(Demolishing) Concrete Music

Author(s): Simon Polson

Source: Leonardo Music Journal , 2013, Vol. 23, Sound Art (2013), pp. 55-57
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43832506

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 (Demolishing) Concrete Music
Simon Poison

ABSTRACT

The article addresses t

A pieces of sound art that i

porate field recordings f
JL JLt least 1 25 people were shot trying to cross the map, and Fox added further sets of site of the Berlin Wall, du
Berlin Wall, which was for them an instrument of torture and deconstruction of its con
two parallel lines on either side of
presence in East German
death. For countless others in Europe and around the world, each, creating the appearance of a author examines two pi
the Wall, which represented the Soviet grip on the people of musical stave. From the map, the a case study for the con
Eastern Europe, was an instrument of division and oppression. length of the Wall was precisely ation of the historical pot
For two composers, the Berlin Wall was a musical instrument. measured in centimeters; these of soundscapes and pro
that the developing genr
This article addresses two pieces of sound art, by Terry Fox measurements were transposed
possesses the capability
and Anthony Hood, respectively, which use the acoustic and into seconds, and the distance of
preserve the sound of his
physical properties of the Berlin Wall as structural motifs in the Wall became measured in time
ways that are not possibl
their construction: they are pieces of musique concrete , literally [4] . The physical properties of thewritten sources. The pot

made from the sounds of concrete. Although not intended problems associated with
Wall, its trajectory and the distance
works' réévaluation as h
to be, they are also the sounds of history and thus historical of its course through Berlin thus sources and further work
sources. The study of history has traditionally assigned greater became the material principals of would benefit from simil
value to written sources than aural sources. This, however, is the object score Berlin Wall Scored for
sideration are discussed.

to the detriment of history's capacity to appeal to our senses Sound. It is reasonable to consider

and imagination. As Woolf notes, the current hierarchy of vi-
sual and written communication over the aural and spoken
impinges directly on "historical consciousness" [ 1 ] .
Studying Terry Fox's Berlin Wall Scored for Sound and An-
thony Hood's Ein Stück von der Mauer ("A Piece of the Wall")
offers an insight into the way history has accidentally found
itself preserved in sound art and soundscape. Here, the com-
posers' intentions to create a personal record of a moment
in time instead created a record that sounds for all people.
Berlin Wall Scored for Sound
Berlin Wall Scored for Sound an "ob-
ject" as well as a composition, be-
cause Fox reproduced the object score often but made only
one recording. I know of at least six original editions of Berlin
Wall Scored for Sound in contemporary art galleries around the
world, each reassembled in various ways and each with a dif-
ferent suggestion for sonic construction [5] .
Perhaps the exercise for Fox rested just as much on the
idea of the score as on its actual realization - if not more so;
Berlin Wall Scored for Sound, conceived at the beginning of the
1980s, may well have initially been intended as a piece of visual
art before it became a work of sound art. It was not until the

Terry Fox (1943-2008) was a recipient of a Deutscher Aka-

end of that decade that Fox's only complete recording of the
demischer Austauschdienst grant throughout 1980-1981 and
work (which he tided Berlino) was released on Apollo Records
lived in a studio in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and later on object score of Berlino, a single linear organization of
[6] . The
the Mariannenplatz in the northeastern corner of Kreuzberg,
Berlin Wall Scored for Sound [7] , illustrates how Fox divided the
West Berlin. Fox wrote that, from the top of his building,
contours "Iof the Wall and, according to their shapes, assigned
them
could look down into the Wall and follow its course for one of six letters (B, where Fox deemed the contour
a long
way in both directions. I could see how it bisected streets,C, "straight"; D, "canal"; E, "curved or crooked";
"chaotic";
squares and even houses" [2] . F, "lake"; X, "Horsehead Nebula") [8]; the repetition of the
sounds
The idea of Berlin Wall Scored for Sound originated, in the sequence and their duration is determined by
in Fox's
words, as "a sound map ... a kind of aural geography," by
the changing conformation of the Wall. Importantly, these
terms only differentiate between the six sounds, as Fox did
which Fox might familiarize himself with his new surroundings
[3] . Fox traced the trajectory of the Wall on a large
notmap of what the sounds should be or even give any indica-
specify
Berlin and divided its course into sections according to about
tion their their aural quality beyond these ambiguous words.
position relative to the four corners of West Berlin.A(The same organization of the object score Berlin Wall Scored
different
was done to the zigzagging perimeter of East Berlin,for Sound exists wherein the Wall is reassembled not in a sin-
although
that border only intersected the Wall on its westerngle continuous
side.) Fox line but with sections presented on individual
then drew straight lines to connect the vertices ofstaves, West andthe shapes of which are then inverted or presented in
East Berlin, upon which crisscrossed the topography ofretrograde
their the form, inviting the musically inclined viewer
Wall itself. Each individual line was then disassociated from the to recall the treatment of thematic material by composers of
the Second Viennese School [9] . Berlino is a continuing se-
quence of acoustic sounds chosen from fragments of audio-
Simon Poison (student), Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, Australia,
tape and incorporates soundscapes from Berlin, including a
8/36 Phillip St, Enmore, New South Wales, Australia, 2042. E-mail: <spol2741@uni.sydney.
edu.au>. British military helicopter that, Fox wrote, "made almost daily
See <www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/lmj23> for supplemental files associated passes along the Wall," and the sounds of a thunderstorm and
with
this issue.
church bells along the Mariannenplatz. Fox's intended "aural

