sound is being drawn out through some sort of action, we see it happening.

If not, we understand that it is

hidden within
w ithin its normal
normal functioning
functioning..
Peter Cusack thinks of his work as “Sonic Journalism . . . the aural equivalent to photojournalism,”106
and has made a compendium of sounds and texts called Sounds From Dangerous Places  Places  (2012). On a
different project, the longest track on Baikal Ice: Spring 2002  2002  is an underwater recording of icicles
hitting each other in the enormous Lake Baikal in Siberia, creating astonishingly complex layerings of
rhythm, timbre, texture, activity, and resonance. While someone standing at the edge of the lake could hear
some of this sound, its complexity is far more effectively captured through the use of the hydrophone.
Several later tracks on the album, the icicles are splitting off from each other. The observation and timing
required to differentiate the moments when the icicles were breaking up from those when the icicles were
hitting each other is crucial, and this difference is apparent through sound. Cusack’s project is not a
recording of icicles. Rather, it is a documentation of processes—verbs, rather than nouns. Apart from the
internal differentiation within each recording, these two processes (breaking up and bumping together) are
documented as having vastly different sonic profiles.
Field recording emphasizes that sounds happen in space every bit as much as they happen in time.
Geographical
Geographical locations are ar e often included,
included, particularly
par ticularly for outdoor recording
recor dings.s. The CD tray ofBaikal
of Baikal Ice
shows a map of the lake. The images conjured up in the first moments of listening are likely to be
memories or imaginations of the location of the recording. But a sustained study of a place through field
recording again makes time the primary axis. What is present in one moment is absent in another, or a shift
in the interaction between elements has a drastic impact on the sound.
Jana Winderen writes that “She is concerned with finding and revealing sounds from hidden sources,
both inaudible for the human senses and sounds from places and creatures difficult to access.”10 1077 The
The
sounds of the title track of her Evaporati
her  Evaporationon (2009)
 (2009) release were found through the use of hydrophones
inside and under the ice on a site in Greenland, and reveal a universe so rich with dimension, so alien to
hum
human experience
experi ence that it could
c ould not have been
b een im
i magined or constructed, but mustmust have been found.10
bee n found. 1088

While Cusack and Winderen traveled to record their sounds, Marc Namblard recorded the sounds of
Lac de Pierre Percée close to his own home. His observations over time of the lake and its surroundings
helped him to determine the particular day to record it. The sonic activity of the lake on January 16, 2006
is compressed onto the single track of Chants of Frozen Lakes (2008).
Lakes (2008). A frozen lake evokes images of
desolation,
desol ation, stillness,
still ness, and a stark natural
natural condition.
condition. Surprising
Surpris ingly
ly,, that is not at all what it sounds
sounds like.
l ike. More
than one reviewer has compared the characteristic sounds on this recording to lasers. These sounds result
from the conditions of the ice: “The tiniest crackles inside the ice of frozen lakes produce mechanical
vibrations. Under specific atmospheric conditions, these impulses propagate in the ice, whose tension
makes it similar to the skin of a drum. The acoustic result is an unbelievable blend of drumming sounds
and etheral [sic] resonances.”109
Lee Patterson has also done most of his recording work close to home, taking a special interest in the
ponds that are closest to where he lives in northern England. He has found that they have a foreign quality
of sound, even when they are very local. “In contrast to the road, rail, and air traffic sounds of north
Manchester, the aquatic sound world sometimes seemed more like that of a tropical rain forest, dense and
busy with a variety of sonic activities, albeit on a very small scale with many sounds possessing low
amplitudes.” 110  The sounds in the foreground of “Pond Weed” (2005) are caused by the release of
“thousands of tiny oxygen bubbles” from the hornwort in an old mill lodge near Manchester. Some of the
background sounds are familiarly aquatic, or may be coming from the surrounding environment, but the
complex rhythms of the interlocking squeaking and clicking sounds have been sourced to the hornwort that
is growing in the water. Patterson explains, “Each pulse or click is produced when a plant releases a
bubble, and with greater light, the frequency of the bubbles increases resulting in a variety of sounds or
sequence of tones.”111
Patterson has been fascinated by the vast difference between the sound of one pond and another,
with each body of water being a self-contained sound world dependent upon the resident flora and
fauna. Various water bodies, sometimes in close proximity to each other, possessed very different sound
environments, some being rather sparse in comparison to others only metres away.112
On the other hand, he has often found similarities between these aquatic environments and the sounds he
can pick up with a contact microphone. He has an interest in what he terms “bubble musics,” whether
emitted from plants underwater or in the process of an egg frying or a peanut or hazelnut burning. “Often,
when I place the hydrophones into an underwater thicket of Hornwort and turn up the pre-amps, I’m
presented with a dense field of ticks and clicks, sounding not unlike a fry up, and occasionally I’ll hear
drones, alarm-like repeated phrases, even tonal sequences amongst the seething mass of sounds.”113
Patterson has used very small contact microphones to amplify the sounds of objects in states of transition.
On the Seven Vignettes (2009)
Vignettes (2009) album, Egg
album,  Egg Fry # 2 includes sounds that are similar in their trajectory to
those in Pondweed
in Pondweed.. The amplification of these small objects in transformation offers a sense of entering
into an environment at least as capacious and compelling as a much larger body of water.
“Two peanuts burn” sounds like a threatened environment, which in its own way it is. The sounds of this
action, taking place within a very small space and captured with specially prepared contact microphones,
evoke wind, traffic, wildlife, and falling water. In fact, it evokes all sorts of sounds other than the burning
of two peanuts—because who until hearing this recording has in fact heard the burning of two peanuts?
Only in the last two minutes does it really start to sound like the typical sounds of a fire that is dying
down. The notes on the piece simply read, “Peanuts on specially prepared contact microphones, heated
and burned. One left, one right. Unprocessed, save for some shaping of the volume envelope.”114 A
similar process is applied in Three Hazelnuts Burn,Burn, and the extended squeaks, varied pops, and low-
frequency rumbling tell their own story of increased activity, destruction, and finally stasis.
When such sounds are made audible, their level of interest strikes a balance between familiarity (yes,
those sounds make sense under that circumstance) and a foreign quality (what is that? how can it be?).
Something too small or too quiet or too distant to notice has been transformed through technology into an
immersive sonic environment, and the listener is asked to reorient herself toward this drastic shift in
perspective. The French composer and sound artist Emmanuel Holterbach used induction coils to record
the electromagnetic auras of electrical equipment in a gallery office. “Invisible to our eyes, inaudible to
our ears, it is a shimmering aura which surrounds all our items that function on electricity.” The recording
process of  Mouvements dans une Aura Ionique 
Ionique  (2010) is a slow motion from one device to another,
revealing the transition of sound within and between devices.115 The methodology of the steady motion of
the microphone makes the listening process transparent. It is not known what machine or device is being
recorded,
recor ded, but the
the transitions are clear, and the even pacing gives a sen
se nse of the relative
rel ative scale
s cale of each item.
item.
In Stereo Bugscope 00 (2004),
00 (2004), the Japanese sound artist Haco (formerly vocalist for the After Dinner
band) also records machinery, including laptops, cell phones, wifi routers, and subway cars. “What
interests me,” she writes, “is the psychological mechanism that is triggered in us through the extraction of
these sounds.” Some of these devices are almost attached to us for most of the day, operating, as Haco
puts it, as “an extension of our brain and body.” The specific sounds they emit, when revealed at such
amplification and with such clarity, are somewhat distressing in their familiarity and complexity. A simple
hum would be a much simpler thing to process. But to witness so directly the sonic results of the machines
in operation for our personal
per sonal convenience
convenience is unsettling
unsettling.. Haco writes:
w rites:
The name “Stereo Bugscope” refers to a performance system that detects oscillating sounds emitted by
the circuitry inside electronic devices. . . . All of these signals are ordinarily so faint as to be inaudible.
According to one’s position in relation to and distance from the source, changes in the sound can be
observed.116
This last observation about changes according to position is not just a side comment. In her performances
with the Bugscope in TramVibration (2013),
TramVibration (2013), a collaboration with Toshiya Tsunoda, the microphones are
rarely stationary. There is a constant exploration of the sound source, as if trying to get to know it by
touch. Tsunoda’s approach is very different. Using a piezo-ceramic sensor and a stethoscope, he would sit
for long intervals, just listening, occasionally shifting positions to try a new location within the tram.117
Haco wrote of the experience, “Perhaps because we used the latest model of tram, the electromagnetic
sounds seemed to fly through the air. I hadn’t imagined that I’d be able to detect so much. It was like being
immersed in a colorful sea of electromagnetic sound. I felt like a full-body recorder and experienced a
very
ver y intense movement
movement through
through time
time and plac e.”118
p lace.”
Christina Kubisch has also been involved in a long-term project of making electromagnetic fields
audible. But where Haco listens to personal devices, Kubisch is oriented toward public spaces. Several
of the tracks on the Five
the  Five Electrical
Elect rical Walks (2007)
alks (2007) release involve multiple recordings of similar spaces
from all over the world. Security (2005)
Security (2005) combines recordings of security gates in “Madrid, Berlin, Paris,
Tokyo, London and Taipei.” The sounds the gates of the fashion shops emit, she writes, are “just as dull as
most of the merchandise behind the gates.” Homage
gates.” Homage with
wi th Minimal
Mini mal Disinformation
Disinf ormation (2006),
 (2006), on the other
hand, is made up of recordings made in Times Square, resulting from “flashing neon advertisements,
scrolling LED tickers, information screens and illuminated signs, all of them pulsating, flickering and
moving constantly.” In her installations, Kubisch will make headphones available to visitors so they can
hear the electromagnetic waves as they trace their own path through the space she has mapped.119
Electricity is not necessary for such emissions, as Michael Prime and Miya Masaoka have both made
apparent through their projects. Prime gathered recordings of the bioelectrical field emitted by a peyote
cactus in his One Hour as a Plant  (2003)
 (2003) release. The range of sounds is surprising, and depends on the
plant’s being alive. “A dead plant, or a fruit or vegetable that has been picked, produces only a static
tone.” This piece recalls John Cage’s work with an amplified cactus, but the sounds are obtained and
treated in distinct ways. Prime comments on the responsiveness of plants to external events and natural
cycles, as evidenced by the sounds they emit.121200

Masaoka has explored this type of responsiveness in her Pieces

her Pieces for
f or Plants
Plant s (2001–) installations by first
attaching sensitive electrodes to the leaves and then monitoring their responses to motion and contact.
“The ‘plant player’s’ proximity, touch and interactions with the plant are then expressed in sound via
MIDI and synthesizer. During the piece, the plant is brought through a range of physical/psychological
states, from calm to agitation.”121  Masaoka has found this configuration useful as an instrument in
improvisation settings, as well as in public interactions.
Some sounds require advanced scientific equipment to be registered, and may need to be altered to fall
within human hearing range. The most frequent of these transformations is the speeding up or slowing
down of a recording, which not only affects any rhythmic activity but can also bring the recording into the
pitch range of human hearing. John Bullitt writes of his “earth sound” project, “I transpose seismographic
recordings of the Earth’s vibrations into the range of human ears, to lift the deepest sounds of Earth into
the field of human perception.” This transposition is quite extreme. The first track of Earth
of  Earth Sound is
played at 2,450 times the original speed. One second of the track equals forty minutes of real time that
was recorded, and twenty minutes cover the span of thirty-three days. The second recording is
accelerated more than four times as much as the first—10,000 times. The third track is a reflection on the
devastating tsunami that took place on December 26, 2004, in the Indian Ocean. Bullitt offers a specific
reason
reaso n for
for the rate of acceleration:
accele ration:
The surface of the entire planet expands and contracts rhythmically about once every 20 minutes.
Seismologists call this the Earth’s “breathing mode.” Speeding up the recording 245-fold brings the
Earth’s breathing mode (one “breath” every 1,227 seconds) in sync with the average human respiration
rate (one breath every 5 seconds). This affords the listener an immediate, interior frame of reference
with which to assimilate and understand these sounds, one in which the most basic rhythms of the human
body are tuned to those of the planet itself.122
What seems to be an event at the opening of the recording is dwarfed by the magnitude of what happens
forty seconds later, and its repercussions ripple out over twenty minutes. It is some of the most compelling
listening one can find, and it is a faithful transposition of actual scientific data.12
1233

