adventures in sound #1

UPDATE: THE CURRENT VERSION OF THIS EXPERIMENT CAN BE FOUND HERE.

…the [musical] score, the requiring that many parts be played in a particular togetherness, is not an accurate representation of how things are. These [composers] now compose parts but not scores, and the parts may be combined in any unthought ways. This means that each performance of such a piece of music is unique….The parallel in art is the sculpture with moving parts, the mobile. ~ John Cage

There’s an experiment I’ve been wanting to try for some time, but have only just now found a means for presenting. It may not be the most original idea in the book, but it was fun creating and then playing with. You can click the image above to check it out.

The basic idea is to have several small pieces of audio, of varying lengths and sounds, play randomly and loop indefinitely to see what types of atmospheres evolve as the pieces interact with each other over time, producing not only something unintended and spontaneous, but hopefully something interesting and engaging as well. The listener becomes active in the musical arrangement by their choice of sounds to include (hopefully all of them), and when they choose to start them…and if they choose to turn some of them off (though here again, the interesting things happen as all the sounds evolve and writhe together over time).

I recently attended an event that included the playing of crystal bowls, and found that the frequencies of certain bowls – each associated with one of our chakras – especially when played together, though not simultaneously, stirred great emotion and curiosity within me. The ringing, ending overtone of one bowl as another was struck or caressed for sound provided a unique soundscape of unexpected tones. The intermingling tones of three bowls in particular – those associated with the crown, solar plexus, and sacral chakras – created a sound I had heard in my head not long ago in a moment of rather serious spiritual reflection, and so you can imagine how surprised and delighted I was to hear it again in the actual outside world.

Accordingly then, I chose as my first three sounds for this experiment tones associated with those chakras. The ‘bowl’ sound is a sample of a Tibetan bowl on the musical note associated with the crown chakra, and the color of the tape it’s played on reflects that chakra also. With that information, you can deduce or discover the intentions of the other sounds and tapes of the experiment, though truly they are treated lightly and without a thought toward true accuracy. The eagle-eyed may notice that there are only six tapes/sounds, while the number of chakras we allegedly have is seven. That is true and intended. Perhaps you or the space you listen in can represent the missing seventh.

If you’re still with me here, and interested, the experiment may be found here. My hope is that it can not only be viewed as an interesting whatever, but that it may also be useful as background music for contemplative activities such as meditation, reading, writing, or painting.