world of death. “Sometimes, *» the silence of the'wast universe Jovers aver fs, enveloping us, There is ufe.fnténge Silence of birth, the quict’silente of one’s seturn'to thoarth, Hasn't art ‘bean thes flumancreature’s rebellion agains} silence? Poetorand wae were born, bey man first, mere stun, ae ing the silerce. #e ‘ene eee Seale A nolsé iS @ résondnce that interferes: with the aludition of a message: in the process of emission. A resonance is a sel cfisimiullancous, ure sounds of determined frequency and diifering ‘intensity, ‘Ndis®, then." does ot*exist'in’ itself, but only’ ir’ rélation to, the" s/siéat Within Wwhichiit is inscribed:emitier, transmitter ,recewer- information theorydses the ear cept oi noise (or rather, metonymy).in.a more.general. way. noise is lhe, term for a’signal."."s that imterféres.withsthe' éoeptior| of a messade by’a faceiver. even if the interfering signal itself has"a Meaning for that receiver. l'ong, heforé jf was "giver this'thepfetical ekpressicn, Moise.dad always been experienced as.testrifction, Misdier.” gin, palitior anid ~aggTeSSION | against the Code-structuring: messages. In, all cultures, ibis assi weapon, “hlasphemy, plague. (nits bialogical reality noise is 2 source of pain f..! nae ramair _ ina fire ddring’ Worid'War Il: Yet "Become increasingly impor ga , he ‘ers, among ther: milsiqde: ‘contiéle planeecs Pierre Sihaellr rand Piemer. *s Henn, 1980s'danoepop" ‘guifit, The, Art of aes Francisco het ] Ancient life was all silence. In the 19th Century, with the invention of machines, Noise was bom. Today, Noise is triumphant and reigns sovereign over the sensibility of men. Through many centuries life unfolded silently, or at least quietly. The loudest of noises that interrupted this silence was neither intense, nor prolonged, nor varied. After all, if we overlook the exceptional movements of the earth's crust, hurricanes, storms, avalanches, and waterfalls, nature is silent. In this scarcity of noises, the first sounds that men were able to draw from a pierced reed or a taut string were stupefying, something new and wonderful. Among primitive peoples, sound was attributed to the gods. It was considered 10 * audio culturesacred and reserved for priests, who used it to enrich their rites with mystery. Thus was bom the idea of sound as something in itself, as different from and indepen- dent of life. And from it resulted music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real ong, an inviolable and sacred worid. The Greeks greatly restricted the field of music. Their musical theory, mathematically systematized by Pythagoras, admit- ted only @ few consonant intervals. Thus, they knew nothing of harmony, which was impossible, The Middle Ages, with the developments and modifications of the Greek tetra- chord system, with Gregorian chant and popular songs, enriched the musical art. But they continued to regard sound Jn its unfolding in time, a narrow concept that lasted several centuries, and which we find again in the very complicated polyph- ony of the Flemish contrapuntalists. The chord did not exist. The development of the various parts was nat subordinated to the chord that these parts produced in their totality. The conception of these parts, finally, was horizontal not vertical. The desire, the search, and the taste for the simultaneous union of different sounds. that is, for the chord {the complete sound) was manifested gradually, moving from the consonant triad to the consistent and complicated dissonances that character- ize contemporary music. From the beginning, musical art sought out and obtained purity and sweetness of sound. Afterwards, it brought together different sounds, still preoccupying itself with caressing the ear with suave harmonies. As it grows ever more complicated today. musical art seeks out combinations more dissonant, stranger, and harsher for the ear. Thus, it comes ever closer to the nofse-sound. This evolution of music is comparable to the multiplication of machines. which sverywhere collaborate with man. Not only in the noisy atmosphere of the great cities, but even in the country, which until yesterday was normally silent. Today, the machine has created such a variety and contention of noises that pure sound in its slightness and monotony ne longer provokes emotion In order to excite and stir our sensibility, music has been developing toward the mest complicated polyphony and toward the greatest variety of instrumental timbres and colors. It has searched out the most complex successions of disso- nant chords, which have prepared in a vague way for the creation of MUSICAL NOISE. The ear of the Eighteenth Century man would not have been able to with- ‘stand the inharmonious intensity of certain chords produced by our orchestra (with three times as many performers as that of the orchestra of his time). But our ear takes pleasure in it, since it is already educated to-madem life, 80 prodigal in differ- ent noises. Nevertheless, our