“Blue” Gene Tyranny

A Short History of Sound Art

A Short History of Sound Art

There is an aesthetic tradition, based on our natural attraction to unique sounds

in and for themselves, that has been called Sound Art. This love of sounds per
se can be found in works for the concert hall, art gallery and open air, as well
as in published recordings and computer software. The sounds themselves are
discovered in the natural environment or are generated by acoustic and electronic
devices, many built by the composer-performers, installation artists, sound
designers, sound effects (SFX) mixers, etc., themselves. The main incentive has
always been to search for new and interesting sounds and to present them in
innovative ways.
At first, new instruments and devices to generate the elements of Sound
Art were tied to traditional modes of theatre – for example, sound-effects for
thousands of plays and operas – and tied to the re-production of formal music
– for example, Jean-Baptiste de la Borde’s Clavecin Electrique () which
employed electricity to trigger small bells; Benjamin Franklin’s device for rotating
tuned water glasses called the Glass Armonica that enchanted audiences with its
ethereal tones (Franklin also hung little bells along his staircases that rang when
lightning struck a rod on top of his house and spread a blue electrical stream that
frightened his wife Deborah); in , Elisha Gray invented the first completely
electronic musical instrument, the Musical Telegraph, just two years before
Thomas Edison successfully reproduced sound for the first time on a piece of
rotating tinfoil.

Programmatic music transformed

Many sounds that first appeared as imitative effects were later freed from that
function and employed in more subtle ways and for their sound alone. For
example, the massive (as many notes as possible with the left or both hands) bass
tone clusters that the legendary Afro-American pianist “Blind” Tom Bethune
used in his pianopiece The Battle of Manassas () to imitate the cannon fire
between Confederate and Union armies at Bull Run, independently re-appeared
40 years later as non-programmatic dense timbres in many compositions by
Charles Ives.
Other examples of this transformation from a symbolic to pure use of
sound can be found earlier in the th century in the music of Francis “Frank”
Johnson’s band of  “free black” musicians who toured the East Coast during
the s and s performing at cotillion balls, churches, in parades, as well
as at railroad and canal openings. The band’s repertoire included such unusual


music as waltzes in / time, syncopations of sentimental ballads (a practice In Satie’s earlier pianowork Vexations (No. >> of the Pages Mystiques, -
that was a precursor of jazz), and programmatic novelty numbers such as the ), a slowly moving passage of  beats is repeated  times, requiring a
Philadelphia Firemen’s Cotillion which featured clanging alarm bells while minimum of  hours. His chosen harmonies, only augmented and diminished
musicians shouted “Fire!”. Similar clanging sounds as well as new wooden-like chords, are free of any particular emotive associations. Here, Satie again diverts
and metallic timbres would emerge a century later in percussion works of the the listener’s concentration, this time by allowing the mind to wander over
s and s, like those of William Russell (e.g. Ogou Badagri, a ballet based a greatly extended duration. Listeners and performers have reported altered
on the voodoo rites of Haiti, ; Three Cuban Pieces, ), Henry Cowell, awareness and even hallucinations while experiencing this composition.
Johanna Magdelena Beyer (IV for Percussion, ), and the collaborative piece In both of these pieces, the materials of music become sounds through
Music for  Percussionists () by composers Lou Harrison and John Cage, which the listener’s attention is modulated. This change in psychological state
scored for many unusual instruments including automobile brake drums. Other becomes the primary “theme” of this music, and it is achieved by freeing up
programmatic effects would surface in the th century as “pure sound” in the both the spatial (in Furniture Music) and temporal (in Vexations) dimensions. The
music of the Futurists, and in electronic music and musique concréte. implications of Satie’s insights had to wait another half-century to be recognized.
Scores for the expanding symphony orchestra also began to concentrate on
sound timbre in the mid-th and early th centuries, from the lyrical dream Liberated Sound: The Futurists and the Dadaists
imagery of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, through the textures of Wagner, About this same time in Italy, the Futurist poet and dramatist F. T. Marinetti
Liszt, Hans Rott, Mahler, the Russian Five, and the transparent lushness of inserted in composer Francesco Balilla Pratella’s Manifesto tecnico della musica
the impressionist soundscapes of Debussy, Ravel, André Caplet, Janacek, Lili futurista (Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music, Milan, ) this passage: “(Music)
Boulanger and others, to the angular expressionist and pointillist timbres of must represent the spirit of crowds, of great industrial complexes, of trains, of
Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. These new sonorities per se, separated from their ocean liners, of battle fleets, of automobiles and airplanes. It must add to the
traditional melodic and rhythmic functions would find their way into orchestral great central themes of the musical poem the domain of the machine and the
music of the later th-century in scores by Takemitsu, Stockhausen, Messiaen, victorious realm of electricity”.
Grisey, Varèse, Penderecki, Maderna, et al. The musician who was to fully embrace and realize Marinetti’s vision was
Luigi Russolo, who had abandoned painting and devoted  years to constructing
Erik Satie diverts the audience’s attention his unique acoustic instruments, some of which imitated natural sounds but most
In order to share their experience of focusing on sounds for their own sake, of which created dynamical timbres that had never been heard before, and which
creators invented new methods of presentation. These methods led to radically are described in his book L’arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises, ). Russolo’s
different concepts of what art could express and describe. compositions, like Awakening of a City and Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes,
French composer Erik Satie is now well-known for his haunting, simple were orchestrated for devices like a “burster” (scoppiatore) which sounded like an
melodies (e.g. Trois Gymnopédies, ; Trois Gnossienne, ), his outrageous early automobile engine, another “burster” that sounded like dishes shattering,
sense of humor (the tragi-comical ballet Parade, , a collaboration with a “croaker” like a mass of frogs, a “rustler” which mimicked the gentle susurrus
Picasso and Cocteau, that included a revolver, shrill sirens, typewriter, lottery of leaves in the wind or silk brushing against silk, the “howlers” (ululatori)
wheel, and “flaques sonores” or squishy puddles which were cymbals with reportedly somewhere between a string instrument and a siren, the low rumbling
sponge-head beaters), and his subtle conceptuality. “roarers” (rombatori), the metallic-sounding “cracklers” (crepitatori), “rubbers”
Two of Satie’s compositions offer unique solutions to the problem of encou- (stropicciatori) that scrapped metal-against-metal, the electric dynamo sound
raging listeners to appreciate sounds per se. In , at the Gallerie Barbazanges, of the “hummers” (ronzatore), “gurglers” (gorgoliatori) like water running
Satie premiered the first of his Musique d’ameublement (Furniture Music, or Music through rain gutters, a “hisser” like the high steamy splatter of heavy rain, the
for Furnishing) for piano, three clarinets and a bassoon. This piece is intended “whistlers” (sibilatore) like howling or whistling wind, the “rumorarmonio” or
to be played in the background of a social gathering. By thus diverting the noise harmonium, and the “enharmonic bow”, a metal rod with periodic grooves
audience’s usual focus, the sounds of the music become “ambience”, and the drawn at various speeds over violin or cello strings.
audience is freed from the almost irresistible psychological imperative to seek Although the two art groups were often contentious and even hostile toward
the source of a sound. each other, the Dadaists (opposed to authoritarian power), influenced by the

