Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Felino A. Soriano writes



Of this Momentum Song (forty-four)

   We write well with
  tongues.  Wrote
     said of knowing,
                     the strong taste
  of the prose attached
 to bone, bone as
    the mover of
   fluent dance, (and)
  when my aloneness
     awoke from a
                  symmetry
  of scent rotating
   the margins—
  speaking became
                un-
 broken.  To enhance,
   the tongue directed
  splayed emblems.  Of
                    bees
and the cussedness—
 the sting     the
   ornamental blur,
  a here   then not.
                  Here
is where pianoing
  began.  Verb
bouquets, onto
   hand, said with
               a softened
 stare, rely then
   endure.  We noted
our knotted mouths
 rid the gray     splayed
                    in
 vertical open mantras—
  rain then arid
 philosophies
   spoke upon
  the good
          hearing—
we organize
 sound the
  way hands
rub futures
        into
    fractioned histories…

 
John Cage, Mylar Overlay for Fontana Mix, 1981.

1 comment:

  1. I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE
    Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments.... Given four film phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.
    TO MAKE MUSIC
    If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.
    WILL CONTINUE AND INCREASE UNTIL WE REACH A MUSIC PRODUCED THROUGH THE AID OF ELECTRICAL INSTRUMENTS
    .... The special function of electrical instruments will be to provide complete control of the overtone structure of tones (as opposed to noises) and to make these tones available in any frequency, amplitude, and duration.
    WHICH WILL MAKE AVAILABLE FOR MUSICAL PURPOSES ANY AND ALL SOUNDS THAT CAN BE HEARD. PHOTOELECTRIC, FILM, AND MECHANICAL MEDIUMS FOR THE SYNTHETIC PRODUCTION OF MUSIC
    It is now possible for composers to make music directly, without the assistance of intermediary performers. Any design repeated often enough on a sound track is audible. Two hundred and eighty circles per second on a sound track will produce one sound, whereas a portrait of Beethoven repeated fifty times per second on a sound track will have not only a different pitch but a different sound quality.
    WILL BE EXPLORED. WHEREAS, IN THE PAST, THE POINT OF DISAGREEMENT HAS BEEN BETWEEN DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE, IT WILL BE, IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, BETWEEN NOISE AND SO-CALLED MUSICAL SOUNDS.
    THE PRESENT METHODS OF WRITING MUSIC, PRINCIPALLY THOSE WHICH EMPLOY HARMONY AND ITS REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR STEPS IN THE FIELD OF SOUND, WILL BE INADEQUATE FOR THE COMPOSER, WHO WILL BE FACED WITH THE ENTIRE FIELD OF SOUND.
    The composer (organizer of sound) will be faced not only with the entire field of sound but also with the entire field of time. The "frame" or fraction of a second, following established film technique, will probably be the basic unit in the measurement of time. No rhythm will be beyond the composer's reach.
    NEW METHODS WILL BE DISCOVERED, BEARING A DEFINITE RELATION TO SCHOENBERG'S TWELVE-TONE SYSTEM
    Schoenberg's method assigns to each material, in a group of equal materials, its function with respect to the group.... Schoenberg's method is analogous to a society in which the emphasis is on the group and the integration of the individual in the group.
    AND PRESENT METHODS OF WRITING PERCUSSION MUSIC
    Any sound is acceptable to the composer of percussion music; he explores the academically forbidden "non-musical" field of sound insofar as is manually possible. Methods of writing percussion music have as their goal the rhythmic structure of a composition. As soon as these methods are crystallized into one or several widely accepted methods, the means will exist for group improvisations of unwritten but culturally important music....
    AND ANY OTHER METHODS WHICH ARE FREE FROM THE CONCEPT OF A FUNDAMENTAL TONE.
    THE PRINCIPLE OF FORM WILL BE OUR ONLY CONSTANT CONNECTION WITH THE PAST. ALTHOUGH THE GREAT FORM OF THE FUTURE WILL NOT BE AS IT WAS IN THE PAST, AT ONE TIME THE FUGUE AND AT ANOTHER THE SONATA, IT WILL BE RELATED TO THESE AS THEY ARE TO EACH OTHER:
    Before this happens, centers of experimental music must be established. In these centers, the new materials, oscillators, turntables, generators, means for amplifying small sounds, film phonographs, etc., available for use. Composers at work using twentieth century means for making music. Performances of results. Organization of sound for extra-musical purposes (theatre, dance, radio, film).
    THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF ORGANIZATION OR MAN'S COMMON ABILITY TO THINK.

    --John Cage

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