Tag: Creative Sound Projects

Choosing John Cage’s 1951 composition Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2) may seem like a diversion from radiophonic art, in the sense of rather than being broadcast on the radio, it utilises radios themselves as instrumental objects to compose with his signature alchemical ‘chance operations’.

In our group discussions, a central pillar of conceptual thought that we gathered around continually was radio’s propensity for randomness. The way we consume media is increasingly granulated and fragmentary, radio’s segmentation and diversity of content can lead to a dissociative, schizoid experience when listening laterally. Just turning the dial once can take you from harrowing news to pop music and gameshows, sometimes on the same station. I see a similarity in Cage’s emotionally detached compositional technique, designed to circumvent conventions of taste and memory.

12 radios are operated, or performed, by 24 performers who follow a score instructing manipulations of volume, kilocycle and amplitude. The nature of performance engenders a total randomisation of content material. It is unpredictable and largely impossible, depending on location and time of performance, to preempt what sounds can emerge from the tuning static. This achieves Cage’s goal of the suppression of the artist’s will, his ‘chance operations’.

This sweeping collation of randomised broadcasts as subject matter is inspirational in our current collaborative work, reflecting our vantage point in a way; avoiding traditional perspectives of taste, we are exploring the volatile mix of the banal and horror in the contemporary, chaotic tapestry of media and radio. The selection of subject matter will be vital, and telling, so Cage’s method is perhaps the purest distillation of ‘chance operations’, and a portrait of radio itself.

As Robert Worby (2009) notes, a poignant aspect of the piece is the fact that it ‘will not be performable at all when analogue radio is switched off in a few years’. Despite the age of the reference, it is interesting to consider the relative short lifespan the composition has due to its dependance on rapidly ageing hardware infrastructure. In a sense, ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2)’ can not only never be performed the same way twice, but evolves in response to the changing availability, accessibility and sonic landscape of FM radio.

---

Bibliography:

Worby, R. (2009) Turn on, tune in: John Cage’s symphony for 12 radios. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/aug/06/john-cage-symphony-for-radios (Accessed: 24 February 2024)

Collectively as a class we created a series of Foley sound effect material applicable to a wide range of potential projects. We were instructed to crush a watermelon, simulate fire and scream. In doing so, we primarily learned the beginnings of how to operate, and communicate from, the studio control room.

Crushing, squishing and breaking the watermelon in various ways was meant to metonymically represent bloody, gruesome injuries. A major factor in effectively and succinctly communicating to the performers from the control room, was ensuring level checks were carried out consistently, and that the microphones were not moved after the fact. Despite how obvious it may seem, in truth it was a communication issue; the more people mingle around the issue of practically making progress in recording, the more explicitly directive studio communication must be.

The watermelon was first stabbed with a wooden stake, then smashed with a brick and finally slowly crushed with a log. Many experimental takes were recorded of varying intensities of attack and volume. A chief challenge was balancing the input preamp levels to ensure they were loud enough without clipping or distorting when the performers invariably changed the dynamics of their action. I came to somewhat preempt a rise in volume as the hits progressed, and adjusted accordingly.

In performing myself as part of the ‘fire ensemble’, the hinterland where practical recording capture meets the sheer faith of the psychoacoustic became apparent to me in a way I had not experienced before. We shook sheets for the whipping, rising and falling wind the draws the fire, and crushed uncooked noodles and tinfoil as the crackling of the fire. Using a stereo pair of AKG C451 B’s, microphone placement, and our placement in relation to them, was key in determining the realism of the sound. For instance, the brighter, crackling elements needed to be closer, and the flapping sheets further away. It was also significantly important to maintaining the illusion of wind, by flapping with irregularity and coordinating our group’s movement to rise and fall, so as not to sound like “laundry”. As Daniel R. Wilson notes (Knock Knock: 200 Years of Sound Effects, 2023, 07:40), ‘what sound effects can, and must do, is reproduce noises not as they necessarily are, but rather as they are usually noticed by the ordinary person’. The acousmatic perception of a sound decouples it from its origins, and is no longer source bonded. This is the most important, illuminative aspect I learned while performing and recording sound effects; to suggest the fundamental elements that constitute a perceived sound is powerful enough to trick the imagination, in essence, into realising the whole.

---

Bibliography:

Knock Knock: 200 Years of Sound Effects (2023) BBC Radio 4, 4 February

My primary working experience is in the construction industry, and in the trades, radio is a constant presence. DeWalt and Makita make radios specifically designed for use on site, and they become fascinating sonic objects. Thrashed around, dropped and caked in mud, they aren’t treated with the reverence the stolid kitchen or car radio are. They are mobile and very loud, the practice of listening far less selective and far more repetitive. BBC Radio 1 for 8 hours per day, 5 days a week brings madness and dark moods. With a building company manager I talked of radio’s importance in “temperature control”; subliminally for some, constant beats amplified the stress of each long day’s unique, high-pressure challenges. For many who labour, the listening experience of radio equates to a passive coping mechanism, an amphetamine to escape the working mind.

Do I agree with Bonnie M. Miller’s statement, “the pictures are better on radio”? Maybe? Radio encompasses a broad spectrum of programming. My gut reaction is no. The phrase, ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ comes to mind. The naked expository commentary and heightened emoting of actors in much conventional radio drama often breaks my immersion and pulls me out of the story, despite their unique necessity in describing unseen events and surroundings. Purely subjective, self-sufficient sound also creates distinct listening challenges; as Rudolf Arnheim (1936, pp. 139) observes, ‘the acoustic void, the silence in which sound is embedded, has less the effect of a background free of content than of a stage agitated with important events which, however, are withdrawn beyond the listener’s power of comprehension.’ How to balance these two aural spheres? Suggesting a sonic concept without losing the listener due to obscurity, or to too-strict linearity, is something I want to study more.

---

Bibliography:

Arnheim, R. (1936) Radio. Translated from the original German by M. Ludwig and H. Read. Glasgow: R. MacLehose and Company Limited and The University Press Glasgow