 
Futurists (enthusiasts for material energy), began to write “noise poetry” which Berlin. The composer Oskar Sala became the primary player of this instrument
they performed nightly at the Dada hangout Cabaret Voltaire. The most famous and later constructed his own microtonal Mixturtrautonium ().
example of this kind of sound poem is the collagist Kurt Schwitters’ four- Maurice Martenot’s instrument the Ondes Martenot introduced in  in
movement Ursonate (Sonate in Urlauten, ) based on Raoul Hausmann’s Paris originally used a ribbon pulled by a ring to change pitch, with the volume
 sound poem f m s b w t ä z ä u pggiv – ... ? mü. and timbre controlled by switches accessible to the left hand. Later he added
Composers of concert music also began to be affected by Dadaist and a keyboard to replace the pitch ribbon, and a knee-operated lever to facilitate
Futurist experiments: the chorus of frogs at the end of Maurice Ravel’s opera continuous pitch change. This device was used in Edgard Varèse’s Equatorial,
L’Enfant et les sortiléges was suggested by hearing Russolo’s croaker; George Dimitri Levidis’ Symphonic Poem for Solo Ondes Musicales and Orchestra (),
Antheil’s Ballet mécanique () began as a soundtrack for  player pianos and many other concert works and film scores. Other European inventions of
controlled from a central switchboard but when the synchronization problems the s and s with techno-exotic names were the Sphärophon () of Jörg
became too great the music was re-arranged for eight pianos, one player piano, Mager, which could play quarter-tones and was used in a Bayreuth production of
 electric bells,  propellers, siren and various percussion; in , Arthur Wagner’s Parsifal, the Hellertion (c.) invented by Bruno Helberger and Peter
Honegger composed his Pacific , a symphonic movement which imitates Lertes, and the Mellertion, Dynaphone, Emicon, Melodium, Oscillon, Croix
the sound of a gradually accelerating American steam engine locomotive of the sonore, Magnetton, Photophone, Electrone and Partiturophon. In the late s,
Pacific type. inventor Laurens Hammond created the famous Hammond organ by modifying
Apart from the European influences of this time, the brilliant American the additive-synthesis tonewheels of Cahill’s Telharmonium. His model A was
experimentalist Henry Cowell was creating “ultra-modern” acoustic music that introduced in , and the magnificent, industry standard B-3 in . This
explored new timbres. For example, he asked pianists to damp the piano strings popular instrument has subsequently been heard in many thousands of radio and
with the hand, strum the strings like an autoharp in his famous Banshee, and TV dramas and commercials, jazz, rhythm ‘n’ blues, rock music and avantgarde
to ring the piano’s artificial harmonics (a method described in his book New music contexts. As electrical amplification for pianos, guitars and other
Musical Resources). Cowell later synthesized a type of world music based on his instruments was being introduced, composers employed the gradually improved
ethnomusicological researches. recording and amplification mediums in their works: Ottorino Respighi called
for a recording of nightingales in the magnificent orchestral piece Pines of Rome
Early electronic instruments, the search for new sounds (), Arnold Schönberg called for loudspeaker amplification in his opera Moses
From  to , new electronic instruments continued to emerge. Thaddeus und Aron (), and John Cage used recordings of audio-test signals played at
Cahill’s Telharmonium, an enormous electronic organ patented in , began various speeds combined with cymbals and piano string sounds for the Imaginary
touring the country in  housed in more than  railroad boxcars. It weighed Landscape No. ().
 tons and was controlled by two performers on separate keyboards. In Russia,
circa , Leon Theremin invented the seemingly magical electronic instrument Radio sound art
that bears his name. This device is played by moving one hand to control the In the late H and s, radio dramas, mysteries, comedies, westerns, and
pitch and the other to control the volume, but neither hand ever touches the sci-fi programs produced live began to develop inventive solutions for producing
instrument. Rather the device senses the proximity of the hands to each of audio illusions or sound effects (in films referred to as “foleying”). Following the
two antennas and follows the changing capacitance. The oscillators produce a evolutionary trend mentioned earlier, imitative effects used in entertainments
sound somewhere between an airy string and an insectine buzzing. This simple soon began to take their place in art pieces. A wonderful example of this is the
instrument has had a long life and has been used in pieces by Edgard Varèse, radio play The City Wears A Slouch Hat () by John Cage to a text by Kenneth
Joseph Schillinger, jazz thereminist Youseff Yancy, and Andrei Pashchenko, and Patchen, broadcast by the CBS “Columbia Workshop” originating from the
later in movie scores such as Bernard Herrmann’s music for The Day The Earth Chicago station WBBM. The surreal, often touchingly humorous vocal text
Stood Still and Miklos Rósza’s music for Hitchcock’s Spellbound. Theremin also about the wanderings of a drifter is woven in-between a “sound orchestra” that
helped construct Henry Cowell’s Rhythmicon, a device which played complex included tin cans, muted gongs, woodblocks, alarm bells, oxen bells, temple
polyrhythms. A monophonic electronic keyboard producing even more complex gongs, water gong (a gong slowly emersed in a tub of water producing a serene
waveforms was the Trautonium () built by Dr. Friedrich Trautwein in harmonic effect), tam tam, bass drum, bongos, steel coil, washboard, ratchet, pod

