SoundSpace Oscillations X : DRONE

Oscillations_X Drone Presentation and Research: Miguel Negrão In Depth Research: Pablo Sanz Almoguera www.friendlyvirus.irg/Zelub/drone.html

a possible deﬁnition The drone (bourdon) effect reﬂects to the presence of a constant layer of stable pitch in a sound ensemble with no noticeable variation in intensity. Linked to music in its designation (the drone is a permanent bass note over which other elements are laid), the drone effect can also be observed in urban and industrial soundscapes. Many technical systems generate constant sounds that are close to a drone, even if the frequencies concerned are not limited to the bass range that originally characterized it. Sonic Experience; Ed Jean-François Augoyard and Henry Torgue (p.40-46)

a possible definition What constitutes a drone? To begin, sustained intonation that establishes a harmonic center for its accompanying elements; the drone might utilize a single note repeated indefinitely or, at the opposite extreme, all of the scale's notes spread across numerous octaves. Other key aspects include extended duration, modular repetition, and a focus on overtones. Influenced by the music of India, Indonesia, and Africa, the drone form's oft-used alternate tuning (Just Intonation) and vertical concentration challenges the tacit supremacy of a Western tradition that prioritizes horizontal development. http://www.textura.org/newreviewspages/dronesarticle.htm

a possible deﬁnition • Drone: A continuous or quasi-continuous stable pitched sound.

Historical approach • Drone is probably quite old. • It’s present in many nature sounds like wind, ocean, etc. It’s therefore likely that these sounds were imitated by humans in ancient times. • Most vibrating objects stop resonating after some time. A constant or periodic energy intake is needed to keep a system vibrating, and therefore a drone playing.

Historical approach • Drone is present with more or less relevance in the music of most world cultures. • Integral part of Asian music, specially in India and Tibet. • Always present in european music, despite the ideological bias against it that appeared in the last 400 years.

Medieval Europe Lincoln Cathedral “Once upon a time there were enoumerous halls, which could be found in many cities, where it was possible to hear the raw blast of just intonation drone music under a cascade of multicolored lights. It was said by those who had visited these halls that this was the loudest sound in the world, and people crowded into these halls week after week, to be saturated in drones and light, and have ecstatic experiences. [...] There was no electricity in the cathedrals of medieval Europe, such as Nôtre Dame in Paris, where enormous pedal organs tuned to speciﬁc, harmonically related pitches accompanied drone or sustained tone based vocal recitations written by composers such as Leonin and Perotin, or the anonymous Gregorian chant masters. [...] the organs were vast, and the Cathedrals functioned as a resonant chamber that ampliﬁed the organ so that the space was saturated with rich overtones. “ Marcus Boon - The Eternal Drone The Trumpetts - William Byrd (1591) 1:00

Medieval Europe Hurdy Gurdy Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela “The hurdy-gurdy is essentially a string instrument with a circular bow which is able to keep a continuous sound going on many strings at once, which makes it somewhat equivalent to the bagpipes, the sound of which it mildly resembles. The ecclesiastical variety, called an organistrum, was anything up to ﬁve feet long and was manned by two players, the one turning the handle whilst the other manipulated unusual rotating tangents, apparently pressing them up against all three strings which are said to have been tuned to the ﬁfth and octave.” Introducing the hurdy-gurdy - Francis Baine

Hurdy-Gurdy

Medieval Europe Fiddle “The fiddle was the favored instrument of minstrels and troubadours in the Middle Ages. Its versatility made it suitable for monophonic dances, polyphonic songs, and self- accompaniment for vocalists. ”1 “While the drone is a familiar element in Medieval music it fell out of favour as the art of musical modulation advanced and the modern key system superceded the medieval modal system.” 1 - http://www.trombamarina.com/unprofitable/medieval_fiddles.htm 2 - http://ricercares.livejournal.com/2057.html

Europe- Folk Music • Drone is widely present in European Folk Music through instrument like the bagpipe, hurdy-gurdy, jew’s harp, etc.