© 2013 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 23, pp. 55-57, 2013 55

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geography" inadvertently preserved "au- generated and thereby stripped of im-sounds made by the Wall itself can serve
ral history": Of the six sounds featured in plicit meaning) with which Schaeffer as a unifying feature: Gesturally, like the
Fox's own recording of Berlin Wall Scored Wall that Hood experienced, the piece
experimented in his musique concrete col-
for Sound, these two local soundscapes are rises and falls: the church bells toll and a
lages of sound. By the composer's design,
of interest to this research. Ein Stück von der Mauer is an examplemoment
of in time is announced, and the
reduced listening, as each of the sounds
Wall - and the collage - begins to fall on
Ein Stück von der Mauer that compose the collage is deliberately itself. (Hood's use of chiming bells here
isolated from the context in which it to represent the fall of the Wall is not
Experimental and computer music in an isolated
originated. Without explicitly saying so, one: The same aural signi-
Australia owes much of its develop-
Hood's own commentary on the fier for German reunification is used in
piece
ment to Sydney-based composer and Reinhard Mey's 1990 track Mein Berlin
hints at a kind of "reduced listening": he
educator Anthony Hood [10], whose writes, "I decided just to do a mix of the
[17] .) Hood's palindromic collage stands
performances with Australian electronic
material capturing the sound I heard as an atintriguing contrast with Fox's Ber-
ensembles "watt" and OHM had been in-
the time; especially the percussive sound
lino, wherein soundscapes repeat without
tegral to the establishment of sound art
of people chipping at the wall I thought end, consigned to the oppression of the
in Australia. Like Fox, Hood's work en- work's infinite structure. Even with its du-
was pretty amazing" [15]. The same can
compassed considerations of transforma- be said of the material in Fox's Berlin Wall ration of 19'09", Berlino does not come
tion and spatialization, but whereas Fox
Scored for Sound, much of which was drawn to an end but, rather, the track simply
worked across a variety of media, Hood's
from private recordings of soundscapes stops sounding. These are the sounds of
focus has centered solely on sound since the Wall that would stand for "another
and studio activity wherein the artist was
the composer was aged 14.
experimenting with acoustics [16]. hundred years"; Fox wrote of his piece
Over New Year's Eve 1989-1990, Hood What Hood calls the "material" of his that it is "endless, forming a loop, like
traveled to Berlin, where the Wall once
collage also includes the indistinguish- the Wall it describes" [18].
stood as one of the most enduring ges- able distant sounds of Berliners' conver-
tures of Cold War hostility. It had been
sation, obscured by their distance from
predicted earlier that year that contrary The Diachronic Potential
the listener. Only one man's voice is es-
to Ronald Reagan's famous demand, the of Sound Art
pecially prominent (at 0T.1") and even
Wall would stand for "another hundred
then, only one word is comprehensible: I propose that these pieces of sound art
years" [11].
"mauer" ("wall"). Two girls approach need not only to be received as "art."
Of his experience in Berlin, Hood re-
from the distance, singing with briskFeaturing
am- as they do primary source field
calls:
ateurism the 1930s German sailor songrecordings and soundscapes from signifi-
I went over to Berlin for New Year's Eve Wir lagen von Madagaskar. Their singing
cant moments in time, the works possess
1989. . . . The big party was around the a historical, as well as cultural, value. Un-
is interrupted at 2'52.4" by the discor-
Brandenburg Gate on both the east and dant sounds of an organ grinder, a like
sud- Schaeffer's work, the historical impli-
west sides and I ended up with some peo-den intrusion on the track's left channel. cations of both Fox's and Hood's pieces
ple on the east side (including drinking
with some East German border guards at
At 3'29.92M there occurs a sudden, jolt-
problematize the composers' suggestion
that these sounds were recorded for their
one point). It was a pretty crazy night -ing shift: The tune played by the organ
people drinking and dancing on top of aural aesthetic alone. Sound of this sig-
grinder reaches a disjointed half-cadence
the Berlin Wall, where a few weeks ear- nificance cannot be "reduced"; the value
and is itself interrupted by a dense sound-
lier they would have been shot. I took
of these sounds to the composer and the
scape of church and city bells ringing out
my Sony professional Walkman with me
audience alike surely hinges on the so-
across Berlin. With time, the bells slowly
and made recordings that night. Over
fade to the sound of the girls again,
the following few days the West Berliners cial and historical importance of their
and
of the Berliners' conversation and the
started chipping away at the Wall, trying context, not on their content alone. By
to souvenir pieces as it became obviousone prominent, anonymous maletheir voicetitles as well as their subject material
that it was going to come down [12] .
from the beginning. All the while, (andthe
indeed, their subject matter, since
Some years later Hood transformed both composers titled their works with
collage is unified by the ongoing, percus-
his recordings into the work he titled sive high-pitch of sickle hammersallusionschip- to the Berlin Wall), the sound-
Ein Stück von der Mauer ("A Piece of ping the at concrete. scapes in Berlino and field recordings in
Wall"). Unlike Fox's work, Hood's Ein In an article discussing the Berlin Ein Stück von der Mauer are records of his-
Stück von der Mauer was intended from Wall, an allusion to "unity" mighttory seem as much as they are recordings of
the beginning as a piece of sound art, out of place, even foreign. Its inclusion
sound. If the reader allows for the study
conceived, according to the composer, is deliberate, however, for the opportu-of history to encompass a reconstruction
"to be received over radio or internet or nity it provides to comment on theofself- events and not just the study of events
done as an installation" [13]. referential structural features in both in a sequence, Fox's soundscapes and
Given the age at which he began ex- Fox's and Hood's works. The score illus- Hood's sound collage contribute aurally
perimenting with the genre, it is no trates a curious feature of Ein Stück von to the reconstruction of the historical