Bullitt acknowledges that he could not have made this piece without the material he received from
scientists. The International Deployment of Accelerometers (IDA) network continuously operates
seismometers in boreholes 100 meters underground. It takes resources of knowledge, equipment, and
personnel to obtain this data. He went through a process of deciding what material to present, how much
of it, and at what rate, in addition to stitching together the files and cleaning them up.12
1244 The result is a

document that anyone can approach, without any prior expertise, to gain a richer understanding of these
tectonic processes.
Annea Lockwood, a sound artist originally from New Zealand, collaborated with Bob Bielecki, a sound
designer,12
1255 on the Wild Energy installation,
Energy installation, which also relies on recordings gathered through scientific
research.
Wild Energy gives access to the inaudible, vibrations in the ultra and infra ranges emanating from
sources which affect us fundamentally, but which are beyond our audio perception, many of which are
 creating our planet’s environment: the sun, the troposphere and ionosphere, the earth’s crust and core,
the oxygen-generating trees—everything deeply integrated, forming an inaudible web in which we move,
through which we live and on which, therefore, we depend.12
1266

The installation runs on a loop, which begins with solar oscillations recorded by a spacecraft, presented
here at 42,000 times the speed of the recording. Other sounds, each at a specifically chosen rate, include
volcano gas vents and tremors, earthquakes, ultrasound emissions of trees, and auroral kilometric
radiation waves.
After an unsuccessful effort with Pauline Oliveros to capture ionospheric sounds, called Whistlers
(1968), Alvin Lucier tried a similar project over a decade later in Sferics 
Sferics  (1981). For the month of
August, 1981, he went through a process of trial and error in order to capture some of these sounds,
testing out various locations and configurations, until he got a recording between midnight and dawn of
August 27th that he found usable. In his diary entry the next day, he reflected on the recording, saying,
“Faintness of whistlers charming.”127 On the recording, these whistlers come through as brief, faint, but
clear overtones.
These projects have varied degrees of success in terms of documented results, but they operate first and
foremost as acts of speculation. “What does X sound like?” is already a prompt for research, whether X
is the inner workings of one’s own refrigerator or the sound of a comet traveling through space. (At the
time of this writing, the European Space Agency generated a lot of attention by releasing a recording of a
comet sped up to a factor of 10,000 times.128) The effort that goes into finding a real, if momentary,
answer to such speculation is an experimental act. Whatever the outcome, new questions arise out of that
act. Are the technology and methodology adequate to the task? If there are documented results, how could
they have been different a moment, a season, a year, or a decade earlier or later, an inch or a mile to the
north or the west, if the temperature had been a few degrees colder or warmer? These acts and resulting
questions begin to reveal just how little is known of the sonic activity of the world, and invite us to
inhabit
inhabit it on a more perceptive and less habitual basis.
basi s.

Notes
1 James Saunders, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental
Experimental Music  (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 244.
2 Tim Parkinson, “A Clear Apparence,” http://www.timescraper.de/_texte/texts-parkinson.html
http://www.timescraper.de/_texte/texts-parkinson.html..
3 Saunders, Ashga
 Saunders,  Ashgatete,, 244.
4 Laurence Crane, Piano
Crane,  Piano Music (20th Century
Centu ry Solo
So lo Piano
Pian o Pieces,
Pieces , 1985-1
19 85-1999
999)) , Naxos, MSV28506, 2010, compact disc.
5 Saunders, Ashga
 Saunders,  Ashgatete,, 248.
6 Laurence Crane, Chamber Works 1992–2009,
1992–2009 , Another Timbre, at74, 2014, 2 compact discs.
7 “Laurence Crane by Tim Parkinson,” http://www.untitledwebsite.com/words/53 .
8 “Laurence Crane—Chamber
Crane—C hamber Works
Works 1992-200
1992-2009,”
9,” http://www.anothertimbre.com/laurencecrane.html
http://www.anothertimbre.com/laurencecrane.html..
9 Saunders, Ashga
 Saunders,  Ashgatete,, 247.
10   Videos of this piece as performed by the Plus Minus ensemble are available at http://youtu.be/SaNYtatzFbw and
10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btL3oTrMf6s .
11  Martin Arnold,  Aberrare
 Aberra re,, Collection QB, CQB 1112, 2011, compact disc. Liner notes,
http://www.quatuorbozzini.ca/en/discographie/cqb_1112..
http://www.quatuorbozzini.ca/en/discographie/cqb_1112
12 Ernstalbrecht
12 Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, Three in One,
One , hat ART 6169, 1996, compact disc. Liner notes.
13 Klaus
13  Klaus Lang, “königin ök,” http://klang.weblog.mur.at/?page_id=33 .
14 Lang, einfalt.stille,
14 Lang, einfalt.stille, Edition RZ, ed. RZ 4007, 2007, compact disc. Liner notes.
15 La
15  Lang,
ng, “Biography,”
“Biography,” http://klang.mur.at/?page_id=119
http://klang.mur.at/?page_id=119..
16 “Linda
16  “Linda Catlin Smith—composer,” http://www.catlinsmith.com
http://www.catlinsmith.com..
17 Linda
17 Linda Catlin Smith, Memory
Smith, Memory Forms For ms,, Artifact Music 024, 2001, compact disc.
18   Ben Johnston,  Maxim
18  Max imumum Clarity 
Clarity   (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 57. See, for example, Wolfgang von Schweinitz’s
transcription of The Classical Indian Just Intonation Tuning System in Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation in reference to Prof. P.
Sambamurthy, “Early Experiments in Music,” in South Indian Music  Music   (Chennai: The Indian Music Publishing House, 1999),
http://www.plainsound.org/pdfs/srutis.pdf .
19  
19 Larry Polansky, for jim, ben and lou 
lou   (Lebanon, NH: Frog Peak Music, 1995),
http://aum.dartmouth
http://aum.dartmouth.edu/~larry/scores/f
.edu/~larry/scores/for_jior_jim_ben_and_lou
m_ben_and_lou.. Larry Polansky, The World’s Longest Melody, Melody , New World Records 80700,
2010, compact disc.
20 See
20  See Randall Shinn, “Ben Johnston’s Fourth String Quartet,”  Perspectives Perspec tives of New Music
Mu sic 15,
 15, no. 2 (Spring—Summer 1977): 145–73, for an
in-depth analysis of the corresponding pitch and rhythmic relationships of the fourth quartet. Much of the score is also reproduced in this
article, which includes Johnston’s careful explanations of the pitch ratios.
21   James Tenney,  From
21  From Scratch
Scra tch:: Writings in Music Theory  Theory   (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 394. Tenney, “Diapason,” on
 Donaue
 Don aueschin
schinger
ger Musik
M usik tage,
tage , 1996
19 96,, Col Legno 20008, 1997, 3 compact discs.
22 Tenney,
22  Tenney, Spectrum Pieces,
Pieces , New World Records 80,692, 2009, 2 compact discs. Liner notes, 8.
23   A video available on YouTube shows the player piano in action and makes the fundamental structure of the piece clear. See “James
23
Tenney—Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow,” 4:03, posted by “Juergen Hocker,” September 17, 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUrfKBnQ9a4..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUrfKBnQ9a4
24   See Robert Wannamaker, “Rhythmicon Relationships, Farey Sequences, and James Tenney’s Spectral CANON for CONLON
24
Nancarrow (1974),” Music
(1974),”  Music Theory Spectrum
Spe ctrum 34,
 34, no. 2 (Fall 2012): 48–70 for a detailed analysis of this piece.
25 Philip
25 Philip Corner, Life
Corner, Life Work: A Unity 3. 3 . Mind
Min d . Uml
U mlaut
aut Records,
Re cords, UMFRCD11,
UMFRCD11, compact disc. Liner Liner notes.
26   “Julius Eastman’s spoken introduction to the Northwestern University concert,” Julius Eastman, Unjust Malaise.
26 Malaise. New World Records
80,628-2, 2005, 3 compact discs.
27   Julius Eastman, “Crazy Nigger,” Ibid. Original and annotated scores and a schemata are available at
27
http://www.mjleach.com/EastmanScores.htm.. See also Andrew Hanson-Dvoracek, “A Postminimalist Analysis of Julius Eastman’s Crazy
http://www.mjleach.com/EastmanScores.htm
 Nigger
 Nigge r,” in Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music , ed. Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach (Rochester: University of
Rochester Press, 2015), 140–50.
28   André O. Möller, blue/dense.
28 blue/dense . Edition Wandelweiser Records, EWR 0411, 2005, compact disc. Liner notes,
http://www.wandelweiser.de/_e-w-records/_ewr-catalogue/ewr0411.html..
http://www.wandelweiser.de/_e-w-records/_ewr-catalogue/ewr0411.html
29 Möller,
29  Möller, blue/dense.
blue/dense .
30   André O. Möller, musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in) . Edition Wandelweiser Records, EWR 0702, 2007, compact disc. Liner
30
notes, http://www.wandelweiser.de/_e-w-records/_ewr-catalogue/ewr0702.html .
31 Brian
31  Brian Olewnick, “Friday, April 10, 2015,” http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2015/04/andre-o.html
http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2015/04/andre-o.html..
32 http:
http://www.sac
//www.sacredrea
redreali
lism.org/catlamb/i
sm.org/catlamb/index.htm
ndex.htmll.
33 “singing
33 “singing by numbers,” http://sacredrealism.org/catlamb/projects/singingbynumbers.html .
34 Catherine
34  Catherine Lamb, “Shapes of 3 and 5,” http: http://www.experimental
//www.experimentalmusi musicyearbook.com/Sh
cyearbook.com/Shapes-of-3-and-5
apes-of-3-and-5..
35 John
35  John P. Hastings, “The Rocketship in Langley Park,” http://www.experimentalmusicyearbook.com/The-Rocketship-in-Langley-Park .
36 This
36  This book is out of print, but is now available at http://home.snafu.de/walterz/bibliographie.html
http://home.snafu.de/walterz/bibliographie.html..
37   Walter Zimmermann, Songs of Innocence & Experience.
37 Experience . Mode 245/6, 2 compact discs. “Songs of Innocence & Experience,”
http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/245_246_zimmermann.html .
38   See http:
38 http://www.sa
//www.sacredrea
credreali lism.org/catlamb/work
sm.org/catlamb/works/sc s/scores/2014/Lamb
ores/2014/Lamb_mate_material
rialhi
highl
ghliight_aug14.pd
ght_aug14.pdff   and https://soundcloud.com/catherine-
lamb/areas-of-presence-material .
39 “Ben
39  “Ben Johnston: From Helmholtz to Harry Partch.” Vimeo video, 10:58. April 11, 2011, http://vimeo.com/22246762
http://vimeo.com/22246762..
40 James
40 James Tenney, John Cage and the Theory of Harmony, Harmony , 1983, 11, http://www.plainsound.org/pdfs/JC&ToH.pdf .
41 Marc
41 Marc Sabat, Euler
Sabat, Euler Lattice S pirals Scenery
Scen ery,, score, 2011/12, http://www.marcsabat.com/pdfs/Euler.pdf
http://www.marcsabat.com/pdfs/Euler.pdf..
42 A
42  A recording is available at http:http://www.marcsa
//www.marcsabat.com/audi
bat.com/audio/Eul
o/EulerEdit.htm
erEdit.htmll.
43 Robin
43  Robin Hayward, “The Hayward Tuning Vine: an interface for Just Intonation,” http: http://www.robi
//www.robinhayward.de/pdf/NIMEposter.pd
nhayward.de/pdf/NIMEposter.pdff .
44 Robin
44  Robin Hayward, “The Hayward Tuning Vine: an interface for Just Intonation,” https://nime2015.lsu.edu/proceedings/146/0146-paper.pdf .
See also http://www.tuningvine.com
http://www.tuningvine.com..
45 Robin
45  Robin Hayward, “Stop Time.” http://robinhayward.de/eng/comp/stoptime2013.php .
46 Robin
46 Robin Hayward, Nouv
Hayward, Nouveau eau Saxhor
Sax horn,
n, Nouvea
No uveauu Basse
Bas se.. Pogus 21077, 2014, compact disc. Liner notes.
47 Wolfgang
47  Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Plainsou
Schweinitz,  Plainsound nd Glissando
Glissand o Modu
M odulation
lation,, NEOS 10812, 2009, compact disc.
transducers by trying to resonate the bathroom plumbing under the toilet.”21
2188 Through the introduction and