Bulgarian Drone Singing Drone is an important technique widely incorporated into Bulgarian and Latvian vocal tradition, and is a quot;soundquot; that I suspect greatly contributes to the common vocal characteristics of these two cultures. [...] Unison voices can produce a quot;beatingquot; effect. [...] inevitably such voices hover around a target pitch without achieving an exact unison, so that the effect of many voices, each with harmonics of slightly different frequencies, is a slow beating. Acoustical Characteristics of Latvian and Bulgarian Drone-Singing Ilze Akerbergs the magic of rhodopa mountain - valya balkanska-izlel e delyu haidoutin 0:56

Southeast Asia Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Southeast Asia “In Southeast Asia one musical element concerning time is the concept of a vibrating medium which, in the suspended gong, the metallophone, the whole gamelan ensemble and other gong ensembles, is allowed to vibrate freely with one stroke, without further control of the ﬁngers, the hands or human volition. Unless the vibration is stopped, the gong will vibrate by itself [...] A sense of mystery pervades gong sounds associated with rituals, ceremonies and communications with spirits; [...] In these ensembles the indeﬁnite pitches of different sizes and types of gongs, drums and cymbals produce a variety of timbres. The pitches are lost in the harmonic series and what is left is a homogeneous blend of the sound and the pulse of the music. The pulse and the timbre make up the drone. They are the markers of time, not the pitch. [...]. This concept of drone differs from a drone in Indian music or ostinato in Western music, both of which are centered on pitch, rather than pulse or timbre. “ José Maceda - A Concept of Time in a Music of Southeast Asia Tidto a kamamatuan I - Pakaraguian sa Maguindanao - A Celebration of Kulintang Music and DanceDanongan Kalanduyan 00:53

Tibet Tibet - Various Artists - Mani-Rimdu-Cérémonie de Bienvenue - 2:00

North Indian Classical Music • Very old tradition, transmitted both orally and through texts. • Pervasive in indian life, in the small and big events of life, religious rites and seasonal festivals • The Raga, the basis of hindustani music, is based on combinations of notes selected from the 22 intervals in which the octave is divided. There are extensive and elaborated rules a raga must follow going back 500 years. • Each Raga is to be played at speciﬁc time of the day - Morning Ragas, Evening Ragas, etc. • The performance is a structured improvisation.

North Indian Classical Music The Drone The drone is an essential part of traditional Indian music. [...] Sometimes, it is provided by special instruments and instrumentalists; at other times, it is provided by special parts of the melodic instruments. Even many of the percussion instruments are tuned in such a way as to reinforce the drone. Regardless of what provides the drone, it serves a vital function. [...] It is the drone which functions to unambiguously establish the tonic. The continuous sounding of one or more notes provides the harmonic base for the performance. This not only clariﬁes the scale structure, but actually makes it possible to develop amazingly complex modes. These modal explorations are possible because of subtle, yet profound harmonic phenomena. These harmonic phenomena are very adequately explained in Helmoltzian terms. Different levels of consonance and dissonance result from the physical interaction of the tones of the melody with the tones of the drone David Courtney - Drones in Indian Music (www.chandrakantha.com)

North Indian Classical Music The Drone Ram Narayam quot;With the music of the Absolute the bass, the undertone, is going on continuously; but on the surface beneath the various keys of all the instruments of nature´s music, the undertone is hidden and subdued. Every being with life comes to the surface and again returns whence it came, as each note has its return to the ocean of sound. The undertone of this existence is the loudest and the softest, the highest and the lowest; it overwhelms all instruments of soft or loud, high or low tone, until all gradually merge in it; this undertone always is, and always will be.quot; Suﬁ Hazrat Inayat Khan - Indian musician and philosopher Raga todi (rec. 1968) - 1:23

Meanwhile back in Europe... Drone is semi-forgotten for some 400 years. It’s the pitch and rhythm lattice paradigm golden age.

The 50’s • Electronic music blossoms. • LSD’s effects are discovered (Hofmann, 1943). Many psychedelics forgotten for centuries in europe are rediscovered ( In 1957 Wasson becomes he ﬁrst westerner to participate in the Mazatec sacred mushroom ritual in Mexico). • Beat generation (Ginsberg tries LSD in 1959. Burroughs, with Schultes, experiments with yagé/ayahusca in the amazon jungle 1957) • LaMonte Young starts experimenting with long tones. (For brass, 1957) • Ali Akbar Khan performs in the United States in 1955, starting the popularization of indian music in the west.

