2. The Electric Revolution extended many of the themes of the Industrial Revolution
and added some new effects of its own. Owing to the increased transmission speed
of electricity, the flat-line effect was extended to give the pitched tone, thus
harmonizing the world on center frequencies of 25 and 40, 50 and 60 cycles per
second. Other extensions of trends already noted were the multiplication of sound
producers and their imperialistic outsweep by means of amplification.
http://scoresimprovisationstexts.blogspot.com/2006/03/r-murrahtmly-schafer.
3. R. Murray
Schafer
R. Murray is a Canadian composer,
writer, music educator, and
environmentalist. He is perhaps
best known for his World
Soundscape Project established
during the late 1960’s and early
1970s, concern for acoustic
ecology, and his book, The Tuning
of the World (1977). He was
notably the first recipient of the
Jules Leiger Prize in 1978.
4. SOUNDSCAPE
A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in
context. The term was originally coined by Micheal Southworth and
popularized by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of
soundscape depending on discipline, ranging from urban design
to wildlife ecology to computer science.An important distinction is to separate
soundscape from the broader acoustic environment. The acoustic
environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources, natural and
artificial, within a given area as modified by the environment.
6. Schizophonia
The Greek prefix schizo means split, separated; and phone is Greek for voice.
Schizophonia refers to the split between an original sound and its
electroacoustical transmission or reproduction. It is another twentieth-century
development.
Schizophonia is a term coined by R. Murray Schafer to describe the splitting of
an original sound and its electroacoustic reproduction. This concept comes
from the invention of electroacoustic equipment for the transmission of sound,
which meant that any sound could be recorded and sent anywhere around the
world.
7. Radio: Extended Acoustic Space
Radio extended the outreach of sound to produce greatly expanded profiles,
which were remarkable also because they formed interrupted acoustic spaces.
Never had sound disappeared across space to reappear again at a distance. The
community, which had previously been defined by its bell or temple song, was
now defined by its local transmitter.
The radio has become the bird-song of modern life, the ‘natural’ soundscape,
excluding the inimical forces from outside.
8. The Shapes of Broadcasting
Radio programming needs to be analyzed in as much detailed as an epic poem
or musical composition, for in its themes and rhythms will be found the pulse
of life. But detailed studies of this kind appear never to have been
undertaken. The structural principles of such an analytical undertaking will be
developed in the rhythm and tempo chapter of part four, but it will not be
out place here to make a few general comments.
9. Sound Walls
Walls used to exist to delimit physical and acoustic space, to isolate private
areas visually and to screen out acoustic interferences. Confronted with this
situation modern man has discovered what might be called audionaglesia, that
is, the use of sound as a painkiller, a distraction to dispel distraction.
Walls used to exist to isolate sounds. Today sound walls exist to isolate. In the
same way, the intense amplification of popular music does not stimulate
sociability so much as it expresses the desire to experience
individuation…aloneness…disengagement.
10. Moozak
Moozak reduces music to ground. It is a deliberate concession to lo-fi-ism. It
multiplies sounds. It reduces a sacred art to a slobber. Moozak is music that is
not to be listened to.
By creating a fuss about sounds we snap them back into focus as figures. The
way we defeat moozak is, therefore, quite simple: listen to it.
11. Prime Unity or Tonal Center
In ear training exercises, R. Murray Schafer he discovered that students find B natural
much the easiest pitch to retain and to recall spontaneously. Also, during mediation
exercises, after the whole body has been relaxed and students are asked to sing the
tone of “prime unity” –the tone which seems to arise naturally from the center of their
being-B natural is more frequent than any other.
I have also experimented which this in Europe where the resonant electrical frequency
of 50 cycles is approximately G sharp. At the Stuttgart Music Highschool, I led a group
of students in a series of relaxation exercises and then asked them to hum the tone of
“prime unity”. They centered on G sharp.
12. The Electric Revolution has thus given us a new tonal center of prime unity against
which all other sounds are now balanced. Like mobiles, whose movements may be
measured from the string on which they are suspended, the sound mobiles of the
modern world are now interpretable by means of the thin line fixture of the
operating electrical current.
To relate all sounds to one sound that is continuously sounding (i.e., a drone) is a
special way of listening . In respect to this development there is an interesting
feature of Indian music might bear further investigation in terms of its relevance
for young people growing up in the electronic culture of today.
