Category: Year 1

After the sound walk, I created a basic visual representation of the experience. Notations are something I find quite interesting after seeing John Cages ‘Notations’

I thought of the purpose of notation, whenever we create work MIDI in modern DAWs it almost creates its own notation in the form of the piano roll. Can I make a DAW with a more expressive or indeterminate interface, one that is new and does not limit itself to equal temperament? The notation creates the music itself.

I found that 2D, on paper, stationary notations are limited. While I was drawing my notation of the sound walk I felt limited in its dimension and lack of fluidity. I felt I could express time and duration on the paper but it felt cumbersome. Maybe animated notation is more useful and practical when we spend more time looking at screens, which allow for such fluidity, than paper.

My initial drawings were done between breaks of the sound walk. I was thinking of the sounds in regards of spaciality rather than on a linear time frame. I thought as my self as a microphone and what directions the sounds where coming from. As you can see in the images, I used a birds-eye/top-down view. This limited the concept of sound from above and below. The other rings surrounding the LR circle show the distance of sound from the microphone. In the middle ground sounds are much more tangible in their spacial placement. Basic colour theory as well as shape could be used to differentiate sounds or even convey mood. Angular shapes have more aggressive attacks, rounder shapes fade in and out. Size determines volume. Lines and gaps rhythm.

China as a nation. The concept of an ancient established kingdom and its claim to the land. The cultural revolution. Removing the past (Four Olds: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs). Encouraged vigilantism.

I read about Yayue, meaning (elegant music), a form of classical music and dance that was performed at the royal court in ancient China. The philosopher Confucius considered yayue to be beneficial music and good, whereas he saw the popular music of the day, termed suyue (uncultivated music) to be decadent and corrupting. Yayue was seen as refined, improving and essential for self-cultivation and symbolised good and stable governance. In Confucius tradition the Guqin, a seven stringed zither, is seen as the instruments of the scholar-official class.

This made me of Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music and the concept of sound/music in regards to authority and power. Has much really changed in the way we see music?

In some circles, classical music is seen as having a sort of superiority over popular music, is this a result of the perpetuation of the educatated ruling class enforcing what is ‘elegant’ and what is ‘uncultivated’? Perhaps a better word for uncultivated would be uncensored. If the same emotions are felt from 2 different pieces of music, popular and classical, is one seen as more valid than the other, is the value equal?

Western ‘classical’ music is an interesting field for me, from a social standpoint. I do not come from a background of classical musicianship and neither do members of my family. My Dad listens mostly to rock, and my Mum more Alternate/Indie rock. Classical music is seen as something of an sophisticated and intellectual category, as well as elitist. I suppose the same thing can be thought about regarding jazz. Maybe it’s because while the working class labour, the elites dictate what is music and what is not. However, I do enjoy classical music. In my childhood I had compilation of Tchaikovsky that I would listen to in order to fall asleep. Maybe my Mum got me the cd after reading something about the controversial ‘Mozart effect’ of listening to classical music making children smarter, that is no doubt regaled by elitist institutionalists. I didn’t really get into classical music until I started listening to Debussy and Satie, what then introduced me to ‘modern’ composers such as Arvo Part, John Cage, Morton Feldman and the minimal music movement.

The ancient philosopher Mozi denounced anything that was seen as divisive based on the concept of consequentialism. This meant the entire condemnation of music as an extravagance and indulgence, something that serves no useful purpose and may be harmful. This is a stance that I have not come across before due to its intense utilitarianism in regards to the material, but little regard for the pleasures of the individual.

The Taoist branch of philosophy has an emphasis on Tao (“the way”) balance and harmony with nature. Taosim is an interesting mix of philosophy and spiritual tradition, though I would argue that philosophy and religeon/spirituality are much in the same thing. Rooted in folk tradition, Taoist music is seen as a way to bring Yin and Yang into balance during ceremonial rites, and as a way to speak to the gods, to pray for the dead. Yin tones are seen as soft, female, dark, cold and negative while Yang tones are seen as hard, male, light, warm.

I recently watched The Innocents (1961), directed by Jack Clayton. It was to my surprise that a few days later, I found out that the sound effects were created by Daphne Oram, whose work on the film was uncredited.

I remember while watching the film that I was very impressed with the sound, something that is often lacking in older films. The reverberant sounds certainly brought the film to life, as well as creating surreal moments of tension that were much more effective than the orchestral elements of the score.

Oram was a pioneering composer and musician known for her work in founding the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1958) as well as for her development of Oramics, a method of sound synthesis using drawn sound, where 35mm film was drawn upon and transformed into sounds.

She created the music for the play Amphitryon 38 (1957) using a sine wave oscillator, a tape recorder and filters, making the first wholly electronic score in BBC history.

Part One – Experience

Hildegard Westerkamp defines sound walking as “… any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.“

Below is a list of some sounds that I noted during the experiences.

Stationary – Train Underpass Tunnel

Forward (panning)

• Keys. Metallic short sounds, musical.
• Clothes. Rustling to movement. Like brushed snares
• Talking, laughing. Intensified vulnerability

Left

• Quiet car traffic
• Rattling of larger vehicles
• Wind

Right

• Vertical steps. Rhythmic pattern of footsteps.
• Overground automated announcement. Ordered,Alien.
• Street ‘noise’. Mid freq hum.

