eth ie Ruminations on (DE)COMPOSING (in) the POSTMODERN SOUNDSCAPE Music- -Making w € € n © GLOBAL CAPITAL by Advian Ivakhiv Musie-making manifests variously in different times and places. In Western modernity, it emerged as “composition” the creative activity of individual composer-subjects trained in the rules of composition and praised for their mastery of ‘musical forms. Recently this tradition has been deconstructed by post-Cagean techniques (chance processes, harmonic stasis, improvisation, étc.) and subsumed in a sea of hybrid, postmodem styles, blurring the boundaries between serious and popular, composed and improvised, acoustic and technological, as well as between various world musical traditions. Composition is, in many ways, being replaced by sampling and mixing—as if there were nothing new to be created, only different ways of putting it together and taking,it apart. This paper probes and “decomposes” modemity's language of “composition” in order to get at its suppressed connections to ecological processes. If, as | argue, the soundtrack of postmodernity is the sound of decomposition, what is it that is decomposing all around us, and what fungal growths parasitically emerge from its decomposing body? What are the implications of modernity's “decomposition” in the context of the ecotopian visions of green politics and the realities of global capital? The choice, Targue, is between a technocratic path that engineers global fashions irrespective of the waste it produces, and a place-sensitive, bicregional path which attends to the “decompositional moment” of cultural production and its interaction with local cultural “soils” and traditions 26 wustcwones sie ne ‘ § ECOTOPI4 “"Edgard Vardse's Last Words," by W. Mark SutherlondLaan Tae z 19 281035 mW 20404, 5 EW Mh unos om, wou fone emeso [| lil LL AT i] il . W. Mark Sutherland Scientific ecology categorizes the different elements of.an ecosystem according to function, distinguishing between producers, consumers, and decomposers Producors (vegetation) transform solar energy into other kinds of usable energy; consumers herbivores, carnivores or omnivores—consume these producers ‘and/or each other: and upon their deaths, the producers and consumers are themselves broken own into their basic elements by "decomposers, whose function is to return the elements of life back to the soil, This ecological model, despite its ‘consumer-capitalis language, is nevertheless @ balanced, circular and regenerative model of the natural world: production is balanced by consumption andl decomposition; its westes and by-products are returned to.a state from which they can re-enter the “production cyele,” upon the influx of solar energy. ‘This ecological metaphor can be applied to the sctivity of music-making. My argument is that music in Western modernity has privileged production—as compesition—and undervalued decomposition. By “decomposing” composition—through beth an ‘etymological “chewing-apart” of the word itself, and a rumination on modern and postmodern soundscapes—! hope to shed some light on music's hidelen connections with the cultural and ecological processes of the earth. Musics, ater all, @ form of, ‘culture, which my dictionary defines as (among other things) “the cultivation of microorganisms” and the “practice of cultivating the soll.” To ruminate on music and soundscapes is to release and digest their hutritive juices (as any good cloven-hoofed, cud. chewing ruminant knows). As our culture stands at the crossroad of an intensified global capitalism and an ‘ecotapian bioregionalitm, such a rumination can help, Us choose between a diet of junk culture or one of ecological and political sanity. DECOMPOSING COMPOSITION, ‘Music, in Western modernity, has been first and foremost the production of compositions, objects of musical art, to be performed, contemplated, and ‘admired. The performance of these compositions their interpretation, thei performance envcohents and soundscapes, thet sone and bodily eff hae Generally been conaidered secondery 0 the Eompostin tral a twas orginal conceived and producnd in the comporers mind ard thon notte in Written form. The composition, concelved ara Lind of Srgoized arom, was contracted st of archtorsnie Butcng block thematic meio: the sequen! ‘movement of triadic chorde organized terme of °confetoF drama adit esolton; Sd an anslogoity veal frm within th three mowerients of sonst four movements of a symphony, and so on, “the word eomporton fe fe roots inthe Latin: com, together and posit oF ponere: piping” or | ‘putting A compostton then 2 spurting placing together To “decompose” ths word comporion let us trace the many underground current thet have foment and out of Po and ponere have been traced back by