ear is not satisfied and calls for ever greater acousti- cal emotions, Musical sound is too limited in its variety of timbres. The most complicated orchestras can be reduced to four or five classes of instruments different in timbres of sound: bowed instruments, metal winds, wood winds, and percussion. Thus. modern music flaunders within this tiny circle, vainly striving to create new varieties of timbre. We must break out of this limited circle of sounds and conquer the infinite vari- ety of noise-sounds. Everyone will recognize that each sound carries with it a tangle of sensations, already well-known and exhausted, which predispose the listener to boredom, in spite of the efforts of all musical innovators. We futurists have all deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. Beethoven and Wagner have stirred luigi russolo * 11our nerves and hearts for many years. Naw we havé had enough of them, and we delight much more in combining in our thoughts the noises of trams, of automabile engines, of carriages and brawling crowds, than in hearing again the “Eroica™ or the “Pastorale.” We cannot see the enormous apparatus of forces that the modern orchestra represents without feeling the most profound disillusionment before its paltry acoustical results. Do you know of a more ridiculous sight than that of twenty men Striving to redouble the mewling of a violin? Naturally, that statement will make the musicomaniacs scream—and perhaps revive the sleepy atmosphere of the con- cert halls. Let us go together. like futurists, into one of these haspitals for anemic sounds. There—the first beat brings to your ear the weariness of something heard before, and makes you anticipate the boredom of the beat that follows. So let us drink in, from beat to beat. these few qualities of obvious tedium, always waiting for that extraordinary sensation that never comes. Meanwhile, there is in progress @ repugnant mediey of monotonous impressions and of the cretinous religious motion of the Buddha-like listeners, drunk with repeating for the thousandth time their more or less acquired and snobbish ecstasy. Away! Let us leave, since we cannot for long restrain ourselves irom the desire to create finally a new musical reality by generously handing out Some resounding siaps and stamping with both feet on violins, pianos, contrabasses, and organs. Let us go! It cannot be objected that noise is only loud and disagreeable to the ear. It seems to me useless to enumerate all the subtle and delicate noises that produce pleasing sensations. To be convinced of the surprising variety of noises, one need only think of the rumbling of thunder, the whistling of the wind, the roaring of a waterfall, the gur- gling of a brook the rustling of leaves, the trotting of 2 horse into the distance, the rattling jolt of a cart on the road, and of the full, solemn, and white breath of a city at night. Think of all the noises made by wild and domestic animals, and of all those that a man can make, without either speaking or singing. Let us cross a large modern capital with our ears more sensitive than our eyes. We will delight in distinguishing the eddying of water, of air or gas in metal pipes, the muttering of motors that breathe and pulse with an indisputable animal- ity, the throbbing of valves, the bustle of pistons, the shrieks of mechanical saws, the starting of trams on the tracks, the cracking of whips, the flapping of awnings and flags, We will amuse ourselves by orchestrating together in our imagination the din of rolling shop shutters, the variéd hubbub of train stations, iron works, thread mills, printing presses, electrical plants, and subways [.. We want fo give pitches to these diverse noises. regulating them harmonically and rhythmically. Giving pitch to noises does not mean depriving them of all irrequ- lar movements and vibrations of time and intensity but rather assigning a degree or pitch to the strongest and most prominent of these vibrations. Noise differs irom sound, in fact, only ta the extent that the vibrations that produce it are confused and irregular. Every noise hes a pitch, some even a chord, which predominates among the whole of its irregular vibrations. Naw. from this predominant character- istic pitch derives the practical possibility of assigning pitches to the noise as a whole. That is, there may be imparted to a given noise not only a single pitch but even a variety of pitches without sacrificing its character, by which | mean the tim- bre that distinguishes it. Thus, seme noises obtained through a rotary motion can 12 = audio cultureoffer an entire chromatic scale ascending or descending, if the speed of the motion is increased or decreased, Every manifestation of life is accompanied by noise, Noise is thus familiar to our car and has the power of immediately recalling life itself. Sound, estranged from life, always musical, something in itself, an occasional not a necessary ele- ment, has become for