The 60’s • Psychedelics become widely available, ﬁrst in the art scene and in colleges, then to general youth population. The beats “playing it cool” is substituted with the hippies “being cool”. • A renewed interest in eastern culture, philosophy and religion appears. Indian music becomes well know in the west. Musicians like Ravi Shankar and Pandit Pran Nath popularize the genre. • Synthesizers become commercially available. Electronic music becomes possible outside the traditional studios.

La Monte Young 1953-1960 • Raised in a rural Mormon family. As a child was already fascinated with wind sounds and the continuous chord generated by the hum of telephone poles, from which the pitches of the “dream chord” came. • Young first started as a jazz musician, playing in several jazz bands with musicians like Don Cherry or Eric Dolphy. Jazz’s emphasis on improvisation, was a big influence on Young’s work. • In 1957 starts studying composition, music theory and ethnomusicology in UCLA, Los Angeles. In UCLA Young learned and composed mainly serial music. • By this time he has already contact with non-western music, through the UCLA student Gagaku orchestra, and through North Indian Classical Music. An Early influence was the a record of Ali Akbar Lhan (sarod) and Chantur Lal (tabla). Young say’s the tambura drone sounds, played solo at the begining of the record had a profound effect on him.

La Monte Young 1953-1960 Trio for strings first trichord • During the serialist period, Young starts to experiment with sustained tones. For Brass (1957) contains already notes held for 20 or 30 seconds. The opening two pairs of pitches (G#, A, F#,D) form what the Young would later call the “dream chord”. • Trio for strings (1958) is the first clear minimalist piece by Young, and arguably the first composition ever made only with sustained notes. The piece was dismissed by most of his student colleagues and all teachers. In 1959 Young attends the Darmstad course, Stockhausen praises the Trio. Trio for strings - 1:23

La Monte Young 1960-1974 • At darmstad Young becomes interested in Cage’s ideas. Starts to incorporate change operations in his compositions, and use other kinds of sounds as the ones produced by friction (Poem form Chairs, Tables, Benches, etc). • In 1960 Young moves to NY, and becomes an inﬂuential ﬁgure of the avant- garde there. He makes a series of compositions in Fluxus style, many of them performed at Yoko Ono’s loft. By 1963 Young had detached himself from the Fluxus movement. • Young then started improvising on piano and sopranino saxophone with Terry Jennings on alto saxophone and Henry Flynt on violin.

La Monte Young 1960-1974 • The Four Dreams of China combines improvisation with long sustained notes. It’s based upon four chords and it was realized as a “group improvisation based on algorithmic scores which extrapolated particular characteristics of the chordal vocabulary it set out, and which provided both the materials and the structures from which those improvisations proceeded” - Keith Potter • He starts to use just intonation, since the drone aspect of his music made the subtle intervals between notes critical. Since the saxophone has a fixed intonation, La Monte finally dropped and started using mainly voice. The four pitches of the dream chord become the intervals 24:32:35:36. • In order to fully appreciate the inward structures of sound, and listen to the harmonic partials clearly, he starts using loud levels of amplification.

La Monte Young Theatre of eternal music • First line up of the T.E.M in 1963 - La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise and shortly after John Cale. Later Cale leaves and Terry Riley enters the group. Finally both Riley and MacLise leave and the initial group disbands in 1966. • The group performed sections of The Four Dreams of China and later The tortoise, his dreams and journeys. The performance was highly ritualistic: from 1964 onward Zazeela provided color lights and shadows; the musicians started to play before the public entered and ending after the public left, in order to stress the never ending time aspect of the drones. • Besides the voice, viola, saxophone and violin drones a huge gong was also used by Young and Zazeela, usually bowed with a double-bass bow.

