Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Notes
Volume
1,
Number
2,
June
2011
Michael
Pisaro
Jason
Kahn
Simon
Reynell
Adam
Sonderberg
Jeph
Jerman
Published by Compost and Height Please do not reproduce content without prior permission from contributors.
wolf
notes
Contents
Michael
Pisaro
6-
11
Prepared
Piano
(sketchbook)
Jason
Kahn.12
-
32
Notes
on
Unheard
Delhi
Adam
Sonderberg.33
36
Tick
Mark
Studies:
Ramones
-
Ramones
(Sire,
1976)
Simon
Reynell...37
-
40
Thoughts
on
not
being
a
musician
Fantastical
Zoology.41
42
By
Jeph
Jerman
Cover
Image..43
Trevor
Simmons
How
can
we
outsmart
the
sense
of
continuity
That
eludes
our
steps
as
it
prepares
us
For
ultimate
wishful
thinking
once
the
mind
has
ended
Since
this
last
thought
both
confines
and
uplifts
us?
John
Ashbery
An
object,
a
space,
an
infinite
number
of
measurements.
Wolf
Notes
is
an
attempt
at
an
open
platform,
each
individual
is
free
to
refashion
the
composition
devised
in
our
approach,
we
initiate,
they
initiate.
Found
in
juxtaposition,
in
harmony,
at
the
base
and
summit
of
potentiality.
An
openness
is
inescapable
within
any
media,
it
is
to
be
embraced,
to
be
realised.
All
and
any
degree
of
interpretation
will
fall
within
myriad
rooms
of
disposition.
So
to
inhale
and
exhale,
to
move
towards
a
positive
sense
of
production,
Wolf
Notes
in
its
totality
is
hope
to
the
impossibility
of
maximum
openness.
This
work,
and
the
works
contained,
are
not
objective
fact,
they
are
in
a
constant
flux
of
interpretation,
of
feedback
and
feedforward,
we
respond
by
not
responding
by
responding.
Patrick
Farmer
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
&! '!
+
&$
+
&& '& (&
+
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+
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10. The pianist recites into the piano, at a pulse of 5 seconds per number, all of the numbers in his address book. 11. A sound is selected and played on the piano 84 times in a row. This is done once a day at the same time, from December 12 to March 5 (March 4 in a leap year). 12. A long rope hangs straight down from the ceiling, directly above the piano. (It does not move.) 13. Five Rooms Ceiling by Turrell. Walls by Mauser. Mirrors by Reinhardt. Space by Martin. Piano by Lewitt. 14. A repertoire: Embryons Desschs by Satie (played 4 times daily). One page selected each day at random from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Beethoven String Quartets; or, once in a while, a Bagatelle. John Cages Sonatas and Interludes (played without preparation). Im a King Bee. Poems by Robert Creeley. Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. The Goldberg Variations. The Coo Coo Bird. 15. They find an old, dead piano, and clear out the insides. They fill the body with evergreen needles, continuing to replace the needles with fresh ones as they turn from green to brown. 16a. Main Street. 16b. The Village Green. 16c. The Library. 16d. The Train Station. 16e. The School. 16f. Shop Windows. 16g. Lights. 16h. Your street. 16i. Your house. 16j. Your room. 16k. Good night. 17. The wound strings, removed from the piano and unwound, are strung together, the direction of the line changing each time a new winding is addedthis is a path through the city. 18. She will have disabled one hammer in the central octave of the piano and then played the entire Well-Tempered Clavier I & II.
19. We have found a way to add one tone between E and F. (Not a microtone.) 20. A white roomfour walls, a ceiling, a floor. No shadows; light filling the space. In this room is a completely white piano of the exact dimensions of the room. 21. Zither. 22. Three pianos are lined up side by side. (The second is missing.) 23. Using your fingernail, you lightly scrape the lowest piano string, starting at the end of the string farthest away from the keyboard, moving towards the keyboard, once per second, allowing extra time to maneuver through the supports. (Pedal down.) 24. He will have placed a microphone gently on the piano strings, turned it on, keeping the amplifier at low volume. Waiting. 25. One morning the doorway was obstructed by a toy piano. 26. She played one or two pieces at the piano of 2 to 5 seconds length every day. Most involved two or three note clusters played in an ascending or a descending series. There was occasional vocal accompaniment. (for Cocoa) 27. The piano imagines a greater or final piano. It believes that in the future there will be a piano that exceeds the potential of present day pianos. All one hears now is faint singing. Someday there will be a piano of pure singing, the pianos idea of itself. 28. A film of a piano, projected on a pinkish-white screen. The music comes from behind the screen. Shown at the Champs-lyses theatre with the lights on, the film is barely visible. The music, played on a broken violin, is barely audible. Someone leaves in disgust: This is not a piano. As reported in the Paris papers the next day, the showing was attended by at least 100 people, 14, or no one at all. A riot did or did not ensue. Refreshments were or were not served. 29. One note played on a piano with the pedal down. All the other strings resonate in proportion to their proximity to the original. 30. They imagine, in as much detail as possible, the notes Eb and E, as played on the piano. After five minutes, they play these tones. They repeat this until they can anticipate every sound to be heard. 31. Two pianos are in precisely the same place at the same time. In the next moment, they are gone, and there is nothing but a shimmering of the air. 32. The very sophisticated machinery perceives exactly when the chord begins and exactly when the chord ends. No words will have been used to describe the precise duration. 33. We live in the distance between the beginning of the sound and the hearing of the sound, says Antoine.