linguists tothe ‘ecomtucted Indo-European foot peor apo meaning “anny and to the Greek ward fr of irom which come “et and “otter” and the “ebb. {ide whon th water goes any. Tis sonse of movement or dplacement ound inthe Uti post ehind or atrvard Pat end “compostion” Schdkionaly, conect tothe foot ced fe Latin sere tne see, ad the Greek st, rom which come Ss? “tet veecle* (on which ders), tel "soot tht sates somewhere, and becoipesSsodectanye te “Sediment that sss" onthe Bottom of aleve, the “toga” ofan army tht sets or “sets” tel around a towne and the “sodatve" tht sctles Gur nares “Portion, then, combines these various mobninge of setting, setting ino place, or pttng down, wits the movement inherent hth action of puting the stv "ft or “away” hem one place to shothex Buried doop within hese meanings are the muons of seater andthe pars cars the bbe owing dway the sevting nso metion an the edimentaton Wwe were to feay rethink the werd composition {com thous insite rpples owing onthe sefocss tnd nthe depths of aiguoge we were act tie sword tetfinto mation, ro make fds dhyrated Imats—the composed “work"-“to rehyalate th this motion of water end of sediment we nigh | 27 |"Free Jazz," by W. Mark Sutherland from veb fo noun name and sound or constant redefinition spinning cout of control melding in an eloquent example pushin’ the precarious envelope percussive yes playful edgy apprehending process. intime ‘ontime for all time radical dissonance fuses counterpoint in stark fragile cosmos bravo words hide . the _ _ dynemism — of an undiscovered :«: ‘es'® sonorous ‘galaxy alll right jump signal and sign language embrace when 7 shines thru the open ear as danger and joy collide in a gulp of ar 28 usiomones osama 1098 rethink it as 2 flowing-together: a composing. We pose, together we com-pose; we set ourselves into fluid series of poses-—but poses are always understood to be ephemeral. We pose together, supposing it could be this way, or maybe that tray: we try things out, improvising as we go along. Where, then, does composition end and improvisation begin? At what point is the frame fitted and the composition locked into place? In Western madernity, this framing and fitting has had much I to dovwith the composer's intent, that is, with the master’s Control over his elements. Mastery and control (another truism here) have been the obsession of modernity: and in the "real Worl, science has been the main agent of this urge to control Sand order the world In music, though, what has been valued is, Creativty—the production of musical works by composers (and, Secondary, by performers). They are consumed, for the most part, by audiences. But what of the decomposition? Perhaps the Fits ‘ane pieces of melodies and arias as they trail off into the world at large after an evening at the opera house—perhaps their descent or sedimentation into the daily vernacular of popular culture isa kind of decomposition? But the more obvious point is that madern society has been biased in favour of production, at least since the Industrial Revolution. The entire science of economics bases itself on the Yolue of production and growth. Our most commen indicator of Societal wellbeing has been and stil is the Gross National Product. Growth, production, progress, the amassing of capital— ‘these are the values of modern capitalism. With the democratization of industrial capitalism in the present century, ‘the popular focus has shifted from production to consumption, and our identities as late-modern individuals have become defined more by our choices as consumers than by our roles as, producors; but in a crunch production always serves as the Eottom line. We produce, we consume; the more, the better. But somewhere the crucial stap of decomposition has been forgetten. The triangle has become a line forward—growing, progressing, into the future. POSTMODERN SOUNDINGS AND SLIPPAGES Modernism, inthe sense used by aft historians referring to the art movements of the late nineteenth and first tworthirds of the twentieth century; had recognized that a crisis inevitably ensues from this steam-engine of growth and progress. But modernism is stlla part of this steam-engine, this forward propulsive thrust, with its every movement or vanguard attempting to outdo the tones before ft while supposedly starting all over from zero: Cubism, futurism, dada and surrealism, serialism, twelve-tonalism, expressionism, and so on. As Martin Heidegger (and Taoists long before him) philosophized—and as so many revolutions have shown by their folluree-thie forward-propulsive tradition cannot bbe overcome by its opposite. It can only be subtended by 3 gently subversive, sideways motion, a sleight-of-hand that would ‘weaken the structure of control and open