integration of these large objects it became a sound sculpture to be navigated by the performers. Tom
Johnson wrote this of the performance in The Village Voice:
oice:
It kept Tudor and his assistants interested for five and a half hours. . . . They just seemed to enjoy
keeping the sounds going for those who wanted to stay, and for those who would come back later on. I
suppose they were also having an enjoyable time feeding various sounds into various objects, testing
how the objects responded to different things, trying to find resonant frequencies, and listening to subtle
variations.21
2199

The two recorded versions in the box set called The Art of David Tudor 
Tudor  have entirely different sonic
qualities, apart from the sense of accumulated chaos, exploration, and enjoyment of the sound worlds
being discovered. A group of proponents of this work called Composers Inside Electronics formed out of
the 1973 workshop, and they have continued to present the work dozens of times over the following
decades.222200

Tudor’s  Neural Synthesis

Synthes is   (1992–94) is not a piece in any usual sense, but was the outcome of a
proposal by Forrest Warthman that together they develop “a computer system capable of enveloping and
integrating the sounds of his performances.” As Warthman describes it:
It generates sound and routes signals but the role of learner, pattern-recognizer and responder is played
by David, himself a vastly more complex neural network than the chip. During performances David
chooses from up to 14 channels of synthesizer output, modifying each of them with his other electronic
devices to create the final signals.
It is a complex system, in which inputs and outputs are completely interchangeable at will.
Unpredictability is fostered by the complexity of the system, and also by the sensitivity of the neurons to
internal thermal noise.22 2211  Each of the performances on the  Neural Synthesis
Synthes is   release has an entirely
different mode
mode of int
i nteraction,
eraction, as does the version
vers ion on the
the box set releas e.222 Tudor is responding to a set of
r elease.
conditions that is highly complex, and seems (to use that other meaning of neural) to have a developing
mind of its own. Neural
own. Neural Network Plus (1992)
Plus (1992) is performed by both Tudor and Takehisa Kosugi, and the
level of activity seems to be multiplied, corresponding with the fact that there is more than one agent
responding to the activity of the neurons.
Like Tudor, David Behrman has worked with custom-built technologies to develop “situations rather
than set pieces.” Tudor initially worked for long periods with such systems himself before eventually
giving them over to other musicians. He was fascinated with the potential contained within the system,
and explored it extensively. Behrman’s interest is centered more strongly on the interactions of other
musicians with the systems he sets up.
There’s the model especially in the European tradition of the Creative Superperson (the Composer), and
the lesser worker musician (the performer) which I’ve wanted to get away from. I like the idea of
sharing in the creation of something and don’t mind getting less than 100% of the credit for it. I like
designing software which can be lifted off the ground, so to speak, by a wonderfully imaginative
musician who does something with it that I never would have dreamed of.
He offers an example of one such surprising outcome—a performance of his QSRL 
QSRL  (1998) by Maggi
Payne.
She performs the flute (which one normally thinks of as a gentle instrument) in a very strong and
sometimes harsh way, making the electronics (which one might normally think of as mechanical and a bit
macho) seem sinuous and yielding and gentle. I never in a million years could have imagined this
relationship; I felt really happy that the situation was left open enough so that such a thing could occur.223
Behrman’s methodology enables such things to occur. “The performers have options rather than
instructions, and the exploration of each situation as it unfolds is up to them.”224  This openness is
enforced by the responsiveness of the computer to the musician. In On the Other Ocean (1977),
Ocean (1977), the two
musicians’ harmonies affect the electronically produced harmonies,22 2255 putting “the human being back in

the forefront,”226 as Thom

Thom Holmes
Holmes writes.
wri tes. Unforeseen Events (1991)
Events (1991) similarly uses circuits that sense the
pitches of the musicians, as well as other aspects of their performances. Lucier’s description of the piece
suggests
suggests an
a n enjoyable game
game with
w ith intermittently changing
changing rules:
rules :
Unforeseen Events is
Events is in four parts. In all of them the computer responds to trumpet calls, long tones, and
single notes, creating harmonies, chords, and arpeggiated figures that sustain or change pitch and timbre
in subtle ways. In Part Two, Fishi
Two,  Fishing Complements, the composer listens to what’s going on and
ng for Complements,
enters changes into the computer. In Part Three, Witch Grass,
Grass, only when the performer pauses do the
harmonies move away from their origins and don’t stop until the performer plays again.22 2277

Lucier clarifies that the charm of the piece, for him, is in the indirectness of cause-and-effect
relationships: “Most of the time the relationships are interrupted and distant and therefore engage the
listener in tantalizing ways.”228  These are only two examples of many pieces in which Behrman has
explored the possible relationships between musicians and electronics. He reflects that these systems
suggest
suggest the
the forms of performance
performance or interaction, but
but welcom
wel comeses departures from those
those practices
pr actices as well
w ell.. “I
think that the vocabulary develops as you work on the piece. But sometimes, a performer can break out of
the vocabulary, and do something that seems strange, and sometimes that’s very nice.”22 2299

Behrman is not focused solely on electronics and the choices of the musicians who work with it. His
conception of interactivity is large enough to include the audience member, or in particular the visitor to
an install
installation.
ation. He and
and George Lewi
Lewiss set
se t up
up an installation called
call ed In
 In Thin Air (1997)
ir (1997) that enabled visitors
to manipu
manipulatelate a three-
three-part
part canon while viewing
view ing a live
li ve visualization
vi sualization of the
the soun
s ounding
ding result. He writes:
wr ites:
The idea of “In Thin Air” and similar installations was that no matter what you do the music should
always remain lively, and that you don’t have to know anything about music in order to engage the
system and find it rewarding.230
Like his rejection of the “Creative Superperson” earlier, Behrman, as well as Lewis, is interested in
situations that offer agency to the other participants in a musical work and to at least partially flatten the
hierarchies and structures that art music seems to carry as baggage. They see their work as being that of
creating an interesting situation, and then stepping back to let others reckon with it. Behrman sums it up:
An analogy that I like for interactive music is that it’s like a piece of sports equipment—a bicycle, say,
or a sailboat. The design is very important, but all the experiences of bicycling or sailing can’t be
foreseen or controlled at the boatyard or factory, nor should they be.231
Richard Teitelbaum underlines the value of a “highly complex set of stimuli and responses to the
improvised inpu
i nput”
t” in his
his own
o wn practice:
Some years ago, in attempting to define his idea of indeterminacy, John Cage said that he likes to be in a
situation in which he literally doesn’t know what he is doing (Cage 1962). Similarly, my notion here is
that by creating an interactive situation in which the performer cannot consciously comprehend or
predict the outcome of his actions, his/her mind will bypass more superficial levels of thinking and
rational control to reach something deeper.232
These interactive systems are artificial musical intelligences that, as Teitelbaum puts it, “mimic in some
ways the mysterious interactions between freely improvising human performers, responding to their own
and each other’s spontaneous musical gestures.”23 2333  The logic, actions, and reactions between human

performers further enhance the mysteries of the interactive or improvisational encounter.

The interaction is
is the score
Music predates written language, children sing before they write, and much of the work in this book
(especially installations and electronic work) was not communicated through a score. But the absence of a
written score is not what draws the works in this section together. The process of conveying a piece has
been blurred in various ways, and the composer and the first interpreter(s) of a work often work closely
together in the process of its realization. What is remarkable
is  remarkable about the working processes of Meredith
Monk, Éliane Radigue, and Luke Nickel is that they draw the specific personhood of each collaborator
into the content of the work. From the very inception of the process, long before any performance, a
meaningful interaction shapes the foundational content of the material. It cannot exist without the context
and content of that interaction. Specific attributes of the musician—character, life experience, values,
associations, memory—are undivorceable from the piece. The work simply does not exist without the
weight of those specific characteristics. If there is a score, it only assumes its form on an instrument, in a
conversation, in a relationship, or in the minds, hearts, or memories of the people who have come together
to extrapolate an idea through sound.
Kate Geissin
Geissi nger,
ger, one of Meredith
Meredi th Monk
Monk’s’s key collaborators,
collabor ators, describes
descri bes their
their working relationship
relationship in this
this
way:
What I realized was that she was picking me for me . . . skills that were inhabited by me. . . . it really
made me understand that she wants the essence of the person to come out. And when for instance I can’t
do a show because I have some conflict, it’s difficult. It’s much more difficult than if it were some other
performance, because she needs that time to get that essence of that person, and you really feel like part
of you is in it. And so you feel much more invested in it.234
The personal working relationship is as crucial to the work as any sounds that are developed, and the
individuality of the musicians involved is a part of the work that cannot be excised from it.
Éliane Radigue exclaims:
I’m so fortunate to have these wonderful people lend me their talent, it’s a gift for me, all these
extraordinary musicians! Real happiness is working together. We have known such pleasure, sharing
these
these intense exchanges,
exchanges, that’s w hat’ss important.235
that’s what’
Radigue has been known for her work with the ARP 2500 since the 1960s. Four decades later, she and her
key collaborators (especially Charles Curtis) discovered, through a great focus of concentration and
dedication of time, a working method that situates the sound in the collaboration, and not in a written
score. In its current, more established form, the process often begins with an image brought by the
musician and continues with an extended process of exploring the sonic possibilities that they arrive at
together. As the working process itself has been refined over time, so too have the techniques been
sculpted into their
their clearest
clea rest an
a nd purest forms of exploration.
Over twenty musicians have worked with Radigue at the time of this writing, some alone, some more
than once, and some in ensembles. Every piece that has been performed has been developed and
rehearsed in that formation in residence with Radigue, and occupies at least three durations and spaces— 
the number of days developing the work in Radigue’s apartment, the performer’s individual preparation,
and a substantial amount of time, usually fifteen minutes or more, in the space of the performance.23
2366

What is the nature of the sounds that are explored in these collaborations? Charles Curtis writes:
The diffusion of sound is to my mind one of éliane radigue’s great subjects. a sound’s primary source is
only a very small part of its phenomenal reality. overtones, combination tones, resonance, sympathetic
resonance, all make up the infinite array of resultant, or secondary, phenomena, which ultimately define
sound as we experience it. radigue’s music achieves an extraordinary degree of clarity in this range of
sound experience.23
2377

