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Re: [microsound] sound art / music



Visa Kuoppala wrote:
So listening to Tallis on record is not music? Okey-dokey...

yes it is, because the performer is there on the record. the recording should (ideally) be transparent, and allow you to see right through it to the performer.

in the case of Cardiff's piece, though, the recording is not at all transparent; in fact the recording becomes opaque, slices into streams and used to construct the fabric of what you are experiencing. i don't think this piece counts as 'music,' because it relies on a particular presentation of individual recordings of singers in a way that serves to render the group of singers' overall performance (the 'music') secondary to the relationship between the different sounds, and to the relationship between spatial location and sound.

it is akin i think to Ray Lee's 'Sirens' installation, which unlike Cardiff's piece i have actually seen in person. to me 'Sirens' is definitely sound art rather than music. certainly it is very musical in sound (this is why it works so well), but a big part of its effectiveness rests on the ability of the audience to walk around and through it, and understand the relationship between individual locations of sound sources and the way they blend together to form a whole.

i suppose both pieces are exploring the blending of sound sources as a continuous process, and lack a musical arch. even in the case of the Cardiff piece, where the arch is present embedded within the Tallis recording, i doubt that your perception of Cardiff's piece is going to be underwritten /supported /contextualised by this arch, as it would be if you were to go and listen to a performance of the Tallis piece on its own. certainly if you were going to see it in a gallery, you would likely walk in at some point partway through the Tallis piece, which would doubtless be looping, and you probably would not stay until you had heard the entire loop, even if you could tell where it started to repeat itself.

as an even broader segue, some of my favourite electronic music, ambient repetitive looping stuff a la Rhythm & Sound and Gas, seem to be recordings of temporary sound art installations: you rig up your equipment in such a way that it is more or less autonomously playing to itself, then simply record the output, edit it down to 'song' length, and release as music.

i shall stop talking to myself now.

d

--
damian stewart | skype: damiansnz | damian@xxxxxxxxxx
frey | live art with machines | http://www.frey.co.nz

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