 
rattle, automobile horn, foghorn, metronome, steel pipes, music stands, buzzer, ) produced works like John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No.  ()
thundersheet, variable frequeny oscillators, as well as recorded baby cries, ocean which employed chance procedures to sample sounds from  phonograph
automobiles, airplanes and rain. records.
In , Louis and Bebe Barron, who worked with Cage on his Williams
Post WWII Mix, created the soundtrack for Forbidden Planet, the first Hollywood film to use
Immediately following WWII, there was a burst of aesthetic and technical electronic music (the first all-electronic soundtrack was for Anais Nin’s film The
activity. Serialist composition procedures based primarily on Anton Webern’s Bells of Atlantis in ). The score, credited as “Electronic Tonalities”, was built
music emerged in Europe in works by Stockhausen, Boulez, Maderna and from the emissions of the cybernetic (controlled feedback) circuitry especially
many others. Simultaneously, music composed by chance methods and various designed and built by the Barrons.
indeterminate procedures, and scores in graphic notation were developed in New acoustic instruments also emerged during these years. Especially notable
the eastern US in pieces by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and were the beautiful -tones-to-the-octave sculpture-like devices of the ingenious
Christian Wolff, the so-called New York School. Many new techniques for playing Harry Partch, built mostly at his home in an unused hatchery in Petaluma,
traditional instruments were invented, and both new acoustic and electronic California. His music, based on complex tuning theories, included several operas,
instruments appeared. ranging in spirit from the light-hearted and gamelan-like to the nocturnal and
Developed during his off-hours from employment as a worker on microwave quiescent. Partch’s instruments received affectionately inventive names such as
transmission at the Canadian National Research Council in Ottawa during World the Zymo-Zyl, Cryochord, Harmonic Canon, Blue Rainbow, Boo, Spoils of War,
War II, physicist Hugh Le Caine first recorded his Electronic Sackbut in . and so on. “This is my trinity: sound-magic, visual beauty, experience-ritual”
This was a precursor to the later voltage-controlled synthesizers introduced (Partch).
during the s. Considerable subtlety was built into Le Caine’s instrument, Another independent instrument designer and composer was Raymond Scott,
with touch-sensitive keys, sideways pressure producing vibrato, bending of notes an innovative bandleader in radio, who circa  built an electronic music studio
up to an octave, and vertical pressure amplitude and articulation changes; breath- in Farmingdale. His many original electronic devices included the Clavivox,
like, buzzing and raspy noises were introduced in the waveforms to add variety Circle Machine (controlled by a circle of photocells), Bass Line Generator,
to the timbre. Le Caine created his first composition Dripsody () on his Rhythm Modulator, Karloff, Bandito the Bongo Artist, and the Electronium
Special Purpose Tape Recorder which could play and manipulate ten stereo tapes () that generated algorithms for automatic music composition. With these
independently. instruments he created hundreds of television and radio jingles as well as odd
In France, musique concrète, constructed primarily from acoustic and natural recorded productions such as the series Soothing Sounds for Baby.
sounds recorded and then manipulated on magnetic tape, began with composers Several independent studios emerged in the late s, such as the Cooperative
Pierre Schaeffer (for example, his Symphonie pour un homme seul) and Pierre Studio for Electronic Music () in Ann Arbor, Michigan, founded by
Henry (Variations pour une porte et un soupir / Variations for a door and a sigh), composers Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma. The San Francisco Tape Music
and continued to be developed in following decades by Henri Pousseur, Rune Center created by Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Pauline Oliveros, began in an
Lindblad, Luc Ferrari, Vladimir Ussachevsky, David Mahler, Jocelyn Pook, and attic at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music during , and later moved
many others. A “Concert de bruits” (Concert of Noises) radio broadcast in to Mills College in Oakland. In , the Center for Contemporary Music
1948 introduced the new music to the public at large. In , the Groupe de began at Mills as one of the first public access, non-profit studios that made
Recherches de Musique Concrète was established, and, in , the Group for facilities (recording studio, equipment synthesizers etc.) and instruction available
Musical Research of the Office of French Radio-Television (O.R.T.F.). In the inexpensively and open to anyone.
States, James Seawright (later famous for his kinetic sculptures) composed music Many of these early private, pre-synthesizer studios gathered equipment
made of natural sounds modified by electronic means for dances choreographed from army surplus outlets and the like, bought commercial tape recorders, and
by Alwin Nikolais at the Henry Street Playhouse in the early s. built their own transistor-based circuits. For example, the brilliant tape pieces
American tape music in the s included pieces like Edgard Varèse’s drama- of the s by Richard Maxfield (Butterflies Encountered on the Ocean, Amazing
tic Poème Electronique premiered on multiple loudspeakers at the  Brussels Grace, Italian Folk Music) were made using such basic equipment. Simple tape
World’s Fair. The New York-based Project of Music for Magnetic Tape ( manipulation and splicing continued to be used to create works such as James

 
Tenney’s classic Collage # – Blue Suede (), a hilarious cutup made from the George Cacioppo’s Cassiopeia and Philip Krumm’s Formations). The scores that
famous Elvis Presley tune. would be realized from these chance procedures were often detailed and complex
with certain parameters (sequence, duration, etc.) left open. It was expected
The synthesizer that such methods would lessen the effect of habits and the “self ” upon the
The first music synthesizer in our current sense was the Olson-Belar synthesizer music, hopefully making the live performance more surprising and musical to
introduced in , which Milton Babbitt used at Princeton. In  the listeners, players and even the composers themselves. The interactions of musical
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was established which centered parameters and of performers were left “indeterminate” or open to coincidence.
around the RCA Mark II synthesizer, a huge one room device with  vacuum Any sound could potentially become part of a composition.
tubes. In the early s Robert Moog in Trumansberg, NY, Donald Buchla in San Previous to Cage’s seminal work, there had been only a few instances of the
Francisco, California, and Paul Ketoff (creator of the “Synket”) in Rome, Italy, intentional use of chance in music, for example, in a few short works by the
independently developed the first practicable, modular analog synthesizers for artist Marcel Duchamp (eg., Erratum Musicale, ) and in W.A. Mozart’s use
general public use. of dice to decide upon passages for some little dance pieces. Many composers
The analog synthesizer was an assembly of separate units (modules) that began to employ chance techniques and indeterminacy in unique ways – for
created the new ability to modulate specific aspects of sound in detail, and to example, Gordon Mumma’s Medium Size Mograph (for sound- and non-sound-
either imitate existing acoustic instruments or to provide entirely new sounds producing actions) was based on seismographic charts of the earth’s activity;
beyond the capabilities of traditional instruments. For example, the modules Christian Wolff ’s early game-like compositions for small ensembles involve
provided exact modulation of articulation (gates, envelope generators), timbre real-time listening and responding strategies, and Wolff also constructed some
(filters, equalizers), pitch (oscillators, sequencers, ring modulators, white noise early piano works vertically while asking the performer to read the piece in the
generators), and phase (phase shifters, delays). The modules were controlled by normal horizontal manner; Robert Ashley’s Complete with Heat (), like his
keyboards, ribbons, and modules patched by external cords into each other – for later String Quartet Describing the Motion of Large Real Bodies (), describes the
example, filtered white noise could control a sequencer to generate quasi-random random and indeterminant Brownian motion of small particles; indeterminacy
events. In another arrangement, two oscillators could produce surprising quasi- and randomization was also applied to the spatial aspect of new music at this
random effects by “cross-modulation” in which the output of one device would time in such pieces as Earle Brown’s Octet for . Loudspeakers (), which uses
be the input of another and the output of the second oscillator would be attached random sampling tables to vary the densities of sounds, and Cage’s Variations IV
to the input of the first. Later non-keyboard controllers, like Buchla’s Lightning () which has a score of transparencies with single lines and circles that are
and Thunder and various pitch followers, were invented to enable acoustic distributed by chance over a map of the performance space fixing source-points
instruments and voices to control the synthesizer. and movement of sounds. European works such as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s
Grüppen for three orchestras, Carré (Square) for 4 orchestras and choirs, and
Live electronic music, chance composition, indeterminancy Bruno Maderna’s Quadrivium (Crossroads) () for  percussionists and 
A significant development in the late s was the introduction of “live electronic orchestral groups, applied serial composition techniques to the spatial parameter.
music” by John Cage and David Tudor. Sounds never heard before were evoked Other American works such as Morton Subotnick’s four-channel Touch (1969)
from specially homemade electronic sound boxes, from amplification (by with its flying electronic gestures and Edgard Varèse’s previously mentioned
microphones, contact mikes, phonograph cartridges and other transducers) of Poème Electronique did not employ either chance or serialist methods for the
extramusical objects like Slinkys (Cage’s Cartridge Music, ), from the quasi- spatial distribution of their sounds.
random mixing of recordings (Cage’s Variations IV for the Fiegen/Palmer Gallery,
Los Angeles, ), etc. Cage had developed the concept of composition by Open space, music theater, artists and engineers
chance (or, aleatoric) methods which included accepting decisions of the ancient The universal acceptance of multiple discrete sound sources in a neutral and
Chinese augury called the I-Ching or Book of Changes after coins were tossed open space is a significant evolution in the history of sound art. More complex
(for the Concert for Piano and Orchestra, ), regarding the imperfections interactions were created than had been explored in the call-and-response-type
in a sheet of paper as notes, and employing star maps (Atlas Eclipticalis,  spatial works of previous centuries, such as Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzoni et Sonati
; other remarkable compositions from the early s based on star maps are (), W. A. Mozart’s Notturno for orchestras in D major, K.  (K. a)