La Monte Young Dream Houses “In Dream Music there is a radical departure from European and even much Eastern music in that the basis of musical relationship is entirely harmony. Not European harmony as textbooks have outlined it, but the intervallic proportions and acoustical consequences of the particular ratios which sound concomitantly in the overtone series when any simple fundamental is produced. Melody does not exist at all [...] unless one is forced to hear the movement from group to group of various simultaneously sounded frequencies derived from the overtone series as melodic because of previous musical conditioning. Even before the first man moved successively from one frequency to another (melody if you like) a pattern for this movement, that is the relationship of the second frequency was already predetermined (harmonically) by the overtone structure of the fundamental of the first sound. And in the life of the Tortoise the drone is the first sound. It lasts forever and cannot have begun but is taken up again from time to time until it lasts forever as continuous sound in Dream Houses [...].” La Monte Young Dreamhouse 78'17 - 1) 13 I 73 5-35 - 6-14-03 PM NYC 5:00

Pandit Pran Nath • LaMonte Young helped him move to America in 1970. • Served as a mentor for a whole generation of american musicians (LaMonte, Zazeela, Palestine, Riley, Hassel, Hennix) • Like all these artists he himself was an outcast of his culture.

Drone and Just Intonation INTERVAL BETWEEN F1 AND F2 = F1/F2 When all intervals in a tuning are of the form m/n where m and n are integers, then we call it a Just Intonation √ 12 2n Equal temperament F1/F2 = ONE OCTAVE PERFECT FIFTH HARMONIC SERIES 3/2 1 2 3 4=2*2 5 6=2*3 7 8 9 200Hz 400Hz 600Hz 800Hz OCTAVES 1 2 4 = 22 8=23 • Just intonation ampliﬁes the resonance of an instrument by making other strings, or parts of the instrument vibrate in sympathy. • The use of just intonation affects not only the pitches, and intervals being played but also the timbre.

Drone and Just Intonation 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 Hz 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 Hz 3/2 x 200Hz = 300Hz a perfect ﬁfth of 200Hz •In just intonation some partials are common to both notes of a perfect ﬁfth (3/2) interval. •In equal temperament the only partials that line up are octaves. •This doesn’t mean that just intonation is only used by anti-beats fundamentalists: “For me the great thing about just intonation is not that everything is consonant and beats don't exist, but that you have a tremendous range from having no beats at all to extreme WOWOWOWOWOW beat conglomerations. “ Kyle Gann

Terry Riley Important works: •Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band ” (1968) •Persian Surgery Dervishes (1971/1972) •Shri Camel (1980) Poppy No Good IV - 2:00 • Part of the T.E.M. • Became a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath. Has been playing and teaching Hindustani music since the 70’s. • Drone used more as background tonal anchor, in the style of indian Music. • All-night concerts: They would go from 10:00 till sunrise. Riley would play continuously for hours and hours, when a brake was needed he would playback saxophone loops he had recorded during the evening. Strobe lights and mylar screens were also used. Whole families with with sleeping bags attended.

Henry Flynt Tony Conrad Catherine Christer Hennix Jon Hassel Eliane Radigue

Henry Flynt • Classically trained violinist, self taught composer, became interested in jazz, country and blues in 50’s. • In 1960 quits his mathematics major studies in Harvard, meets LaMonte Young. • Coins the concept of concept art. • After a January 1962 recording session with La Monte Young, Flynt sent tapes to Nesuhi Ertigun at Atlantic Records, who replies, ‘This is the most original Important works: thing I have ever heard, and for that •C Tune (2992) •Raga Electric (2002) reason, we cannot possibly publish it.” • “C Tune” - an improvisation with Flynt C Tune - 1:00 on the violin and C. C. Hennix on tambura. A kind of “country drone”.