 Naldjorlak 
 Naldjor lak   (2004–09) is a large piece in three parts, each created through an intense collaborative
process. The first of these was made with Curtis. She made selections from the techniques and sounds he
shared with her. This process was her “shopping.” They worked in great detail with each other and with
the instrument.
We discussed at length the ordering of the techniques and sound-states, and the ways in which the
characteristic instabilities of a sound-state would shape its own gradual transformation. i practiced
extremely quiet transitions and ways of connecting the sections through fingerings and string
adjacencies. we discovered a very logical sequence that follows the geography of the cello, seemingly
working down to the root of its sound.
One of the key decisions was to tune the cello in a way that “seeks to consolidate, as nearly as possible,
all of the resonating parts of the instrument.” Curtis’s description of their work with the wolf tone
clarifies
clar ifies the
the kind of work that
that is accomplished in these
these sessi
s essions.
ons.
The search for self-sameness reveals a unit of distance we would not have discovered without having
attempted to bridge it. we cannot bridge it, because it is inside. the object sought is contained in the
subject; tuning to it is the painstaking calibration of the difference that is the self.
working with éliane
éli ane is learning
l earning to hear a s she hears.23
hear as 2388

This was not to be Curtis’s and Radigue’s only collaboration. After Naldjorlak, she embarked on a new
project, even more ambitious in scale, called OCCAM OCEAN (2011–). One of the main common points
between these
these pieces
pi eces and
a nd Naldjor
 Naldjorlak 
lak  is,
 is, as Radigue says:
These pieces are for the instrumentalists, they were not composed for an instrument, but for the
 instrumentalists. . . . It’s personal, this music belongs to them.
She goes on to explain, “It’s an oral transmission, an extremely delicate material. You can’t write it down,
it’s impossible to write such music.” The relation to the instrument is best captured through the most
direct means. As she describes the collaboration process with Curtis, “The score became the whole body
of the instrument.”239
Much of this work has to do with secondary results. Radigue describes her “sound quest” as centering
on “the soul, or the spirit of sound,” which she relates to richness and resonance and more specifically to
“partials, sub-harmonics, the harmonics, etc.”24 2400 Curtis says, “You don’t know, where are these sounds

coming from? You play one thing and something else results. And the great art of this music is to organize
it in such a way that what is produced as a secondary resonance is stronger than the primary act that is
being played.”242411  In Radigue’s words, “I’ve learned the subtle pleasure which comes from trying to

discipline a sound. To hold a feedback at exactly the right distance, you better watch out!”24 2422  Emmanuel

Holterbach’s
Holterbach’s descri
des cription
ption of her
her earlier
earl ier work with
wi th feedback
feedback shows its
i ts connection
connection to this
this recent work:
We are inside the timbres, riding on dense, complex frequencies. There is not just one oscillator making
a continuous sound slightly modulated, there are many of them functioning together. Eliane was working
this way using several filtered oscillators, modifying the sound, coating it, revealing, generating,
elaborating all the aspects of the harmonics, resulting in this mass of sound. Then when she puts all this
together in a montage, the results are magic.243
Radigue’s reflections on the feedback works parallel the experiences that performers and listeners have
had of the Naldjorlak and OCCAM OCEAN series. “I grew to like this slow, precise way of working,”
she says. “The result was a music that takes its time, is demanding on the listener, and will not forgive
only one thing: that you do not listen to it!” Her collaborative projects, like this earlier work, are
processes
proces ses of listen
lis tening
ing.. Rhodri Davies,
Davies , one of the
the first
firs t collaborators
coll aborators on OCCAM
OCCAM OCEAN
OCEAN reflects,
I just love the whole process of how the piece took shape, really. And it kind of appeared from nowhere,
in a way. It was partly a form of osmosis, or as if Eliane was transmitting this piece to me.24
2444

The relationship between composer and performer becomes central to the work. It happens directly, face
to face, and more importantly, “heart to heart.”24
2455 The immediacy of that relationship transmits powerfully

in live performance. The video and audio reproductions of these works lose more than the acoustic
subtleties of transmission. There is a sense of presence that is brought to the work that is mostly lost in
any recording. The musicians were fully engaged in the process that brought their portion of the piece into
being, and the listeners are making this work with them, watching it take shape in a shared space and
experience.
Luke Nickel is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist who also segments the communication of a score into
separate communications. He writes of Made
of  Made of My Mother
Mothe r ’s Cravings (2014):
Cravings (2014): “I created the piece by
telling each member of the quartet instructions: some secrets, some to share. The group then assembled the
piece in rehearsal, largely without my input. This is the result.”24
2466 In both recorded performances, there is

an unusual quality of rawness. The players are participating in an oral, folkloric tradition without any
sense of irony or flippancy. Each player is working hard to project something that is already internalized.
The interaction among the players is not simply about execution, but about content, and about differences
in perception between each of them. The June and November 2014 performances are in a displaced
interaction with one another too, as memories of the score have been eroded or replaced.247
 Factory (2014) is a set of verbal scores that were given to the violinist Mira Benjamin and then, by
agreement between her and Nickel, permanently deleted in that physical form. These scores are now
accessed, not even through the composer, but through conversation with Benjamin as their living archive.
She is aware of her unique and somewhat strange function in the development of the work, not only in
dialogue with Nickel, but especially in her interactions with the musicians who access it.
Because I accept whatever happens coming out of me as being completely legitimate in this, I don’t feel
a huge sense of pressure to preserve some historical thing. I don’t think that fundamentally that’s what
this is about. So I think that if I do forget, that’s the score happening. I don’t think it would be a very
 joyful experience for anyone if I was really trying to adhere to some kind of rote system. . . . For me, the
score kind of keeps building, because as other people access it, it includes those conversations too. . . .
one of the fundamental sort of things that Luke gave me license to do at the beginning . . . is to forget. I
think the process is infinitely interesting because I just keep forgetting things.
But it is Nickel who best articulates the relation of the work and the process to Benjamin herself. He
writes:
I think creating it was specifically about Mira and her particular skills of conceptualization, realization,
ultimate generosity, pragmatism. . . . These characteristics if divorced from the piece would not allow it
to exist.248
The fruitful irony here is that Benjamin’s fluid sense of the nature of the piece is her most essential
attribute as the access point for it. She explains further:
I think for somebody to really be able to get to the heart of this type of way of working, one can’t be all
that concerned with ownership. It would just stop anything from happening. This work is all about
contamination. 249
In all of these projects, the point of access to the work becomes the primary site of interaction, and it
infuses the performance with those unique dynamics.