34a.
All
pianos.
34b.
The
pianos
of
America.
34c.
This
piano.
34d.
Not
a
single
piano.
34e.
(blank)
It
is
not
yet
named,
but
is
always
there.
35.
The
piano
is
a
single
material,
which
for
its
use
requires
division
into
secondary
materials.
Its
sounds
are
those
of
material
unfolding
in
time.
Time
only
carries
them
to
the
full
extension
of
the
material.
Beyond
this
lies
an
area
uncounted
by
time.
36.
(Materials)
Sound
1
Sound
2
Sound
3
Sound
4
Sounds
1
and
2
Sounds
1
and
3
Sounds
1
and
4
Sounds
2
and
3
Sounds
2
and
4
Sounds
3
and
4
Sounds
1,
2
and
3
Sounds
1,
2
and
4
Sounds
1,
3
and
4
Sounds
2,
3
and
4
Sounds
1,
2,
3
and
4
37.
From
88
possible:
!" (! !( #$ "& %* %# () #$ $# #% $% #* ($ &) !# %$ ( %* !! (* (' %& ") &' %% ( &! (# (" "$ #* !' "$ )& $( $# & $) "# !% "* $" ($ (! #$ $# &$ !$ !& "& ## #( %* !" $) (& )( $# #' "( )# (! #) "& $# &$ $( #& !( %# "! ($ "% (( #" #" $( "# #) )( ## !! $' %# %) %# "!
38.
Left
hand:
F,
Gb,
B,
e.
Right
hand:
g,
bb,
gb1,
ab1.
(Or
any
other
sound.)
39.
A
piano
is
something
to
touch.
(to
John)
Michael
Pisaro
is
a
composer
and
guitarist,
a
member
of
the
Wandelweiser
Composers
Ensemble
and
founder
and
director
of
the
Experimental
Music
Workshop.
Several
CDs
of
his
work
have
been
released
by
such
labels
as
Edition
Wandelweiser
Records,
Compost
and
Height,
confront,
Another
Timbre,
Cathnor,
Nine
Winds
and
others,
including
most
recently
"transparent
city,
volumes
14",
an
unrhymed
chord,
hearing
metal
1,
A
Wave
and
Waves
and
"harmony
series
(1116)".
He
has
performed
many
of
his
own
works
and
those
of
close
associates
Antoine
Beuger,
Kunsu
Shim,
Jrg
Frey
and
Manfred
Werder,
and
works
from
the
experimental
tradition,
especially
John
Cage,
Christian
Wolff,
James
Tenney
and
George
Brecht.
10
11
The piece works on several levels, perhaps the first being that the interviewees come to reflect on the sound environments of the city in which they live. Many of the people I interviewed had great difficulty in answering the question. The idea of a favorite sound, let alone any sound at all, is fairly alien as this seems to be a topic most people don't think about, especially in Delhi where the sheer density and volume of sound often makes ignoring the surrounding sounds a prerequisite for getting through the day. If someone does think about the sounds of their city then it is inevitably the sounds which disturb that come to mind. Asking about the sounds which please is therefore a double challenge. On another level, the answers provided by the interviewees creates a kind of sonic map for me to find my way through the city with. These peoples' sounds lead me through the city, in search of where these sounds occur and on the way I quite naturally encounter other sound
12
environments which I otherwise might have never come across. Finally, the sound of the interviewees' voices provides another image of the city in which they live. Not only do the recordings of the sounds they designated but their voices themselves lend a sonic mirror to the greater urban soundscape in which they live. My hope is that people hearing these pieces will also come to reflect on the sounds of the places in which they live, and not just the sounds which disturb them but also the sounds in which they find solace, shelter or joy. As a side note, it occurred to me much later after finishing the piece that the word sarai translates in Hindi to An enclosed space in a city or beside a highway. Where travelers and caravans can find shelter, companionship and sustenance. A tavern, a public house, a meeting place. A destination and a point of departure. A place to rest in the middle of a journey. For many of the people I interviewed it was clear to me that the sounds they chose created for them a space of shelter, a sense of companionship or even a place of destination, where they would go for enjoyment or rest. In this sense, Unheard Delhi is not just about sounds but about social spaces and how sound contributes to the creation of these spaces. In the following texts I give the name of each interviewee, their vocation, an excerpt from their interview and notes about how the recordings of their sounds were made. These texts follow the order of the final version of Unheard Delhi.
