rorysaltersound-blog

[rorysaltersound-blog]

recording of myself Mobbs and Haarp Poon on NTS a year ago. Tweedle is a continuation of this project after wanting to change my approach to the project and a reconsideration of the name

[rorysaltersound-blog]

soundcloud

Find below a link to soundcloud page. I’ll be using this online space is to upload selected sound pieces and experiments periodically to attempt to track and archive works as they are created. I shan’t be uploading much of what I have been working on to the site but I feel that the process of uploading certain works to the web helps solidify and finalise them as finished pieces without too much commitment. I also like the idea of the space being able to hold a variety works from different projects/alias’ i’m working on under this one title.

The only piece currently uploaded is something titled ‘the worm with no head’. This piece comes from an array of experiments with tapes, old keyboards, guitar pedals, field recordings and other sonic objects found in my flat. I often wonder if I am limited in my work by not being able to afford the ‘top of the range’ gear that people from a different class background to me might be able to obtain. Experiments like this can often help reaffirm for myself the idea that there is an endless source of amazing sound to be captured with little money. That knowledge and understanding of what you might at first perceive to prevent and hinder your creative output, can often in fact be what informs some of the work you’re most proud of. The title ‘the worm with no head’ comes from two things. firstly I felt it quite aptly described how I felt whilst creating the piece. Kind of unknowingly wriggling through wires writhing in the intricate details and sonic textures created by the tools I had to hand. If you listen closely in-between the bursts of sound I think you can quite often hear the tension in the thick coatings of hiss and buzz - I find it quite apt to visualise worm-like motions in these parts. the other reasonings were due to a fascinated with this video at the time of creation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Z9Ssgb0Kg ‘

https://soundcloud.com/user-901043310

the worm with no head - https://soundcloud.com/user-901043310/the-worm-with-no-head

[rorysaltersound-blog]

Second year compositional strategies piece

https://soundcloud.com/user-901043310/rory-salter-found-piece-any-performer/s-h7T2u private link

December 6th 2016 second year compositional strategies piece. :

‘Found Piece For Any Performer’

Using a found object and other easily obtainable and cheap objects, and to be played by anyone. The piece is intended as an accessible and engaging composition that would not require any previous knowledge of classical or Avant-garde musical styles, but instead focuses on how cheap tools and reduced listening can form an interesting engagement with Sonic Art. The piece can be performed by any number of people and is instructed by a lucid graphic score, put only in place to give direction on how to start and end the piece. The rest of the composition is left down to improvisation, chaos within the parameters of simple action and the object itself. The played object is to be used as a prepared instrument.

For this particular performance a small broken digital ‘children’s’ keyboard that was found by a bin on Peckham High Street in London, has been used as the instrument in which the performer will play on - the performance itself is simple in action and can last as long as the performer deems necessary. From this point on we will refer to the found object as ‘the instrument’ as that is it’s purpose in the piece. Following the instruction of the graphic score, a number of contact mic’s (in this case 2) are attached to the instrument with tape or whatever else the performer/performers has to hand, and then set to record on any available device or loudly amplified in a space where the performer cannot be seen - the piece then begins. Performers begin to deconstruct the instrument using whatever tools or force they think will make for an interesting sonic experience - the idea here being enticing the performer to thinking about sound over action, but also to add elements of improvisation and chaos into the piece. By deconstructing something in such way you end up in actual fact playing ‘the object’ as the prepared instrument, not thinking about it as taking apart an unrelated object but instead of how you can play it with the tools available. This can go on for as long as the performer feels appropriate and according to how interesting they feel they can make the piece.

Ultimately the use of the contact mic’s in this piece comes at the end, as the recording/amplifying element of the performance is in fact a significant element of the composition itself. By listening to the piece through these instructions you are totally detached from both instrument and performer, enabling the listener to absorb the sonic properties of the composition through reduced listening - The relevance of this will be explained further down in this written contextualisation of the piece. It is important that this piece is listened to in a dark room where performer and object are hidden from the audience.

The main concept behind composing this piece in such a way is to question the middle class and above history in Sound Art and Avant-garde composition. Whilst simultaneously attempting to open up these styles to a new class demographic who may not have had the opportunity to receive a relevant education, or may have felt alienated by not having the same opportunities monetarily to learn and explore within music of this style. In Cornelius Cardew’s ‘Stockhausen Serves Imperialism’ he describes Stockhausen’s Refrain as ‘a part of the cultural superstructure of the largest-scale system of human oppression and exploitation the world has ever known: imperialism.’ (Cardew, 1974) and although for a significant part of this text I disagree with some of Cardew’s statements I found a strong affinity with him on this point. It is common that when studying the history of Avant-garde music a vast majority of the studied text’s and pieces are by members of the Middle or Upper Middle Class. Although I don’t feel it correct to exclude or demerit someone for a class system they may well have been born into, I think it’s important to study and highlight this clear class divide and to question it. The point of this piece being easily interpretable to perform and to obtain the objects and instruments needed to record it shows that you don’t need a large vat of wealth and knowledge to be a part of a contemporary Avant-garde, but in fact you can create pieces that directly oppose and defy these perceived ideas.