Tony Conrad • Part of one of the initial lineups of the Theatre of Eternal Music, with LaMonte Young, Marian Zazeela and Angus Maclise. •Introduced the Violin drone in the T.E.M. •Introduced Just Intonation to LaMonte Young. •Went on to produce several pieces with sustained just intoned tones on violin or strings like “Early Minimalism” , “four violins” Important works: and collaboration with Faust to release the •Early minimalism (1997) •Outside the dream syndicate (1973) record “Outside the Dream Syndicate”. •Inside the dream syndicate I: Day of Niagara (1965) (2000) “Our quot;Dream Musicquot; was an effort to freeze the sound in action, to listen around inside the innermost architecture of the sound itself. It had something to do with composition, since it became a commentary on the temporal site of the composer, in relation to the sound itself. We were announcing that the composer could sit within the sound, so to speak, and work with it as a plastic continuum extended in time along the same course, and at the same pace, as the listener. That is quite different from improvising on a tune, or using improvisational variation to elaborate sound patterns. The message here was not about indeterminacy, nor about immediacy, but about the control of sounds right there in your environment, and the process of composition as long-term growth of interests within that sound complex.” Tony Conrad Early Minimalism April 1965- 1:00

Catherine Christer Hennix •Swedish composer, studied in the tradition of Xenakis and stockhausen. •Meets LaMonte Young and Pandit Pran Nath in 1970 and studies with both during that decade. “While the use of the time lag in Riley’s works such as “A Rainbow in Curved Air” results in an experience of blissful, focused, samadhi-like calm, Hennix’s dronework has more in common with the chaotic fluxes of psychedelic experience or the mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism. This is a moving eternity, pulsating, shifting – something like a raga perhaps, insofar as a raga is a specific deity invoked into sound, shifting, fluttering inside the matrix of the drone.” Marcus Boon - Notes on Catherine Christer Hennix's The Electric Harpsichord Electric Harpsichord Nº 1 - 1:00

Eliane Radigue •Parisian composer, studied with Pierre Henry in the 50’s. •She starts to experiment with tape loops and microphone feedback. Pierre Henry didn’t approve of the minimal drone sounds she started to produce. •Uses analog ARP synthesizers and magnetic tape to create slowly pulsating pure drone sounds. •After suggestion that she investigate Buddhism, she converts to the religion and studies 3 years with a guru. Important works: •Trilogie de la Mort (1998) •Adnos (2002) “Radigue is one of the most perceptually disorienting composers I've ever heard, her exploration of inaudible subharmonics and overtones has a way of physically changing the landscape of the room her music inhabits, and it becomes difﬁcult to sort out what the reality is between what you're perceiving and actually hearing. “ Michael Klausman, Other Music Trilogie de la Mort - kailasha - 2:00

Charlemagne Palestine •Coming from sacred jewish music, meets Pandit Pran Nath at the end of the 60’s, and becomes his student in NY, but refuses to become a disciple. • Uses mainly piano and voice in ritualistic performances. After meeting Subotnick and Don Buchla also started using oscilators and synthesizers. •Explored both drone, repetition and the transition from one to the other. Important works: •Four Manifestations on Six Elements •Alloy Strumming music - 2:00 •Strumming Music (1995) “I asked him what had attracted him to back to music, after his concentration on sculpture. quot;Wherever I go now there are people who have heard about, or themselves heard things I once did. By the end of the 70s I found myself in direct competition with the commercial minimalism of Reich, Glass, Adams; lots of little cutesy New Age composers who were diluting minimal piano music to Richard Claydermann-like spiritual pissings; and the newer post-minimal rock scene. I still believe in the pure sound approach to minimalism. I would like the 'hidden history' (which is merely the unhyped history) to emerge, so that people can listen and enjoy and understand how this kind of music really evolved, and give listeners alternatives to these pompous operas and pseudo-minimal symphonies, and the pop wrestling matches between these overblown minimal pop gorillas. That's all. I think that given the right circumstances, I could again in a climate of pure spontaneous sacred spaces present and perform music and activities that would curl their hairs and knock their sacred socks right off their little sacred feetquot;.”

