This week we were shown a video of Pierre Henry, one of the godfathers of avant-garde electronic music and Musique concrète.
The film was called "The Art of Sound", Directed and Written by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet.
The most interesting part for me was Henry's appreciation for a) being creative and b)sound.
Following the film, Stephen played few excerpts of Henry's works, but to be honest the film and the environment in which Henry was/is working was more impressive for me.
The question that came to my mind while watching the film (and I can recall of other similar situations too) was the link (or rather HOW to link) influences and a work of art.It often happens that artists are influenced by elements outside their respective field of art. Taking Henry as an example, -according to Stephen- in one of his projects, he was influenced by Tibetan sacred literature. I guess one of the most important parts of education, particularly in universities, is to teach the ways of "being able to materialise ideas and influences". Not to mention it would not happen without a vision of financial survival as well!
Anyway, back to Monsieur Henry.. It was actually one of the first times I really enjoyed musique concrète! I think this IS the influence of the EMU.
PS: The photo is a futuristic representation of EMU Recording Space
References:
- Stephen Whittington "Music Technology Forum - Week 5 - Pierre Henry." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 3/04/2008.
6 comments:
QUOTE: "It was actually one of the first times I really enjoyed musique concrète! I think this IS the influence of the EMU."
Whether you realise it or not, you are being slowly assimilated into the EMU collective. Resistance is futile.
Musique concrète sounds so heavy.
"Being able to materialise ideas and influences" - a nice phrase. Where does it come from?
To me it's all about the merging of art and life, which is also the unity of thought and action. Pierre Henry is a great example of a man who has lived his life in this way and continues to.
To me it's all about the merging of art and life
But that is what all music is anyway. I struggle to identify musique concrete as music. I am willing to go as far as to call it art, but art that is no different than the mod art consisting of hammering oranges and sticking nails in cardboard. Music has soul, a spirit of its own. People can feel it, it moves them, even controls them. Electronic music doesn't have this essence. I believe it has to do with the organic nature of human likeability (if I can use that word) the feeling of warmth, comfort, love, hate, whatever. Machines don't have or feel these emotions. They are cold and inanimate and thus much like, and unfortunately, most of the music that is created from them.
Freddie, your contention that "electronic music doesn't have this essence" is, as I'm sure you realise, highly contentious. Does piano music have this essence? The piano is a machine, a product of industrialisation, with 27 moving parts between the finger and the string. Human warmth is found in the player, not the machine.
"Freddie, your contention that "electronic music doesn't have this essence" is, as I'm sure you realise, highly contentious."
I'll quickly rephrase that and be specific in my intention. I was refering directly to music concrete only, not the machines themselves that are used in music, but since you brought it up.... ;)
"Human warmth is found in the player, not the machine."
I completely agree 100%. I realise that this conversation will quickly lead into whether a tape recorder or any other machine such as a guitar or even a compressor has an essence or not. My quick answer is, no it does not. Just as a computer does not. If human interaction is involved to inject a sense of humanisation and emotion into the machine then yes, it sounds organic and dare I say, better. If a machine is left to it's own to create the music and is simply given a set of parameters to follow, whether they be random parameters or specific ones, the music will be missing that certain 'something' that only a human player can provide. It is even apparent in timing. Computers need to deliberately play out of time to get 'human' variances in the playing, but even this attempt at humanising still feels fake. This is just my personal taste, but that is why I can't stand techno or dance music. It is too perfect. I am not disputing that computers, or electronics in general, are not an essential part of todays music. They most certainly are. My view is that electronic music has a long way to go before it can match a human in creating its own 'soulfull' music.
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