In attempts to further understand and show evidence of why I in fact wanted to oppose these histories I decided to research similar pieces in which destroying or deconstructing an instrument was a key element. Two main works that stood out were Annea Lockwood’s ‘Piano Burning’ and George Maciunas’ ‘Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece)’ - These pieces mainly stood out due to the relevance that the instrument I had chosen to work with for this specific performance was a broken children’s keyboard, an item built cheaply and affordably for young people to get into playing music. I focused on Maciunas’ piece as there seemed to be strong comparisons between the two works, in the physical sense of the performance. The basic over view of Maciunas’ piece is that a performer or performers take it in turns using A hammer to nail down each key on the piano separately until this has been completed for all the keys. Apart from a few video performances of the piece I struggled to find any written information on it so I was left to decipher my own interpretation of the piece. To me it stood out that it was maybe about not only about the sonic element of the piece but could also be seen as a metaphorical way of moving away from traditional piano music. The literal distruction of the piano led me to believe it was the artists intention to convey a boredom with the music that had come before them. However it mostly stood out to me and total display of privilege in an utmost distasteful fashion, as if it were saying that the only thing piano music was good for was what had already happened and that the composer themselves were above this - therefore making this item of great wealth useless to them as a member of there middle class. Which to me was only further supported by the kind of monetary privilege someone would need to have to destroy a piano - also not to forget that a piano at that time will most likely have had keys made from Ivory, so by hammering nails into them what is the performer saying? It’s easily be interpreted as a total lack of respect and disregard for the Animals who have been slaughtered in the Ivory trade. Following investigation into this piece lead me to the Fluxus movement, which in fact totally contradicted my previous thoughts of the piece. As part of the Fluxus Manifesto it clearly states the movement intends to ‘Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, “intellectual”, professional & commercialized culture, PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art, PURGE THE WORLD OF “EUROPANISM”!’ (Maciunas, 1962). But to my interpretation this just further speaks as coming from a privileged middle class background, be it rebellious or not the nature of rebelling with little awareness of other social demographics to me does not speak of rebellion. without any further information on the intention of the composer it’s hard to look past their own presentation of the work. This did however inspire me to make a score for the piece, loosely in the style of a Fluxus graphic score in which stern direction plays a significant part as a gesture of mockery to Fluxus - I did however leave far more room for the performers own interpretation.

Following this I began to look into the Sound Art group and AIDs activists Ultra-Red and their performance of  John Cage’s ‘4:33’. Although my piece was in no way of a similar level of direct action to this performance I was interested in their involvement of the ‘Latino working class men’ who were suffering from AIDs. I wanted my piece to be as engaging with the working classes for completely different reasons as explained earlier. By making this piece easily performable to opens it up to anyone to be able to play it. That isn’t to suggest that something needs to be easy for someone of the working classes to perform because that is in no way the case, but this does make the work more accessible.

As a final instruction to this piece, take the graphic score, make copies and pass it on to others.

Bibliography -

Cardew, C. 1974, ‘Stockhausen Serves Imperialism’, Latimer New Dimensions Limited: London. Pg. 47 Maciunas, G. 1962, Fluxus Manifesto, Available at: http://georgemaciunas.com/about/cv/manifesto-i/  (Accessed November 22nd)

[rorysaltersound-blog]

soundcloud

Find below a link to soundcloud page. I’ll be using this online space is to upload selected sound pieces and experiments periodically to attempt to track and archive works as they are created. I shan't be uploading much of what I have been working on to the site but I feel that the process of uploading certain works to the web helps solidify and finalise them as finished pieces without too much commitment. I also like the idea of the space being able to hold a variety works from different projects/alias’ i’m working on under this one title.

The only piece currently uploaded is something titled ‘the worm with no head’. This piece comes from an array of experiments with tapes, old keyboards, guitar pedals, field recordings and other sonic objects found in my flat. I often wonder if I am limited in my work by not being able to afford the ‘top of the range’ gear that people from a different class background to me might be able to obtain. Experiments like this can often help reaffirm for myself the idea that there is an endless source of amazing sound to be captured with little money. That knowledge and understanding of what you might at first perceive to prevent and hinder your creative output, can often in fact be what informs some of the work you’re most proud of. The title ‘the worm with no head’ comes from two things. firstly I felt it quite aptly described how I felt whilst creating the piece. Kind of unknowingly wriggling through wires writhing in the intricate details and sonic textures created by the tools I had to hand. If you listen closely in-between the bursts of sound I think you can quite often hear the tension in the thick coatings of hiss and buzz - I find it quite apt to visualise worm-like motions in these parts. the other reasonings were due to a fascinated with this video at the time of creation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Z9Ssgb0Kg ‘

https://soundcloud.com/user-901043310

the worm with no head - https://soundcloud.com/user-901043310/the-worm-with-no-head