 
(), or Thomas Tallis’s antiphonal motet Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui (ca. Among the many music theatre pieces and short events presented at the
) for choirs of  voices each, its octagonal scoring matching the architecture legendary ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and by the ONCE Group
of the octagonal hall of Arundel Castle where it was premiered. on tour, were Mary Ashley’s study of narcissism (with the astronaut/masseur,
This opening of space/time which allowed for new freedoms of interaction the motorcyle boy, the mirror star etc.) called The Jelloman, Mary and Robert
also influenced the emerging form of multi-media presentations or music Ashley’s The Lecture Series () at the Joy Road Interchange concerts in New
theatre (multi-media theatre which is guided by musical principles), as well York which included the sandwiching of the teenagers between large vertical
as “events” and “happenings” (The ONCE Group, Fluxus, Allan Kaprow, plastic frames as if in a huge specimen case while statistical facts about each one
Carolee Schneeman, and many others). A notable audio-visual “total” theatre was read, Robert Ashley’s Kittyhawk, An Anti-Gravity Piece (), Combination
presentation was Milton Cohen’s Space Theater, which began in the early s Wedding and Funeral () in which a man is wed to a monkey bride whose
in San Francisco and soon relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan. A series of large portable transportation frame becomes horizontal like a casket for the funeral,
geodesic frames were the surfaces on which an ingenious array of movable That Morning Thing (), The Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices
prisms and mirrors, film and slide projectors transformed abstract and everyday for Crimes Against Humanity (), and the ONCE Group’s collaboration
images, and diffused light in all directions. The unfolding of a performance was Unmarked Interchange () staged on the upper levels of a car parking structure
guided only by a chart of a general color sequence and by the response of the in the city’s center as part of the exchange concerts with the New York-based
performers to each other’s actions. The multi-channel music was improvised by Judson Dance Company (Steve Paxton, Deborah and Alex Hay, Yvonne Rainer,
composers Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley using electronic boxes (many Robert Rauschenberg, and others). The ONCE Festival itself presented hundreds
with Mumma’s original “cybersonic” circuits), modified piano sounds, pre- of new music compositions, dance and street events (eg. TRUCK at the Beach),
recorded sound effects, French horn and amplified acoustic boxes. A mixed films and performers from throughout the world.
aura of mystery, alternate dimensions, spontaneity, humor and humanism often Other H festivals and new music venues included the Fluxus concerts in
filled the room. Further activities and speech were added to the performances New York, the Antioch Super-Valu series, the New York Theater Rally, the Red
for the  Venice Biennale. In the fall of , E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Gallery series in Detroit, San Francisco’s Performer’s Choice, New Directions in
Technology) signaled a new collaboration between artists and engineers with the Music in Seattle, the Rose Museum series in Waltham, Mass., the Electric Circus
presentation of Nine evenings:Theater and Engineering at New York City’s th in New York, the Spring Concerts at the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio,
Regiment Armory space. Some of the pieces staged in the large stadium-like Texas, the Buffalo Contemporary Music Festival, and more.
space were dancer Alex Hay’s Grass Field in which the sounds of his body were In , the BANG ... BANG ... BANG Festival in Richmond, Virginia,
magnified to accompany his image projected on a huge screen; Lucinda Child’s organized by Jon Bowie and Richard Carlyon, presented a total-environment
Vehicle in which the lights were controlled by radio waves from local station work entitled Synthesis which created a “war theater” that shifted the audience
WQXR; David Tudor’s Bandoneon! (a combine), made from programmed audio about a space containing a bomber plane,  manned aircraft, a thousand
circuits, moving loudspeakers, images and lights. Engineer Billy Klüver who was projected slides from popular magazines and military manuals,  performers
one of the main founders and promoters of E.A.T. and its collaborative concept, in white mess uniforms, winter coats and scarves and shades,  bicycles, 
also worked with visual artists to create Jean Tinguely’s legendary self-destroying stuffed laundry bags, Navy resuscitation units, tank,  artillery piece, children,
machine entitled Homage to New York, Robert Rauschenberg’s sound sculpture  cargo parachute, gas masks, d ton of recruiting literature,  fatigue caps
called Oracle that featured five remote-controlled radios, and Andy Warhol’s for the audience, army cots, flags, massive amounts of cord/cable/wire, etc. The
floating silver mylar pillows. Another E.A.T. engineer Per Biorn collaborated transmitted sound created an overwhelming sense of mobility and activity.
with Argentinian artist Marta Minujin to make the interactive Minuphone,
which responded with complex lights and sound to a participant’s voice. E.A.T.
performances and collaborations with many different enginners, composers and Installations, walk-through performances, the environment
artists (John Dinwiddie, Stanley Lunetta, William Maraldo, Alden Jenks, Martin Apart from festivals and concerts, the new multi-media pieces began to take the
Bartlett, Warner Jepson, John Viera, Patrick Gleeson, Bernard Krause, Dr. Frank form of installations, through which audiences often walked, and environmental
Oppenheimer, Jerry Abrams, and many others) soon spread from New York to works by which listeners experienced sound art in new ways. For example:
San Francisco to the Pepsi-Cola pavilion at Expo  in Japan.

