CAPÍTULO VIII NITRATO DE AMONIO
DESTINO FINAL DE PRODUCTOS PIROTÉCNICOS Y MATERIALES RELACIONADOS
3.2.1 The Mostoles Workshop (2)
At the end of the workshop sessions in Mostoles, I would continue working outside the music school building to practice listening exercises inspired by R. Murray Schafer. One of these exercises would consist of listening to sounds which were very close by and very
130 In his text about improvisation, the composer Cornelius Cardew (1971) indicates that scores can help
improvisers play sounds that they are not familiar with. In my experience with the Pisaro piece, I did not feel the usual discomfort when playing a composition involving improvisation. I did not have the experience of playing sounds I was not familiar with but rather experienced a way of listening to sounds made by musical instruments and environmental sounds that I was not so familiar with when improvising.
131 At Eddie Prévost’s workshop, the AMM drummer told participants once that he would not play
differently in front of an audience. Although it is not always easy to do this (even in the workshop I think that there is an audience) it seems that when being focused on an action to accomplish (such as in the workshop when trying to find a sound that matches another musician but that at the same time is unfamiliar to us), one does not think so much about the audience. In a way one becomes him or herself the audience of the musical process that is being carried on.
I had a similar feeling when performing Thomas Schmit’s fluxus piece called ‘Zyclus’. Even though the action in itself was apparently very simple (pouring water inside a bottle repeatedly for a very long time) I was so focused on carefully achieving this action that I would not think of audience expectations. I would also not try to do anything special as each time I was pouring the water in the bottles, by doing it attentively, my attention would be drawn by the small details and infinite variations of water being poured into the bottle.
It seems that, more than the sounds that are created, what is important here is the attentiveness towards these sounds. However, in the case of the workshop it seems that this attentiveness towards sound can also result in the production of sounds.
far away. Another exercise consisted of creating a map of the sounds I could hear around me such as the birds, the cars, the fountain, or the people passing by132. Informed by Schafer’s approaches, I would pay attention to environmental sounds within a musical perspective133. Following Schafer’s ideas, birds, cars, and people passing by all encompassed a musical composition134.
3.2.2 The Caravan Project
In July 2010, I travelled from Cappadocia in Turkey to Aleppo in Syria with135 a group of dancers, musicians, and visual artists invited by dancer Yanaël Plumet. During our stay in Aleppo, I proposed that participants should gather in the old city to listen to environmental sounds. To do this I suggested they listen to the sounds that were close to, and very far from, each participant. Then, I invited participants to focus their attention on sounds they could perceive in between these two boundaries.
One of the participants, a musician, did not like the experience because for him nothing was taking place. However, a few days later, the same musician did appreciate a
132 See appendix 7 (page 190).
133 For R. Murray Schafer, the world is like a musical instrument. Unfortunately, according to him,
modernity (e.g. industrialisation) has made this instrument sound out of tune. To tune this instrument again and hear a harmonious composition people need to learn how to listen in order to make less noise (reducing factories, cars, airplanes…) and find an adequate balance between sounds and silence. Schafer’s musical composition, books, and exercise promotes this idea of a harmonious relationship between the sounds created by humans and those who are understood by Schafer as being ‘natural’.
It is difficult to embrace Schafer’s ideology within the context of Improvised Music as this often rhymes with sounds that, from the perspective of a classically-trained musician, might be perceived as noise and disharmony. This is, for instance, the case when Rowe transforms Paul Klee’s paintings in scores for the Mike Westbrook jazz band, when AMM musicians play with extremely loud sounds in such a way that nobody can listen to each other, when John Stevens and Trevor Watts deconstruct melodies to play a pointillist improvisation, and when Bailey, Oxley, and Bryars abandon the musical structure of a jazz tune to play ‘freely’.
This problem can be looked at differently if considering critical notions such as harmony, disharmony, noise, silence, in tune, or ‘out of tune’. Social and historical circumstances will, for instance, transform the way a sound is considered harmonious or not (Arnold 1983), how an instrument should be tuned (Barbour 1951) or when it would be necessary or not to have silence for listening to music (Johnson 1995).