13
1. Alankar (student) People coming out on the streets marching together, trying to bring out a collective voice, sound. Alankar's sound designated a collective space symbolized by the sound of people demonstrating. As such, this meant that I had to find a demonstration in Delhi. In fact, there are often demonstrations in Delhi but, like many things in India, it is not easy to find out when or where they are. As a side note I should mention that I was in Delhi with my partner and three of my children (at that time ages three years, six years and seven months). This made me far less mobile and flexible than if I had been in Delhi alone. We often all trooped out into the city together, the whole family in tow behind me, searching for these sounds. And it was often a matter of pure luck or coincidence that I managed to find the sounds to be recorded. In several cases, the sounds designated by the interviewees were already sounds I had recorded during our previous wanderings through the city, in which case I didn't have to seek these out. But this was seldom the case. But in Alankar's answer I was presented with a particular challenge. Time was also very short for this project. I was only in Delhi for around one month and I was not just producing Unheard Delhi but had given a concert (of recordings made in the city) and exhibited a new installation. Some of the interviews were done near the beginning of my stay, which gave me more time to record the sounds, but some, like Alankar's, were made closer to the end, which put me under additional time pressure to find the sounds. I would've rather had the luxury of many more leisurely wanderings through the city, but this just wasn't possible. The recording used for Alankar's answer was made one day before our departure, near Connaught Place in the center of New Delhi. We were actually in search of gifts to bring back for family and friends and were on our way to a huge emporium for traditional handcrafts. As we came closer to the emporium, I heard the sound of what seemed to be a demonstration in the distance. The sound was loudest right in front of the emporium but no demonstration was in sight, though police in full riot gear with automatic weapons stood at each corner of the intersection. It finally dawned on me that a demonstration in another part of the city was being transmitted at a blaring loud volume over loudspeakers mounted on each corner of the intersection. It was strange to think that this was the demonstration I had looked so long for, but in fact, it was a demonstration, albeit a disembodied one. The police were there, the traffic was snarled and people stood around on the street, as if waiting for the demonstration to appear around the corner any second. The best place to record this was right next to a group of police, who kept eying me suspiciously. Although my recording equipment was rather unobtrusive, I still felt a sense of dread. My worst fear was to be questioned and to have my equipment confiscated. Even worse was the idea of losing this recording which I had searched so long for. In the end everything was OK.
14
2. Shweta Upadhyay ( journalist) During that gap between wakefulness and sleep you really feel like you are connected to something beyond. This was a case of me having already recorded a sound which an interviewee had chosen. Shweta Upadhyay responded with the sound of the muezzin's morning call to prayer. Like Alankar, her sound connected her to a specific space. In this case not of protest but a sense of spirituality infusing that place where one is neither awake or asleep. Near the beginning of my stay I had made an early morning trip to the Jama Masjid, Delhi's main mosque and one of the city's most important cultural and historical sites. I sat on the steps leading up to the main entrance and the muezzin began to sing. For anyone who hasn't experienced this, it certainly does have an otherworldly feel to it, instantly transporting one to another place. During my time in Delhi I never left the house without my recorder and microphones clipped to the collar of my jacket or shirt. I was constantly recording and on this morning at the Jama Masjid I was able to capture the sound of the muezzin, though I hadn't been planning on recording this. Many of the sounds chosen by the people I interviewed had a certain clarity to them, the ability to cut through the dense environment of Delhi's sound fields and create a space of their own. The muezzin's call was like a knife, penetrating the relative early morning stillness of Old Delhi. I also experienced this call later during the day and, surprisingly, it still had the same effect, piercing through the city's wall of noise.
15
16
3. Iram Ghufran (film maker) That delicate crackling kind of sound. Iram Ghufran was responsible for Sarai hosting me and I spent a lot of time speaking with her about her experiences with sound in Delhi. It was initially very hard to interview her as she couldn't think of any sound whatsoever in the city which pleased her. Her initial response to my question was, The sound of my hard disc when I turn it on each morning, which I couldn't quite accept as an appropriate answer as this sound could have occurred anywhere in the world where she might have had her hard disc with her. Although another interviewee (Chandrika Grover, see below) gave a similar response about the sound of water flowing from her tap, I considered this as more specific to Delhi and therefore pressed Iram for other sounds. In the end, she actually gave me more answers than I could use. It was as if once I planted this idea, something which she admittedly never had given much thought to, the trickle became a flood. Her first answer was then the sound of food frying at a roadside stand. I loved her description of this sound and how it created this sense of intimacy and shared experience with all people who came from Delhi. I just couldn't for the life of me imagine how I would be able to capture this in a recording. Aside from the fact that the city was virtually always too loud to record something this quiet, I couldn't see getting close enough to the frying food to record it even if I did by some miracle find a quiet place with a food stand. A few days later after her interview I was going through recordings I had already made in the city and stumbled across the very sound she had described! This had been recorded on my early morning trip to the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi (see above). On my way to the mosque I stopped at one of these stands to drink some chai. It was still dark and the city was very quiet. A man was preparing samosas and pakoras in the hot oil. I drank my chai standing very close to the frying food and was thus able to record this sound, though at the time I remember being more entranced with this early morning atmosphere than with the sound of the frying food, which was in fact more a byproduct of the whole recording experience. I think this was one of my favorite recordings of Unheard Delhi.