up its alternatives (rather as Thoreau and Gandhi each challenged their respective societies by questioning dominant assumptions and weakening «their foundations). {nthe history of Western musical composition, or in that r¥2 dénouernent, the pivotal figure that best fits this lescristion-—not as the climax or apex of musical modernity, but fs ts shape-shifting, sleight-ofhand conjuring, Gandhian ‘decomporer-—is John Cage. After Cage, street sounds become Imusic, chance processes become composition, and compositional contro i thrown to the wolves (or star charts), The forward momentum of Western musical narrative is abandoned, and the field is laf open for improvisational play, for mutual borrowing between traditions, and for | Ching readings of yarrow stalks a5. ‘they fall randomly onto the composer-quru's table. 4 ‘lam, of course, simplifying my tale by placing Cage in this watershed position between modernity and postmodernity. The: tale I'm telling isa bit oo much ike a modern drama, with al ts Confict and resolution—modemity’s growth and development. working itself out like a symphony toward its Wagnerian or,perhaps, Schienbergian climax, and then unravelling itself into post-Cagean postmodernism. Once its occurred, though, once the Western modernist thread has snapped, and the train has cartled over its wheels, sid off the tracks and begun to topple over itself, giving off accordion-lke outbursts of chords and discords, steam and noise and smoke and dust—the precise cause oF turning-point doesn’t matter. What's important is that it’s happened. But has it? Economically, the steamroller of industrial capitalism, with its endless growth and consumption, is still chugging. But the dream of progress and technological utopia is no longer believable. So pechaps we're still living out the textended frozen moment when the train has begun to topple over itself. As Nietasche's announcement of the “death of God” suggested, the old values no longer hold, but the new god has not yet arrived. (And alot of false gods can come before the ‘awaited-for arrives; this is perhaps why Niatzsche's Oedipal descendant Heidegger succumbed, momentarily, to the anti- ‘modernist ilusion of fascism. French philosopher Jacques Derrida has reworked Heidegger by recognizing that all and any applicants for the position of "new god and saviour” are necessarily false ones—or, rather, that they are all neither true nor false: the very distinction isto elusive that it slips out of our hands before we can erecta sign of it announcing the new truth- bringer's arrival) 'So we are caught in this slippery moment, this moment of slippage, when truths and references, meanings ond values sip land slide, deconstructing and reconstructing before our eyes. * Musealy, this postmodern moment manifests s the patchy hybridization of contemporary styles. Composed musics, the “serious” and the “popula,” live and recorded, acoustic and ‘electronic and “found! or reprocessed sounds—all become fused ‘and interminably blurred. From the Kronos Quartet to “plunderphonics,” from rap and hip-hop, techno, jungle and Industrial dance to world-beat and various Third World hybrids, . composition seems to be being replaced by sampling and mixing, a8 #f there were nothing new to be create | only different ways of putting ft together and taking it apart (preferably at the same time). ‘What kind of soundscape is arising within this electronic communieationsinked, postmodern world emerging all around us? Industralization brought with it an urban, mechanized, noisy “An Uncomfortable Chai (A Percussion Score For Erie Satie bby W. Mark Sutherland INSTAUCTIONS 41. equipment required — drumsticks, an old wooden chair, bel type alarm clock 2. set alarm clock to ring in 3 minutes and begin performing percussien score on chair with drumsticks (fortssime/sllegro) core with deumstils on chair (piano/ritardando) for1 minute more 44, stop playing and stop alarm clock ringing 5. bow to the audience like a wounded snail {and disorienting, tension-charged soundscape, but it has by now bbeen integrated into contemporary music quite thoroughly Electronic communications—radio, television, telephones, satelite communications and instant news—bring with them 2 more global soundscape than industralism: the latter had been loud, noisy and homogenizing, while this one is pluralistically noisy and sonically rich, halfwild in its noisiness. This is, something Keriheinz Stockhausen tried to get atin his “Hymnen,” a lengthy work incorporating the variously processed sounds of the national anthems of the world. Cage, of course, added the element of randomness into his (otherwise somewhat similar) pieces for short-wave radios. Into this fecund, organic richness there is thrown the