 
 David Tudor’s Sliding Pitches in the Rainforest in the Field: Rainforest (Version truck-contained pumps and water supply), operate special lights (truck-body,
IV, Electro-Acoustical Environment) () was first installed in  safety, signal, warning, signs, displays).
at Chocorua, New Hampshire. Inside a large barn, many unique, vibrating
 Ralph Lundsten and Leo Nilson’s Fågel Blå (Blue Bird, ), commissioned
resonant objects (bells, resonant beams held between the teeth while the ears
by the Foundations for Nationwide Concerts as inauguration music for
are stopped with your fingers, dual metal transducers, parabolic reflectors
the Expo-Norr festival in  at Östersund, was a two-channel electronic
attached to circular hat-like cages, etc.) were suspended from the ceiling, and
composition broadcast from giant balloons that floated over the city. A strange
the audience moved throughout the space interacting with the ear-level objects
effect was that the sounds did not dissipate when passing over a listener, so
and appreciating the gentle sounds emitted by them, like the calls of unnamed/
that the height of the balloons made no difference.
unnameable creatures.
 In realizations of “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s procedural score How to Discover
 Max Neuhaus’s Listen (), one of the composer’s “sound oriented pieces
Music in the Sounds of Your Daily Life (), any number of persons, following
for situations other than that of the concert hall”, was in the form of a field
certain strategies based on attraction rather than logic, move about and record
trip for an audience, who were put on a bus, their palms stamped with the
(or transmit in real-time) sounds of their immediate daily environments. These
one word “listen”, and then taken to “existing sound environments” like the
sounds electronically trigger and generate rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic
Consolidated Edison Power Station, the Hudson Tubes (subway), and the
“transforms” that are played back into the same environment and are used to
New Jersey Power and Light Power Plant. For his Drive-In Music (),
compose electro-acoustic works. This procedure serves as a kind of immediate
people drove their cars along a specified path and passed through an array of
reality check comparing “inside” feeling and thought with “outside”
low-power radio transmitters mounted on poles or trees. On the car radios,
circumstantial events, a mixture of environmental sound with “shadowing”
passengers heard combinations of sounds emitted from weather-sensitive
electronics that gives the impression of a hidden life (e.g. the presence of the
oscillators.
subconscious) going on simultaneously to one’s daily life.
 Leif Brush began in  to create many sound installations which use his
Terrain Instruments. These are electronic and mechanical devices that amplify Later environmental pieces took performers and listeners into further real and
and convert into sound the actions of natural flora and fauna: the movement virtual spaces:
of leaves, the wind, snow, rain, grasses (struck or stroked by a participant),
 David Dunn’s Skydrift () is scored for an electro-acoustic ensemble
pine cones, the movement of rubber-coated rocks over the suspended, epoxy-
moving in an outdoors environment. One recorded performance involved
coated magnesium surface of his Signal Disc.
 voices,  instrumentalists, and  channels of electronic sound generated
 Originally installed from to at the north end of the triangular from materials gathered at the performance site in a Southwestern desert.
pedestrian island located at Broadway between th and th Streets in The instrumentalists moved outward from a central circle while their playing
New York City, Max Neuhaus’s installation entitled Times Square is a rich, responded to environmental sounds – the circle became enlarged up to a
enveloping harmonic sound texture created by oscillators hidden beneath a half-mile from its original formation.
large metal grid in the street upon which listeners may stand on or nearby. In
 The pieces in Stuart Dempster’s CD Underground Overlays from the Cistern
May of , the project was reinstalled and can now be experienced /.
Chapel explore sound movement and resonance within a -foot diameter
 George Brecht’s legendary Motor Vehicle Sundown (Event) () is a verbal cistern at Fort Worden, about  miles northwest of Seattle. Dempster
instruction piece scored for any number of motor vehicles arranged outdoors. plays on conch shell, didjeridu, and trombone, and in ensemble with nine
For each vehicle,  auditory and visual events and  pauses are written other trombonists, two conch players and one on Tibetan cymbals. The
onto randomly shuffled instruction cards. Beside “pause”, the events include: reverberation length inside the cistern is so long (approximately  seconds)
headlights on and off, parking lights on and off, sound horn, sound siren, that the composer experienced the feeling that “this is where you have been
sound bell(s), accelerate motor, radio on and off, strike window with knuckles, forever and will always be forever”.
open or close door (quickly, with moderate speed, slowly), open or close
 Annea Lockwood’s spectacular virtual environment tape piece World
engine hood, operate special equipment (carousels, ladders, fire hoses with
Rhythms () is composed of an array of natural sounds, the

 
 rhythms of which are sometimes on a time scale “too great or the effects September , and his piano music) modes. Riley’s style soon influenced
too subtle for human perception. The sounds employed include volcanic composers Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, Robert Moran, Gavin Bryars,
eruptions from Hawaii, earthquakes from a geological laboratory, radio Michael Nyman, Joseph Byrd, Lois V. Vierk (Simoom, River Beneath the River),
waves from a pulsar in the Vela supernova, geysers and mud pools recorded Michael Byron (Music of Nights Without Moon or Pearl), David Borden (The
in Yellowstone National Park, various rivers, peepers (tree frogs) near the Continuing Story of Counterpoint), and others.
Mississippi River, a bonfire with crows from England, waves on Flathead LaMonte Young expressed the sustained or extended duration mode in
Lake, Montana, human breathing and a gong marking muscular action his drone room installations that employed oscillators which slowly drifted
and nerve responses. An amazing illusion is created by having all sounds in pitch over many days and weeks. Young’s verbal instruction pieces, such as
at nearly similar amplitudes, the pulsar is the same “size” in loudness, as Composition # “Draw a straight line and follow it” and his Composition 
it were, as the crow. #which consisted of the notes B and F sharp “to be held for a long time”,
were also sustained works. Young later employed the repetitive mode of drone
 McCall.DEM (), a collaborative work by Scot Gresham-Lancaster and
music with The Well-Tuned Piano and The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line
Bill Thibault, derives melodic, timbral, visual and rhythmic materials from a
Stepdown Transformer. Young’s music in alternative tunings has influenced many
computer representation of terrain based on composer Rich Gold’s program
composers such as Michael Harrison, Kyle Gann, and others. Also well-known
Terrain Reader. The waveforms produced are considered cross-sections of
for his compelling works in modal style with alternative tunings is Ben Johnston
the terrain, cut along a Traveler’s path (data files of land types, water, roads,
(Amazing Grace – String Quartet No. ), and other composers such Ivan
etc.) The Traveler’s behaviors include the “dry drunk”: who stumbles about
Wyschnegradsky, Alois Hába, Charles Ives, and Harry Partch have used new
randomly, yet avoids falling into a lake; “drunken Jesus” who moves over land
tunings in their respective styles.
and water; “drunken sailor” who passes out at the helm of his speed boat,
A serene, sustained mode also individuated the works of Morton Feldman
then travels in a straight line until hitting the shore, which wakes him up to
from the Durations () to his late string quartets of more than 6 hours
shove off in a random direction only to pass out again.
duration. Sophisticated cyclic patterning can be found in his highly dramatic
opera Neither () and many other pieces. The sustained, slowly unfolding
Pattern Music, the drone, music of extended duration
style also characterizes compositions by Phill Niblock (Five More String Quartets,
Besides chance and serial composition, the development of “free jazz”, the
Early Winter), Mary Jane Leach (Ariadne’s Lament), Ellen Fullman (inventor of
uniting of art music and rock styles (which continues to this day in the music
The Long String Instrument), Alvin Lucier (Music on a Long Thin Wire, ),
of Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Peter Gordon, the outrageous and detailed
Eliane Radigue (The Milarepa Songs), Pauline Oliveros’s “Deep Listening”
“Plunderphonics” cultural collages of John Oswald, the record scratching
group and her inspired solo improvisations, “Blue” Gene Tyranny (The Interior
of Christian Marclay, and others), and the overnight adoption of electronic
Distance, ), and others.
sound by popular culture, the H also saw the birth of another new music,
sometimes referred to by the awkward name of “minimal music” but more
New Narrative Opera
correctly termed drone, pattern or extended duration music.
The cyclic pattern style in modal keys is also fundamental to the sound of what
In general, this music is meditative and slowly unfolding, describing a
has been termed “new narrative” opera, a richly inflected rhythmic speech style
resonant eternal universe that is still or has internally pulsing cyclic motion, and
with a post-modern attitude toward language and often humorous, touching,
which creates an altered and expanded time sense. Indirectly influenced by the
and imbued with personal experience, humanitarian and ultimately spiritual
sounds of gamelan music, the drones of classical Indian ragas, the canons of
concerns. This new style, invented by composer Robert Ashley (That Morning
Moondog, and the repetition of short melodic gestures (modules) found in the
Thing, Perfect Lives, Atalanta (Acts of God), Improvement [Don Leaves Linda],
style of film composer Bernard Herrmann, this hypnotic style still seemed to
The Immortality Songs, Dust, Celestial Encounters) is the first fundamentally new
come from nowhere, the music of a new generation.
direction for opera in several decades. Other creators influenced by or making
Terry Riley and Terry Jennings were among the founders of this style and
work similar to this form are Kenneth Atchley (Edison’s Last Projection, Marconi
respectively employed the repetitive (e.g. Riley’s famous In C and his keyboard
– The Last Seven Words), Ben Neill (ITSOFOMO – In the Shadow of Forward
improvisations with tape delay) and the sustained (Jennings’ String Quartet
Motion), Mikel Rouse (Failing Kansas, Dennis Cleveland), Lars Gunnar Bodin