our ear what for the eye is a too familiar sight. Noise instead, arriving confused and irregular from the irregular confusion of life, is never revealed to us entirely and always holds innumerable surprises. We are certain, thon, that by selecting, coordinating, and controlling all the noises, we will enrich mankind with a new and unsuspected pleasure of the senses. Although the char- acteristic of noise is that of reminding us brutally of life, the Art of Noises shovic not limit itself to an imitative reproduction. \t will achieve its greatest emotional power in acoustical enjoyment itself, which the inspiration of the artist will know how to draw fram the cambining of noises. Here are the 6 families of noises of the futurist orchestra that we will soan realize mechanically . Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms . Whistling, Hissing. Puffing . Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttaring, Gurgling |. Sereeching, Creaking, Rustling, Humming, Crackling. Aubbing . Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc, Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs ame wr In this list we have included the most characteristic of the fundamental naises The others are only associations and combinations of these. The rhythrie motions of a noise are infinite. There always exists, as with a pitch, a predominant rhythm, but around this there can be heard numerous other, sacondary rhythms. Conclusions 4. Futurist composers should continue to enlarge and enrich the field of sound. This responds to a need of our sensibility. In fact, we notice in the talented composers of today a tendency toward the most complicated dissonances. Moving ever farther from pure sound, they have almost attained the noise-sound. This need and this tendency can be satisfied only with the addition and the substitution of noises for sounds, 2. Futurist musicians should substitute for the limited variety of timbres that the orchestra possesses today the infinite variety of timbres in noises, reproduced ‘with appropriate mechanisms. 3. The sensibility of musicians, being freed from traditional and facile rhythms, must find in noise the means of expanding and renewing itself, given that every noise offers a union of the most diverse rhythms, in addition to that which predominates. 4. Every noise having in its irregular vibrations a predominant general pitch, a sufficiently extended variety of tones. semitones, and quartertones is easily luigi russola = 13allained in the construction of the instruments thal imitate it, This variety of pitches will not deprive a single noise of the characteristics of ils timbre but will cnly increase its tessitura or extension. 5. The practical difficulties invalved in the construction of these instrumants are not serious. Once the mechanical principle that produces a noise has been found, its pitch can be changed through the application of the same general laws of acoustigs, It can be achieved, lor example, through the decreasing or increasing of speed, if the instrument has a rotary motion. If the instrument does not have a rotary motion, it can be achieved through differences of size or tension in the sounding parts 6. It will not be through a succession of noises imitative of lite but through a fantastic association of the different timbres and rhythms that the new orchestra will obtain the most complex and novel emotions of sound. Thus, every instrument will have to offer the possibility of changing pitches and will need a more or less extended range, 7. The variety of noises is infinite. If today, having perhaps a thousand differ- ent machines, we are able to distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, with the multiplication of new machines, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thinty thousand different noises, not simply by imitation but by combining aceord- ing to our fancy, 8. Therefore, we invite talented and audacious young musicians to observe all noises attentively, to understand the different rhythms that compose them, their principal pitch, and those whieh are secondary, Then, comparing the various tim- bres of noises to the timbres of sounds, they will be convinced that the first are much mare numerous than the second. This will give them not only the under standing of but also the passion and the taste for noises. Qur multiplied sensibility, having been conquered by futurist eyes, will finally have some futurist ears. Thus, the moters and machines of our industrial cities can one day be given pitches, so that every workshop will become an intoxicating orchestra of noises |... ] 14 « audio cultureSound, Noise, Varése, Boulez MORTON FELDMAN ‘Composer Marton Feldman (1926-1987) began his career in! the 1950s as. a.memter of the “New ‘York Schoo!” of artists and composers. Indeed; Feld. man’s music emulated the canvases of Abstract Expressiohist painters such aS Mark Rothko} Pranz'Kline, and Philip Guston/who were among his