Re: [microsound] Formative microsound experiences?

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Dan

>I'm curious if anybody else has childhood formative 'microsound'
>experiences that they'd like to share. Anybody got a good story? What
>would you look back on now and point to as your earliest 'microsonic'
>experience? What, from your early life, made you interested in doing the
>sonic work you're doing now?

absolutely.  starting with the massive Hallicrafters tube shortwave radio with the names of so many strange places on the dial, but then scanning all the different bands, crazy sounds, distorted radio in inexplicable languages, and lots of strange noises... many many hours spent tuning that dial and screwing with the huge loop antenna wire.  then, Switched on Bach, choral voices done by a computer, wow!  and improv 'music' jams with my two sisters, taped on a mono cassette deck (am I dating myself here?).  getting sent to the principle's office in 7th grade for doing some ambient phonography -- recording my 5th period English teacher yelling at the class, and she got REALLY mad when she found out I was making a recording of class...

And to top it off, WGTB, Georgetown University Radio where they played anything and everything...  including live coverage of the AIM (American Indian Movement) armed occupation of the Dept. of Interior offices there in DC...  that's when the FBI shut them down (WGTB)...  damn...

hmm, what other sources -- oh yeah, my father's HAM station where I learned to do Morse code.  Speaking in microsounds.  I built a code oscillator from a Heathkit set.

hmmm, what else? I think my entry into photography around the same time moved me into visual art more powerfully for many years, although sound work was always there -- sound and image -- which then really got a jolt when I studied with Brakhage in the late 80's...


jh




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