Re: [microsound] Re: rien à voir (9): impressions

[david turgeon <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

> > moore's
> > rendition of _klang_ (1982 piece made exclusively
> > from the sound of
> > earthenware casseroles, by jonty harrison, another
> > englishman)
> If it's a "rendition," was it actually performed,
> physically?  (I know it's a little passé to fixate on
> the 'physicality' of performance...that's
> Carducci-hysteria.  But I wanted to bring up a minor
> distinction that's plagued me a bit; more on this
> below.)  Was a recording played through an optimal
> speaker apparatus in a suitable space, with a prepared
> audience, or were the casseroles "actually" (please
> take w/grain of salt) played?

hah, actually no, but i'd be interested to hear that.  regarding this,
what's interesting is that during adrian moore's interview, he told us a
french radio had asked harrison to "perform" _klang_, to which harrison
simply said "sure, let me send you the CD".  their answer: "no, no, we
want you to actually perform the piece in studio!"  i think your
comparison to paintings (below) is on target.  these pieces (like all
non-improvised electroacoustic music, almost by definition) live on a
support (in this case a CD) which doesn't require musicians in order to
be performed.  one could think of the CD recording as being a
stereophonic rendition of the "partition", which is in fact usually just
a multitrack file & a bunch of processed waveforms.

> >some
> > people on this list (who know who they are) may
> > question my repeated use
> > of the word "performance" when "all that's happening
> > is someone pushing
> > a button".  well, truth be told, gilles gobeil
> > _embodies_
> > electroacoustic performance....his use of
> > the loudspeakers as
> > musical instruments is unparallelled
> But were the Gobeil pieces being played as they were
> intended to be played, albeit through a terrific sound
> system/space?  That would seem to be _presentation_,
> not performance.  Reproduction, rather than
> production...although clearly reproduction under
> special circumstances.  

well, in fact, there's actually more to it.  composers use mixers to
"spatialize" their pieces, which means that further musical
interventions are being done which are not included on the CD proper. 
of course, one could argue that those interventions do not "add music"
to the process but they certainly "displace" existing music, which is
why i believe this to be a valid form of performance.  on the other
hand, it would be false to assume that the CD itself is incomplete
without these interventions, unless it has been specifically composed
for elaborate public performance, & some works have been indeed composed
this way.

but the point you're getting at is regarding the term i'm using,
"performance".  personally i see no difference in what an instrumental
act or a CD player provides in a live setting.  otherwise, is a
lip-synched show (bad as it is) not a performance?  i simply think it's
an accurate & convenient term, particularly as there is, in this case, a
performer (who i wouldn't liken to a musician but to a conductor,
conducting loudspeakers).  but i don't think i would use "performance"
to describe me popping a CD in the player at home, if only for the sake
of clarity...

> The difference, if this is the
> case, is in the speakers and playback apparatus, not
> in the production of the music itself.  I mean, I have
> no doubt that he uses the speakers artfully, but
> wouldn't that come through in any venue, whether a
> "performer" was present or not?  If I set up a fine PA
> system and play a Gobeil CD, am I performing?

i think it's a matter of what is the support.  if you put a gobeil CD in
a player & push "play", then the CD is the support of the piece &
there's not much of a point in insisting this is a "performance".  on
the other hand, if you use a mixer to diffuse the sound throughout the
room, then YOU become the support of the piece, & this is when we may
call it a performance.

there are probably many situations which, by my definition, we could
call a performance, but which we don't because it doesn't help our understanding.

> Paintings are generally _shown_ (presented) publicly,
> not performed.  (The grafitti/DJ axis is noticeable
> exception...more on that below.)  So unless the sounds
> are being produced in (more or less) real time, how
> are we witnessing a "performance"?

i like your comparison with painting (which could be extended to all
visual arts).  once again however, i believe the choice of terms is a
matter of convenience & relevance.  by a slight stretch of definition we
could say that all paintings are in fact "performed" when they are shown
in a gallery setting, as the gallery is in fact the "performer" & its
choice of paintings its "live artistic content".  but what good would
this use of "performed" be?  on the other hand, i think there was a
definite "performance" aspect to the rien à voir shows, particularly
thanks to additional live presence from an actual artist, i.e. not a
technician interested in sound quality but someone making aesthetic or
conceptual choices which cannot be explained as simply ergonomical or
practical (as a sound technician would be).

> > his carte blanche set served an excellent
> > introduction: he mixed classic
> > works (smalley's _pentes_ (1974), ...
> Did he actually mix them together, or arrange them
> adjacently?  I think of really interesting "DJing" as
> being performative, to a greater or lesser degree,
> because it can involve twisting pieces of music into
> one another, forging (forcing!) connections that might
> not normally, or "naturally", have existed before.
> This confounding of expectations seems to be most
> artfully pulled off when the transgression is subtle,
> and the music being played _seems_, on its surface, to
> be fulfilling its ordained function.

unfortunately, although we were expecting something akin to a "DJ mix"
(particularly as the audience was warned that there would be no space
for applause between the pieces), the songs were simply played
separately, as you would with painting.  once again though, this was not
an art of juxtaposition (as DJing is) but of diffusion.  i personally
think of DJing as "performance" unless the DJ is constrained totally in
their choices by indirect financial motivations (such as top 40 radio
DJs) in which case there is nothing artistic about it all to begin with.

> >here, the "cinema for the ear"
> > metaphor is at its
> > most most accurate; it's as if gobeil weren't
> > composing songs but
> > writing scripts.
> That's a nice observation.  Incidentally, do you
> remember which Gobeil pieces were included in his solo
> set?  Are they available as recordings?

not only do i remember, i can even point you to the program.  :) 
<http://www.rien.qc.ca/show.f/r9-006,0.html> is the url.  the first
piece, _le vertige inconnu_, is from his 1994 CD _la mécanique des
ruptures_.  the remaining 4 are from his upcoming CD _dans le silence de
la nuit_, both from empreintes digitales:
<http://www.empreintesdigitales.com>.  it really feels different on CD
though, particularly with gobeil.

~ david