Notes
1 Peter Ablinger, “Rauschen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/rauschen.html.
2 Cassidy and Einbond, Noise in and as Music (Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield Press, 2013), 5.
3 Ablinger, “Rauschen.”
4 Ablinger, “Weiss/Weisslich 7: Rauschen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/ww7_wasserfall.html .
5 Ablinger, “Weiss/Weisslich 33, ‘Die Farbe der Nähe,’” http://ablinger.mur.at/ww33.html.
6 Ablinger, “Weiss/Weisslich 18,” on Weiss/Weisslich, World Edition 0008, 2002, compact disc.
7 Ablinger, “Weiss/Weisslich 18,” http://ablinger.mur.at/docs/ww18engl.pdf.
8 Jennie Gottschalk, “wandelweiser und so weiter NYC III,” May 29, 2013, http://www.soundexpanse.com/wwusw-nyc-3.
9 Michael Pisaro, White Metal (Grey Series No. 2) (unpublished score, 2012–13).
10 See http://dromosrecords.com/catalogue_makam.php?id=1 and http://www.senufoeditions.com/wordpress/?page_id=720.
11 Peter Ablinger, “Der Regen, das Glas, das Lachen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/werk89drdgdl.html.
12 Cassidy and Einbond, Noise in and as Music, 8.
13 Peter Ablinger, “Instrumente und Rauschen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/i+r2_i+r.html.
14  Seth Josel has recorded 95 of these segments in the CD  33-127 , mode 206, 2009. Evan Johnson’s liner notes may be the single-best
introduction to Ablinger’s work available, and are also at http://ablinger.mur.at/werk2000_1-127text.html.
15  Apparently his father was a direct influence on this set of habits, in having his children sing in one key while he accompanied them in
another. See http://www.charlesives.org/02bio.htm .
16 Peter Ablinger, “Weiss/Weisslich 22,” and Notes by Christian Scheib, Vienna/Austria, http://ablinger.mur.at/ww22.html.
17 One segment of this piece can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/ciciliani/pop-wall-alphabet-m.
18 Cassidy and Einbond, Noise in and as Music, 191.
19 Peter Ablinger, “IEAOV,” http://ablinger.mur.at/docu07.html.
20 Ablinger, “IEAOV,” http://ablinger.mur.at/ieaov.html.
21 See Erik M., “Frame,” http://www.erikm.com/music/?var_ajax_redir=1 and the recording at https://erikm.bandcamp.com/album/variations-
opportunistes-2007.
22 The ongoing stream can be found at http://www.park.nl/park_cms/public/index.php?thisarticle=118 , and more information on the project is
available at http://www.harsmedia.com/SoundBlog/Archief/00550.php .
23 JLIAT, “All Possible CDs,” http://www.jliat.com/APCDS/index.html.
24  Peter Ablinger and Deus Cantando (God, singing). http://ablinger.mur.at/txt_qu3god.html. See also a video documenting this project at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4.
25 Ablinger, “Phonorealism: The Reproduction of ‘Phonographs’ by Instruments,” http://ablinger.mur.at/phonorealism.html.
26 Ablinger, “Quadraturen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/docu11.html.
27 Ibid.
28 Ablinger, “Augmented Studies: about the series,” http://ablinger.mur.at/txt_augst.html.
29  Ablinger, “Augmented Study für 7 Violinen,” http://ablinger.mur.at/txt_augst_augmented.html . Listen at
https://soundcloud.com/midnightsledding/peter-ablinger-augmented-study.
30 Ablinger, “Hypothesen Über das Mondlicht,” http://ablinger.mur.at/txt_augst_hypothesen.html .
31 Joanna Bailie, To Be Beside the Seaside (unpublished score, 2015). “Tectonics Festival Glasgow 2015.” BBC Hear and Now. BBC 3.
London, UK, May 16, 2015.
32 Gerhard Stäbler, . . . Im aufhörlichen Wirbel . . ., col legno WWE 20021, 1998, compact disc. Liner notes, 12.
33 “Profile,” last modified January 12, 2001, http://www.japanimprov.com/ayoshida.
34 Ami Yoshida, Tiger Thrush, Improvised Music from Japan, IMJ-504, 2003, compact disc.
35 Cassidy and Einbond, Noise in and as Music, 51.
36 For other examples of vocal extremity, see Chapter 3, The Physicality of Performance.
37 Tom Johnson, The Voice of New Music (Eindhoven: Apollohuis, 1989), 3, http://www.editions75.com/Books/TheVoiceOfNewMusic.PDF.
38 Joan La Barbara, Voice is the Original Instrument , Lovely Music, CD 3003, 2 compact discs, CD 1, track 5.
39 Pamela Z., “Syrinx,” SoundCloud track, 6:11, https://soundcloud.com/pamela-z/syrinx.
40 George Lewis, “The Virtual Discourses of Pamela Z,” Journal of the Society for American Music 1, no. 1 (2007): 73–74.
41 Chris Mercer, “The Birdsong Emulation Gloves,” http://musictechnology.music.northwestern.edu/Mercer/Research.html.
42 Mercer, “Birdsong Gloves,” YouTube video, 0:58, posted by “camercer72,” January 13, 2009, https://youtu.be/Aag-t5pMhpQ .
43  Emmanuel Holterbach, “Sérénade pour Nestor Kéa,” Bandcamp release, 5:32, August 8, 2013,
https://emmanuelholterbach.bandcamp.com/track/s-r-nade-pour-nestor-k-a .
44  David Dunn and Ric Cupples, “Mimus Polyglottus,” on  Music, Language and Environment , Innova Recordings, innova 508, 1996, 2
compact discs. Ric Cupples and David Dunn, Mimus Polyglottus (unpublished score, 1976).
45  Mercer, “Research,” http://musictechnology.northwestern.edu/Mercer/Research.html. Mercer, “The Audible Phylogeny of Lemurs,”
YouTube video, 17:33, posted by “camercer72,” December 15, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQe7SACPQy4.
46 “About,” http://patrickfarmer.org/about .
47 Ibid.
48 Miya Masaoka, “Skin & Insects,” http://www.miyamasaoka.com/interdisciplinary/skin_insects/index.html .
49 Masaoka, “Compositions,” http://www.miyamasaoka.com/music/compositions/index.html.
50 Yannick Dauby, La rivière penchée , Bandcamp release, October 7, 2013, https://kalerne.bandcamp.com/album/la-rivi-re-pench-e .
51  Chris Watson, Outside the Circle of Fire, Touch, TO:37, 1998, compact disc. http://touchshop.org/product_info.php?
cPath=9&products_id=14  and Weather Report , Touch, TO:47, 2003, compact disc, http://touchshop.org/product_info.php?
cPath=9&products_id=15.
52 Watson, Weather Report , http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/catalogue/to47_chris_watson_weather_repo.html.
53  Chris Watson and Marcus Davidson, Cross-Pollination, Touch, Tone 43, 2011, compact disc, http://touchshop.org/product_info.php?
cPath=9&products_id=464.
54 “Bernie Krause Biography,” http://www.wildsanctuary.com .
55 Bernie Krause, “The voice of the natural world,” https://www.ted.com/talks/bernie_krause_the_voice_of_the_natural_world/transcript?
language=en.
56  Krause, “The voice of the natural world,” TED talk, 14:48, June 2013,
http://www.ted.com/talks/bernie_krause_the_voice_of_the_natural_world?language=en.
57 Krause, The Great Animal Orchestra (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 68–73.
58 Krause, Into a Wild Sanctuary (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1998), 78.
59 Krause, The Great Animal Orchestra, 100.
60 Krause, Into a Wild Sanctuary, 80.
61 Ibid., 100.
62  Krause’s website, which includes numerous audio examples, is http://www.wildsanctuary.com . Other related (but not affiliated) projects
include the Wildlife Sound Recording Society (http://www.wildlife-sound.org), WildSounds (http://www.wildsounds.com), and Martyn
Stewart’s site (http://naturesound.org).
63  This piece is available on the CD  Angels and Insects, and an excerpt is available here:
http://www.davidddunn.com/~david/sounds/Chaos.mp3 .
64 David Dunn, Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond  (unpublished essay, 1991), 2–4.
65 Jana Winderen, The Noisiest Guys on Planet , Bandcamp release, June 16, 2009, https://janawinderen.bandcamp.com/album/the-noisiest-
guys-on-the-planet .
66 Winderen, “Artist Statement,” http://www.janawinderen.com/information .
67  Jennifer Walshe, “‘Three Songs’ by Ukeoirn O’Connor,” Soundcloud track, 8:43, posted by “Grupat,” 2013,
https://soundcloud.com/grupat/three-songs-by-ukeoirn-oconnor .
68 See Chapter 6, Histories.
69 Nate Wooley, (9) Syllables, Bandcamp release, 48:09, April 10, 2013, https://mnoad.bandcamp.com/album/9-syllables .
70 Bonnie Jones, “by the time,” Soundcloud track, 16:14, posted by “ICA London,” 2012, https://soundcloud.com/icalondon/bonnie-jones-by-
the-time.
71  Jones, “we’ve. 2010, screen capture, 17:15,” YouTube video, 17:14, posted by “Bonnie Jones, November 28, 2011,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUyTG1M36KA.
72 “The Typist,” http://www.echoraum.at/typist.htm.
73  Kim Taeyong, Lee Youngji, and Ryu Hankil,  Profile, Manual, manualcd05, 2011, book and compact disc. “A. Typist,” http://lo-
wie.blogspot.com/p/a-typist.html.
74 Ryu Hankil, Descriptions for Other Things, Mediabus, 2011, book and compact disc.
75  “‘On Words: J’ by Luiz Henrique Yudo (en),” YouTube video, 18:59, posted by “sergeizagny,” May 28, 2011, https://youtu.be/30-
cQPqr0vU.
76 See for example “ON WORDS: O,” https://soundcloud.com/luiz-henri/on-wordso.
77 Luiz Henrique Yudo, “On Phobia,” Soundcloud track, 1:57:01, https://soundcloud.com/luiz-henri/on-phobia. See www.phobialist.com.
78 Michael Oesterle, “all words,” Soundcloud track, 10:43, https://soundcloud.com/michaeloesterle/all-words-2014 .
79 Tim Rutherford-Johnson, “Michael Oesterle: all words,” https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/michael-oesterle-all-words .
80  Alessandro Bosetti, “I could see the clouds over Neukölln,” YouTube video, 9:56, posted by “alessandrobosetti,” September 24, 2012,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPYcp5t3k30.
81 Bosetti, “Mask Mirror,” http://www.melgun.net/live-projects/mask-mirror .
82 “Composer Kenneth Gaburo: A Conversation with Bruce Duffie,” April 9, 1987, http://www.bruceduffie.com/gaburo.html.
83 Paul DeMarinis, Paul DeMarinis: Buried in Noise (Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2010), 208.
84 Ibid., 208.
85 DeMarinis, Music as a Second Language , Lovely Music, CD 3011, 1991, compact disc. Liner notes.
86 Alvin Lucier, Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2014), 175.
87 Tom Sellar, “Parts of Speech: Interview with Pamela Z,” Theater Magazine 30, no. 2 (2000), http://www.pamelaz.com/theater.html.
88 Lewis, George E., “The Virtual Discourses of Pamela Z,” Journal of the Society for American Music 1, no. 1 (2007): 57–77. Pamela Z.,
 A Delay is Better Than a Disaster, Starkland st213, 2004, compact disc.
89 Lewis, “Virtual Discourses,” 74.
90 Peter Ablinger, “Voices and Piano,” http://ablinger.mur.at/voices_and_piano.html.
91 “SPEECH MUSIC AND/OR Alessandro Bosetti in conversation with Peter Ablinger, Tomomi Adachi, Arturas Bumšteinas, Jenny Walshe
and Alexander Waterman,” http://www.melgun.net/read/speech-music-and-or-alessandro-bosetti-in-conversation-with-peter-ablinger-
 tomomi-adachi-arturas-bumsteinas-jenny-walshe-and-alexander-waterman .
92 Ablinger, Voices and Piano, with Nicolas Hodges (piano), Kairos, 0013082KAI, compact disc.
93 Paul Lansky, Fantasies and Tableaux, New World Records, NWCR683, 2007, compact disc. Liner notes.
94  Charles Amirkhnian, “Church Car,” on  Mental Radio: Nine Text-Sound Compositions, New World Records, NWCRL523, 2009,
compact disc.
95 Charles Amirkhanian, “Just,” on 10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces, 1750 Arch Records, S-1752, 1975, compact disc.
96 Charles Amirkhanian, Walking Tune, Starkland, ST-206, 1997, compact disc.
97 “Charles Amirkhanian,” posted August 2008, http://cec.sonus.ca/econtact/10_2/AmirkhanianCh_KD.html.
98 Alvin Lucier, Reflections: Interviews, Scores, Writings (Köln: MusikTexte, 1995), 356.
99 Robert Ashley, “Music with Roots in the Aether,” http://www.lovely.com/titles/vhsroots.html.
100 See https://obadike.squarespace.com/#/opera/ and http://blacknetart.com/sour, as well as Mendi and Keith Obadike, The Sour Thunder:
 An Internet Opera, Bridge 9158, 2004, compact disc.
101 Robert Ashley, Outside of Time (Köln: MusikTexte, 2009), 78.
102 “‘Crash’ an opera by Robert Ashley,” http://roulette.org/events/robert-ashleys-crash.
103 Ashley, Outside of Time, 72.
104 Robert Ashley, EL/Aficionado, Lovely Music, LCD 1004, 1993, compact disc. Liner notes.
105 “Celestial Excursions,” http://lovely.com/titles/cd1007.html.
106 “Atalanta (Acts of God),” http://lovely.com/albumnotes/notes3301.html.
107 “podcast #6: PennSound pedagogy,” https://media.sas.upenn.edu/Pennsound/podcasts/PennSound-Podcast_06_pennsound-overview.mp3.
108 See Sound Poetry, http://epc.buffalo.edu/sound/soundpoetry.html  and UbuWeb, http://www.ubu.com.
109 Preston Wright, “An interview with Chris Mann,” July 2002, http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_mann.html .
110 See https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-use/id407969043?mt .
111 Ibid.
112 “Tomomo Adachi,” http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Adachi.html.
113 Jaap Blonk, “For Just A Little HondeKip,” http://www.jaapblonk.com/Texts/hondekip.html.
114  See http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jaapblonksbraaxtaal   and the first Onderlands poetry cycle at
http://www.jaapblonk.com/Texts/onderlands_1.html .
115 Blonk, “Sound,” http://www.jaapblonk.com/Texts/sound.html.
116 Blonk, “Plea for Proof (From Traces of Speech),”  Experimental Music Yearbook , http://www.experimentalmusicyearbook.com/Plea-for-
Proof-from-Traces-of-Speech .
117 Blonk, Traces of Speech (out of print, 2012), http://www.jaapblonk.com/OutOfPrint/Traces_of_Speech.pdf, 5.
118 Blonk, “Plea for Proof.”
119 Ibid.
120 Yasunao Tone and Craig Kendall, Musica Iconologos, Lovely Music, CD 3041, 1993, compact disc. Liner notes.
121 “Yasunao Tone,” http://www.lovely.com/bios/tone.html.
122 “Clarence Barlow: Interview by Bob Gilmore,” August 1, 2007, http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/barlow.html .
123 Alessandro Bosetti, “Arcoparlante,” 2009, http://www.melgun.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ArcoparlanteText.pdf .
124 Bosetti, “Arcoparlante Excerpt #1,” Soundcloud track, 4:54, 2014, https://soundcloud.com/alessandro-bosetti/arcoparlante-excerpt-1.
125 Michael Pisaro, Harmony Series (Haan: Edition Wandelweiser, 2006).
126 Quoted in Lauren Redhead, “The Reason Why I am Unable to Live in my own Country as a Composer is a Political One: The Politics of
Self-Alienation in the Music of Chris Newman,” http://www.terz.cc/magazin.php?z=362&id=364 .
127  See Tim Parkinson’s video introduction to Chris Newman at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzVLo8L34mM and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zdXY3xzPPU.
128 Sifr, Suppedaneum 06, 2015, CD-R and seven scores, http://www.suppedaneum.com/sifr.htm .
129 See Chapter 1, Indeterminacy, and in particular the section, “Prescribed Actions, Varied Consequences.”
130 For a sustained look at Cage’s views of improvisation, see Sabine Feisst, “John Cage and Improvisation: An Unresolved Relationship,” in
 Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society, ed. Gabriel Solis and Gabriel Nettl (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 38– 
51.
131 Marcus Boon, “Philip Corner: A Long Life, Endless as the Sky,” http://marcusboon.com/philip-corner-a-long-life-endless-as-the-sky .
132 Quoted in George E. Lewis, “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives,” Black Music Research Journal
16, no. 1 (1996): 99–100.
133 Ibid., 117.
134 Tony Harris, The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013), 79.
A diverse series of actualizations of this 20051  score was made as a project for the Another Timbre
website. All of the recordings and accompanying statements are available there, and come from many
different places—in fact, all over the world. Goh Lee Kwang’s brief realization is almost silent, except
for a short interval of typing in the middle. Taku Unami’s is a single click in the midst of four otherwise
silent seconds.111 Stefan Thut writes,
The bracketed word in the score [Klänge] led me to question whether there is a possibility of
“bracketing out sounds” in a given situation. . . . I started by leaving my hometown and going to a place
one kilometre away in order to establish a distance from the sounds of the afternoon’s parade. Then to
further bracket out the sounds of the day I applied equalizing around predominant frequencies to let them
intermingle with the surroundings.112
This fresh take on the score invites a broader question about bracketing and its functions in daily life.
What are the brackets or buffers we set up in our own experiences? A night’s sleep and the quality of it
can affect the following morning and the rest of the day. Having a certain time set aside, like Werder’s
daily actualizations in September 2009 or Kahn’s in March 2010, provides another type of bracket. The
time spent in transit, thinking about listening, or thinking about the place and its qualities, sets up and
protects that listening experience.
Max Neuhaus writes about his Place series as “removing sound from time and setting it, instead, in
place.”113 But his permanent installations set up complex dynamics with time and memory, from a micro
scale of perception during a single visit to the macro scale of how the installation shifts based on changes
in its setting over the decades of its existence.
These pieces use sounds so subtle that they go unnoticed until they disappear. Neuhaus compares this
experience to that of people conversing in a noisy café when the coffee grinder is shut off, and “the space
is suddenly enveloped in an aural vacuum. What seems like a moment of complete silence occupies the
café.”114  It is important that the sound be made “almost plausible within the space,” so that it only is
noticed with attention.115
The play of time, memory, and space is more complicated in Three to One (1992). A different sound
color is projected into each of the three stories of the installation.
Passing up the stairway for the first time, the differences between the floors are subtle but distinct.
Returning down the stairs, aural memories begin to fuse the distinctions into one differentiated whole.
Neuhaus further explains that each of these sounds mixes with outside sound in a different way. As the city
of Kassel develops, these outside sounds will change. The listener is set in a shifting relationship with
these three sound colors, which are in turn shifting in relation to the life of the city.116 They are designed
to be experienced more than once. Neuhaus writes:
These moment works depend on a long term relationship in order to function; they need to be lived in—a
small shift on a regular basis throughout the day, that you forget about, and then encounter again. They
cannot be visited like an exhibition.117