close friends: Against the great.modern systematizers, Pierre’ Boulez and, Karl- heinz Stockhausen; Feldman championed an intuitive musical abstraction that he felt was exemplified by the music of Edgard Varese. During his own INfetime, Feldman worked in the shadow, of hig mentor, John Cage. But, over. “the past decade; Feldman's'work has become'increasingly influential within and beyond the boundaries of contemporary classical music, Here, Feldman _offers an eloquent description of the power and fascination of noise. [....] Fong hears what one composes—by that! mean not just paper music—how can one not be saduced by the sensuality of the musical sound? It is unfortunate that when this sensuality is pursued we find that the world of music is not round, and that there do exist demonic vasinesses when this world leaves off, Noise is something else. It does not travel on these distant seas of experi- ence. It bores like granite into granite. Itis physical, very exciting, and when orga- nized it can have the impact and grandeur of Beethoven The struggle is between this sensuousness which is elegance and the newer. easier to arrive at, excitement. You have no idea how academic music is, even the most sublime. What is calculated is for me academic. Chance is the most academic procedure yet arrived at, for it defines itself as a technique immediately. And, believe me, the throw of ‘the dice may be exciting io the player, but never to the croupier. Is noise actually so easy to arrive at? Noise is. a word of which the aural image is all too evasive. On the one hand sound is comprehensible in that it evokes a sentiment, thaugh the sentiment itself may be incomprehensible and far-reaching But it is noise that we really understand. It is only noise which we secretly want, because the greatest truth usually lies behind the greatest resistance. morton feldman « 15Sound is all our dreams of music. Noise is music’s dreams af us. And those moments when one loses control, and sound like erystals farms its own planes, and with a thrust, there is no sound, no tone, no sentiment, nothing left but the significance of our first breath—such is the music of Varese. He alane has given us this elegance, this physical reality, this impression that the music is writing gbout mankind rather than being composed 16 = audio cultureThe Liberation of Sound EDGARD VARESE “Bomn'n cons Edgard erBeb (A 283-1085) srdotated tothe United Slates 19 1915. Like Rtussolo, he called ior a new concept of music’ and new musical igstfunients.” Yai, where Russolo was inspired :by the concrete noises’of everyday lite, Varése’s new musical yisionwas ‘Sparked by metaphors draws from ¢hemistry, astronomy, cartography, and geology: Desoribing himsell as “a worker in thythms, frequencies, and intansities;” Varese:redefined music e ag “organized, sound," side-stepping. the conventional distinction between "music" and “noise.” »Varése's music focuses on the matin of Solind-—cn timbre, ‘erties and sical space, slements thatwould become inersasingly important in later lectronic and | Ambient music: Indeed, in’ ‘the, 1950s, arase composed two arly’ masterpieces ‘of electronic music! Deserts (1950-54), realized in | “Pierre Sthaeffer's Paris studic,.and,Poéme Electronique (1957-58); part of ~ 2 “spectacle.chgound end light installeciin the Phillips Pavilion designedby, Le Corbusi for the World's Fair in Brussels. Varase + desoription of music | as “thé movement of sound-masses, of'shiiting planes” and, “beams. of Sound” aptly, describes not. only, his jwh music but a good:deal of modern | &kperimental, musi¢.ds woll, from» Musica Elettronica Viva’s live electronic music to Merzbow’s, noise, composition and, contemporary, Powerbook music, The following text is excerpted fram 4 serlas of léatures' ‘given by War re men 1936 to. 1962 arid compiled’ by his stlident Chou Wen-Chung: New Instruments and New Music (1936) [....] When new instruments will allow me to write music as | conceive it, the move- ment of sound-masses, of shifting planes, will be claarly perceived in my work, faking the place of the linear counterpoint. When these sound-masses collide, the phenomena of penetration or repulsion will seem to occur. Certain transmutations taking place on certain planes will seem to be projected onto other planes, moving at different speeds and at different angles. There will no longer be the old concep- edgard varése * 17tion of melody or interplay of melodies. The entire work willbe a melodic totality. The entire work will flow as a river flows We have actually three dimensions in music: horizontal, vertical, and dynamic swelling or decreasing. | shall add a fourth, sound projection—that feeling that sound is leaving us with no hope of being reflected back, a feeling akin to that aroused by beams of light sent forth by a powedul searchlight—for the ear as for the eye, that sense of projection, of a journey into space. Today with the technical means thal exist and are