notes toward everything

Reterritorializing Sound

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:48:00 -0400

This video is a problem for me.

One of the most revolutionary aspects of 20th Century composition (primarily courtesy John Cage) is the insertion of raw sound into musical compositions … or, as is quite often the case with Cage, making raw sound itself the composition. For Cage, this was an element of the random; but for others (Edgar Varese, for instance) sound, raw and irreducible, became part of the composition. The sirens in Varese’s “Ionisation” come to mind …

What becomes problematic for me in the Delta Faucet commercial is how sound is reterritorialized, how it is tamed and forced into a very specifically musical context.

What the composer/percussionist did for this piece is not a mystery: take everyday objects that resonate at a specific pitch and arrange those pitches in an order we recognize as musical. In this case, he is actually covering a song from the sixties (“Reach Out, I’ll Be There”). We children of rock/pop music are not conditioned to think of percussion as “melodic” (having a tonal quality), but everything that produces sound vibrates at some frequency, and these frequencies often correspond with the frequencies we recognize as specific musical notes. When putting compositions like the Delta Faucet commercial together, the key is assembling objects whose resonant frequencies are specific musical notes, and then playing these objects in the same way that any musician plays any tonal instrument. How these objects are driven to produce these sounds (in this case, being sprayed with water by a Delta Faucet) does influence texture, but when the tonal character of the objects are being emphasized, it’s more about stagecraft than texture.

Varese’s sirens are part of a complex percussion composition that, while tonal in its own way, is not tonal in the sense that most of us would consider “melodic”. Even if we consider the tones of Varese’s drums somehow melodic, the sirens still function as a block of raw, undifferentiated sound … and as such, are as different from the colanders, glasses, pans, etc. in the Delta commercial as they are from a flute, a piano, or a guitar.

And here is where the problem is: sound becomes subservient to an established musical system, the unordered and chaotic become organized in a particularly facile way.

The obvious point is that this is a TV commercial. Here sound becomes subservient to more than just musical organization, it becomes subservient to cash … but before I get strung out on some Marxist rant about modes of production, I think it’s worth pointing out that this kind of reterritorializing happens even in “alternative” musics as well. Two specific instances from years back come to mind:

First, about twenty years or so ago, I saw a show by a brilliant instrument builder from Baltimore by the name of Neil Feather. He had all these incredible musical instruments, like variations of guitars put together with bicycle wheels and cranks, but he managed to make all these bizarre creations sound like, well, guitars. The only piece from the show that blew me away turned out to be a version of Steve Reich’s “Pendulum Music” (which I hadn’t heard at the time). As much as I loved the instruments, I hated that he forced them into a tonal structure. At the end of the day, I could have produced a more outside set with a guitar equipped with a whammy bar and a distortion box.

Along the same lines, TBW! once opened for a band called Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum or something like that. This band an amazing battery of hand built instruments, all meticulously tuned to be completely tonal. Again, I loved the instruments, but the band didn’t do anything you couldn’t have done without guitar, bass, and drums. It was a major disappointment.

It continually disappoints me when people try to incorporate non-musical instruments into their compositions, only to try to make them sound tonal … and tonal in the most mundane, Western, twelve tone way: at least you could work up some Harry Partch microtones with that.

Varese broke down his musical compositions with raw sound. Cage made raw sound the composition. And now (not to pick on him alone), we have composers bringing sound “back into the fold”, as it were, by making sound subservient to the tonal.

"…And let’s not go into the argument according to which the influence of a philosophy on other..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:57:44 -0400

“…And let’s not go into the argument according to which the influence of a philosophy on other disciplines or more generally outside the profession means that it can’t be philosophy! Here are intellectuals who are using the press to put about the idea that philosophy should only influence professional philosophers and should not be open to the judgement of scholars of other disciplines! How many examples could one find of the contrary, to remind them that philosophy, in its best tradition, has never allowed itself to be put under house arrest within the limits of its own discipline, to say nothing of the limits of its profession? Moreover would the authors of this letter to the Times be so worried if the work they denounce really had no influence on professional philosophers?”

- Derrida on the criticisms from analytic philosophy (via autonomistrebelnews)

cat-trek: thelovelycaptainjaneway: minigatos: HAPPY CAPTAIN...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:49:15 -0400

cat-trek:

thelovelycaptainjaneway:

minigatos:

HAPPY CAPTAIN PICARD DAY!!!

Captain Picard Day is celebrated on June 16th because it is the equivalent date to Stardate 47457.1, mentioned in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode entitled The Pegasus. In that episode, Captain Picard Day is an occasion for the Enterprise to host schoolchildren and show them what Starfleet is like.

Happy Captain Picard Day :)!

HAPPY CAPTAIN PICARD DAY EVERYONE!

Nice shot from last night’s Death Grips show in...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:41:42 -0400

Nice shot from last night’s Death Grips show in Louisville. Great show. And apparently they have independently come to the conclusion that me and my bandmates came to long ago: 45 minutes is the maximum set length when you are really punching it.

