SOUND PRACTICES - 12 X 99

At 13:40 +0200 12/10/99, jerome joy wrote:

>>>Which are the new musical and sound practices for you which try out what

one could detect like limits of the fields of the contemporary music? In

your opinion, from which territories emerge these new practices and

which prospects announce these searches?>>>

Howdy folks, I'm new to the list. My name is Rhys Chatham, I am a composer/performer. I thought I would respond to the above topic by way of introduction.

I think that we are presently in a "golden age" in Western art music for the composition of music in that the only boundaries that dictate what we write are those given either by the academy or the music industry. Which is to say that we have neither the Church nor the State telling us what kind of music we are allowed to write. We can compose whatever we like.

Before the modernist period, the big question was: "What can be said to be beautiful?". During the modernist period, we asked "What can said to be art?" (dada, serialism, Fluxus, minimalism, etc...)

And in 1999, we're now back to asking the question: "What can said to be beautiful?"

My goodness, we have so many choices today, don't we?

We can, of course, continue to explore the trails blazed by such "oldies but goodies" as the early serialists. We can work, if we so choose, within the tonalities prescribed by the early minimalists. We can incorporate popular music and improvisation into our work as well.

Or we can follow the lead of technology. David Tudor used to say: "The circuit is the piece!". These days, it (sadly) often seems to be the software that is what is defining the parameters of many compositions that I hear.

Anyway, all this has been done, right?

(This works both ways, of course! Witness the ways musique concrète and electro-acoutic music has been incorporated into electronica of all kinds (tech step, drum and bass, etc).)

My personal formula for musical inquiry begins by taking a close look at a number of different musics and studying them, considering what would happen if I modulated their signification through a process of amalgamation and superimposition. We are at the end of the nineties, the end of the century. An amalgamation or synthesis involving all we have learned would seem appropriate at this time, wouldn't it?

I feel that doing music in this way has only just begun to be explored. However, I think it is impossible to work meaningfully in this fashion within a commercial context because of the rigid boundaries imposed by the rather narrow definitions of its styles, e.g. if you add a fuzzed-out trumpet melodic line to a drum and bass beat, it is no longer drum and bass. How restricting!

Similarly, working within the confines of the academy can also be too constricting because of its rather narrow definition of what constitutes "serious" music. I have very little patience with this.

I'm not interested in any of these definitions or artificial boundaries and restrictions. I think they are exactly what we DON'T need at in Western art music at the end of the 20th century. And unfortunately, I see MUCH too much of it around!

In saying this, I want to make clear that I am not attacking those who work within the music industry. How can I? I have commercially released albums out! I am also not attacking those working within academia. How can I? I teach at an academic institution myself! I'm merely pointing out the shortcomings I see within each of these areas...

OK. Time to stop being negative. Please allow me to say something positive!

As an independent composer, what I attempt to determine is how to best use the new sounds and forms available to us in a way that isn't mere appropriation through digital sampling or analog extraction, but that directly engages their source in a way which transcends original musical meaning while at the same time imploding it, to such a degree that meaning is no longer possible or even desirable, but rather exactly the reverse: to initiate a rite of decimation of musical meaning and thought in order to partake of the fascination which results from daring such a thing.

In short, I am in favor of making a conscious rather than subliminal effort to use the new musical forms and extended vocabulary available to us, and to launch an investigation into the nature of this freedom itself.

OK, time to get off my soap box! I just wanted to say hi to everybody. :-)

All the best,

Rhys Chatham

Paris, 12 X 99