Phil Niblock •Arrived in NY in 1958 as a photographer and experimental ﬁlmmaker. Stimulated by the music scene in NYof the 60’s and with no formal musical training starts composing in 1968. • Most of his works consists of tape recordings of precisely tuned long notes played on traditional instruments in 4, 8 or 16 tracks. •Usually each piece makes use of several overdubs of the same instrument. Some works: •As collaborated with many musicians from very •G2 44 +/X 2 (2006) different backgrounds. •Touch Works (2000) •YPGPN (1994) “Niblock's music is an exploration of sound textures created by multiple tones in very dense, often atonal tunings (generally microtonal in conception) performed in long durations. The layering of long tones only very slightly distinct in pitch creates a multitude of beats and generates complex overtone patterns and other fascinating psychoacoustic effects. The combination of apparently static surface textures and extremely active harmonic movement generates a highly original music that, while having things in common with early drone-based Minimalism, is utterly distinct in sound and technique.” Sax mix - 1:00 Wikipedia

Ellen Fullman •Coming from a visual arts background, starts creating soundtracks for installations around 1978. • Inspired by Lucier’s “Music on a Long Thin Wire” starts developing the Long String Instrument. •The LSI consists of strings with effective lengths of 4m to 32m, tuned in just intonation which are rubbed with rosined hands. The strings vibrate in longitudinal mode instead of transverse mode. The strings end in resonators attached perpendicularly to the strings. •The compositions for the LSI resemble choreographies given the size of the instrument. Important works: •Margaret tuned the radio in between two stations - Time is measured in space walked by the “Immersion” (2000) performer •Body Music (1997) •Change of Direction (1999) •In last decade she has developed her own set of techniques and timbral vocabulary for the instrument. Margaret tuned the radio in between two stations - 5:08

Drone in the post minimalist era

Jim O’Rourke •Active in several styles of music as Jazz, Rock (part of Sonic Youth), Noise, Electronic Music, etc. Important works: • Collaborated with an endless list of musicians. •Mizu No Nai Umi (2006) •Happy Days (1997) •Produced artists as Faust, Tony Conrad, or the •Remove the need (1993) •Disengage(1992) more known Wilco. Mizu No Nai Umi - 1:00

Rafael Toral •O n e o f t h e m o s t p ro l i ﬁ c p o r t u g u e s e experimental musicians. •After some initial experimentation with written Important works: scores and chance operations, he shifted focus to •Harmonic series 2 (2004) •Harmonic series LP (2003) sculpting sound though careful manipulation of •Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance (2001) custom made electronics and guitar sounds. •Sound Mind Sound Body (1999) •His work is composed of very detailed electronic landscapes but also very delicate ambient drones. Harmonic series LP - 1:00

Carl Michael Von Hausswolff •“His main tools are recording devices (camera, tape deck, radar, sonar) used in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, architectural space and paranormal electronic interference. [...]Hausswolff's own sound works are pure, intuitive studies of electricity, frequency and tone.” (wikipedia) Important works: •Strom (2001) • Hausswolff often works with very low •Leech (2005) frequencies Also related: B J Nielsen, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, Jacob Kirkegaard, Coil, Keiji Haino, Keith Fullerton Whitman

Brendan Murray •Brendan Murray mainly concentrates on drones, relying heavily on ﬁeld recordings, but also guitar and synthesizer. Drones afford the possibly of focusing on multiple pitches at once without the quot;burdenquot; of traditional musical progression, That's what interests me the most.When I treat a speciﬁc pitch, I'm trying to draw out harmonic relationships that aren't immediately obvious, but reveal themselves as the listener pays closer attention. Brendan Murray Important works: •Commonwealth (April 2008) Commonwealth - 1:30

Drone in Rock

The Velvet Underground •John Cale played in the Theatre of eternal Music. After meeting Lou reed he was pleased to discover both had an interest in drone. Angus Maclise, another member of the T.E.M. joined the Velvet Underground. Important albums: • The sound of the ﬁrst album is characterized by •The Velvet Underground and Nico (1966) simple repetitive drumming, feedbacking guitars and viola drones. •In 1965 Andy Warhol becomes the band’s manager, and they start to perform at the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a multimedia trance performance. Venus in Furs - The Velvet underground and Nico - 1:00