easily adaptable, the differ- entiation of the various masses and different planes as well as these beams of sound, could be made discernible te the listaner by means of certain acoustical arrangements. Moreover, such an acoustical arrangement would permit the delimitation of what | call “Zones of intensities." These zones would be differenti- ated by various timbres or colors and different loudnesses. Through such a physi- cal process these zones would appear of different colors and of different magnitude, in different perspectives for our perception. The rale of colar or timbre would be completely changed from being incidental, anecdotal, sansual or pictur- esque: it would become an agent of delineation, like the different colors on a map separating different areas, and an integral part of form. These zones would be felt as isolated, and the hitherto unobtainable non-blending (or at least the sensation ‘of non-blending} wauld become possible. In the moving masses you would be conscious of their transmutations when they pass over different layers, when they penetrate certain opacities, or are dilated in certain rarefactions. Moreover, the new musical apparatus | envisage, able ta emit sounds of any number of frequencies, will extend the limits of the low- est and highest registers, hence new organizations of the vertical resultants: chords, their arrangements, their spacings—that is, their oxygenation. Not only will the harmonic possibilities of the overtones be revealad in all their splendor, but the use of certain interferences created by the partials will represent an appreciable contribution. The never-before-thought-of use af the inferior resultants and of the. differential and additional sounds may also be expected. An entirely new magic of sound! | am sure that the time will come when the composer, after he has graphically realized his score, will see this score automatically put on a machine that will faith- fully transmit the musical content to the listener. As frequencies and new rhythms will have to be indicated on the score, our actual notation will be inadequate. The new notation will probably be seisrnographic. And here it is curiaus to note that at the beginning of two eras, the Mediaeval primitive and our awn primitive era (for we are at a new primitive stage in music today), we are faced with an identical problem: the problem of finding graphic symbols for the transposition of the cam- poser’s thought into sound. Ata distance of mare than a thousand years we have this analogy: our still primitive alectrical instruments find it necessary ta abandon staff notation and to use a kind of seismographic writing much like the early ideo- graphic writing originally used for the voice before the development of staff nota- tion. Formerly the curves of the musical line indicated the melodic fluctuations of the voice; today the machine-instrument requires precise design indications |... ] 18 * audio cultureMusic as an Art-Science (1939) Personally, for my conceptions. | need an entirely new medium of expression: a sound-producing machine (not a sound-reproducing one}. Today it is passible to build such a machine with only a certain amount of added research. If you are curious to know what such a machine could do that the orchestra with its man-powered instruments cannot do, | shall try briefly to tell you: whatever I write, whatever my message, it will reach the listener unadulterated by “interpre- tation.” It will work something like this: after a composer has set down his score on paper by means of a new graphic notation, he will then, with the collaboration of a sound engineer, transter the score directly to this electric machine. Atter that, anyone will be able to press a button to release the music exactly as the composer wrote it—exactly like opening a book, And here are the advantages | anticipate fram such a machine: liberation from the arbitrary, paralyzing tempered system, the possibility of obtaining any number of cycles or, if still desired, subdivisions of the actave, and consequently the torma- tian of any desired scale; unsuspected range in low and high registers; new har- monic splendors obtainable from the use of sub-harmonic combinations now impossible; the possibility of obtaining any differentiation of timbre, of sound-cam- binations; new dynamics far beyond the present human-powered orchestra; a sense of sound-projection in space by means of the emission of sound in any part ‘or in many parts of the hall, as may be required by the score; cross-rhythms unre- lated to each ather, treated simultaneously, or, to use the old word, “contrapun- tally,” since the machine would be able to beat any number of desired notes, any subdivision of them, omission or fraction of them—all these in a given unit of mea- sure or time that is humanly impossible to attain [... .] Rhythm, Form, and Content (1959) My fight for the liberation of sound and for my right to make music with any sound and