17
4. Chandrika Grover (director of Pro Helvetia New Delhi) When you turn on the tap in the morning and water flows from it, it's sweet music to my ears. Chandrika's answer was at once very simple and for me very understandable. In the short time living in Delhi we had experienced daily water problems. Water came from a reservoir on the roof pumped by an incredibly loud and old water pump, which more often than not did not pump or, rather, only pumped in the mornings, but not in the afternoons. And then only one of our bathrooms in the apartment had water flowing to the toilet and one to the sink, and the water heater wouldn't always fill...and so on. Chandrika's answer made more than perfect sense for me! And, of course, our problems paled in comparison to those many people in Delhi who perhaps didn't have any running water at all. Living in Zrich, where crystalline rivers gush from the mountains and lakes, one easily takes for granted the value of water. But in Delhi, even in the more affluent parts of the city like the one we were staying in, the availability of water is a daily uncertainty. The sound of water for Chandrika therefore defined a state of mind and a portent for the day's arrival. I made this recording in our apartment on a day when the water was in fact running. I only had to make sure the water pump was off before starting the recorder!
18
5. Ish Shehrawat (musician) You can really enjoy these complete moments of silence and complete chaos. Ish was one of the interviewees who I didn't have to prod for an answer. Maybe because he is a musician or maybe because he was born and raised in Delhi, but he seemed to have no problem in connecting with what I was after in my interview. His first answer referred to the parks in Delhi, which created a context and a contrast to the city's magnificent chaos. For him, it was important to have these quiet places to reactivate the process of hearing again. The city's dense, churning sound environment tends to blot this out. Though I'd have to say that, like Ish, I also found a certain sense of enjoyment in the city's noisiest areas. There was something incredibly invigorating, when not at the same time utterly taxing, of being in the Chawri Bazar Road in Old Delhi on a weekday afternoon with the streets too full to move through, clogged with rickshaws, taxis, the odd cow and this incredible mass of humanity inching its way forward through the dust and exhaust fumes. I felt at times like I was trapped in a television tuned between stations, spewing white noise and an endless flicker pattern of snowy static and abrupt glitches. Finding a place to record Ish's sound proved to be no problem at all, as right around the corner from where we lived was the Kamla Nehru Ridge Forest, a huge national park full of monkeys and dense clusters of screaming birds. Being somewhat of an anomaly for Delhi, the park was often full with joggers, hikers or people picnicking. It was therefore somewhat difficult finding a quiet spot in the park which could somehow capture what Ish was referring to. During the recording the birds gradually grew in intensity. At first my presence frightened them away, but after a few minutes they seemingly decided I posed no threat and resumed their chorus at full volume. Near the end of the recording you can hear a man in the distance singing on a squeaky swing.
19
20
6. Iram Ghufran (film maker) They go on making the sound and it's dying in all the noise that is around it. In her interview Iram discussed one of the archetypal problems in urban sound environments: the drowning out of small, more subtle sounds. Here she was referring to the bell on the bicycle rickshaws. Although I would tend to agree with her in general about these small sounds getting drowned out, I would in particular disagree with her about the rickshaw wallah's bell. Even in the noisiest depths of a hopelessly traffic-clogged Old Delhi street, these bells always seemed to magically appear, ringing clearly above the din. I began to ask myself if there perhaps wasn't something in the design of these bells which made them specially suited to this most hostile of environments. If anything, I didn't hear them dying in all the noise around them, but ripping this noise asunder in the most subversive of ways, almost, it seemed, working on a subconscious level. I always knew to get out of the way when I heard the ring of a rickshaw wallah's bell. As with many of the recordings in Unheard Delhi, recording a rickshaw wallah's bell posed a number of problems. I couldn't imagine just recording this on the street, even if it was practically always going on. Registering this on a psychological level was one thing, but somehow transferring this experience to a recording was another. And I didn't feel right just walking up to a rickshaw wallah and trying to explain that I wanted to record his bell. Even if I did feel right about this I still probably couldn't have done it as most of these driver's don't speak much English and I figured it would be near to impossible to get my point across. In the end, I hit upon a very elegant solution. Every morning different vendors visited the courtyard of our apartment complex. There was a man selling bread, another man came with the milk, and yet another who brought vegetables. The vegetable vendor arrived on a large flatbed bicycle, piled high with all kinds of vegetables. And he had a bell, the same bell that all the rickshaw wallahs had. We had already gotten to know each other over the several weeks that we had been living at the apartment. I just came out one morning with my microphones and recorder and asked him if I could ring his bell a few times. He seemed to understand, or at least not care, and I made the recording. And then I bought our vegetables for the day plus a tip for his bell.
21
22
7. Priya Sen (film maker) It becomes like this little communal space. Priya Sen's answer really hit upon my idea of sound defining a social space. She chose not an unique sound but the sound of a place, a small roundabout near her house in Jongpur Extension, a quiet residential neighborhood in southern New Delhi. It was here at this rotunda placed in the intersection of four streets that people in her neighborhood met to sell their wares, wash and dry their clothes or to just relax and talk with the neighbors. The idea of recording an entire environment, as opposed to going for one particular sound or event really appealed to me. The trek out to her house proved to be another of our Delhi odysseys, consisting of a long train ride, a very long walk and a couple eating stops on the way. When we finally found the roundabout I was a bit disappointed. There was nobody there! No women washing, no people selling anything, not even anyone sitting there. We walked a bit further and found a small playground and let the kids relax and play for a while. I gave the situation some thought and decided to go back to the roundabout and make a recording. Maybe someone would arrive while I was there, maybe we were too early. I left my family at the playground and went back to the roundabout. It was still empty but I went ahead and took a seat and started the recorder. Almost as if by magic the vendors started to appear from different directions, circling the rotunda and calling out their wares. Neighbors walked by, staring at me curiously. A pack of stay dogs approached me cautiously and sniffed at my shoes. Nobody actually entered the rotunda but I did get the sense that it was the heart of this neighborhood, that sooner or later everyone converged here. The sounds I recorded represented the vortex of this small community and I felt that the recording, even if it didn't capture Priya's precise description, did impart that sense of this particular place.