Spaceman 3/ E.A.R Suicide - Live •Spaceman 3 (1982-1991) “This highly inﬂuential group’s minimal sound, characterized by droning guitars, softly sung/spoken vocals and sparse or monolithic drumming would be adopted by the shoegazing movement” (wikipedia) •After the end of Spaceman 3, Sonic Boom formed Spectrum, and later I was always particularly fond of simple music, ideally Experimental Audio Research. EAR is a collaboration project, with Kevin featuring a drone, or common note throughout the music. Shields and Eddie Prévost of AMM. Basically, one chord best, two chords cool, three chords ok, four chords average. Important albums: Spaceman3: •Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To (1990) Sonic Boom •Dreamweapon (1990) Experimental Audio Research: •Beyond the pale (1996)

My Bloody Valentine Important albums: •Isn’t Anything (1988) •Tremolo (1990) •Loveless (1991) •Debuted as an upbeat, 60’s style band from Dublin. Kevin Shields progressively introduced more distortion, delay and reverb elements until the band’s signature was a thick layering of sound, a wall of sound. The voices were blended with the guitars, becoming just another layer. When you use a lot of open tunings and you've got strings •Part of the “shoegazing” movement, but very much unique. that are close in terms of their actual tuning to each other, say you use a drone chord, because of the tension •Kevin Shields was interested in providing a very intense live experience slowly being altered any movement of the trem arm alters by the use of deafening volume, lights turned directly into the public and the pitch of each string by different amounts. They travel the bands dreamy torrent of guitar sounds. By the start of the 90’s each differently and that creates a real dissonance, a shaking, a concert ended with at least 20 minutes of guitar feedback and noise. blurring, pulsing effect. When you add distortion you start to get all the harmonics going against each other too and then suddenly resolving each other as the trem gets back to balance. Kevin Shields To here knows When - Loveless - 1:00

Sunn O))) • Highly inﬂuenced by drone/doom metal pioneers Earth, the band started in 90’s taking the name of the legendary Sunn ampliﬁers. “One of the two men at the front of the stage took hold of his guitar in a businesslike way and Important albums: played a single chord: a classic metal chord, a down-tuned A or C-sharp, outrageously bottom-heavy •Black One (2005) and distorted, not unlike the opening of Black Sabbath's quot;Iron Man.quot; That, however, was where the similarity ended. A full minute later — an impossible length of time by any conventional musical standard — the same chord was still building on itself in the packed, airless room, complicated now by a second guitar line and at least three overlapping waves of feedback. No drums had kicked in, no singer had appeared and if any heads in the crowd were banging, they were doing so in extreme slow motion. The music was unbelievably loud — so loud, in fact, that the sound waves made your rib cage vibrate like a stereo cabinet and your teeth literally rattle in their sockets — but the effect was somehow more meditative than violent. The overall experience was not unlike listening to an Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake.” JOHN WRAY - New York Times Orthodox caveman - Black one 1:30

Ambient Drone •Generous use of reverb - With huge amounts of reverb anything become a drone. •Less focused drone, more ethereal. SleepResearch _Facility Robert Rich Robert Henke “majority of his compositions Behind the creation of Ableton consist of evolving layers of Most known for his Sleep Live, he’s interested in drone manipulated noise and Concerts for live and radio and surround sound. He’s been mechanical drones. He audiences. These were involved in big outdoors and deliberately attempts to avoid experiments to inﬂuence the indoors surround concerts. any sonic elements which REM cycle with auditory would be likely to disturb a stimulus. Important albums: sleepy or sleeping listener, Signal to Noise (2004) [...]” (wikipedia) Important albums: Layering Budha (2006) Trance (1983) Important albums: Drones (1983) Nostromo (2001) Somnium (2001) SleepResearch _Facility - Electronarcosis 1:00

Phonographic Drone

Jean-François Laporte • Studied composition, in Montréal and in Ircam. He is an inventor of instruments, and looks for non traditional ways to use traditional instruments. • The piece Mantra, consists of the recording in one 26 minutes take of a cooling engine of an ice skating ring. The recording was rehearsed extensively, and it took some 200 takes to get the desired result. Important works: •Mantra •Soundmatters Soundmatters - Mantra 2:00

Eric La Casa Important works: •Air.ratio (2006) Other important albums/artist: •He records sounds of everyday noise sources as Charlemagne Palestine: 3 compositions for machines. ventilators or elevators and offers them for people Jacob Kirkegaard: 4 rooms (2006) to listen as music, or just as sounds. Alvin Lucier - Music on long thin wire •Air.ratio is an album with ventilator sounds captured at different buildings of Paris. Each air.ratio - 1:00 ventilator creates a very speciﬁc drone.