surprise that Hood's Ein Stück von der der Mauer: Structurally, the sound col- narrative. Hood recalls that he decided
Mauer should demonstrate the central lage is a palindrome. The interruption against composing an overtly "political"
of musical instruments toward the work's
principles of electronic music articulated piece [19]; structurally and materially,
in those mid-20th-century- treatises central
by point ("C") is bordered on either however, it was impossible that the artists
Pierre Schaeffer and his contemporaries side by the sounds of conversation ("A") avoid politics or history, altogether. Like-
[14] . Prominent among Schaeffer'sand singing ("B"), which are heard wise,
ideas in the sounds of a military helicopter
is the concept of the acousmatique reverse
sound order on their repeat: The piece gain extra-aural significance in a work
(that is, a "reduced listening" of sound exhibits a deliberately palindromic A-B- whose title refers to Berlin, where their
divorced from the context in which it is C-B-A form. It is for this reason that the presence, the composer notes, was an al-

56 Poison, (Demolishing) Concrete Music

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most daily reminder of the greater Ger- ography as history; to the musicologist,
6. The record is Berlino/Rallentando (Apollo Records
man context at the time. Aural historians AR 088807) and was released in 1988. Segment of the
as much history as music.
Berlin Wall, Scored for Sound was released in 1984 on a
There is every chance the reader compilation
are keen to lament the difficulty in recon- will cassette of experimental music by Stich-
structing the sounds of the past [20] : consider
The this article and its intersectional ting De Appel. The track has a duration of 4:34.

approach to field recording, sound art

discipline of history has long privileged 7. 1 am grateful to Genevieve Cottraux at the Berke-
the visual record (writing, paintings and,
and history restricted in its theory, pos-
ley Art Museum for her generosity and time supply-
more recently, photographs) over other sibly even applicable only to the two ing the image.

pieces of sound art referenced herein.

means. Their discipline suggests that our 8. Fox [2] p. 78.
Perhaps this is an enthusiastic, albeit ac-
only hints at how events in the past may
have sounded exist in written descrip- cidental, reflection on my own response9. The Berlin Wall Scored for Sound, pencil on paper,
79.5 X 77 cm, private collection. A reproduction of
tions. Yet with the advent of accessible
to the concept, content and form this of score may be found in Block et al. [5]. Further
technology (such as tape recorders),
Berlin Wall Scored for Sound and Ein Stück
reproductions of the work may be found online at
von der Mauer. But these works are not <www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/berlin-wall/>.
there is now a variety of forms that the
isolated examples of documented history
historical record may adopt. The written 10. The work discussed here could be titled "Part

being the subject, or content, of one":