23
8. Sajid Akbar (musician) Like a concentrated wave of sound of these people just enjoying these rides. Sajid Akbar contacted me out of the blue while I was in Delhi. He'd been to my installation at the Bhuta Gallery in the Crafts Museum and had a few questions about this. I asked if he would be interested in doing an interview for Unheard Delhi, to which he readily agreed. I only mention this here as one of the great problems facing me in producing this piece was finding enough people to interview, especially when working under such pressing time constraints. I had, in fact, interviewed several other people for the piece but some of their answers, though perhaps very interesting, for various reasons couldn't be recorded. For example, one person liked the sound of a specific truck horn that had actually recently been outlawed in Delhi and which therefore no longer existed. Or some people gave the same sound as others. The sound of trains, either their horns or of the actual train passing by, or of birds singing, were sounds several people mentioned. And then, some sounds I just couldn't track down. So, the more people I could interview, the better. But it was difficult to find enough people and to find the time to interview them. Delhi is huge and it sometimes took me well over an hour to meet someone to make a five-minute interview. I couldn't very well expect people to take time out of their day and come to me. I did manage to make several of the interviews which finally ended up on the piece at Sarai, which, luckily enough, was just a ten-minute walk from our apartment. Sajid's answer referred to the World of Wonders, an amusement park out on the absolute nether reaches of Delhi, in an area devoid of name, only designated as Sector 18. Which all sounded very mysterious to me. The train ride out there was really long, passing through vast swathes of Delhi slums, an incredibly dense landscape of tightly clustered apartment buildings and narrow streets packed solid with people. When we reached the Sector 18 metro station the scene outside was like a riot with this fantastically loud wall of traffic noise echoing between the road and the train station above. It took us around ten minutes just to cross the street to start on our way to the amusement park. Anytime we tried to cross a road in Delhi without traffic lights we were virtually like sitting ducks, but we miraculously always manged to avoid calamity. We continued on through what seemed like an endless area of shopping plazas and came to another perilous road crossing to a huge, even by Western standards huge, shopping mall. I felt like I was suddenly back in Los Angeles. The only difference was that in Los Angeles they would never have allowed such massive sound leakage from the mall's ventilation system. Two ten-meter air vents exhaled spent air from the mall's ventilation system. It felt like two jet engines warming up for take off, though the sound itself was much much deeper, fairly rumbling my stomach with its vibrations. We moved on and finally came to the World of Wonders which, as one might expect, was far from that. It was a rather sad affair. Something like an abandoned carnival attraction in a JG Ballard novel, re-animated by a small group of people who had survived some unspeakable calamity and, yearning for a connection to their decimated world, managed to get some rides and a semblance of wonder running again. Due to lack of visitors, many of the rides were not running. Luckily enough, though, one pendulum- like affair was working and people were riding it, yelling and screaming in ernst. This provided a
24
great recording, with their peals of laughter panning back and forth across the stereo field. I could very well imagine Sajid's amusement at passing this ride each day on his way to work, which was perhaps the greatest wonder of this sad amusement park.
25
9. Iram Ghufran (film maker) A sound which is really exciting, fun and just very vibrant. November is the month for weddings in Delhi and there is probably no bigger celebration for a family than having it's son or daughter joined in holy matrimony. Iram refers here to the baraat procession, which is when the bridegroom travels on a horse to the wedding ceremony at the bride's house, accompanied by his friends and family and a troop of drummers. I thought to myself, Great, this will be an amazing recording but where will I find this? When I asked around the inevitable answer was, Oh, everywhere. November is the month of weddings. But everywhere was for me nowhere in Delhi, as I couldn't find myself traipsing around the city on an endless search for a wedding procession. But then, as was often the case during our stay in Delhi, the answer came almost as if by magic. Someone from Sarai told me the day after Iram's interview that there would be a wedding right next door that evening. Incredible! Things started to get going around nightfall. I went back to Sarai with my daughter Josephine and we stood outside the bride's house trying to record the music, which didn't really seem to be happening yet. Suddenly, a huge roar of drums erupted and the procession spilled out on the street with horses, a throng of people in all their finery and several men bringing up the back with generators in tow to power all the lights. We stood by the side of the road and recorded the procession as it meandered back and forth between the bride's house and a Hindu temple not far away. The drums panned back and forth, receded in the background, pushed to the foreground. It was a pulsing mass of buzzing, snapping snare drums supported by deeper tuned dhol drums. As Iram stated, just vibrant.