 
(For Jon – Fragments of a Time To Come, ), The Residents (God in Three Feedback
Persons), Gregory Whitehead (the “radiophonic” works), and others. Cage’s phrase “(no feedback)” in the instruction above again contrasts his world
Noted for their original contributions to extended vocal techniques in new of discrete sounds with that of the resonant universe. The creative use of positive
music are singers Joan La Barbara, Shelley Hirsch, Meredith Monk, Jackie feedback, normally an unwanted artifact like line hum in an amplification system,
Humbert, David Hykes, Raphael Mostel, and others. can be found in compositions such as Robert Ashley’s famous The Wolfman ()
At this point in this study of Sound Art, it will be helpful to discuss some of in which the amplification system is tuned to just blow the threshold of feedback
the more subtle psychic effects of contemporary music, as was done previously and then gradually stimulated into overwhelming waves of sound by the vocalist’s
in the earlier paragraphs discussing Erik Satie’s work. cool delivery of phonemes, and in David Behrman’s Wave Train ().

Stillness, feeling-thought, internal motion, silence Eternity

Pattern and extended duration music generally creates a feeling that is Cage’s late “number pieces” also create a profound sense of the eternal and
simultaneously modern and ancient, hypnotic yet clear. Attention to the forward consist of aggregations of notes held for a long time; the progression from note to
motion of linear time begins to disappear, and the world of the conceptual, note is usually changed by the performer’s internal time sense.
what Buckminster Fuller called “feeling-thought”, predominates. When this Recently, the city of Halberstadt in Germany decided to install one of these
music transports the listener to such a state, either by the unceasing movement later works, entitled Organ / ASLSP (as slow as possible), in the medieval
of repeated small gestures (in the manner of Riley) or by serenely sustained church of St. Burcherdi. The piece will take  years to perform, each of its 
tonalities (in the manner of Radigue), the sensation of a closed resonant universe movements lasting  years, covering the years from Sept.  to , with
is perfectly maintained. an intermission in 2319. Since the piece begins with a rest, the organ was silent
Conversely, when music consists of discrete events (aggregates, icti, moments) for the first  months; it currently resonates with two unchanging tones. The
as in John Cage’s music, this same sustained world can be entered through an duration was chosen by subtracting the birth year ( CE) of the city from
awareness of silence – a sensation of unchanging presence per se. Here, our . The organ itself is being slowly assembled with funds from people who may
attention is turned toward an omni-present stillness that exists at the same time sponsor a year of the piece. Gerd Zacher, the German organist to whom the work
as the sound events. The elegant score for John Cage’s (in-) famous meditation was dedicated, disagrees with this extreme interpretation because Cage originally
piece entitled ’” tacet () consists only of the simple indications I. Tacet, indicated that the composition “should be played slowly but also like a soft
II. Tacet, III. Tacet. Those seem to assign the performer(s) the task of indicating morning and then should be gone”.
three moments in time while making the presence of an undisturbed silence felt – The awareness of silence in Cage’s music and the expression of a resonant
not a negative act but an essential affirmation of awareness. The first performance universe in pattern music generate a sense of potentiality (e.g. “there’s something
was by David Tudor who closed, opened, then closed the keyboard cover of a in the air tonight”). This has become a property of contemporary sound art.
piano to indicate the three movements. His performance lasted  minutes and  These contrasting directions in contemporary music may perhaps also be viewed
seconds but the piece can have any duration. as manifestations of the predominant modes of the left (sustained, drone) and
The “tacet” piece was written at a time when artists and musicians were taken right (single events) sides of the brain. In music, certain feelings can only be
with Robert Rauschenberg’s all-white paintings, Zen Buddhism, and the concept expressed or suggested at certain tempos (i.e. psychic states). Thus, if a person is
of the “surface” (e.g. a “blank wall” on which the mind involuntarily projects aware, for example, of a feeling of stillness, it will affect the kind of music he or
itself). Cage’s other version of the tacet piece seemed to go to the opposite she makes, or as a listener the kind of music he or she will take to heart.
extreme but is in fact the other side of the same coin: ’” / Solo to be performed
in any way by anyone, written for Yoko Ono and Toshi Ichiyanagi in Tokyo, The personal computer
October , indicates timeless (holotropic, eternal) stillness held in infinite In the H the instruments, methods and feeling-thoughts from the previous
universal compression: “In a situation provided with maximum amplification two decades continued to be explored and spontaneously generate new insights.
(no feedback), perform a disciplined action. With any interruptions. Fulfilling in The introduction of the personal computer created radically new possibilities
whole or part an obligation to others ... No attention to be given the situation in electronic music and of course world society in general. Composers began to
(electronic, musical, theatrical)”. build their own homemade computers from integrated-circuit chips and modified

 
commercial kits, such as the KIM-1, to their own uses. Previously, synthesizers programs involving new mathematical forms such as stochastic processes and
had made available new sounds and new control of pitch, amplitude, speed and has continued to produce acoustic and electronic works of unique originality
sound modification way beyond the ability of acoustic instruments and their and beauty. John Chowning developed frequency-modulation (FM) methods
players. Personal computers now made available a new world of for generating computer sound, produced many subtle audio illusions of sounds
moving in space, and has used classic proportions such as the Golden Section to
 automaticity and
create unusual sound spectra.
 sophisticated programming;
Live computer music
 interactiveness (especially in the pioneering and exquisitely beautiful work of
Parallel to the introduction of “live electronic music”, the creation of the first
composer David Behrman who has worked with many acoustic musicians that
“live computer music” group took place in the mid-H in the San Francisco
trigger the electronics with their playing; The Bifurcators recent composition
Bay Area. The League of Automatic Music Composers, the first microcomputer
Like A Bird in the Wilderness is one of many interactive pieces since the 70s;
network band, was the brainchild of composers John Bischoff, Jim Horton and
an earlier, non-computer based but interactive work was Robert Ashley’s
Tim Perkis. Seeking a way to “open up the process” and bring other musicians
electronic theater piece Public Opinion Descends Upon The Demonstrators ()
into the network situation the League soon became The Hub. Unlike earlier
in which performers reacted to the movements of an audience which could
computer music practice, this group sought “more surprise through the lively
potentially be  people);
and unpredictable response of these systems, and hope to encourage an active
 fine control of sound parameters (in the s with MAX), response in the playing” (Perkis). The Hub eventually grew to include composers
Mark Trayle, Phil Stone, Tom Erbe, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, and Chris Brown.
 sound sampling and digital sound processing of acoustic inputs (DSP,
They have also performed with many guest artists such as the Rova Saxophone
especially as developed “live” by composer Joel Ryan),
Quartet and composer Alvin Curran. Several of the group’s pieces (composed
 precise mapping of the characteristics of one sound on another (in vocoding, by the individual composers or by group improvisation) interconnect their mini-
morphing, ring modulation, etc.), computers so that, for example, the indeterminant influence of  or so software
programs is simultaneously at play. Humor, mystery, quirkiness, and spectacular
 fine synthesis (in the s through programs such as Super-Collider, granular
massed textures can all be heard in The Hub’s real-time creations. The members
synthesis, Reaktor, etc.),
have been known to even incorporate normally unwanted, “malfunctioning” but
 precise rhythm and sequence coordination (e.g. Digital Performer), musically interesting artifacts of the electronics in their pieces.
There are many other composers who have made live computer music their
 synchronous control of multi-media through MIDI triggers and sensing
primary style, including Frankie Mann and Warren Burt. And there are by now
devices (for example, the primeval grass hut built by composer Jerry Hunt for
countless other composers who employ personal computers in their art music
New Music America in Dallas which contained subtle devices which sensed
including Joel Chadabe, Larry Polansky, David Rosenboom, Tom Hamilton, Yuji
the movement proximities of a participant and activated strange ritualistic
Takahashi, David Wessel, Joe Reinsel, Sam Ashley, Ben Azarm, Laurie Spiegel
imagery, gently lifted a covered figure on a bed, and so on; Hunt also created
(whose realization of Kepler’s Music of the Spheres was sent into space by NASA),
brilliant and often densely textured mechanical and electronic music like
John Driscoll (Stall with Phil Edelstein and Peter Labiak’s rotating loudspeaker
Haramand Plane (), Fluud for dual Synclaviers ()), etc.
system), Brenda Hutchison (The Voices of Reason), Ron Kuivila (Parodicals), Paul
De Marinis, Madelyn Byrne (Winter, ), Neil B. Rolnick. Computerized
Computer music
digital recording and editing are now the standard.
The first computer-generated music was a brief -second composition scored in
 by Newman Guttman created using the Music I program written by Max
Robots
Mathews at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Other
Recently the personal computer has come to be actively used in the control of
computer-music centers were soon established at Stanford University, Columbia
sound-producing robotic sculptures. A gallery exhibition () in New York City
University, and at IRCAM in Paris. Composer James Tenney at Bell Labs wrote
introduced a large roaming crowd to