word has lost the monopoly it historically noiseHood notes that he has a considerable amount
of unused material - recorded in the then East Ger-
has held on history: The sounds ofmusic
his- and of sound art. The contrast in man cities of Leipzig and Dresden - and has inten-
tory are preserved in this music. form between the two pieces discussed tions of extending the soundscape in the future.
The leap from soundscape to histori-
herein - one of which is only pardy, and
11. This observation is drawn from the article "Berlin
cal source may seem a tenuous one,thenbut accidentally made of history,Wall and Anniversary: Key Dates in the History of Ger-
one should remember that the compos-one that is entirely historically made many's - Wall," The Telegraph, 9 November 2009.
ers only edit these soundscapes andiscol-
a telling example of how broad our
12. Anthony Hood, email communication with au-
lages. Lyotard privileged avant-garde
access to aural history can be, if we al-13 August 2013.
thor,
low it to be, and how readily it can be
composers, as witnesses to and recorders
13. Hood [12].
preserved in artworks whose medium is
of history, over philosophers [21]. These
works are primary source recordingssound.
first My intention has been to present 14. Pierre Schaeffer, La musique concrete (Paris:
if not foremost, and indeed, historya case
has study by which we can interpret Presses Universitaires de France, 1967).

and analyze these other works and

always been subordinate to the artistry 15.to
Hood [12].
of its form (consider the epic poemscaution
of against assumptions of objective
Homer, for example, which, like Foxhistoricity:
and Chief among other examples16. Fox [2] p. 78; also Terry Fox, Ataraxia: Works with
Sound (Edition 5 Press/Plate Lunch 3-922689-91-3,
Hood's works, were not intentional his-
is Australian composer David Lums- 1998, liner notes).
torical documents but are studied as such daine's electronic poem Big Meeting , an
hour-long
now, if only for want of further sources) . epic reconstructed from17. Reinhard Mey's track Farbenv/as released by GMB
field
H&CO on compact disc in 1990 (KG B0000089LS)
recordings taken during the Durham
Problematically, then, these historical and distributed by EMI Music, Germany.
sound collages are records of biography County Miners' Union annual meeting
18. Fox [2] p. 78.
as much as they are of history, for it inisthe lead-up to the collapse of that and
other British miners' unions under the
the inescapable fact of historical author- 19. Hood [12].
ship that they are not objective recordsThatcher
of government. Those sound re-
20. See for example the excellent collection of es-
cordings, once for personal merit,says
history but rather records of the compos- nowin Mark M. Smith, ed., Hearing History: A Reader
ers' own history. The author is no moresound for all people; that music, like(Athens, this, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2004).
distant from the work than the singer is a comment on history, made from the
21. The observation is Bennett's. See David Bennett,
in that Reinhard Mey track, Mein Berlinsounds of that history itself. "Lyotard, Post-politics and Riotous Music," New For-
("My Berlin"), earlier mentioned. Here mations 66, No. 1 (2009) p. 46.
we encounter the fundamental problem References and Notes

of historiography. Consider the two pos-

1. D.R. Woolf, "Speech, Text and Time: TheSimon
Sense Poison is a student at the Sydney Con-
sibilities of the meaning in the sentence
of Hearing and the Sense of the Past in Renaissance
seruatorium of Music, at the University of Syd-
above of the word "records": Herodotus England," Albion 18, No. 2 (1986) p. 160.
ney, Australia. His primary interest is in early
made a "record" of history by writing2. Terry
it Fox, Terry Fox: Works with Sound, Bernd
music, particularly medieval chant and man-
Schulz, ed. (Heidelberg: Kehrer, 1999) p. 78. The
down; earwitnesses Fox and Hood "re- uscript studies. He has previously published
exhibit, held in 1998, took place in Saarbrücken.
corded" history literally with a micro- articles on a newly discovered manuscript by
3. Fox [2] p. 78.
phone and a tape recorder. Whatever English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
4. Fox [2] p. 78. He is currently completing his honors thesis,
the historiographical problems scholars
encounter when they read Herodotus,5. The scores are kept by the Utah Museum of
researching a 1 6th-century chant book in pos-
Contemporary Art, the Galerie Löhrl (Mönchen-
session of the University of Sydney. As a per-
the musicologist encounters equivalents
gladbach, Germany), Kupferstichkabinett, (Berlin,
former, he is a choral scholar with the Choir of
when we realize we are hearing recorded
Germany) , and the Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley,
Christ Church St Laurence and has recorded
CA, U. S.A.). To the best of my knowledge, the re-
history in these works of art. We are not
maining scores are in private collections. VeryCDs with them. He has also recorded a CD
fine
hearing the sounds of the Berlin Wall. reproductions of some of these scores may beof found
Gregorian chant for release by the Austra-
Rather, we listen to Fox or Hood, who in the catalogue of the Eighth Biennale of Sydney.
lian Broadcasting Corporation and has sung
hear the sounds of the Wall. To the his- See René Block, et al., The Readymade Boomerang:
chant for a documentary produced by the His-
Certain Relations in 20th Century Art (Sydney: Eighth
toriographer, these works are as much bi- of Sydney, 1990) p. 154.
Biennale tory Channel.

Poison, (Demolishing) Concrete Music 57

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