all sounds has sometimes been construed as a desire to disparage and even to discard the greal music of the past. But that is where my roots are. No matter how original, how different a composer may seem, he has only grafted a little bit of himself on the old plant. But this he should be allowed to do without being accused of wanting to kill the plant. He only wants to produce a new flower. Il does not matter if at first it seems to some people more like a cactus than arose [...] Because for so many years | crusaded for new instruments’ with what may have seemed fanatical zeal, | have been accused of desiring nothing less than the destruction of all musical instruments and even of all performers. This is, ta say the least, an exaggeration. Our new liberating medium—the électronic—is not meant to replace the old musical instruments, which composers, including myself, will continue to usé. Electronics is an additive, not a destructive, factor in the art and science of music, It is because new instruments have been constantly added to the old ones that Western music has such a rich and varied patrimony [... .] The Electronic Medium (1962) First of all, | should like you to consider whal | believe is the best definitian of music, because it is all-inclusive: “the carporealization of the intelligence that is in edgard varése © 19sound,” as proposed by Hoéne Wronsky.* If you think about it you will realize that, unlike most dictionary definitions, which make use of such subjective terms as beauty, feelings, etc., it covers all music, Eastern or Western, past or present, including the music of our new electronic medium, Although this new music is being gradually accepted, there are still people who, while admitting that itis “inter- esting,” say: “but is it music?” Itis a quastion | am only too familiar with. Until quite recently | used to hear it so offen in regard to my own works thal, as far back as the twenties, | decided to call my music “organized sound” and myself, nota musi- cian, but “a worker in rhythms, frequencies, and intensities.” Indeed, to stubbomly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise. But after all, what is music but organized noises? And a composer, like all arlists, is an orga- nizer of disparate elements. Subjectively, noise is any sound one doesn’t like. Qur new medium has brought to composers almost endless possibilities of expression, and opened up for them the whale mysterious world of sound, Far instance, | have always felt the need of a kind of continuous flowing curve that instruments could nat give me. That is why | used sirens in several of my works, Today such effects are easily obtainable by electronic means. In this connectian, It is curious to note that it is this lack of flow that seems to disturb Eastern musi- cians in our Western music. To their ears, it does not glide. sounds jerky, com- posed of edges ol intervals and holes and, as an Indian pupil of mine expressed it, “jumping like a bird from branch to branch.” To them, apparently, cur Western music seems to sound much as it saunds to us when a record is played backward But playing a Hindu record of a melodic vocalization backward, | found that | had the same smeoth flow as when played normally, scarcely altered at all. The electronic mediurn is also adding an unbelievable variety of new timbres to our musical store, but most important of all, it has freed music from the tempered system, which has pravented music from keeping pace with the ather arts and with science. Composers are now able, as never before, to satisfy the dictates of that inner ear of the imagination. They are also lucky so far in not being hampered by asthetic codification—at least not yet! Bul | am afraid it will not be long before some musical mortician begins embalming electronic music In rules. We should also remember thal na machine is a wizard, as we are beginning to think, and we must not expect our electranic devices to compose for us. Good music and bad music will be composed by electronic means, justas good and bad music have been composed for instruments. The computing machine is a marvel- ‘ous invention and seems almost superhuman. But in reality it is as limited as the mind of the individual who feeds it material. Like the computer, the machines we use for making music can only give back what we put into them, But, considering the fact that our electronic devices were never meant for making music, but for the sole purpose of measuring and analyzing sound, it is remarkable that what has already been achieved is musically valid, These devices are still somewhat unwieldy and time-consuming, and not entirely satisfactory as an art-medium. But this new art is still in its infancy, and | hope and firmly believe, now that composers and physicists are at last working together and music is again linked with science as it was in the Middie Ages, that naw and more musically efficient devices will be invented. 20 + audio culture