 
 the randomly tapping shoes known as Happy Feet by Stephen Turbek; composer David Rosenboom also issued his Brainwave Music based on similar
phenomena in ), an analog of a bat’s echolocation abilities (Vespers, ),
 a scratch performance on automatic turntables, controlled by MAX software,
the resonance of natural environments (Chambers, ; I Am Sitting in a
entitled Scratchrobot by Stijn Slabbinck;
Room, ), the creation of standing waves to move dancers about (Still and
 huge baby bottles with sampled baby sounds which changed as the bottle is Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas, ), massive collections
slowly tilted – Babybot by Stefan Prosky; of ambient sounds (Gentle Fire, ), the response of a gas flame to sound
(Tyndall Orchestrations, ), and Chladni figures created live and amplified
 four guitar strings played with shifting plectra and vertically sliding pressure
by video (The Queen of the South, ). Lucier’s Sferics (the shortened term
pads which replace fingers accompanied by an automated shaker tree,
for “atmospherics”), is built from the natural radio frequency emissions (often
everything guided by MAX software – Guitarbot by Eric Singer, Kevin Larke
delicate whistling sounds) in the ionosphere caused by electromagnetic energy
and David Biancardi of the collaboration LEMUR;
radiated from nearby or distant lightning.
 a theremin played by automated shifting wands to replace hand movements;
 Various attempts at interspecies communication via sound have included
 the Shivabot – a huge statue of blue Shiva playing cymbals, drum, with four pieces by David Dunn (Mimus Polyglottos for electronic sounds and mockingbird,
hands by LEMUR. Robots, yes, but robotics with a sense of humor. ), Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier (Bird and Person Dyning, ), and
others.
Fire organs, flower pots, etc.
 Among compositions dealing with psychoacoustic illusions are the striking
From the s through the s, many original acoustic instruments appeared:
performance situations (“music rooms”) which have been set up by Maryanne
Michel Moglia’s Fire Organ (Orgue à feu), Maggi Payne’s work broadcast
Amacher since the s; in her Third Ear Music, for example, audiences
through omni-directional flame loudspeakers, Richard Waters’ Waterphone,
experience tones and melodies which seem to emerge from the center of
Wendy Mae Chambers’ Car Horn Organ, Reed Ghazala’s elegant and
their heads, a product of patterns which originate within their ears and
otherworldly voice synthesizer called The Trigon Incantor which is triggered by
neuroanatomy. One of Robert Ashley’s Illusion Models hypothetical computer
small steel balls on a pressure-sensitive plate. There have been many variations
tasks () creates the illusion of an infinitely receding tone in a room
on guitars and harps stretched across various organic sculptural forms, as well
installation that, because of an irresistible urge to find the source of a sound,
as ensembles of glass instruments by Jean-Claude Chapuis, Annea Lockwood
compels visitors to want to follow it.
and others, electronically amplified natural substances like cactus needles
(Cage), wood slabs, leaves, etc., ensembles of tuned flower pots (Barry Hall’s
In the s and s, this exploration of the natural world would continue in
Flowerpotophone) and other ceramics (Ward Hartenstein, Brian Ransom, and
such pieces as:
others), as well as fanciful musical sculptures by Arthur Frick, Tom Nunn, Fred
“Spaceman” Long, and others.  David Tudor’s Neural Synthesis () which was performed on a home-
made synthesizer constructed from non-linear amplifiers with 
Electronics and the natural world programmable interconnections that emulate neuron cell patterns in the brain.
The s also saw the birth of an interest in the interaction of electronic music
2 Maggi Payne’s Solar Wave () includes a source tape from a plasma wave
and natural organic phenomena, including the human body.
instrument for detecting the shock wave interactions of Saturn and Venus with
 Tom Zahuranec’s Plant Music () made use of the Backster Effect in the solar wind. Data from this instrument triggered a -voice synthesizer.
which a plant’s apparent response to emotional, even telepathic, stimuli were
amplified by electronic transducers attached to the leaves and controlling a The Internet
synthesizer. In the late s, the advent of the telephonic cyberspace called the Internet
made new musical performance arrangements possible. Although the Internet
 Alvin Lucier’s compositions have employed “enormously amplified brain
serves a more ordinary function as an immense repository of information of all
waves” which trigger percussive sounds (Music for Solo Performer, ;
sorts, one of its greatest promises lies in its live aspects such as instant messages,

