Within
the world of music there are many genres. As a classification of genre, the
term “avant-garde” is used with broad strokes. The term is generally used as a
catch all phrase to mean from anything out of the norm to simply not in vogue.
This paper will investigate the meaning of avant-garde music as it pertains to
Russolo’s manifesto The Art of Noises.
I will present three very different musicians from the late 20th
century and relate their musical styles to Russolo’s vision of the music of the
future.
In particular, I will be discussing
the musical works of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and John Lennon. In this paper, I
will argue that although these three artists have distinct musical styles, that
all of them can trace influences back to the common themes that Russolo
outlined in his manifesto. I believe that by investigating this topic we can
see the evolution of Russolo’s concept, thus seeing how Russolo’s dream of a
new form of music has become a reality.
Luigi Russolo, in 1912, was inspired
by Marinetti’s description of the ‘orchestra of the great battle’. Following a
concert by Balilla Pratella in Rome in March 1913, at the crowded Teatro
Costanzi, Russolo wrote his manifesto, The
Art of Noises. Russolo argued for a more precise definition of noise. He
discusses that in antiquity there was only silence but, with the invention of the
machine in the 19th century, noise was born. He discusses how the
human ear has become accustomed to noise and the new industrial sounds of the
urban environment. Now, he said, noise has come to reign supreme over the
sensibility of men. In addition, the evolution of the music paralleled the ‘multiplication
of machines’.
Russolo’s
Art of Noises aimed to combine the
noise of trams, explosions of motors, trains and shouting crowds. Russolo
outlines the six families of noise, (e.g. roars, whistling and screeching). Russolo
had special instruments built which at the turn of a handle could produce such
noise. Russolo constructed rectangular wooden boxes, about 3 feet tall with
funnel shaped amplifiers, and contained various mechanisms making up a family
of noises: the Futurist orchestra. According to Russolo, at least 30,000 unique
noises were possible from his machines.
In
Russolo’s manifesto he ends with a list of conclusions. From Russolo’s eight
conclusions at the end of his manifesto, there are three major concepts that he
leaves us with. The first major concept is that the futurist musician needs to
take a conscious role in learning how to listen to the modern industrial world,
and find noises and sounds to incorporate into their compositions. Secondly, Russolo
speaks of how these sounds and noises will be put together by merging
nontraditional rhythms and tones together. Lastly, Russolo describes a future
where machines will be able to collect, create and reproduce any noise
imaginable. In essence, the manifesto gives a blueprint as to how Futurist music will be
created.
Obviously,
when Russolo wrote his manifesto there were no computers or synthesizers. Nor
were there any practical ways to record the world on the go. The three
musicians that I will be discussing had a vast amount of modern technology at
their fingertips in comparison to Russolo. Let us look at how Waits, Zappa and
Lennon used the technology of the day and how it would relate to the term Avant-Garde.
Although
Tom Waits’ roots were based in a tin pan alley, honky-tonk troubadour style he
eventually evolved a style onto himself. Tom’s departure from a somewhat
traditional style is clearly evident in his album Bone Machine.
To
fully illustrate Waits’ connection to noise music I will discuss his use of
digital audio transfer (DAT). With DAT, Waits finds it easier to record outside
of the traditional studio. Waits discusses how he would record in a storage
room that was not soundproofed and that if someone talked too loud in an
adjoining room, if a car passed by, or for plane passed over, it would become
part of the song.
Tom
Waits discusses his album Mule Variations.
In the song, “Big in Japan”, Waits explains that he actually made this intro
years before in a Mexican hotel room by switching on his tape recorder and
yelling and banging on a chest of drawers until it was reduced to kindling.
Waits was “trying to find the music in the chaos, attempting to make a simple
savage act sound like the styling’s of a hopped up band”.
To
solidify a unique percussive sound Tom Waits uses homemade instruments. Waits
discusses his new favorite instrument created by a buddy of his, which he calls
a “conundrum”.
“It’s just a
metal configuration, like a metal cross,” he explains. “It looks a little bit
like a Chinese torture device. It’s a simple thing, but it gives you access to
these alternative sound sources. Hit him with a hammer. Sounds like a jail
door. Closing. Behind you. I like it. You end up with bloody knuckles when you
played. You just hit it with a hammer until you can’t hit it anymore. It’s a
great feeling to hit something like that. Really slam it as hard as you can
with a hammer. It’s good and therapeutic.”
Frank
Zappa’s death in December 1993 ended a career spent mocking the commercial culture
in which he made his living. Zappa paid much attention to the technical aspects
of recording. Frank Zappa was a composer who refused to adhere to conventional
compositional ideologies, adopting instead a collage aesthetic. Frank Zappa was heavily influenced
by the inception of the multitrack tape recording. For him recording became “an
analytical tool, something that can freeze spontaneity and generate musical
instructions”.
Inspired
by Varese, Zappa thought of composition as the weighing of “blocks of sound”,
the manipulation of sounds from an external viewpoint. Zappa himself called his
music “junk sculpture”. Zappa makes music out of the everyday world of modern
existence. When Zappa toured, tape recorders ran on the bus, in the dressing rooms, in the
street. Snippets from these tapes wind up on the records. Not only were these
recordings used in his compositions, but they became a documentary collage
showing Zappa’s process of making music. Treating musical material
in a collage matter emphasizes its brute objectivity. It prevents us
interpreting it as personal expression, bringing Zappa’s music, for example,
closer to John Cage’s style of avant-garde music.