City pieces
A surprising number of sound artists have drawn new pathways or created discernible zones within a city
that are themselves made of sound. Llorenç Barber is a Spanish composer and sound artist whose City
Concerts  (1988–) are eruptions of sound that emanate from its most broadly audible fixed instruments:
church bells. “All of a sudden, the city sounds, the city itself,” Barber explains. “The center of the event is
transferred from an idol or a star, to a physical fact . . . a fact of the memory.”118 Videos of these events
show residents of the city suddenly looking up, stopped in their tracks by this profusion of metallic
harmony. These are composed pieces, with ebbs and flows, climaxes and silences, usually lasting about
an hour and involving over 100 musicians. They have taken place in over seventy European and American
cities.119
In berliner bahn bells  (2011), Hans W. Koch broadcasts live environmental sounds from the Berlin
Hauptbahnhof (central railway station) at the base of a carillon tower and generates a real-time carillon
score based on their pitch content. As he sums it up, “the carillon plays a ‘piano reduction’ of berlin
central’s sonic reality.”120 The carillon tower and the Hauptbahnhof are close to one another, and Koch
has used technology to draw a sonic line between them, so the sounds of one are concurrently played by
the other.121
To create the Tate Harmonic Bridge  (2006) installation, the American sound sculptor Bill Fontana
installed accelerometers (vibration sensors) on the Millennium Foot Bridge in London and spatialized
these sounds throughout Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern, as well as the main concourse of the nearby
Southwark Tube station. Fontana explains:
This bridge is alive with vibrations caused by the bridge’s responses to the collective energy of
footsteps, load and wind. This sonic world is inaudible to the ear when walking over this bridge.
Fontana’s conception of this work was that it would form a link between the footbridge (and therefore
also the other side of the Thames), the Tate Modern, and Southwark Station. These sounds are incredibly
beautiful, all the more so because they are inaudible without such an intervention and they are not altered
or enhanced in any way except to tune to these other spaces.122  Other pieces in this Acoustical Visions
series include soundings of a steel factory in Linz, a historic tunnel in Rome, sand dunes near Abu Dhabi,
and an unrealized project with the Eiffel Tower. Fontana is equally at home with using sound materials
from either urban or natural sounds. In fact, Fontana’s body of work so far seems focused on building
bridges of sound between natural and man-made, indoor and outdoor, old and new, distant and near
(“hearing as far as you can see”), mundane and artful. SOUND SCULPTURES THROUGH THE
GOLDEN GATE  (1987) is a duet between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Farallon Islands National
Wildlife Refuge, which are 32 miles apart. These types of projects are prevalent throughout his career. He
writes:
There is something compelling about the hearing the simultaneity of sounds in a natural landscape, a city,
a structure such as a bridge, a train station, a harbor or a long stretch of beach. What is so compelling is
the natural completeness of the live flows of musical events and patterns. That the live ambient sound
constellations present such seemingly perfect relationships makes this art form actualize an awareness of
what is already present.
Fontana’s work is a sustained examination of sounding bodies, giving the public an opportunity to hear
them resonate directly. In LJUDSKULPTUR i STOCKHOLM   (1986), sounds from throughout the city of
Stockholm resonate in a fjord in front of the Town Hall. “Sounds were sent to both sides of this waterway,
and produced many interesting echoes.”123
Max Neuhaus’s Time Piece Graz (2003–) is part of his series of moment pieces, which he describes as
“communal sound signals.” The effect he enacts is a “disappearance of sound” around the Kunsthaus
Graz. During the day, once per hour at ten minutes before the hour, a sound starts and grows
imperceptibly. It suddenly stops five minutes later, and creates “a moment of stillness.”124
The Times Square  installation in the heart of New York City operates as a constant. It has been
continuously in operation from 1977 to 1992, and then since its permanent reinstatement in 2002. The
sound world that emanates from under the subway grate envelops the person who stops long enough to
hear it, like a wall-less but nonetheless completely sheltering pocket park. It looks like a nondescript
traffic island in the midst of neon lights, in close proximity to busloads of tourists and (last time I went
there) dancing cartoon characters. Neuhaus’s sounds both blend with and powerfully mask the commotion
that surrounds them. If it is possible to find such a haven in the midst of Times Square, almost anything
else suddenly seems possible too.125
Fontana’s sense of connectedness between points in the city, as well as Neuhaus’s use of projection
from underground spaces, are present in Philip Blackburn’s Sewer Pipe Organ  (2011) in St. Paul,
Minnesota. Blackburn, a British composer and environmental sound artist now based in the Twin Cities,
writes:
There is a parallel city beneath our feet, connected by pipes and caverns, carrying rainwater, electricity,
(un-)sanitary waste, and utilities. In St. Paul, It has been carved into the limestone rock for over a
hundred years and extends for many miles.
He describes the musical content as an electronic version of a sixty-cycle hum, in which both melody and
rhythm correlate to harmonic proportions, played through speakers suspended at the bottom of two
manholes. It was crucial for Blackburn’s purposes to fill the storm drain network with this resonance, so
that they could be “amplified and colored” by each of the drains.126
Blackburn also created a shorter, eight-minute piece for the Duluth Superior Pride Festival called
 Duluth Harbor Serenade  (2011), involving precise coordination between bells and carillons, bridges,
boats, a train, and what is described as “a flash mob maritime symphony orchestra.”127
These city pieces offer ways to experience sound as a community—not just for the people who have
chosen to enter a venue, but for any resident of the city within hearing range. They infiltrate daily life,
sounding across blocks and turning the city itself into a venue.

6.3 Histories
Experimentalism is normally associated with the present and the future. But in the sense in which it is
being used in this book, it is not necessarily about edginess or being in the vanguard, but about a relation,
however speculative, to reality. That reality can just as easily be placed in the past, especially when there
are documents, recordings, information, or artifacts that serve as reference points from which to
reconstruct such a history. Histories can be drawn, implied, imagined, or reimagined through sound.

Historical objects and technologies

A history can be suggested through objects found within it. Christina Kubisch has used archival
recordings, as well as her own recordings of old buildings, in her “searches for lost sound” that “focuses
on acoustic climate.”128 In Nostalgico  (1999), the “squeaking, creaking, and groaning, as well as the
delicate, quiet ‘moaning’ of opening and closing doors” inform the sonic gestures of the accordion.129 Old
Sounds Archive  (1999) “consists exclusively of bell tones sought, found, and brought together in the
archive of SFB, the Free Berlin Broadcasting Station.”130 These bell sounds are not arranged in any sort
of spectrum or clear order, but juxtaposed to reveal the vast diversity of sound, character, and
signification. Among the sources, Kubisch lists “Alarm bells, ship’s bells, door bells, death bells, church
bells, bicycle bells, sleigh bells, railway crossing signals, mine bells, school bells, cow bells.”131
The use of outmoded sound technologies can be effective in creating an audible bridge to a previous
era. Aleksander Kolkowski is a British violinist and sound artist who has found a powerful way of
evoking the past by using wax cylinder recording technology, which was popular in the early years of the
twentieth century, to record performances in the early twenty-first century. The Phonographies Archive
includes fifty-eight recordings of about two minutes each, many of which are made by musicians featured
in this book.132  The most ironic of these recordings is of Jonathan Sterne reading an excerpt from his
book, MP3: The Meaning of a Format  (2012). The recorded voice is heard as inhabiting the past, rather
than the relatively recent time of the recording in June of 2012.133  The effect of these recording
technologies on the music is a strange one. Even though it is clearly illusory, there is a certain kind of
validation that stems from the idea that these recordings have “stood the test of time.” Someone decided to
record and preserve this performance. It’s not a cheap, digital form of documentation, but an antique
technology. The technology is at least as present a factor as the acoustics, and transforms the type of
attention paid to the performance.
Paul DeMarinis picks up on both the use of the phonograph and the study of old objects in his series
called The Edison Effect (1989–93), using laser beams to play “ancient phonograph records.”134 The
most speculative of these phonographs is  Fragments of Jericho, an “authentic recreation of what is
probably the world’s most ancient audio recording.”135 This information is said to be held in the grooves
on the surface of the vessel. Most of the other installations involve classic and favorite tunes on
phonographs, and are mediated in some way. In Al and Mary do the Waltz, Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube
Waltz  issues from a wax cylinder, played by a laser beam that shines through a bowl of goldfish. The
goldfish “occasionally interrupt the beam to produce uncomposed musical pauses.”136  A laser that
emanates from a hypodermic syringe plays  Rhapsody in Blue. The score of Hitchcock’s Vertigo is
inscribed on dinner plates. Like Kolkowski, it is not DeMarinis’s intention to give the best possible
rendition. He is far more interested in the aspects of distortion inherent both in the original documents and
in their means of reproduction.
 composition/work happens only in the whole environment (like a ecosystem)/the same happens also in
the piece “unterholz” during the performance: the video is the “background” now and the live
performance the foreground (but [it’s] not possible to separate the things/both [are] necessary for the
piece), “composition” is for me something like creating a garden/situation where [these] things can
happen and the “sounds” are not necessary in the foreground.173
Other factors are equally important in establishing the internal histories of Unterholtz. It has been an
ongoing project for nearly ten years so far. There are fourteen documented instances of the work, each
building on the last. The scores are “a growing part of the whole,” to be played only in part, and they are
supplemented by other scores that Kaiser calls “ways through the whole thing.”174  In addition to these
layers within the live performance, there are correspondences at certain times with the previous versions
that are present in the space. These layers of activity at a given moment within the work speak to each
other. The score is played with a stopwatch, in part, so that these moments can be overlaid.

