a phenomenology of electronic music
May 11th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: a phenomenology of electronic music :: perhaps a phenomenology of discursive practices as well as electronic musics? :: A phenomenology of electronic music :: perhaps a phenomenology of discursive practices as well as electronic musics?
Cologne 05-May-2008 (Karl Marx born 190 years ago)
Jan Straathof schrieb Mon, 5 May 2008 02:22:19 +0100:
> Hi Malcolm, you wrote:
>
> >Hey anyone here interested in a phenomenology of music? My research
> >interests have turned towards electronic music ala Cage/Stockhausen
> >and Schaeffer’s French phenomenological interpretation of
> >acousmatics. I intend to keep playing on even as the deck is tilting
> >and the good ship modernity starts its long painful slide into the
> >icy waters.
>
> JS: Yes, i’m very interested. I’m a real fan of Karlheinz Stockhausen, have
> 20 or so records of him, not so much the electronic music, but a lot of
> orchestral and vocal work. Have you heard (parts of) his gigantic 7-day
> opera “Licht”, that’s truly amazing music. Stockhausen is very spiritual,
> maybe even very Heideggerian, in intention and scope. Stockhausen is
> a musical onmivore, he is (or better let himself be) influenced as much
> by new electronics as by mediaeval chants, by modern jazz as by ancient
> chinese instruments. I also have 4 cds with Pierre Schaeffer’s “Oeuvre
> Musicale”, his compositions of musique concrete have alway fascinated
> me. I used to listen to them in class, students were amazed and delighted
> to hear how ordinary everyday sounds could be used and mixed in such
> a way that a true aesthetic composition developed. John Cage i also like
> alot, for years he came to Holland to perfrom on a festival dedicated to
> him. He would then play his newest compostions and lecture about the
> zen philosophy behind it. There was a kind of cultstatus created around
> him, i didn’t dig that. But his sonatas & interludes for prepared piano is
> still one of my favorite modern piano pieces.
>
> With regard to electronic music in general there so much that i don’t
> know where to begin. Of course you will be familiar with the work of
> major composers as Edgar Varese, Luciano Berio, Gyorgy Ligeti and
> Krzysztof Penderecki who all in parts of their career experimented with
> electronic music. Interesting to mention here is the early experimental
> work of Oskar Sala, the inventor of the trautonium. He was one of the
> first in Europe who build his own electronic studio. He and his friends
> have written numerous electronic compostions and sound-studies and there
> was also a connection with Stockhausen i believe. His electronic
> tonal illustration to Hitchcock’s film “The Birds” became well known.
> In the seventies and eighties electronic studios originated everywhere
> in Europe and the U.S. Well known in Europe became the cybernetic
> music of Roland Kayn and in the U.S. there were Mario Davidovsky,
> Karl Korte and Meyer Kupferman to name a few. Also in Holland we have our
> own electronic music tradition. One of the first electronic
> studios was build in the early sixties in Eindhoven (the city of Philips)
> and it quickly became a centre of gravity for various composers. Edgar
> Varese realised his famous “Poeme electronique” there and Hans Kox,
> Henk Badings (the pioneer of Dutch electronic music) and Jan Boerman
> composed there their first electronic works. Jan Boerman, who later on
> set up his own private studio in The Hague, i find the most talented. His
> “Kompostie 1972″ really sounds beautiful, it’s a masterpiece. You know the
> problem i have with a lot of modern electronic music is that it is …..
> interesting, i.e. in the sense of technically ‘interesting’, but it
> seldomly sounds good. What i often hear are wierd, brute, agitated and
> outlandish
> timbres and rhythmic structures, but where is the acoustic beauty ? With
> Jan Boerman’s “Kompostie 1972″ that is different, it is a truly beautiful
> piece, the work sounds very light and with its warm tone-colours, highly
> spontaneous, sunny and optimistic. Music to melt the icy waters of modernity.
>
> yours,
> Jan
>
ME: You’re a real buff, Jan! Some years ago I heard Cage’s Sonatas & Interludes
for prepared piano played at Amerika Haus in Cologne by a Boston pianist “Rosen-”
something (Jewish name). One of the most beautiful concerts I’ve ever heard.
Personally I love Morton Feldman’s music. And Conlon Nancarrow is amazing — an
inventor of electronic music before electronics. Some of his pianola pieces are
so fast that even today, a computer can’t generate sounds so fast. Then there’s
Radiohead’s inventive use of electronics, and the Beatles’ “No. 9″ must have been
influenced by Schaeffer. In an interview Stockhausen said that John Lennon wanted
to do a concert with him, but the plan came to nought through Lennon’s murder.
I suppose the Digital Sound Processing on a Takamine acoustic guitar would also
count as electronics.
Agostino Discipio does some interesting things with reiterative feedback loops
that generate a piece live. The acoustics of the surrounding space steer the
performance. Discipio translated into Italian an attempt of mine to wed Heidegger
with Cage
‘Heidegger’s Hölderlin and John Cage’ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/heicagen….
Then there’s my plagiarism of Heidegger for musical ends:
‘The Quivering of Propriation: A Parallel Way to Music’ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/qvrpropn….
Precious little, but nonetheless.
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