12- The Abstract Truth

The Task

Thus Steve Reich, explaining to Edward Strickland in 1987 why he didn’t write European-style serial music, argued that his repetitive, low-affect music was true to the popular experience of postwar consumer America: “Stockhausen, Berio, and Boulez were portraying in very honest terms what it was like to pick up the pieces after World War II. But for some American in 1948 or 1958 or 1968 – in the real context of tailfins, Chuck Berry and millions of burgers sold – to pretend instead we’re really going to have the dark-brown Angst of Vienna is a lie, a musical lie.” (Fink 2005: 119)

For this week’s composition study the task is to write a short piece that reflects “in very honest terms” the experience of living in “the real context” of the Internet, terrorism, global warming, the credit crunch, rampant consumerism, or whatever. In other words, something that reflects the abstract truth about yourself and your relationship to the world you live in.

Submit:

1.       One composition.

2.       A short presentation with “mood board”.

Reference

Fink, R. (2005) Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice. California UP.

Research

The style used to reflect the personal opinion was that of experimental / Musique Concrete.
During WWII the Nazi's used tape machines to record propaganda and broadcast material edited by using a razor blade.  This was the source of the idea behind musique concrete for Pierre Schaeffer.  Schaeffer, whose studio (studio d'Essai) was part of RTF had the opportunity to experiment with this recording technology and manipulate sounds.  

The basis of musique concrete is that the composer uses sound samples (sound objects) and manipulates then in order to create a composition.  For more information on Musqiue Concrete, please see Week 5- Pencil and Paper.

Ben Burtt ( 12th July 1948- present) is an American Sound Designer.  He has produced the sound for many famous films including Star Wars, WALL- E, and E.T the Extra-Terrestrial. He uses a technique called "worldizing" which is a sound design concept by Walter Murch. The technique involves playing a sound through the object it is supposed to be coming from i.e. radio or TV.  This sound is then re-recorded and used for the sound design.


The Composition

The idea of the composition is to reflect the horrors and terrors of the world and then the good parts about the world through speech or music.  The basis for the composition is of a radio being tuned to find a specific channel or sound but always coming across the bad news.  Eventually the person controlling the radio finds the stations which is playing things to make them happy.  A mood board was completed in order to show the thought processes undertaken.  

To complete the composition, recordings were made through the speakers to a field recorder.  They were edited and arranged in Cubase along with some radio static.  These samples were then distorted in Cubase and had EQ applied to them. The track was mixed and bounced to a wav.




Critical Analysis

The composition refers to the brief closely by creating a piece "that reflects "in very honest terms" the experience of living in "the real context" of the internet, terrorism, global warming, the credit crunch".. etc.  It feels as though it is being played through the radio although with more time, worldizing the sounds might have worked better.

Recommended Reading

Dwyer, T. (1971) 'Musique Concrete for Beginners' from Composing with Tape Recorder's from http://monoskop.org/images/b/b3/Dwyer_Terence_Composing_with_Tape_Recorders_Musique_Concrete_for_Beginners.pdf  [27.05.14]