Naturalistic
sound - Field recordings (compare with Field Painting)
Chris
Watson:
'On each of his solo records, Watson combats this paradox in a similar
manner as Perrin and Smithson:
with technological prowess and human persistence. 1996's Stepping
Into the Dark, for example, cabled tiny,
ultrasensitive microphones over great distances to capture the chirps
and croaks of insects, frogs, and bats.
1998's Outside the Circle of Fire used omnidirectional microphones
buried deep inside a zebra carcass to capture the
otherwise inaccessible sounds of vultures feeding on raw flesh.
With Weather Report, Watson has this time opted not to
share the intricate and highly technical details of his recording
set-up, but the results attest to its complexity.
In fact, Weather Report presents new challenges, because with it
Watson sets out to capture the essence of his three locations
as they shift over time in response to natural changes. Thus in
order to communicate the gradual crescendo of animal
and insect excitement as a storm rolls across Kenya's Masai Mara,
or the shifting rumble of water in a Scottish highland glen
through autumn and into winter, Watson uses his authorial hand more
forcefully, editing his material for purposes of
dynamics and compression. For this reason the results are less "objective,"
but the increased focus on temporal changes
makes for what are often even richer compositions.' http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/archives/reviews_chriswatson
Naturalistic sounds presented as Compositions - e.g. Eastley and
Cusack; others 'Day
For Night' example
Manipulation
of sound phenomena - e.g. Lucier's 'I am sitting in a room' (1969
and later)
'I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now.
I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to
play it back into the room
again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce
themselves so that any semblance
of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed.
'
also: http://www.lovely.com/titles/cd1013.html
'The source material of "It's Gonna Rain" consists entirely
of a tape recording made in 1964 at San Francisco's Union Square.
In the recording, an African American Pentecostal preacher, Brother
Walter, rails about the end of the world, [2] while accompanying
background noises, including the sound of a pigeon taking flight,
are heard. The piece opens with the story of Noah,
and the phrase "it's gonna rain" is repeated and eventually
looped throughout the piece.
For the recording, Reich used two normal Wollensak tape recorders
with the same recording, originally attempting to align
the phrase with itself at the halfway point (180 degrees). However,
due to the imprecise technology in 1965, the two recordings
fell out of synch, with one tape gradually falling ahead or behind
the other due to minute differences in the machines and playback
speed.
Reich decided to exploit what is known as phase shifting, where
all possible recursive harmonies are explored before the two loops
eventually get back in synch before the end of the piece.
Reich created another composition the next year called Come Out,
done via the same process.
The phrase, "come out to show them", is looped over and
over again.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Gonna_Rain
'Out of these experiments came two tape pieces: It's Gonna Rain
[1965](using the preacher's voice) and Come Out (1966)
in which the single phrase "Come out to show them" is
recorded on two channels, first in unison,
and then with channel two beginning to move ahead. As the phrase
begins to shift a gradually increasing reverberation is heard
which slowly passes into a sort of canon or round. Eventually the
two voices divide into four and then eight.
Gradually, the intelligibility of the voices is destroyed
- one hears only a constantly changing polyphony of rhythmic elements.' http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/reich.html
Original
(synthesised) sounds - e.g. Stockhausen
creation of mimetic sound - Eno's
Bell Studies (2003)
'The experiments on this CD sometimes try to simulate existing bells,
and (perhaps more profitably) imagine different sorts of bells,
bells which may indeed be physically unmakeable.'
Sampling in relation to this
Performance;
the performative aspects of sound and music
Challenging
of cultural conventions (partic. classical music) - Fluxus
performance
Consideration
of possible Psychological aspects
e.g. Psychoacoustics (as a discipline)
e.g. the ways in which music may 'help structure' consciousness
- Oliver Sacks' Dr. P example:
'Dr. P functioned on a daily basis by using his musical talents.
He sang to himself to keep his focus.
He sang eating songs, dressing songs and bathing songs
(emphasis mine, PR), but if he was interrupted he just stopped.
He didn't know his clothes or his own body.
At the time, Dr. Sacks thought his patient had a tumor or degenerative
process in the visual parts of his brain.
At the time of his writing he was not aware of the studies on visual
agnosia, which comes from
the Greek word meaning "lack of knowledge". It describes
the inability to recognize objects using a given sense,
in Dr. P's case, his sight. Patients with object agnosia usually
have sustained damage to their occipital lobe or
inferotemporal cortex, located at the back of the cerebral hemisphere
where you receive and process visual information.
Damage here can blind a person even though the eyes may be perfectly
healthy.
Dr. Sacks' final recommendation to Dr. P was to continue making
music and live his life as normally as he could.
Dr. P continued to teach at a university and played music (and did
a lot of singing) until his death.
from http://everything2.com/title/The+Man+who+Mistook+His+Wife+for+a+Hat
about: The
Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985)
Teaching
Materials