RE: [microsound] What is Microsound?

[Tobias <tobias@xxxxxxxxx>]

> One professor of mine, meanwhile, after assigning some
> writings by > Derrida, wondered whether a philosopher who dislikes music
could be
> trusted, yet the Derridian techniques seem useful (perhaps only to me) in
> approaching the concrete and error-based realms of reappropriated
> sound.

It "sounds" to me like your professor profoundly misunderstands Derrida.
(I could be misunderstanding you here...)

His assumption is probably only based upon a mis-reading of Derrida's
reading of Rousseau's musical-primitivism in "Of Grammatology." Rousseau
links  "music" to the "natural" and the "primitive" voice. This is of
interest
to computer-generators as such a capital-R romantic argument obviously
discredits "music" working with noise, ultra-frequencies, serial notation,
computer-glitches, etc. Derrida is out to deconstruct, pull apart and think
through such "romantic" assumptions in this particular instance: indeed
I would say much of microsound(s) lives out/acts out these deconstructive
movements today.

Derrida has a profound love for "musicality" (and we must take this word to
mean the many different/dissonant explorations it has undergone in the last
century)-- if you read him in the French you can hear his word play. Of
especial note is his essay on James Joyce which works with Joyce's
homophony word-games in "Finnegan's Wake" and "Ulyssyes." The essay
is called "Ulysses Gramophone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce" (in "A Derrida
Reader,"
among other places).

Here's some other reading to look out for. It concerns mainly the modernist
movement & is "academic" but it has much to say about technology,
presence, subjectivity and sound.

The book "Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies",
ed. Adalaide Morris (Chapel Hill and London: North Carolina P, 1997)
contains
many excellent essays (some listed below) AND includes a CD with such
gems as early Futurist, Dadaist and Surrealist sound-poetry readings, John
Cage readings, dub-poetry, tape-works by Henri Chopin, etc.

-Adalaide Morris' "Sound Technologies and the Modernist Epic"
(discusses H.D., Eliot, Pound & their radio involvement)
-N. Katherine Hayles' "Voices out of Bodies, Bodies out of Voices"
(discusses Burroughs' "The Ticket That Exploded" & Beckett's "Krapp's Last
Tape")
-Marjorie Perloff's "What you Say..." which is all about the use of sound
(or absence
thereof) in John Cage
-an essay each by Garrett Stewart and Jed Rasula, who both have fascinating
post-structural takes on sound and phonologics while taking pot-shots at
Yale School "Derrideans."

And this book: "Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word," ed. Charles
Bernstein (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998). This one is more about performance
"poetry"
per se but it contains an excellent manifesto by Bruce Andrews called
"Praxis:
A Political Economy of Noise and Information" which works through noise and
radical art as a political system of noise...most interesting. Contains
another
essay by Rasula as well.

For this interested in Guattari and Deleuze, I would suggest picking up
"Chaosophy," a little Semiotext[e] book with interviews with Guattari.
This type of stuff you really need a good background in psychoanalysis
to dig into...another name to think of reading is Julia Kristeva, and her
theories on the semiotic in music. Of special note would be "Powers of
Horror" and "Desire in Language."

If I had a choice I would buy the first book (Sound States)--
it has a CD, contains very relevant readings for microsound
exploration, and is very up-to-date.

Apologies if this is a little "academic" heavy...I realise the irony...

I look forwards to seeing the finished reading list/FAQ etc.

cheers,

tobias

:::::::s///////////t||||||------------------
tobias|saibot
http://www.shrumtribe.com
http://www.targetcircuitry.com
-------------------------------------------