 
chat rooms, broadcasts, instant and unbridled access, the free exchange and  Robin Rimbaud, known as Scanner, makes controversial live performances
interchange of thoughts. from material gathered in real-time by eavesdropping on cellular and mobile
There are of course mp music downloads and virtual on-line recording telephones and scanning satellite up-down links and police (etc.) radio
studios, like resrocket.com, where musicians far removed from each other may transmissions.
gradually build up multi-track pieces or leave basic tracks for anyone to add
 In  composers Nick Collins and Phill Niblock invited members of The
to or change. But creative composers have begun using the Internet as a giant
Hub to create a performance linking two performance spaces at some distance
instrument.
to each other (Experimental Intermedia and The Clocktower in New York
One of the first interactive works of music and art created specifically for
City) via a modem over a phone line. Two distinct trios were formed from six
the World Wide Web was William Duckworth and Nora Farrell’s Cathedral. On
members of The Hub.
line since June , at www.monroestreet/cathedral, the Cathedral website
includes both acoustic and computer music, live webcasts with improvising  The ethereal sound of the digital clicks heard in data transmission have been
ensembles from all over the world, and new virtual instruments called Chaos, used in works by Tim Perkis (Clicks), Yasunao Tone (Musica Iconologos), and
the Sound Pool, and the PitchWeb that can be played by anyone and allow the Laetitia Sonami.
web audience to interact with the site. Cathedral deviates from the traditional
 Slightly before the current speed and resolution of the Net, artist Nam June
concert model – where audiences attend a scheduled performance at a fixed
Paik created Wrap Around the World (), a spectacular satellite link-up,
place and time – in that the venue, time and location of performance, and
coordinated by Paik, which connected artists in the United States, Brazil,
even the performers themselves (both live and virtual) are variables. Time,
France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan and several other countries. The event
for example, is no longer a factor in a piece of music that is always available;
was similar to Paik’s video collages or assemblies of that time in which he
that has no beginning, middle, or end; and that no two people listen to in the
starkly contrasted and/or blended world cultures, with the images modulated
same order, or for the same length of time. For listeners on the web, the effect
by his original video synthesis techniques and graphics. In this piece the rock
is individual, and more like exploring an art gallery than attending an opera”
n’ roll world was represented by David Bowie, the bands La, La, La, and
(Duckworth).
Human Steps, and Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. Other aesthetic
Chris Brown & John Bischoff’s Internet work entitled Eternal Network Music
worlds were represented by avant-garde dancer Merce Cunningham, the
() consists of two real-time sound pieces for quartets of networked players
Viennese Art Orchestra, a game of elephant soccer in Thailand, and an Irish
and is posted at www.sfmoma.org/crossfade, or www.crossfade.walkerart.org.
car race.
Helen Thorington’s spectacular Adrift () is an evolving multi-location
Internet performance event that combines movement through D space,  Extending further out in space, Pauline Oliveros, aided by composer Scot
multiple narratives and richly textured sound streaming between virtual and Gresham-Lancaster and several technicians, realized her piece Echoes From
real geographies. Making use of  vrml cameras, images are received by three The Moon in  with Mark Gummer, a ham radiooperator in Syracuse NY,
computers and projected onto a semicircular screen. The work focuses on using the -foot dish in his back yard with Oliveros sending signals over a
“multiple journeys through a harbor and through virtual space”. phone line from Hayward, CA (the return was d seconds), and again in
Jason Freeman’s software program N.A.G. (Network Auralization for 1998 using several large Yagi arrays and the Moon and Mars mapping radio
Gnutella, ), which can be downloaded for free, is a tool that roams music telescope at Stanford University. The recorded signal was sent by phone
sites and creates sound collages (“smashups”) by chance combinations from line to the radio telescope, converted to radio waves, and then bounced off
the thousands of files on the Internet. Gnutella is a set of technical specifications the surface of the Moon and back. There was a slight Doppler shift in the
that allows the exchange of data like mp files. return delay because of the motion of the Earth and Moon. The first sounds
bounced were a conch shell, gas pipe whistle, Tibetan cymbals, woodblock
Telephones, Satellites, Outer Space and temple block, but eventually any one who wanted to participate could
Other communication forms than the Net have also been recently adopted by join in. Oliveros’s conception was that each individual was actually touching
avant-garde musicians and sound artists: the moon with his or her voice.

 
 Many composers are already preparing for the eventuality of interplanetary up. The intimate sounds of his breath and the involuntary inflections of his
performance. Composer David Cope is currently working on his Pleaides speech are highlighted as he lets his mind wander freely, or “automatically” in
Project, a yet-unrealized plan to build a privately owned and operated radio the sense of the surrealist tradition of the free expression of the unconscious
telescope on the rim of the Grand Canyon in order to transmit music deep without control by the conscious. At some point he observes that “my mind ... is
into space in hopes of contacting extra-terrestrials. censoring my own mind”. Recorded in what he called his “seedy apartment” of
that time in Oakland, Ashley made a pact with himself to let all the spontaneous,
Spontaneity and the automatic involuntary musings of his mind be expressed without self-editing, and the result
Spontaneity seems to be a compelling aesthetic imperative. The feeling of is hypnotic and deeply moving.
automatic, natural generation satisfies a deep need in the psyches of performers The electronic analogue to (or perhaps simulacrum of) the spontaneous
and listeners alike. Generally, improvisation in music involves some level of experience may arise from the various original self-generating and heuristic (self-
spontaneity applied to pre-chosen material or an idea. Pure spontaneity is largely teaching) programs written to produce constantly changing combinatorial results
involuntary and unplanned, and is surprising to the performer. and random variations in works by John Bischoff (“I imagine a musical soul
For William Duckworth’s Cathedral Band concerts, in some of which this as a large, circular room with windows ... one’s imagination can walk out onto
author has participated, a wonderful diversity of players who enjoy open playing these landscapes and notice new features or catch different perspectives on each
are gathered. One concert in  included a Chinese pi’pa performer, guitarist excursion”), Ron Kuivila (Loose Canons), Michael Schumacher (the Room Pieces),
with electronic modifiers, Duckworth’s Pitchweb synthesizer with over  David Rosenboom, and a few others. A vivid interaction between performers and
sound samples, a trombonist who also played rubber hose, whistles, conch shell, these enhanced computer behaviors, similar to the way that acoustic instruments
and wind instruments from many cultures, a DJ who mixed rhythm machines and trigger pre-programmed gestures in David Behrman’s music, is still a pathway to
scratched recordings of new music pieces, some by the performers. No rehearsal be explored further.
or discussion was held before the concert other than to decide who would start
playing. The musicians were such good listeners that they would pick up on The Future of Sound Art
or contrast with what others were playing, and many extraordinary moments In this brief study we have seen how sounds need not be programmatic or
and tutti changes occurred as if they were scored. At another concert for a film representational to still be compelling. Composers, soundtrack designers,
society, the musicians for the most part did not watch the two projected silent engineers and others have continually searched for new and interesting sounds
era French cinema classics, yet apparently the coincidental synchronizations of and the means to produce them. Composers from Satie to the present have
image and sound were so impressive that several of the viewers thought the group offered new ways and settings in which to listen to the music, and have helped
had rehearsed for weeks to get the fit right. (One of Cage’s stories in his lecture redefine the acts of listening, composing and performing. All this will continue
Indeterminacy mentions a sort of epiphany which occurred on tour. Having into the future whether Sound Art be pursued
stopped at a restaurant, he watched people through the windows and the music
 on the Net, in
inside seemed to accompany the activities outside.)
Other collective improvisation and spontaneous playing ensembles have  ever more sophisticated home installations with beautiful surround or source-
existed for decades as groups that combined the African American and European less amplification (or perhaps in the less desirable form of super-directional
traditions headed by composers like Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, HyperSonic laser-sound commercials coming from cereal boxes), or
George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell and other former members of the AACM
 into the desert, or
(Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), in deliberately non-
virtuosic groups like the Scratch Orchestra founded by Cornelius Cardew et al  outer space.
in England, the Australian group Machine for Making Sense organized by Chris
Or, what is quite likely, in some situation and form undreamt of, yet.
Mann et al, and in many other new music groups.
A more intimate spontaneous experience was realized in the recording of
Robert Ashley’s Automatic Writing () that features the composer speaking
“Blue” Gene Tyranny
in a calm, unprojected voice into a microphone with its gain turned all the way
July Long Island City, NY