st decomposing body of Western Classical tradition, along with the decomposing traditions of other cultures, creating a variety of hybed, fungal growths that one can hear on any shortwave radio (of any multi-ethnic radio station (particularly s0 in Canad, in an urban centre like Toronto, where the cultural mix is complex to the point of incoherence) Hore is the question | want to pose: is all of this mixing and hybridizing —this genetic sampling and cutting and splicing and recombiningjust free loating, oF sit rooted in specific locales? ‘What is the relationship of the various standing waves and currents of the steaming, oceanic, global postmodern soundscape-din to specific places, iocales and landscapes? I would argue that there isa relationship, though never a pure and simple one. Specifie places have their own narrative traditions and local histories, their own languages—which include sound and body languages, languages of melady and rhythm, movement and performance, individual and collective expression. All of these had been overshadowed by the modern narrative, fandinow, a Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo puts it, With the demise of the idea of a central rationality of history the world of generalized communication explode like 2 ‘multiplicity of “local” rationalities ethnic, sexual, religious, Cultural or aesthetic minorities that finally speak for themselves. Thay are no longer repressed or cowed into silence by the idea of a single true form of humanity that must be realized irrespective of particularity and individual finitude, transience and contingency. (Vattimo 1992, 8-9).Cyclone Score by W. Mark Sutherland Postmodernity, inthis respect, represents a liberation of this cultural richness and diversity. This frightens some poople—particularly those with a vested interest in the 6d, eurocentrie, medern-Cartesian-rationalist paradigm; fand those afraid of the relativistic, seemingly chaotic free forall that seems to replace it. But there are various possible postmodernisms—verious ways the corpse of modernity can decompose and nourish the future, POSTMODERN DIVERGENCES: GLOBAL CAPITAL AND BIOREGIONAL DEGRADABLES (One erucal divergence among the possible ways @ “postmodern” world can develop, is the one between ‘technocratic path and a bioregional, ecotopian one. (Unlike “utopia,” which means “no-place,” “home-place,” a sense of place that is “at home" in the: world) The frst of these involves a kind of atomistic ‘randomization and an engineered recombination of global hybrids and styles, responding to the needs of fashion and, ukimately, o the corporate-ndustral-mlitary agenda of ‘global capitalism. The second involves a more conscious decomposition of modernity into the very specific cultural and ecological “soils” of a polycutural world. These soils are ‘ich with their own histories and stories and compositional and performance traditions, to the extent that they haven't been rained entirely of nutrients through monoculturalland-uses, pesticide and herbicide overklls, and otherwise unsustainable methods of cultivation. In the case of musical cultivation, of ‘course, a monoculture might be that of commercial radio, Muzak, corporate rock and MOR; and it doesn't really mattor if the cashverop being grown for worldwide “fast-sound” markets is the Beatles or Abba, Mozart revived yet again, or Zamfir. A McDonale's hamburger is the same in Toronto as itis in Tokyo, and neither its production nor its consumption has any meaningful relationship to the qualities of place, of local culture ‘and history, o of the "soundscape soils" of the diverse culture systems of the world. The kinds of sounds and musies the bioregional model cals for are those that readily decompose, not those that impose themselves everywhere withaut allowing for » natural regeneration, and which leave behind themselves a trail of nonbiodegradable senic sludge. Biodegradable music, biodegradable soundscapes? Are we rot entering dangerous territory by applying such loaded physical (and political) metaphors to muse and culture? As Jacques Derrida asks, “Can one transpose onto ‘culture’ the Vocabulary of ‘natural waste treatment’—recyeling, ecosystems, 235688 Composition In Real Time INSTRUCTIONS 1. start stop watch 2. listen 3. stop stop watch at 235688, svecpane Y SANT PPE tne moss ganaal and novel sense ofthis term, --cate which It has some sanae, shakes Zong, then Ie “content and s0 on—slong with the whole legislative apparatus that regulates the societies?" (Derrida 1989, ty! 1 ar). in his article entitled Biodegradables,” a meditation fon the controversy surrounding ‘the controversial wartime journalism of literary crite Paul de Man, Derrida muses the worst but also the best that . cone could wish