26
27
10. Ish Shehrawat (musician) All the trains going by, taking out different intervals. It's almost like a song. I found it interesting how Ish tuned into environmental sounds as musical statements. It probably should have come as no surprise to me, as Ish is a musician, but then, I seem to know many musicians who wouldn't consider these sounds as musical. For me, though, Delhi proved to be one of the most musical cities I'd ever spent time in. And here Ish came up with a good example of a sound environment which probably only exists in Delhi. He had lived near a train station for some time and became entranced with the incoming and outgoing trains tooting their air horns. The description sounded great but I couldn't really imagine what this actually could sound like nor how I would be able to find this. I'd already been at the Old Delhi train station and, though there were in fact trains sounding their horns there, it lacked the density and clarity of Ish's description. Several days before going home to Zrich, we made our way to one of Delhi's classic tourist destinations, Humayun's Tomb, the so-called little brother of the Taj Mahal. After having a look at the tomb, we went down to the surrounding park to fly some kites we'd bought for the kids on a trip to Varanasi. It was a warm and windy day. I took a break from kite flying and went over to sit in the shade to cool off. Suddenly I heard in the distance what sounded like a train horn. And then another. I realized that this was the sound Ish had been referring to. The wind carried the sound of these horns over from the Nazrat Nizamuddin railway station, about nine kilometers away from Humayun's Tomb. It was in fact a beautiful sound, like a song and a bit mournful. Perhaps I had been reflecting on the fact that we would soon be leaving Delhi, a city which could in equal parts drive one crazy and be utterly captivating at the same time. This was another case speaking for never leaving the house without my recording equipment. Given the time constraints I was working under, I most certainly would have never found this sound no matter how hard I had tried.
28
11. Iram Ghufran (film maker) Every bell is like somebody praying, somebody asking for something. Iram answered here with one of the most ubiquitous sounds to be heard in India: temple bells. In an intensely spiritually conscious country like India, there are temples everywhere and most of them have bells. Even in the courtyard of our apartment building the neighbors had erected a small Hindu temple, complete with its own priest who spent the days there, sitting in a space not much larger than himself. And here again, an answer where a sound is appreciated not just for the pleasure of it in and of itself, but as a symbol of something else. As in Shweta Upadhyay's link to the muezzin's morning call to feeling you are connected to something beyond, so too do the sound of these temple bells represent a connection to a place or force beyond, something all powerful, benevolent and nurturing. Though in her interview Iram referenced this sound to a park near her house, I felt that the real issue here was the sound of the bells and what they represented, not the park near Iram's house where she sometimes heard these. And for this reason I decided to make the recording at a Hindu temple near our apartment. Once again I was amazed at how many of the sounds recorded for Unheard Delhi were either found in the neighborhood where we were staying or from sounds which I'd already recorded before the actual interviews had been made.
29
30
12.
Sadaf
Raza
(projects
organizer,
Pro
Helvetia
New
Delhi)
You
can
hear
when
the
city
is
still
not
up
and
awake
but
it
slowly
is
waking
up.
And
that's
when
you
hear
different
sounds.
Sadaf
Raza
was
in
fact
the
first
person
I
interviewed
for
Unheard
Delhi,
and
this
when
she
was
in
Zrich
on
a
trip
for
the
New
Delhi
office
of
the
Swiss
Arts
Council
Pro
Helvetia.
I
felt
that
this
recording
would
be
a
good
way
to
end
the
piece,
in
stark
contrast
to
its
beginning
with
the
storming
sound
of
people
demonstrating.
Sadaf
chose
not
a
specific
sound
but,
rather,
a
time
of
day
where
one
could
hear
different
sounds
at
all.
Much
as
Ish
spoke
about
being
able
to
reactivate
the
process
of
listening
by
visiting
parks
in
Delhi,
so
too
did
Sadaf
find
solace
in
the
early
morning
hours,
when
the
shops
were
just
opening
and
the
day
had
yet
to
fall
into
the
vortex
of
Delhi's
mass
of
nearly
17,000,000
people
trying
to
navigate
its
way
through
the
city.
Sitting
here
in
Zrich
as
I
write
this,
the
idea
of
being
able
to
hear
different
sounds
seems
like
nothing
remarkable.
I
can
hear
the
wind
blowing
through
the
trees,
kids
playing
down
in
the
courtyard,
a
street
car
rolling
by,
the
church
bell
ringing
out
the
time
of
day
and
birds
singing.
But
then
I
think
back
to
Delhi,
to
Connaught
Place,
which
is
the
area
Sadaf
gave
for
being
able
to
experience
this
early
morning
silence.
And
I
remember
now
that,
really,
aside
from
the
occasional
rickshaw
bell
or
the
piercing,
snarling
buzz
of
motorcycle
horns,
all
I
really
can
recall
of
this
place
is
a
dense
wave
of
traffic
winding
around
and
around
a
hub
of
seven
major
thoroughfares,
all
converging
on
a
circle
of
upscale
restaurants,
boutiques
and
tourist
traps.
I
like
to
think
of
myself
as
a
trained
listener,
which
means
I've
developed
a
sensibility
to
listening
through
years
of
practice,
but
in
Delhi,
and
perhaps
like
no
other
city
I've
spent
time
in,
my
so-called
trained
ears
often
came
up
empty,
try
as
I
might.
Perhaps,
though,
empty
is
the
wrong
word.
Maybe
overloaded
would
be
more
accurate,
as
the
density
of
this
city's
sound
environment
was
like
no
other
I'd
experienced,
just
in
terms
of
the
sheer
amount
of
different
sounds
potentially
happening
at
any
one
moment.