Figure 6.7  Marcus Kaiser: opernfraktal/unterholz #12 © Marcus Kaiser

Unterholtz is usually performed within the context of an installation. It is difficult to tease this project
apart from many of his other projects. Spinozawucherung (2015) is a part of Unterholtz and vice versa.
Kaiser lived in this installation for the month of February 2015, and exhibited several other pieces too. In
Opernfraktal 21 Tage (2003), areas were set up for various purposes. Visitors were invited to make tea
in the kitchen, work at a table, or rest in one of the cubes. The musical performances occur on a cyclical
basis within these installations, incorporating material from previous concerts. By living in the space, and
by inviting others to inhabit it for periods of time beyond that of a formal musical performance, Kaiser
embeds a sense of real life into the installation that sits differently in the memory. The sense of place
established through the architecture of the installation sets this experience apart from the everyday, while
presenting a viable alternative to the everyday through the provision of basic comforts.175
Figure 6.8  Marcus Kaiser: opernfraktal/feindtönung © Marcus Kaiser

As with the Werder projects, someone who experiences Kaiser’s work in person is likely to feel like
part of a larger project—all the more so since the sounds and images of the time and place are being
captured and will likely include their presence in the next iteration.
Jakob Ullmann’s voice books and FIRE 3 (2004–05) is different from Kaiser’s and Werder’s projects
in that it does not require an accumulation of performances across time. Instead, it constructs a history in a
single performance that spans vast distances of time, space, and experience. Multiple ancient religious
texts are brought together in a single performance and made to understand each other through sound.
Voice, books and FIRE  is the result of my reflections about the relationships between music and
language: language as sound and language as text, the numerous relationships between texts of different
cultural and religious traditions, between the work of the human spirit in the present and in the past and
the questions arising from the problem of understanding these different traditions, languages and texts
and representing them in a present, which has lost knowledge about substantial parts, even of its own
tradition and history. 176
The score is made up of fourteen separate pages that can be presented in any order. Each page is a collage
of manuscripts drawn from many religious traditions. The preparation process for the singers is lengthy, in
that it involves learning how to pronounce texts from numerous alphabets and languages, including
Aramaic, Armenian, Coptic, Georgian, Greek, Latin, and Russian.177  Once this preparation is done,
however, the interpretation is fairly free.
The thrust behind the work is that these texts should speak to one another. As they are overlaid on the
page, each with its own distinct alphabet, text, and overall appearance, the singers overlay their voices in
what Ullmann calls “a situation of living polyphony.” These texts are reproduced as faithfully as possible,
both as image and as sound, and they are enlivened and combined without violence or dissent.
Though much of the source material is ancient, the entire Voice, Books and FIRE series is a utopian
reimagining of the twentieth century on a foundation of mutual respect—something that has historically
been elusive among religious traditions from ancient times through to the present. The piece itself is a
history in which these things coexist.
 Ullmann’s sense of social obligation is a driving force in this project. He writes:
Last but not least, the piece is the result of the impression that I—as an East-German artist—have a
special obligation to remember not only my numerous colleagues who are victims of the horrors of the
last century, the “century of wolves,” but also all the cultural, spiritual and religious traditions of
Eastern and South-eastern Europe which have been alienated and suppressed, persecuted and even
destroyed in the so-called “Christian occident,” not only for decades but for centuries.
So this piece is dedicated to the memory of all the victims who have been upholders and witnesses of
these forgotten and dismissed traditions and to these traditions themselves.178
Ullmann’s project also draws from a different tradition, and one of which he is fully a part: the
experimental tradition, in particular “greater freedoms in the interpretation of scores and liberated
relationships between composers and musicians.”179

Figure 6.9  Jakob Ullmann: voice, books and FIRE 3, material for the voices, graphic page 10-d3 © Jakob Ullmann
Figure 6.10 Jakob Ullmann: voice, books and FIRE 3, material for the voices, graphic page 11-ot © Jakob Ullmann

Ullmann’s focus is on the ancient, on respect among peoples, and on the allowance of freedom to the
thoughtful performer. His use of the freedoms of experimental practice in this work is a suggested solution
to an age-old problem. The discipline and focus required in the preparation of the piece, in combination
with the evocations of coexistence in each page of the score, creates a situation that draws on the strengths
of tradition without their limitations, and suggests a path out of historical and ongoing conflicts.

Imagined histories and cultures

Where Ullmann, Werder, Kaiser, and Cage have constructed pieces that can be understood, to varying
degrees, as histories in and of themselves, this next grouping of composers invents histories, either
through the use of archetypes (Meredith Monk, Maria de Alvear) or through creating constructs around
fictional composers, each complete with a history, influencers, a legacy, and a body of work.
It is plausible that the drive behind Jennifer Walshe’s Grúpat and Irish avant-garde projects is that she
has searched for an experimental or avant-garde musical tradition within her home country of Ireland and
found it lacking. She has conjured her own precursors, inventing organizations such as the highly political,
obscene, and violent Kilkenny Engagists; a “fugitive women’s improv singing group” called Keening
Women’s Alliance; and the Guinness Dadaists.180  While the Grúpat collective is entirely linked to
Walshe’s imagination, research, and compositional work, Historical Documents of the Irish Avant-Garde
is a project involving figments of several other (actual) people’s imaginations. This project is described
as:
Communal thought experiment, a revisionist exercise in “what if?,” a huge effort by many people to
create an alternative history of avant-garde music in Ireland, to write our ancestors into being and shape
 their stories with care.181
One of these imagined sound artists is Zaftig Giolla, an ethnomusicological collector presented by
Stephen Graham as a precursor of Chris Watson and Hildegard Westerkamp who made “occasional
diversions into the ether of the avant-garde for unsuspecting, strange-starved Irish audiences.”182  Nick
Roth writes a brief biography of Ultan O’Farrell, a Uilleann piper who was a purported influence on
Pauline Oliveros. His drones were so long that the recordist ran out of wax cylinders in trying to
document a performance.183
Walshe is active not only as a composer but also as a vocalist, and this interest is betrayed in the
character of Róisín Madigan O’Reilly, who created an Irish translation of Kurt Schwitters’ seminal sound
poem, Ursonate (1922–32).184 Quite a patriot, O’Reilly sustained two different projects that related Irish
vowel sounds to the sounds of the wind, the sea, and radio waves.185 Billie Hennessy’s “meandering tonal
sing-voice” Scripts  are compared to the work of Satie for their “lack of standard compositional
concerns.”186
Other composers in this collective (retroactively) anticipate further musical developments of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including binaural beats and small intervals (Eyleif Mullen-White),
free improvisation and automatic music-making (Andrew Hunt), and experimental musical instrument
building (the Ó Laoire twins).187  Cage’s chance procedures, especially as manifested in the  Freeman
 Etudes, are anticipated by Caoimhín Breathnach’s scores that are made of tracings of constellations and
crystallographic forms.188
These pieces operate as a series of speculations. What would it be like to have had such a tradition?
What conditions would have been optimal for these sound explorations? What might have occurred that
has gone undocumented? Equally importantly, how do these speculations play out as sound? The
implementation of scores and performances of these works has been rigorous, and is a central component
of Walshe’s creative work.
 Anthropologies imaginaires  (2014) is a mockumentary created primarily by composer and vocalist
Gabriel Dharmoo that alternately invents and reimagines vocal traditions. Even the most Western of
traditions, such as twelve-tone music and conducted choral singing (“hypnotized choirs”), are presented
by Dharmoo with primitivistic flair, and discussed by fictional experts through a lens of otherness as
strange cultural artifacts. It is a lively performance that is fascinating and ridiculous, cringeworthy and
compelling all at once, taking up numerous issues, among which Dharmoo lists “post-colonialism, post-
exoticism, cultural extinction, globalization, normalized racism and cultural appropriation in an
ambiguous, humorous and disturbing way.”189
Sr Anselme O’Ceallaig is another exponent of Jennifer Walshe’s invented Irish tradition, and her
biography connects with Hildegard von Bingen, while her musical preoccupations draw a connection of
sorts between the sustained works of Éliane Radigue and Eva-Maria Houben. She thought of her organ
compositions as contemplative prayers. These Virtues  are comprised of drones, and “focus on
incremental changes in organ stops.”190
These small, gradual shifts are anticipated by another fictional composer: the Wandelweiser antecedent
Viola Torros. Created by Johnny Chang and Catherine Lamb, she was surrounded by philosophers and
poets, and traveled vast distances in search of the “unknown.” This word “unknown” recurs throughout
her biography, in reference to her birth year, the meaning of syllables found in one of her fragments,191 and
the makers of the bowed instruments for which she composed. An air of mystery surrounds her life as
well as her work. She “must have had a very exciting life, but she never seemed to find interest in creating
a narrative to describe any of the events she experienced or witnessed.” The work itself has been
discovered and reconstructed from fragments and remnants.
One belief is that these “fragments” are actually purposeful and to be left as they are. Other theories are
that she intended . . . the fragments to be installed (performed) across large distances. Still other theories
are that the fragments should be interpreted as audible shadings between parts.
The recorded reconstructions are highly speculative in nature: tentative and simultaneous melodies,
resonant tones in search of one another, and unison melodies with inflections of pitch and timbre
identified as “shadings.”192  The unknown qualities of Torros’s work give it, in addition to that air of
mystery, a sense of universality. By not pinning down the specifics of her earthly existence, Lamb and
Chang have allowed it to infiltrate the reader-listener’s vague, broad sense of an entire musical antiquity.
Tom Johnson comments that the composer and vocalist Meredith Monk has evolved her own
language.193  Rarely in her works are words from English or other languages present. The vocal
mechanism seems to be driving the language, rather than the more usual language-driven song. But this is
not a simple language of convenient vowels. It has lived and developed in the mouth as vocal expression.
By avoiding particular languages, Monk makes this work more widely accessible. Lanny Harrison, one of
Monk’s core ensemble members, reflects that in their performances around the world, the pieces are
understood without a need for translation.194 This sense of universality is a hallmark of Monk’s vocal and
theatrical works. She is interested in the depths and breadths of the human condition and experience. She
states one of her goals as: “An art that is inclusive, rather than exclusive; that is expansive, whole, human,
multidimensional.”195
She does this in part through the use of archetypes. A rabbi in one viewer’s eyes is a fifteenth-century
monk in another’s. “Little touches of costume—heavy boots or an apron—place the character, not
specifically but according to type. The pioneers could be crossing the American plains or medieval
Europe.”196  In terms of sound, the human voice carries such a sense of universality. Every voice is
different, but changes in the overall quality of the human voice over the centuries are not part of any
repository of knowledge. The songs and languages are certainly different, but our ancient ancestors’
voices can only be imagined as being much like our own. Blondell Cummings spoke of how she and Monk
developed her character in The Education of the Girlchild (1972):
I tried to find a way of representing an archetypal character that I would understand from a deep,
personal, subconscious point of view that at the same time would be strong enough to overlap several
black cultures.
The singers in Monk’s work draw from their own personalities and experiences in shaping their
characters. Each voice and each character is unique, and every characterization is separately developed
for the opera and changes through successive performances. “The performers are the life of the script.
They inhabit the work. Ideally, the play is being written as though it were alive.”197 In her non-theatrical
work, this emphasis on the uniqueness of individual voices holds equally true. She says:
I think the voice is a wonderful instrument for dealing with emotion that we don’t have words for. It can
get between the emotions that we can catalogue. It has so much nuance and yet a very direct connection
to the center of each person.198
In relation to Dolmen Music (1980–81) she writes, “My main concerns in the group music have been to
work with the unique quality of each voice and to play with the ensemble possibilities of unison, texture,
counterpoint, weaving, etc.”199
The voice is the most human of instruments, and for Monk it is crucial that the specific nature of each
performer is manifested, so that very humanity is maximally present. Even focusing on Dolmen Music
album alone, the range of emotion and technique in these vocal performances is staggering, from the
ritualistic chanting of “Overture and Men’s Conclave” to the reckless abandon and ululations of
“Travelling,” to the rich and dark tones of “Biography” that seem to evoke a greater depth of experience
with every repetition.
At the end of Atlas (1991), the main character, Alexandra Daniels, has traveled the world and found that
her entire expedition has been “the inner journey of a soul.”200 In the penultimate scene, “Earth Seen From
Above,” she experiences both timelessness and placelessness. In “Madwoman’s Vision” in Book of Days
(1988), Monk travels through an astonishing range of vocal expression as the madwoman herself travels
from medieval to modern times and back and reels under the intensity of her visions. “Book of Days,”
writes Monk, “is very much about the transparency and relativity of time—the sense that you can see one
period through another and the sensation that everything could be happening concurrently. That history is a
thought, eternity is now.”201
That sense of now-ness is related to presence, feeling, and emotion. Monk has listed another of her
goals, to create
An art that reaches toward emotion we have no words for, that we barely remember—an art that affirms
the world of feeling in a time and society where feelings are in danger of being eliminated.202
It is not so much the particular vocal techniques as it is her approach to creating and performing the work
that keys into this level of emotional depth. Free of language but full of multiple experiences and
individualities—those of all of the artists involved—she employs the voice as a means of expression that
is both primordial and up to date because of its essential timelessness. Monk writes of the voice as “a
tool for discovering, activating, remembering, uncovering, demonstrating primordial/prelogical
consciousness.”203  Why is it necessary to reimagine history, to evoke archetypes and universalities in
order to arrive at such a place? Monk says, “I think we’re living in a society that is not really that
interested in emotion. . . . So in a way you have to go outside it a bit to have the human memory of
feeling.”204
Another composer who is interested in the productive recovery of memory is Maria de Alvear. Her long
stays with aboriginal people on several continents have been part of her attempt to grasp elusive histories,
and she cites the area her family came from near Frankfurt, Germany, as an important influence, in that
many prehistoric fossils have been found there. She creates her music through automatic writing
processes, having found a “non-thinking state” distant from constraint, society, and emotion that enables
Kahn, Jason here – here, here, here – here
Kaiser, Marcus here – here
Kallmyer, Chris here – here
Kanno, Mieko here
Karassikov, Vadim here – here
Kawasaki, Utah here
Kelly, Caleb here
Kendall, Craig here
Kerbaj, Mazen here
Kesten, Christian here
Kim, Jiyeon here
Kirkegaard, Jacob here, here
Kleeb, Hildegard here
Knowles, Alison here
Koch, Hans W. here
Kolkowski, Aleksander here
Kourliandski, Dmitri here
Krause, Bernie here – here
Kreutzfeldt, Jacob here
Kubisch, Christina here – here, here – here
Kudirka, Joseph here
Kuivila, Ron here
Kumpf, Kenn here
Kwang, Goh Lee here