for a piece of writing is that it be biodegradable, ‘And thus that it not be s0. As biodegradable, itis on the side of life, assimilated, thanks to bacteria, by a culture that it nourishes, f! enriches, irrigates, even fecundates but. ‘on the condition that it lotes its identity, its figure, or its singular signature its proper name. And yet, is not the best way to serve tho said “culture”... to oppose 3 certain resistance to biodegradability? leit not the case that, a5 “nonbiodegradable,” the singularity of a work resists, does not let itso be assimilated, but stays on the surface and survives like an indestructible artifact or in any case one which is less destructible than another? (Derrida 1989, 824) Further on, he continue 'a text must be "(bio}degradable" in order to. the “living” culture, memory, tradition. To the extent -lrrigates the milieu ofthis tradition and its “formal” identity i dissolved: : And yet, to enrich the “organic” soil of the said Culture, ft must also resist ft, contest it, question and ertiize Fe enough ... and thus it must not be assimilable. .. Or at least t must be assimilablo as inassimilable, kept in reserve, Unforgettable because irrecoivable, capable of inducing ‘meaning without being exhausted by meaning, incomprehensibly elliptical, secret. What is it in 9 “great” work, let's say of Plato, Shakespeare, Hugo, Mallarmé, James, Joyce, Kafka, Heidegger, Benjamin, Blanchot, Celan, that ‘resist erosion? What is it that, far from being exhausted in ‘amnesia, increases its reserve to the very extent to which one. Saws from it, as if expenditure augmented the capital? (Derrida 1989, 845) Blodegradabilty is hardly an easily identifiable quality, however Plato and Shakespeare have “nourished the living culture,” *irrigated” and “enriched” its sol, memory, tradition; but they have also, as Derrida puts it elsewhere, resisted “centuries of ‘erosion and hermeneutic microorganisms" (Derrida 1989, 814), [At the same time, these “hermeneutic microorganisms" have ‘eaten away at them and transformed them into very different {ereatures, though retaining the same “proper names.” And “Plato” and “Shakespeare” (and "Beethoven" and *Wagner” et all), as we read and haar them today, ae interacting with very different toils, each with its peculiar set of “hermeneutic mmicroorganisms"——and “we (who read and hear them today), Tike the sole, are plural, not unified. A concern with ‘“decomposabilty” and "biodegradability" requires a greater sensitivity to specific hermeneutic contexts, local cultures, languages and environments, than has been the case during th modern ara, Deciding what kind of sound or music it "biodegradabl| | Not a straightforward task, of course, and the last thing we need is a new buréaueracy, a “soncracy” or "acoustocracy” to make such decisions based on the formulations of experts. The bioregional path, ifit is to have digested the lessons of modernity, cannot advocate a return to some kind of pre-modern Purity, a sonic-ecological “ethnic cleansing” that would derive te ‘models, for instance, from romantic notions of the native or primitive, folk or pastoral. The kind of postmodern Sioregionalsm | am suggesting accepts the hybridization of traditions and styles, the sampling, mixing, and recombining of voices and places, rhythms and! languages. At the same time, i cultivates an awareness of and responsiveness to the local sls into which these hybrid growths decompose and with/in which they mix in their fungal re-emergence into new sounds and musical languages. Finally, however, this postmodern bioregionalism would need to-be critical of any concentrations of power that might attempt to engineer fashions, soundscapes, and musical languages. A postmodem, bioregionalist, eitically decompositional practice ‘would work to expose and decompose such power blacs; and it would attend to the processes of decomposition with aki, severity, but also care and even respect_the kind of sll and respect with which Buddhist meditative practice, for instance, attends to the egoic desires and thought-processes which it carefully and skilfully decomposes. (CODA: RUMINATORY RETRACINGS AND SILENCES Let me retrace the tracks of my thoughts as they have led me to this post/medern crossroads, ' have been arguing for a re-ecologizing of our appreciation of sound. and musie-scapes. The productionist metaphysic of Western modernity, Hhave suggested, emerged, in the activity of ‘music-making, as 3 compositional tradition that valued mastery {and control—the mastery and control of the individual composer- ‘enius over his compositional elements. This drive toward mastery has paralleled a similar drive in modern scierice, toward the objective ordering and control of the world, With the [Passage