Of
course,
there
are
places
of
less
sounds
or
quieter
sounds,
like
the
parks,
but
these
are
few
and
far
between.
When
one
wants
to
hear
more
then,
as
Sadaf
so
astutely
summed
up,
one
must
be
up
at
the
crack
of
dawn.
Still,
I
found
Connaught
Place
early
in
the
morning
not
as
she
described
it.
Perhaps
I
wasn't
there
early
enough,
or
perhaps
the
city
has
already
outgrown
her
memories
of
it.
In
any
case,
I
decided
to
make
a
recording
of
this
early
morning
environment
not
far
from
the
Sisganj
Gurudwara,
a
large
Sikh
Temple
in
Old
Delhi
on
Chandni
Chowk.
I
had
to
make
several
trips
to
this
area
before
finding
the
right
time
and
place
to
capture
what
I
thought
best
represented
Sadaf's
words
of
being
able
to
hear
different
sounds,
but
when
I
finally
did
make
the
recording
I
knew
that
perhaps
more
than
anything
else
I'd
heard
in
Delhi
this
was
the
best.
Normally,
during
the
day
this
knot
of
winding
alleyways
and
narrow
streets
is
a
high
pressure
zone
of
every
conceivable
sound,
all
at
seemingly
full
volume.
Yet
in
the
early
morning
it
almost
felt
like
an
abandoned
city.
This
was
the
time
of
the
day
when
the
cows
wandered
listlessly
through
the
streets
and
the
snap
of
door
locks
clicking
open
and
store
shutters
being
rolled
up
thundered
like
explosions,
so
distinct
did
they
sound
out
in
contrast
to
the
slowly
waking
city
around
them.
And
precisely
these
were
some
of
the
unheard
sounds
of
Unheard
Delhi
which
I
had
been
looking
for.
31
Jason Kahn. Born 1960, New York, USA. Composition, installations, percussion, electronics. Based in Zrich, Switzerland. Exhibitions and concerts in museums, galleries, art spaces, festivals and clubs throughout Europe, North and South America, Australia, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa. Sound pieces for film, dance and radio. http://jasonkahn.net
32
The albums we love have it easy. If theyre within earshot they can luxuriate in the praisebe it ham-fisted, needlessly abstract or recklessly passionateheaped upon them. Its a relationship complicated primarily, if at all, by extra-musical associations: various and sundry hormone- and/or adrenaline-churning experiences involving love, loss, theft, success, or abject failure. I cant remember when I first heard the Ramones debut album, but my relationship with these fourteen songs is doubtlessly mirrored in the lives of countless other listeners of all ages, thereby rendering a rhapsodic appreciation of its power to excite, inspire, and transform largely superfluous (and also outside the purview of Wolf Notes). The Tick Mark Studies came about as an attempt to frustrate my experience with this and other beloved records. In the process, I hoped to interrogate my listening habits and, as a result, cultivate a new form of active listening. The following pages consist of two attempts to graphically represent all of the single snare hits present on Ramones. My idea of active listening consists of a passive body (usually sitting comfortably or recumbent) and active mind. By transcribing the activity of the snare drum, my body played an active role in listening, and this made for a physically tense hour. The resulting document draws inspiration from, and is indebted to, the visual aesthetics of Minimalism; it attempts to transcribe, embody, and acknowledge the aural and visual rigor that comprised the foundation of the Ramones masterfully executed craft.
33
34
35
Adam
Sonderberg
is
a
composer,
one-third
of
Haptic,
and
former
co-director
of
the
Dropp
Ensemble.
He
is
the
author
of
the
recently
published
American
Hours
with
German
Efficiency
(Entracte)
and
maintains
a
blog
by
the
same
name.
36
37
that if we really wanted to do something, wed do it anyway. Im sure that if wed asked for lessons, hed have happily paid for them, but none of us ever did, even though as teenagers we spent most of our pocket money on LPs and listened to music hard and seriously. I often say that not learning to play the piano is the biggest regret of my life, but I still struggle to understand why I didnt. * * * * * When my father had a stroke about 10 years ago, he knew exactly what was happening as he fell to the floor and started vomiting, but he didnt know if hed recover, be paralysed or die. In fact he regained virtually all his mobility remarkably quickly. My mother rang me and my brothers to inform us ten days later, when he was out of hospital and it was clear he was going to be alright. For ten days she hadnt rung because she didnt want to worry us and make a song and dance about something that might turn out to be nothing. Shes a musician, but she doesnt like to make a song and dance. I dont know if its just our family, or typical of a subsection of the middle class of my parents generation, or a feature of social life in a northern industrial city where Methodist attitudes linger even amongst non-believers, but you dont want to make a fuss or risk looking stupid by over-dramatising things. You get on with life, which usually involves serving other peoples needs whether as doctor, teacher or musician. And you instinctively distrust people who are showy or have pretensions. My mother plays music every day, but she hasnt ever composed anything. Shes content to play other peoples compositions, organise concerts and write programme notes about the works of great composers. Creativity is for other people a privileged few who you revere, but without being foolish enough to imagine that you might ever become one of them. They exist somewhere else London perhaps, Paris or Berlin or Vienna, but not Bradford. And they live another kind of existence: riskier, more precarious, and more prone to tragedy. Its a post-Romantic vision that I can critique intellectually, but is actually quite hard to shake off. I am after all my parents child; I run a CD label, recording and producing discs of improvised and cutting edge contemporary music, but I leave the creativity to others, not wanting to make a song and dance - or a fool of - myself. Singing and dancing: I pretty much stopped singing at the age of 12 when I decided I was an atheist. Thereafter I stood through the hymns at school assembly with my mouth firmly and defiantly shut. After my voice broke, I found that I could no longer hit the right note, so I stopped singing altogether for fear of sounding stupid. And dancing.well, I sometimes wonder if part of the reason I embraced avant garde music so fervently in my late teens was so that I wouldnt have to go to discos and either be a wallflower hanging round the edges, or else embarrass myself with my ungainly arrhythmic stumbling on the dance floor.