This was a really good show. That makes two really good hip hop shows I’ve seen this year (Shabazz Palaces was the other), and Ratking was good as well.

like early P.I.L. about 100 x more than the Sex Pistols.

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:22:17 -0400

like early P.I.L. about 100 x more than the Sex Pistols.

Video

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 02:25:43 -0400

Saw these guys open for Death Grips tonight. Really good....

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 02:19:22 -0400

Saw these guys open for Death Grips tonight. Really good. Hadn’t heard of them before. Reblog to spread the word.

“Home of the brave, land of the free, I don’t wanna...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 02:11:48 -0400

“Home of the brave, land of the free, I don’t wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie”

Tav Falco and Alex Chilton cover Leadbelly

Video

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 02:06:00 -0400

The Belgian Waffles! cover The Flesheaters’ “Divine...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:53:27 -0400

The Belgian Waffles! cover The Flesheaters’ “Divine Horsemen”

Chris D.’s original band - one of the greatest of the L.A....

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:43:30 -0400

Chris D.’s original band - one of the greatest of the L.A. punk bands - The Flesheaters, with the song “Divine Horsemen”.

Chris D.’s band, Divine Horsemen

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:39:28 -0400

Chris D.’s band, Divine Horsemen

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti Footage shot by Maya...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:31:28 -0400

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

Footage shot by Maya Deren. This version assembled by Teiji Ito and Cherel Ito.

O-Type.

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:27:09 -0400

O-Type.

I fucking hate NBA home team intros.

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:59:52 -0400

I fucking hate NBA home team intros.

catsnorfle: Photos of Patrick Stewart doing things. (All...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:10:42 -0400

catsnorfle:

Photos of Patrick Stewart doing things.

(All photos: @SirPatStew)

Marathon Pacers 2013 Post Mortem

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:16:16 -0400

Marathon Pacers 2013 Post Mortem:

You want basketball? You want the Pacers? Well, here it is.

Trigger warning: a whole shitload of basketball

Day off: I get up, fix breakfast, wash some dishes. Then I go downstairs to play guitar. Then I...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:51:51 -0400

Day off: I get up, fix breakfast, wash some dishes. Then I go downstairs to play guitar. Then I remember that my hands are all shriveled and pruned from washing dishes, and that if I play guitar, I will reduce my fingers to bloody stumps.

Hello tumblr.

Fast Food Workers Strike In Seattle As National Trend Begins To Show Results

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:06:39 -0400

Fast Food Workers Strike In Seattle As National Trend Begins To Show Results:

sinidentidades:

Fast food workers shut down as many as six restaurants in Seattle on May 31st as a national movement of service workers demanding wage hikes and union rights gains momentum and logs small victories.

Seattle is the sixth city in two months where fast food workers have gone on strike. The walk-outs, which usually last one day, are organized by local community and labor groups with the support of national unions. Similar efforts are underway with other service workers as well. Earlier this week, New York City carwash workers won a contract for higher wages, guaranteed sick days and the creation of a grievance process. The Huffington Post reports:

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said workers at the Astoria Car Wash & Hi-Tek 10 Minute Lube in Queens voted overwhelmingly in favor of the contract, which increases wages from the current minimum wage of $7.25 to $9.18 after three years. The agreement also guarantees sick and personal days for workers and establishes a grievance process for complaints.

Unions, in concert with faith and community groups, have made a significant push in recent years to organize the mostly Latino immigrant workforces that clean cars in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Workers often toil for the minimum wage or less, handling potentially dangerous chemicals, with little or no job security.

The fast food strikers are hoping for similar victories. The same group that spearheaded the car wash union drive, New York Communities For Change, also organized the first fast food strike in New York last year. But so far, no fast workers in any of the strike locations have formed a union or won the $15 hour wages they demand. In addition to New York and Seattle, workers have staged walk-outs in Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago.

Though a significant victory, the $9.18 wage hike for the car wash workers does not amount to a living wage for a family in New York City. According to an MIT calculation, a single adult needs to earn more than $12 an hour to get by. An adult with one kid needs to make twice that amount.

The struggles of low-wage service sector workers do appear to be getting some small attention from Washington, where the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced it would make low wage work one of it’s core issues. Rep. Keith Ellison, D—Minn., told MSNBC this week that he another other CPC members would launch a national tour to “highlight the problem of stagnant and low wages for American workers.”

WILL YOU RUN AMOK WITH THE "NO-FUN GANG"???: All of Your Friends WIll Join "No Hope For Humanity" Facebook Page. All of Your Friends Will Enjoy Calvin From Calvin...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:55:46 -0400

WILL YOU RUN AMOK WITH THE "NO-FUN GANG"???: All of Your Friends WIll Join "No Hope For Humanity" Facebook Page. All of Your Friends Will Enjoy Calvin From Calvin...:

ghostorballoons:

If only mankind spent less time on frivolous things, and more time thinking about South Park and which X-Box is best! *gazes wistfully at Facebook collection of world-weary, take-no-guff opinions about how Justin Bieber is totally worse than Tool*

*unfolds from pocket Mao Tse-Tung poem “Reply to…