of time, as industrial capitalism has advanced toward ppostmoderity this productionist metaphysic has increasingly been supplemented by s'consumptionist one. Fashions and styles have been produced and reproduced, combined and recombined increasingly to fit new hybrid, postmodern consumer lentties. But these have been'generated mainly by economic lites, whose agenda is to maintain and reproduce certain kinds of power relations ane! to control multinational flows of productive and consumptive energy. What has been eclipsed al along, according to this tale I've been telling about the modern epoch, has been the ‘ decompositional moment in the triple movement of production (or composition consumption decomposition He ddecomporitionel moment fakes account ofthe relations between, on the one hand, the composed—the stegetbar Poted the setting into motion and seclmentation Sf eolactivly Poted images, soundscapes, storie and identities andl sete Star, the “sls” and "sconytene” within which there ooeree and into which they breok down, lt atends to the breaer scologcal, cultural, and musical systems witin which are ephomeral poses into which we colvely set carselece compose themselves and out of which new composition omerges—though, of course ite over enely Rows et rather is improvised out ofthe sedimented lemants thet se carted titan they movant ke ete Composition that attends espectuly to its relations within. bronder ecological and cll processes decomposes Real A modern bioregional aesthetic practice ale I tis process of Arcompenion ston rel ad vagy ont Meee compassion tothe multiple manifestations of sound and of ‘musiermaking taking plac nthe word today, and to the relations between tharn and the sls rom whlch they tere. leo attends skill wth Buddhist mecitatwe eighe see Severity, to those manifestation of soit ego, concentrations of power and homogenizing world: systems, which try t0 contrel and dominate natural and spontaneous orders of relations, Ths is apolitical task, @ radically democratic and eS decentraist one that values and Oe aS celebrates otherness, difference ao and diversity, = If the soundtrack of ——— postmodernity is, a8 !am ~ suggesting, the sound of ~—_ decomposition, iis less important to bemoan the noisiness of the postmodern din than itis to Ss cultivate mindfulness and attention, at once sympathetic and politically.“ critical, toward this decomposing and recombinatory excess, Or maybe all my words merely “————— ‘add to an already saturated aaa cecophony, and what would have been better is silence, Silence, —_—_— however, can be a closing of one’s =| —~———~ 21s, a retreat from the world: or it =—§ can be an opening to the world, @ fening. Itis arenewed = yp listening, an attentive oe reappreciation of the connections between music, sound, place, and ecology, together with an active, critical decomposition of the mechanisms of control and domination (be they state or corporate) that constitutes the ‘most appropriate response, for those engaged in sound and music. making, to the emerging postmodern soundscape. [This paper was originally given at “The Tuning of the World: The First International Conference on Acoustic Ecology," Bani Centre forthe Arts, Banff, Alberta, August, 1993 ft has been revised for publication) "26 Lines About ‘The Pacific Ocean,” bby W. Mark Sutherland ‘Adrian ‘Avakhiv plays and composes music, writes, and Ives in Toronto, He is currently completing @ Ph.D. on sacred places ond the ecopolitcs of landscape at the Faculty of Environmental Studies of York University. He can be reached at 1€8051226@orion.yorku.ca. lOGRAPHY Derrida.Jeeques. 1989. “Blodegradablos: Seven Disry Fragments." trans. B Kamu, Critical Ingutry 15: 812-675, \Vatimo, Gionnl . 1992. “The Transparent Society.” tans. David Webb, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Prose, RESUME FRANGAIS a sare» musical se marfeste cftéremment ravers hit et es sifeentes tures, Dane la moderne coccensie on specie te he insical scorpions ed Facts crauice din voreecteats pt Inca marie ls formes dol musique. Recoronn eo ‘ecniquespottcagienes (hatre, improvisation, harmonie sate) ont ‘etc La compostion est ‘amplacée par Féchantlionege et lo colage/minage comme Chevy eek pkzrien de nowau 8 cider Le présant roe vutsascomposee ie langage compositionnel de ia mademits afin den monies esters avec les processus écologiques. Sila postmodern sonare os le sence clécomposton, quest.ce au juste ui so decompose, et euates ut Bousse sur ce qui se décompose, dans le contexte du captalssne global et ‘de Itopie envronnementale? Uautour veut montrer @vitya ane alternative 8 le conception gestionnaire du traltemant de cor sachets ‘alturele dans une appropriation et une transformation ovaloces siewone stn 86 31