La Barbara, Joan here – here

La Casa, Éric here
Labelle, Brandon here
Lamb, Alan here
Lamb, Catherine here, here – here, here – here
landscape here – here, here – here, here
Lang, Bernhard here, here
Lang, Klaus here – here
language here – here, here
invented languages here, here, here
Lansky, Paul here
Laporte, Jean-François here
Lash, Dominic here, here – here
Laska, Eric here
Le Junter, Frédéric here – here
Leach, Mary Jane here – here
Lely, John here – here
Leonard, Cheryl here
Lê Quan, Ninh here
Lerman, Richard here, here – here
Leslie, Bill here
Lewis, George here, here, here – here, here
Lewitt, Sol here
Limbrick, Simon here
listening here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here,
here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here
Lockwood, Annea here, here
logic here, here, here, here, here – here
London Musicians’ Collective here
loops here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here, here – here
López, Francisco here – here
Lovely Music here
Lucier, Alvin here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here
Luck, Neil here

M, Sachiko here – here
machine here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here
making here – here
Malfatti, Radu here
Mann, Chris here
maps here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here
Marclay, Christian here – here
Martin, Agnes here – here, here – here, here
Masaoka, Miya here, here
Mason, Benedict here
Matamoros, Gustavo here
mathematics here, here, here
combinatoriality here – here, here
numbers here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here
Matthews, Kaffe here
McLaughlin, Scott here – here
mediation here – here, here, here
melody here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here
memory here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here
method. See technique
Mercer, Chris here – here
Miller, Cassandra here – here
Mills, Joseph Clayton here, here – here
minimalism here – here
Minton, Phil here – here
Mitchell, Roscoe here – here
Molitor, Claudia here
Möller, André O. here
Monahan, Gordon here – here
Monk, Meredith here – here, here – here
motion here, here – here, here – here
Mumma, Gordon here – here, here – here
Music we’d like to hear here
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) here – here

Nakajima, Rie here – here

Nakamura, Toshimaru here – here, here, here
Namblard, Marc here, here – here
Namblard, Olivier here – here
nature here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here
Neuhaus, Max here – here, here – here, here, here – here
Neumann, Andrea here
New Silence, The here
Newman, Chris here
Niblock, Phill here – here
Nickel, Luke here – here
Nicolai, Carsten here
Nicols, Maggie here
noise here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here
non-selectiveness here – here
non-subjectivity here
Norment, Camille here – here
Nuova Consonanza here
Nyman, Michael here – here, here

Obadike, Mendi and Keith here, here

objects here, here – here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here – here
Oesterle, Michael here – here
Ogboh, Emeka here – here
Oliveros, Pauline here, here – here, here, here – here, here
Onda, Aki here
otoacoustic emissions here – here
Otomo, Yoshihide here, here – here

Panhuysen, Paul here, here – here

Panzner, Joe here, here, here – here, here
Parkinson, Tim here – here, here – here
Parsons, Michael here – here, here, here, here – here
Partch, Harry here, here – here
Patterson, Lee here – here
Payne, Maggi here
perception here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here – here, here
performance here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here
Peters, Steve here
phonetics here – here, here
physicality here – here
Pisaro, Michael here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here – here
pixelation here – here
place here – here
Polansky, Larry here
position here, here, here – here
power here – here
prescription here, here, here, here, here, here
Prime, Michael here
Pritchard, Alwynne here – here
process here – here, here, here, here – here
chance procedures. See indeterminacy
linear here, here, here
proportion
canon here
formal here, here, here
pitch/frequency/harmonic here, here, here – here, here
rhythmic here, here
spatial here
psychoacoustics here – here

questions here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here – here,
here

Radigue, Éliane here – here, here – here

radio here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Radittya, Lintang here
realism here, here, here, here
recording here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here, here,
 here, here – here, here – here, here
refuge here
rehearsal here, here – here, here
Reich, Steve here, here
Reinecke, Frank here
Reinhart, Ad here, here
rejection here – here
repetition here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here
research here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here
resolution here – here
resonance here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here
Reynell, Simon here
Riek, Lasse-Marc here – here
Riley, Bridget here, here – here
Rogalsky, Matt here – here, here
Rose, Jodi here
Rose, Jon here – here
Rosman, Carl here
Rothko, Mark here, here, here
Rowe, Keith here, here, here
Rowe, Robert here
Ryu, Hankil here – here

Sabat, Marc here, here

Sargent, Matt here
Sato, Minoru here
saturation here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here – here
Saunders, James here – here, here, here, here, here
scales here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here
Schaeffer, Pierre here
Schafer, R. Murray here – here
Schiemer, Greg here
Schlothauer, Burkhard here
Schmickler, Marcus here – here
science here – here, here, here
Scratch Orchestra here, here, here, here
Sdraulig, Charlie here
Sealed Knot, The here – here
Sfirri, Sam here – here
shape here – here, here, here – here
Shepard, Craig here – here
Shepard tone here
Shim, Kunsu here – here
Shrapnel, Hugh here
silence here – here, here, here – here, here, here
site specificity here, here, here – here
Skempton, Howard here – here, here – here, here, here
Smith, Ash here
Smith, Linda Catlin here
Smith, Wadada Leo here, here
Solomon, Bill here
Sonami, Laetitia here – here
Sonderberg, Adam here
Sonic Arts Union here, here, here
soundwalks here – here
space here, here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here. See environmental sound
spectral freeze here, here
speech here – here
Spiegel, Laurie here
Stäbler, Gerhard here
stasis here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here, here
Steen-Andersen, Simon here – here
Stevens, John here
Stiebler, Ernstalbrecht here
Stuart, Greg here, here – here, here
Subtropics festival here
Sugimoto, Taku here – here
Susam, Taylan here
Suzuki, Akio here – here, here, here – here
systems here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here – here
Szlavnics, Chiyoko here – here, here – here, here

Takasugi, Steven Kazuo here – here

taste here, here – here, here, here
Taylor, Hollis here
technique here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here
technology here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here
Teitelbaum, Richard here, here
Tenney, James here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here, here
tension here – here, here – here
Thomas, Philip here – here
threshold here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here
Thut, Stefan here, here
Tilbury, John here
time here – here, here – here, here – here
timing here, here, here, here, here – here, here, here
Tone, Yasunao here – here, here
Torros, Viola here – here
trance here
translation here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here
Tsunoda, Toshiya here, here – here, here – here, here
Tudor, David here – here, here – here, here – here
tuning here – here, here, here
turntable here – here, here, here

Ullmann, Jakob here, here – here

Unami, Taku here

Vancouver Soundscape Project here – here

Veliotis, Nikos here
venue here, here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here
home environment (see home)
outdoor (see installations)
verticalization here, here – here
visual
metaphors here – here, here – here
translation to sound here – here, here – here, here
video here, here – here, here, here, here – here, here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here
visualization here – here, here
voice here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here – here, here, here – here, here, here, here, here, here, here – here, here – here,
here – here
von Schweinitz, Wolfgang here
Vriezen, Samuel here – here

Wada, Yoshi here

Waisvisz, Michel here
Walshe, Jennifer here, here, here – here, here – here
Wandelweiser here, here, here, here – here, here – here, here – here
Wang, Hong-Kai here
Warthman, Forrest here
Wastell, Mark here – here
Watson, Chris here – here, here, here, here – here
Watts, Robert here
Werder, Manfred here, here – here, here – here
Westerkamp, Hildegard here – here, here
Whitehead, James. See JLIAT
Whitty, Paul here
Winderen, Jana here, here
Winter, Michael here, here
Wolff, Christian here – here, here, here, here, here – here, here – here
Wolman, Amnon here
Wooley, Nate here
World Forum for Acoustic Ecology here
World Soundscape Project here

Yan, Jun here – here

Yoshida, Ami here, here – here, here
Young, La Monte here, here
Yudo, Luiz Henrique here
Yusa, Koichi here – here

Z, Pamela here, here

Zagny, Sergei here, here
Zazeela, Marian here
Zimmermann, Walter here
Zorn, John here
 Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2016

© Jennie Gottschalk, 2016
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Library of Congres s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-6289-2248-6
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Cover design: Sutchinda Rangsi Thompson
Cover image: pencil drawing by
Chiyoko Szlavnics © 2005