134 This experience also evokes sound walks created in the 70’s by composer and sound artist Hildegard
Westerkamp as well as the work of composer Pierre Mariétan and artist and musician Max Neuhaus.
135 Sound recordings made during this project have been presented online.
performance in Istanbul involving an outdoor stage with musicians playing along to recorded environmental sounds136.
3.2.3 The Sound Massage
During the 2007 dance and music festival in Istanbul organised by Yanaël Plumet, I experienced musician Pascal Battus’ Sound Massages. This performance consisted of Battus meeting with audience members one by one in a separate space. For about ten minutes, Battus would produce sounds by placing his instruments next to the ears of audience members. Sounds being produced so close to one’s ear would give the impression of being immersed in them.
3.2.4 The Florence Sound Walk
In May 2011, I went to the 5th international Forum Klanglandschaft (FKL) symposium on soundscape that took place in Florence to present a film called Three Times in
Beyoglu137. In the film we could see a person walking on one of the main streets of Istanbul (Istiklal) and hear the sounds she was recording during this walk using binaural microphones138.
During the symposium organisers encouraged us to participate in a sound walk. I remember walking around a small forest but also entering a supermarket with my eyes closed (we were holding the hand of a person who could see). During this experience I
136 In my experience, I have met musicians who were interested in so-called field recordings and musique
concrète but none who were interested in a practice which, first of all, focused on listening. My experience with Soundwalks as those initiated by Westerkamp rarely involved people coming from the Improvised Music scene. Furthermore, even though there are now several PhDs on free improvisation (Callingham 2007, Saladin 2010, Blazanovic 2012, Lexer 2012, Wright 2013, Scott 2014, Arthurs 2015), there are no works focusing on the two practices.
137 This video can be watched online: https://vimeo.com/15421213 [Accessed September 15, 2018] 138 These are microphones that actually resemble earphones. Binaural recording is a method of recording
that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a sensation for the listener of actually being in the space where sounds were recorded.
had the impression that sounds were louder. This particular way of listening seemed similar to the one I experienced when recording environmental sounds and listening to them with earphones139.
Compared to my Istanbul workshop, the listening experience in Mostoles was similar as it brought together sounds that I thought were unrelated (cars, birds, voices…). However, in Mostoles I suggested possible links and relations between sounds tomyself, whilst in Istanbul I observed this relation without apparently taking part in foregrounding these links. In other words, it seemed that in Mostoles I was making the composition, whilst in Istanbul I had the impression that this sort of composition existed already. The sound ‘massage’ seemed opposed to my workshop experience as I could not hear any environmental sounds; instead, it was like the sounds were inside me. It could be suggested, however, that this experience involved an environment that is internal rather than external.
The Aleppo experience cast a doubt on the possibility of bringing together ‘natural’ environmental sounds and instrumental sounds. It seemed that this link would be more widely accepted thanks to the mediation of a recording device and a speaker. In the Florence sound walk I experienced that being part of an activity dedicated to listening and closing your eyes seemed to work as a method for amplifying sounds.
139 This evokes again a form of reduced listening that involves the removal of visual information to enhance
the perception of sounds. Closing your eyes is a way of listening which narrows your attention towards sounds. This practice evokes Schaffer’s reduced listening, but also AMM sessions where musicians used to switch off the light (Wright 2013, 113). In the case of Schaffer, related practices (for instance, musician Francisco Lopez gives his audience a blindfold) consist of focusing on sounds for themselves by trying to avoid its cause. In the case of AMM, it is probably more related to the interest of improvisers in blurring who is making what and not relying on traditional jazz roles. About musicians’ roles in AMM, see for instance, Wright 2013, 76. If these two approaches invite the listener to close their eyes, it does not mean that listening necessarily implies detachment from sight as is shown, for instance, in Schafer’s exercises (1992).