Above

The rumble of the overhead train. Metallic banging. Such a low frequency that the reverberance was felt more than heard.

Sound walk. Sydenham Hill Woods

Below.

• Crunching rocks, soft forest floor, snapping twigs. Swaying leaves

Above 

• Rustling leaves in the trees, Birds of all kinds. Rhythmic, melodic, repetitive.
• Aeroplanes overhead

Forward(left and right)

• A panting dog, the owner calling from left and right, the dog’s purposeful steps.
• Child inquiring about us.
• Clanging metal pipes.
• Sound System playing music
• Bicycles chains
• Crying child in the distance

Behind

• The water bottle in my bag, sloshing with my steps

Part Two – Reflection

I found the sound walk to be an interesting, complex experience. I found it quite distracting to be walking during the experience and felt like it took away from the experience of listening to the environment. It was as much a challenge in control as a listening task.

The task of listening with my eyes closed is a familiar experience, though I’m public becomes a lot more vulnerable.

In this respect, I preferred the task of listening while stationary as I could focus more on the sounds themselves than the survival instinct of keeping my footing.

After walking for a while it was disorienting to remove the blindfold and to find me in a place, with little sense of how I got there, and what direction I came from.

It helped for me to think of the sound as moving through me rather than me moving in a physical space

During breaks in the walk, I sketched out the sounds shortly after experiencing them. I have included them in a separate entry.

As someone with a somewhat decent memory, it is contrasted by the fact I have never been good with remembering locations. I often remember individual places, like nodes, but seldom remember how to travel from one to another. I wonder if this is something that can be experienced with sounds, as sound marks. Would I know the sound of my kitchen at home? The hum of the heater, the draft under the door? 

The soundscape is something that interests me, I have plans to create a digital soundscape creator at some point. Where you can plot a journey on a map (like with Google Maps) and travel through the map, experiencing generated sounds based on the location, such as weather, altitude, population, wilderness, biome and language. Like a travelling caravan on the silk road of sound.

Listening to sound in complete darkness is usually my preferred method. It allows me to listen with no distraction, and to mentally imagine and ‘visualise’ the sound. Not necessarily the source of the sound, but some abstract scene or narrative.

This likely stems from my childhood, and general sleep patterns.

I’ve always struggled to fall asleep, often due to the fact I listen intensely. At night, and in the quiet, I’ve always heard a high pitch noise that would keep me up listening to it. And so, since my early childhood, I would always listen to music, or audiobooks as a distraction from this sound. I’m not confident in what the sound is but it could be linked to the hyperacusis that had had when I was younger.

Listening in the dark is also something I do when I have migraines. I’ve suffered from migraines since my early teens, and the only way for them to end is if I throw up or fall asleep.

When I have a migraine, my senses are at their extreme. Sight is simple enough to negate with, closed curtains and eyes, but Sound is more difficult. It feels as though somebody has boosted the low frequencies and I focus extremely hard on any rhythms I can to regulate my breathing. Needless to say, I am thankful when I do not have migraines.

Artists

Yoko Ono, Ryoji Ikeda, Merzbow (Masami Akita), Isao Tomita, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yasunao Tone

Movements that interest me

Kankyō Ongaku – ‘Environmental music’

As someone interested in minimal and ambient music, the work of musicians such as Hiroshi Yoshimura interests me. Inspired by the Fluxus movement, Satie, Brian Eno and Harry Partch. His music has come popular over recent years due to the mystical algorithm of Youtube. Most of Yoshimura’s music was made with a Fender Rhodes layered on top of field recordings. The use of pentatonic scales avoids any clashes that make the music sound open and, to me, captures the essence of Mono no aware.

Mono no aware
Meaning "the pathos or sentiment of things"
It is often translated as the 'ahness' of things, falling cherry blossoms, the changing of seasons, an awareness in the transient beauty of life.

Something I’ve found interesting is that Yoshimura’s music has been categorised as New Age in some resources that I have been researching him. The term New Age is something I very much dislike. My dislike of the term is the appropriation of the environmentalist attitude along with spiritual exoticism, skewed for the sake of commercialisation and marketing.

Japanoise and Glitch Music

To me, noise and glitch music is the manifestation of the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi.

Wabi Sabi
An appreciation in the beauty of imperfection, incompletness and impermanance. Influenced by Shinto and Buddhism.

Works such as Yasunao Tone’s Solo for Wounded CD show what can be created through the physical distortion of a physical medium. It was created by purposely distressing a CD. I personally do not get much emotional satisfaction from the sounds achieved, however, they are unlike anything I had heard before, and as sounds, themselves could be used in compositions.

The history of noise music and glitch is routed in the politics, and economy of post World War 2 Japan. After the nationalism of WW2 imperialism, Japan was occupied by American forces and the nation was rebuilt economically, shifting away from a war economy to a consumer-based one. The Japanese economical miracle, as it is known, caused an economic boom in which Japan become the 2nd largest economy in the world. One of the largest industries was/is the field of electronics (Casio, Yamaha, Sony, Akai, Nikon, Fujifilm, Nintendo, etc). I imagine this had a direct impact on the accessibility of electronics and the culture surrounding these scenes.

Ainu folk music

The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians.

Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. It was established in the Heian period (794-1185) and derived from Chinese Yayue music