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  • Beyond Notation/Notation Beyond
  • Andrew Raffo Dewar

See <mitpressjournals.org/toc/lmj/-/21> for full access to LMJ21 and CD tracks, as well as supplemental materials. See <leonardo.info/lmj> for more information and resources.

  • Score for a Hole in the Ground
  • Jem Finer (bio)
Jem Finer : Score for a Hole in the Ground Recorded by Jem Finer in Kingswood, Challock, Kent, 2 May 2008.

Score for a Hole in the Ground is an indeterminate musical composition of unknown duration set in a permanent installation. In the heart of a forest in Kent, water dripping into a deep underground chamber strikes both tuned percussion and a pool at its bottom, the sounds rising up through a giant horn, standing 7 m above the ground (Fig. 1).

In a sense this piece can be viewed as the flip side to an earlier composition, Longplayer, and while both engage with time over long durations, Score for a Hole in the Ground seeks to exist independently of any human upkeep, depending on neither the longevity of any energy source nor technology, only on the ongoing existence of the planet and its weather systems. In contrast Longplayer, a 1,000-year-long composition that started its life as a computer program, demands attention in terms of energy and maintenance and, in seeking out forms for its survival, outside of the digital domain.

In the forest, among the trees, the horn's shape resembles the trumpet of an old gramophone or a giant lily, oxidized autumnal orange brown. The upright pipe is indistinguishable, from a distance, from the trunks of the surrounding beech trees. The sounds too blend with the forest, until the ear discerns something out of place and the eye resolves the horn as the sonic source. Weather changes the music. In a torrential downpour it reaches a crescendo, while drought renders it silent, save for the effects of the breeze gently brushing the instruments as it eddies around the chamber. It becomes one with the climatic forces of the forest.


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Fig. 1.

Jem Finer, Score for a Hole in the Ground. Location: Kingswood, Challock, Kent, England.

(© Jem Finer)

The chaotic nature of dripping water gives rise to complex variations in the composition, ranging from near silence to intricate shifting patterns running in and out of phase. This recording was made on 2 May 2008, in the rain, and one hears both sounds rising up from under the ground and the drumming of rain drops on the steel cover.

Score for a Hole in the Ground was the recipient of the P.R.S.F. New Music Award in 2005 and was made in collaboration with Stour Valley Arts. It is located in Kingswood, near Challock, Kent, England.

Jem Finer

Jem Finer is a U.K.-based artist, musician and composer. Since studying computer science in the 1970s, he has worked in a variety of fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music and installation. Between 2003 and 2005 he was artist in residence in the astrophysics department of Oxford University, making a number of works including two sculptural observatories, Landscope and The Centre of the Universe. He is currently working on a number of new projects continuing his interest in long-term sustainability and the reconfiguring of older technologies.

Contact: E-mail: <jemfiner@mac.com>. Web sites: <www.scoreforaholeintheground.org>; <www.stourvalleyarts.org.uk>.

  • Medium Size Mograph 1962
  • Gordon Mumma (bio)
Gordon Mumma : Medium Size Mograph 1962 Composed by Gordon Mumma, 1962. Performed by Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley, pianists. Recorded by George Cacioppo for WUOM-FM broadcasting.

The MEDIUM SIZE MOGRAPH 1962 is one of a series of MOGRAPHS—compositions for piano solo or various combinations of pianos. The first two title words indicate the length or size of the composition. The title is a pun on the word "seismograph" and includes the year of the composition. The structure of each MOGRAPH was derived from the P-wave and S-wave patterns of earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions during the early 1960s. The time-travel patterns of the P- and S-waves are different, but have similarities to the complex sound-reflection characteristics of...

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