38
For
decades
Ive
told
myself
that
Ive
left
starting
too
late.
How
can
I
envisage
playing
the
piano
without
having
already
done
years
of
practice?
My
hands
will
never
be
supple
enough.
In
my
Methodist-infused
consciousness,
music
like
everything
else
worthwhile
-
should
be
the
product
of
hard
work
and
studied
application.
And
the
fact
that
I
like
atonal
music
shouldnt
exempt
me
from
many
hours
of
practicing
scales.
But
with
some
of
the
music
I
love,
instrumental
virtuosity
is
no
longer
important,
let
alone
essential.
Anyone
can
make
interesting
sounds
with
digital
electronics.
Then
it
becomes
even
more
terrifying,
because
theres
no
longer
an
excuse
to
hide
behind.
Whats
to
stop
me
composing
a
great
piece
of
electronic
music
except
my
own
mediocrity?
I
fear
that
Ill
be
found
out
and
just
confirm
that
Im
not
creative
at
all,
for
all
my
secret
hopes
and
pretensions.
Self-consciousness
and
timidity
are
mixed
with
sharp
self-criticism;
I
was
a
high
achiever
academically,
so
I
can
quickly
pick
holes
in
and
dismiss
any
creative
project
that
I
tentatively
try
my
hand
at.
[Hes
woken
and
has
stumbled
to
the
toilet.
Incontinence
would
be
the
ultimate
humiliation
for
a
man
whos
always
been
proudly
independent,
and
would,
Im
sure,
prompt
him
to
take
the
pills
that
would
end
it
while
my
mothers
away
playing
music.
Thats
why
she
wants
me
here,
so
I
can
refill
his
glass
of
grapefruit
juice,
and
keep
him
listening
to
the
radio
and
the
ticking
of
his
bedside
clock
until
shes
back
to
continue
the
vigil]
*
*
*
*
*
*
So
am
I
stuck?
Condemned
to
endlessly
serve
other
peoples
creativity
instead
of
exploring
my
own?
Its
all
too
easy
to
blame
my
parents
for
the
way
they
brought
me
up.
And
its
also
too
easy
to
chastise
myself
in
a
pattern
of
self-criticism
that
does
nothing
to
break
the
circle.
My
fathers
dying
is
inevitably
a
time
for
self-reflection,
and
perhaps
thats
the
jolt
I
need
to
start
doing
as
well
as
serving.
Im
already
55
and
the
clock
keeps
ticking.
Im
sure
that
at
first
my
voice
will
warble
embarrassingly,
and
my
early
steps
will
be
gauche
and
clumsy,
but
perhaps
its
time
at
last
to
risk
making
a
song
and
dance.
March,
2011
Simon
Reynell
has
worked
in
television
for
25
years,
mostly
over
the
past
12
years
as
a
documentary
sound
recordist,
in
2007
he
founded
Another
Timbre
Records
and
in
2009
curated
the
Unnamed
Music
festival
in
London
and
Leeds.
39
40
Fantastical
Zoology
by Jeph Jerman
I
would
postulate
an
animal
that
lives
at
the
far
reaches
of
the
atmosphere,
"hanging"
in
space
and
moving
by
electric/mechanical
energy
originating
in
its
thought
processes.
Doesn't
need
to
eat,
as
it
exists
in
a
state
of
not
quite
becoming,
a
nebulous
almost-form
caught
at
the
transition
stage
between
consciousness
and
form.
Very
difficult
to
see,
but
occasionally
they
do
dip
closer
to
us
and
can
be
witnessed
with
infra-red
cameras
or
goggles.
When
seen,
they
resemble
slightly
jelly
fish
without
trailing
tentacles
or
more
accurately
giant
cells
that
constantly
change
shape,
as
the
edges
are
continually
shifting
back
and
forth
between
thought
and
energy.
They
can
be
called
down
by
attracting
attention
to
oneself.
Jeph
Jerman
is
an
American
sound
artist
who
has
recorded
under
the
name
Hands
To
and
as
a
member
of
many
groups
including
Animist
Orchestra
and
His
Masters
Voice.
41
42
Trevor Simmons is based in South London, has a studio in Camberwell. More of his work can be seen at www.okya.co.uk/trevor_simmons Recent sketchbook work at www.mountainofsign.blogspot.com/
43
www.compostandheight.com
44