Marcel Duchamp's Musical Secret Boxed in the Tradition of the Real: A New Instrumental Paradigm

Marcel Duchamfs Musical Secret Boxed in the Tradition of the Real: A New Instrumental Paradigm Letrta Sophie St?vance "A new box of Swedish matches, thatwe just bought, is lighter than an opened box because it does not make noise." ?Marcel Duchamp, Notes In 1913, Marcel Duchamp would become the first person to present common, everyday household objects as works of art. Following that historic moment of personal inventiveness, the phenomenon spread to become an integrated part of the artworld as awhole. The "readymade" figured prominently in paintings and sculptures, and was integrated in installations within themuseums and galleries ithad invaded. Yet if the use of the everydaymay be upheld as one of Duchamp's most important Marcel Duchamp's Musical Secret 151 initiatives, there remains nonetheless a territory in his work that remains unexplored in research: music (in general) and the instrument (in partic ular). John Cage once declared: "I more and more consider Duchamp as a composer."1 Indeed Marcel Duchamp did compose two musical pieces: Erratum Musical for three voices, and a version of the same piece for piano entitled The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even/Musical Erratum. Completed in 1913, the first piece was not discovered until 1934, when itwas published in The Green Box, a now legendary pam phlet of notes and projects that Duchamp had started in 1912. The second received itsfirsthearing only in 1973, as part of a John Cage ret rospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gathered together in Marcel Duchamp, Notes (1980), Duchamp's written reflections also reveal the existence of some surprising "magical sound effects"2 that are an integral part ofWith Hidden Noise (1916). Moneybox (or preserves): make a Readymade with a box containing something unrecognizable by its sound and weld the box.3 In 1916 inNew York, Duchamp exhibited an "Assisted Readymade," which consisted of a ball of string inserted between two brass plates that were joined in turn by four long screws. The mystery attached to this particular readymade derives from an unknown object placed inside the ball.With the exception of the artist's friend and benefactor who placed the object inside the ball, Walter Arensberg, no one knew what the object was?including Duchamp himself. Thus even for the readymade's creator, "the noise was then especially mysterious."4 Today, shaking the apparatus continues to produce a sound. But what is the real nature of the concealed object? And what are the consequences of such an act? This is not the place for a comprehensive study of music in thework ofMarcel Duchamp.5 But what may be accomplished here is an expos? of its more notable aspects, beginning with an examination of three con ceptual poles: the material (or exposed object), the immaterial (or hidden object), and the representation of sounds (or noise?) that arise from the sound effects generator inWith Hidden Noise. Two questions seem relevant to this discussion: how is immaterial sound made mani fest, and what are its effectson the artistic project as awhole? Iwill draw a map of the various effects created by this objet sonore or sound struc ture, which serves as the initial focal point for the musical landscape even though it eventually evaporates on the sonic horizon of thework. By way of conclusion, Iwill consider theways inwhich a fascination for 152 Perspectives of New Music this instrumental enigma affected subsequent artistic endeavors and ideas. While this article should in no way be taken as a systematic survey, it does build up a series of key references. As a secondary result, this article provides clarification of the concept of bruitism, mainly in order to bet ter delineate the various issues that catalyzed a radical change in the relationship between music and the outside world. There are issues of perception that cannot be ignored in this discussion, such as how the ear adjusts to increasingly intense sound phenomena?sonic structures that become progressively more extreme, and inch ever closer to reality.Out standing individuals and highly constitutive works of the new musical landscape provide the locus for this study, because these subjects and objects all fellunder thewatchful eye ofMarcel Duchamp, who, without warring, invested areas of music...