Subject: Re: fransisco lopez show in Seattle
From: I. Sterling (yitzchok@u.washington.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 18 2000 - 23:10:04 EST
Hi Jose.
Thanks for the thorough and informative response.
Comments follow:
On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, Jose Manuel Berenguer wrote:
> In the seventies' and first eighties' electroacoustic music, you have
> some works of Octavian Nemescu (Rumanian) and the Batucada of Gabriel
> Brncic (Chilian, now working at Phonos, Barcelona). After this, you
> have also the sonic fractal textures of Octuor, Schall, Thema and Tar
> by Horacio Vaggione (Argentina, but working for long time at Paris
> VIII) ... or Veils and Below the walls of Jerico by Paul Dolden or
> the sonic granular masses of Barry Truax's wonderful works... I am now
> remembering Possible Orchestras, a very nice work made by means of
> frequency modulation by John Celona (Colgate University)... even the
> electroacoustic (some of them absolutely electronic) works of Luigi
> Nono sounded similar... Yes, you can tell me that La Selva is made by
> only natural sound recorded... but the important thing in this
> discussion is how sound matter is and not how sound matter has been
> done ... From a perceptual point of view, all this works can be
> compared with La Selva (The Forest). All are works made by dense
> sound masses where you can swim freely in the musical space of
> consciousness. All are radical and have been done by leading
> compositional ideas to limit situations.
Thanks for the references. I must confess some ignorance here, insofar as
I have only listened to some of Truax' work, and a number of electronic
compositions from Nono. I know of Dolden, Nemescu, and Vaggione, but
Brncic is completely unknown to me.
I agree that method is not essential to what we are discussing.
It is true that a work like La Selva isn't particularly novel; we agree on
that point.
However, I would like to add the caveat that La Selva (& other soundscape
recordings) and the 'Belle Confusion' compositions (also developed from
rainforest fieldrecordings) only partly define Lopez' work. The
'untitled' series has much more in common with the other composers/artists
who I listed earlier. Many compositions are constructed out of little but
bands of white noise, and I personally haven't heard anyone else do this
in a similar manner (admittedly a subjective distinction).
> In the field of people working on sound installation the case of
> sonic documents published by Bill Fontana seems to be quite similar. A
> lot of them are done by means of recording only natural sounds.
>
> >David Tudor and John Bischoff is quite different).
>
> Indeed, but what do you think about George Lewis, and Joel Ryan, and
> Nick Collins? Ake Parmerud and Anders Blomqvist are also working in
> such a way... but if you search people working on electroacoustic
> music improvisation the list has no end... Lawrence Casserley is an
> other important name in improvised electroacosutic music... by the
> way, do you know that there is a class of musical improvisation at the
> Conservatoire de Paris? Alain Savouret and Rainer Boesh are the
> professors. They are very well known as electroacoustic composers.
I did not know about the class, and Lewis and Ryan are new names to me.
> Anyway, I do not believe that improvisation always means modernity ...
I agree, and did not intend to imply otherwise.
> it seems to me that you oppose tape music (as academic and old) to
> live music (as no academic and young -or better, modern-),
I don't attribute such a valence to the distinction between tape music
vs. live music, as you have presented it. I am not claiming any novelty
for Lopez (or others) beyond what I originally said: 'the artists in this
performance take a rather different approach to electroacoustic music from
that taken by many of the composers who contribute to this list'. That
seems like a safe assertion. The issue to me is not one of
novelty; rather sensibility or taste. I personally am able to enjoy a
work that otherwise disagrees with my taste if a certain degree of
attention is audible. The artists I listed for the performance in
question attend seriously to their work, and their 'musical' sensibilities
are appreciably distinct from those exhibited by many of the illustrious
members of this list. There was no attempt on my part to belittle any
work by list members, or professional composers in toto. It does seem
safe to assert that there are schools of composition (with resultant ideas
of 'music' or 'musicality') within academia, and that many members of this
list are associated with one or more of these schools. Accordingly,
someone from another context has the potential to provide a different
approach based in a different set of references.
however
> there is now a lot of people making tape music that also makes
> interactive-live music and improvised music. Everybody knows MAX
> nowadays.
Not all improvisation is equivalent, of course. Again, this is a matter
of sensibility or taste. I assume you agree, and infer that you are still
arguing with something I didn't write.
> I'm shure you know that Pierre Schaeffer used
> turntables (this means pick-up's I guess!). He worked on plastic discs
> and there is yet a while that Pierre Henry mixed live a group of DJ's.
>
I think it would help if you could hear examples of the work in
question. I did not refer to the use of turntables per se, or the use of
turntables to play records using DJ techniques. I referred to the use of
'turntables as sound sources'. This means that the machine itself is a
sound source, and the needle is applied similarly to a contact microphone.
> I think the main conflict among us arises in the use of the word
> academic... Are you thinking on people working at universities and
> conservatories? I believe 'academic' is not a good word for an
> aesthetical and methodological production beeing only fifty years old.
> In my latin logic, 'academic' means 'belonging to Academy', and there
> is not an Electroacoustic Music Academy telling us what we should do.
Mea culpa.
> I know one, it is true, the International EAM Academy of Bourges.
> However it does not pretend to be a model to be followed. Here you
> have some reasons because I can not call academic any electroacoustic
> music. For me there is a big multiplicity of electroacoustic musics
> that can not yet be classified. And from a very personal point of
> view, electroacoustic music has meant the end of my relationship with
> the musical academy.
>
> Perhaps in the US there is a very big distance between university life
> and world life. There is not such a distance here in EU...
My intention was simple regarding my use of the term
'academic': to refer to established schools of composition with ensuing
norms. To assume the existence of such norms still allows for a great
deal of compositional diversity. To analogize, I would not assert that
Rachmaninoff sounds like Scarlatti, but this does not preclude the
assertion that they sound more like each other than either does like
shomyo chant. I assume we can agree when I paint our discussion in such
broad strokes.
> Finally, I would want answer that by 'products' I mean musical and
> sound works. Whith 'musical firms' I pointed to 'making music
> entities', individuals and corparations having corporative image and
> selling its products to some audience.
>
Ah, I see. It seems that in your previous email you were taking on a lot
more than what I wrote.
It seems that your reaction was partly due 1) to a lecture by Lopez which,
according to your judgement, gave inadequate credit to the work of others
(which could have been due to simple ignorance), and 2) to the duplicity
of corporate advertising (i.e. the distortions performed to sell products
with greatest efficacy). These seem to be pertinent concerns, but I'm
frankly not interested in arguing about them with you. Anyway, I suspect
we would find that we agree on a great deal. How to sell (or
present) things to others is often a highly nuanced, albeit basic problem,
as far as I can tell, and would require a rather extensive and involved
discussion.
Thanks for all the references, and I hope I understand your concerns
better now. You are taking on what seem to me to be very big questions,
and my claims were intended to be much more modest.
I must confess I didn't expect such a dramatic response to my original
posting. However, I must thank you for making me
think. Thanks. Apologies if I unintentionally offended you.
> Sincerely yours
>
> Jose Manuel Berenguer
> Departament de Llenguatge Audiovisual
> MECAD. Universitat Ramon Llull. Barcelona
> Sonoscop. Orquestra del Caos. Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
>
> PS. I apologize for my low knowledge of English. I am shure, however,
> that the main meaning of my thoughts is transmited by this poor text.
>
I believe that any miscommunication at this point is strictly due to my
inattention as a reader.
thanks again, Jose.
-Yitz
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b27 : Wed Jun 11 2003 - 13:08:29 EDT