-
V. The Disc of Music and Nature: The Disc of Music and Nature
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
V The Disc of Music and Nature ⢇ The Disc of Music and Nature is now a virtual CD available at http://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/musicandnaturecd [52.90.181.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 12:32 GMT) The Disc of Music and Nature “To search for models in nature is . . . to seek the most eVective use of freedom, the measure of this eVectiveness being joy, whose conquest is one of music’s missions, and which is nothing but power over oneself and one’s things.” So writes François-Bernard Mâche in Music, Myth and Nature (Harwood Academic , 1992), one of a handful of existing books on our theme. Finding music in nature lures us into experiencing the echoing wonder of the world, how beautiful it can be, how much meaning can be heard in the most unusual of places. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with calling it power. I would instead prefer to think of it as a gentle sense of mastery: knowledge tempered by humility— admitting that there is only so much we can know. But without knowing exactly what they’re trying to tell us, we can play and improvise and make music with the world’s sounds. That’s the most at home music can make us feel. Any compilation cd is a risky aVair, a mixing and matching of excerpts and short cuts from many diVerent musical places and sonic worlds. Works of music can go on for many minutes or many hours, and certainly nature follows no rigorous clock like the bounds imposed by a seventy-four-minute disc. We want to surprise you and make you pause—draw you into disparate natures, places on earth where human song blends into the surrounding mix. Much of this music is constructed out of natural sounds, and the rest of it tries in various ways to interpret the Cagean dictum—to imitate nature in its manner of operation. Don’t sound like nature, but work like nature! Those who believe in a naturalized aesthetic might think the best music already does this. It will be up to you, the listener, to decide when the method works, and when it doesn’t. Close your eyes, turn on the machine, come to your senses. 1. Dawn Solo from Pied Butcherbirds of Spirey Creek Recorded by David Lumsdaine Of the hours of nature recordings I listened to for this project, this one truly stands out. It would convince even the staunchest skeptic that there are more than human musicians out there in the world. Why? This is a bird singing, but it sounds like human music. The pied butcherbird sings a recognizable melody, [ 231 ] david rothenberg ⢇ easily perceivable by human ears. Then he varies it slightly, returns to the theme, then changes it again, all with a logic and form that can easily be discerned . We don’t have to slow it down, speed it up, or change the pitch to grasp the tune. This bird is a musician. He’s improvising, playing around. We could join in. It’s music, pure and simple. Does it matter whether it is a bird or a flutist? Listening to it makes me feel part of nature. This piece convinces me at once that there is music in nature. If we admit this, we can partake in the wonders of the real world. Here is what David Lumsdaine says about this work: My soundscapes are studies in rhythm, harmony and texture in the sounds of the natural world. To use Lévi-Strauss’s convenient distinction, their essential stuV is raw as opposed to the cooked stuV which we usually call music. But to speak of anything as “a piece of music” is to indulge in a convenient fiction. Music is not a score on a library shelf, it’s not the sound produced by a piano or an orchestra or a computer. Music is an activity, a particularly creative way of listening. The words “composer,” “performer,” “audience” enable us to distinguish diVerent roles or perspectives within the context of this activity, but they must never distract us from the essentially creative contribution of each participant. For me, composing is usually the notation on paper of a listening which goes on “inside” my head. By contrast, these soundscapes are recordings of a very active listening which, we may say, has gone on “outside” my head. In the making and editing of these recordings I’m organizing my listening...