In
his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa
Book, Zappa states that one of his children posed the question to him, “What
do you do for a living, Dad?” In explaining his response, Zappa explains that he dislikes the trappings
of the traditional style of creating music. He discusses how writing
music down, or as he puts it “drawing dots”, is not for him. He discusses the use of
equalizers and compresses and have a concept of “blocks of sound” came into
common usage. Frank discusses the advent of digital audio and how it was able
to give the musician a cleaner and more controllable recording. Frank then
discusses the inception of computer systems able to loop and produce tones with
the touch of a button. The machines that he speaks of are more commonly known
as “drum machines”.
Zappa
then shares his views on the relationship between composer and musician, he
states, “A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting
air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians”. Similarly, Zappa
discusses intentionality saying, “If a musical point can be made in a more
entertaining way by saying a word then by singing a word, the spoken word will
win out in the arrangement – unless a non-word with a mouth noise gets the
point across faster.”
Finally,
in a section entitled “La Machine”, Frank discusses a musical instrument called
the Synclavier. The Synclavier is a computer that can take any sampled sound
and manipulated in any way the musician seems fit. With this machine any group
of imaginary instruments can be invited to play the most difficult passages
with razor-sharp accuracy, every time.
Throughout
his career, whether in his collaborations with The Beatles or during his solo projects, John Lennon was always
pushing the musical limits of his contemporaries. Arguably, one of the most
well-known musical compositions which shows Lennon’s creativity is the song Revolution Nine, found on the Beatles
“White album”. This song was produced with the use of backwards recordings and
tape loops that ran for just over eight minutes. Contrary to belief that Lennon
merely assembled random sounds for the song that in fact worked for two days at
Abbey Road preparing material for the recording that ran to five sessions. He
discusses the repeating of the phrase number nine taken from a sample of the
Royal Academy of music. Other pieces include orchestral overdub from the day in
the life sessions, backward mellowtron sounds, random comments, hysterical
laughter and various pieces from symphonies and operas. Revolution Nine was unique in that there was no melody, choruses or
lyrics. No instruments or vocals, and, to add to all this, no Beatles (or at
least no Beatles as ordinarily understood).
In
the studio, Lennon frequently engaged in technological experimentation, from
double tracking to tape loops. Random events were incorporated into songs, for
example, a radio broadcast of King Lear was mixed into I am the walrus, and
tape speeds were varied and often reversed. For example the guitar solo on Tomorrow Never Knows is actually the
solo of Taxman ran backwards.
Beyond
his works with The Beatles, we find
some of John Lennon’s most uniquely experimental works with his lover, and
wife, Yoko Ono. Through history, we find an evolution of John and Yoko’s
relationship, both personally and creatively. John found Yoko Ono’s avant-garde
approach to both her art, music and writings inspirational. In the book Lennon, author Ray Coleman describes the
story of how one night, John and Yoko dropped acid and fell in love. From that
night forward, John and Yoko embarked on a tumultuous journey of love,
experimentation, dissidence and finally tragedy. John and Yoko worked on
several pieces of experimental music together. These works finally compiled the
contents of the album “Two Virgins”.
Coleman
discusses how John and Yoko, in his upstairs den, took two tape recorders and
started experimenting together. Lennon had always experimented with sounds and
was interested in electronic effects and comedy. Yoko’s interest was the human
voice and extending its potential beyond the realms of orthodox singing.
“We
improvised for many hours.” Yoko Ono recalls.” He used the two tape recorders
and put through them any sounds that came into his hands, you know, all
recorded sounds. I sat down and did the voice. We were both involved in
enjoying the uncertainty of how it would all turn out. And that was it. We call
it the unfinished music. The idea is that the listener can take from it, or add
to it in his mind, or her mind.”
Russolo,
in his manifesto, frequently speaks of his thoughts on what music will become
in the future. Russolo states, “The art of noise must not limit itself to
imitative reproduction. It will achieve its most emotive power in the acoustic
enjoyment, in its own right, that the artist’s inspiration will extract from
combined noises.” I believe, that through
the examples I have described throughout this paper, that we are living in the
future that Russolo was dreaming about.
By
revisiting the three general concepts outlined by Russolo in his manifesto’s
conclusions we can see clearly how these three artists are falling closely in
line with Russolo’s dream of the future. We see all three of these musicians
sharing a conscious desire to push their music in further directions throughout
their careers. We also seen how each of these musicians have used
nontraditional rhythms, sometimes even the lack of, and experimental tones
along with found and contrived noises that they Incorporated into their
compositions. Finally, we see how they all have used the technology of the day
in creative and unusual ways to create unique creations.
For
a moment, think of what these three different events all have in common: A man
on the Moon, the splitting of the atom and the works of these three artists.
They all started out as a dream. Russolo’s manifesto was musical science
fiction. The ability to record anything anywhere, the use of endless loops,
technology that allows the creation of any sound imagined and the creation of
tireless musicians were the things of dreams to Russolo. With these tools at
hand, coupled with the creativity of these three musicians, I believe, Russolo
would have been just as impressed as when he listened to Balilla Pratella in
March of 1913.
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