Some aspects of Drone Two clear different uses of drone: 1. As a tonal center: Hindustani Music, Riley, T.E.M. , Young, Conrad, Drone Rock, etc. 2. As timbral and harmonic evolution - there is nothing besides the drone: Lucier, Radigue, Niblock, etc.

Some aspects of Drone Drone ﬁlls the space. • Constant excitation of a physical space produces a drone. • Drone having an ambiguous position in time, is also in the same situation regarding space. It is therefore very well suited to surround sound.

Some aspects of Drone Drone suggest a different perception of time. Instead of a discrete succession of events, it suggests a ﬂow, a connection between every moment that has passed and every moment that will be.

Some aspects of Drone “I think that this kind of sense of time has to do with getting away from the earthly sense of direction which goes from birth to death, in other words, like developmental form, and has to do with static form and moving up into, by up I mean like vertically, as in Vertical Hearing, moving, then, up through the sound of a chord or the sound of a tamboura or the sound of an interval that’s sustained, using this to create a drone state of mind as I described. By using this to create a drone state of mind, it provides a means toward achieving a state of meditation or an altered state of consciousness that can allow you to be more directly in touch with universal structure and a higher sense of order. And that once one achieves this kind of state of consciousness, in order to maintain it, one is not trying to get back down to the earthly level and get back involved with directional, climactic form, developmental form, one wants to stay in this more static state. The drone constants are very supportive and allow you to use them as positioning points of reference, to remain aloft, so to speak, in this special state of consciousness and awareness.” La Monte Young

Drone and the Psychedelic experience • The use of psychedelic plants for a visionary ecstatic experiences is very old, at least 11.000 years old, according to archeological studies (La Barre), possibly as old as mankind itself1. • It was very important in shamanic religions, and probably all religions grew out of shamanic ones. • Evidence shows that at all times and places, man is constantly trying to achieve altered states of consciousness, either through the use of drugs, but also by fasting, thirsting, self-mutilation, sleeplessness, incessant dancing, etc. • The religious experience and the psychedelic experience might actually be the same thing, interpreted in different theoretical frameworks. Some argue that modern religions have “forgotten” about the actual use of psychedelics, and kept just the mechanical rituals that went with them: “...Given the right set and setting, the drugs can induce religious experiences indistinguishable from the ones that occur spontaneously” (Housen Smith, MIT) 1 - Hallucinogens And Culture Peter T. Furst

Drone and the Psychedelic experience • The psychedelic experience although more known for it’s visual effects, actually regards more the perception of time. • Time dilation occurs, an instant becomes an eternity, and vice-versa. Every minute change on the surrounding as a profound effect on the individual. • The narrative aspect of life, who we are, what we want to, etc collapses, only the now exists.

Drone and the Psychedelic experience • Almost all of the musicians involved with drone in the 60’s, and even after, had contact with psychedelic drugs, and attested to their importance in their work. • LaMonte Young commenting on the T.E.M and the use of drugs says, “we got high for every concert: the whole group”. On the drug experience he offers this: “ It allows you to go within yourself and focus on certain frequency relationships and memory relationships in a very, very interesting way”. He never performs the Well Tuned Piano without being high on Cannabis.

Drone and the Psychedelic experience Drone music, or a certain part of it, suggests the place in the mind one travels to when in the psychedelic experience. Both have the same slowing of time, the same ever present now, the blissful feeling of just being, the feeling of traveling through time just by the fact of existing and, at the same time, being caught in the moment.

http://www.20020.org	77
http://www.slideshare.net	5
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1

SoundSpace Oscillations X : DRONE

by 20020 on Feb 24, 2009

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 83

Statistics

SoundSpace Oscillations X : DRONE — Presentation Transcript