PROFOUND
PLAY
christopher jette (2017)
www.cj.lovelyweather.com
PRECURSOR
IÕm standing offstage of
Bing concert hall, the three year old cultural
centerpiece of StanfordÕs Art complex. Beyond the four inch
wall in front of me, a sold out audience is waiting for the program to
commence, I am about to be the center of their attention at a sold out event.
Of course, I am a professional musician, this is concert and I am about to to do what it is that I do, Òorganize noises into a
compelling aesthetic statementÓ. I am being introduced by
composer, researcher and director of the Center for Computer Research in
Music and Acoustics, Dr. Chris Chaffe. My instrument
this evening is balloon and a push pin. I am part of
an elaborate team of musicians, acoustic researchers and artists. My role, at
this moment is to pop a balloon in order to concretize the process of
collecting a impulse response. I am a highly trained
professional about to impress upon this audience the wide spectral range of a
short burst of noise. I walk on stage and approach the single microphone at the
center of the stage. I place the balloon in front of me at an arms length and
draw back roughly one meter from the mic. Poised with
balloon and push pin, silence holds the tension of the room as I draw the pin
back and prepare to blast a brief transient of concentrated sonic energy into
the voluminous space. A high definition, slow motion stretching of time becomes
my reality as I lightly lift my arm in the motion of a string player cuing the
first note of an epic symphonic journey. My arm glides through space and I
focus the point of the pushpin toward the tense balloon surface, while a brief
last minute adjustment of the fingers in my opposite hand position the balloon
and make certain I have just the right angle. The pin
collides with the balloon, my elbows bow out slightly and glide upward
absorbing the impact of the metallic projectile with this volume of air. With
the weight of expectation from a concert hall of listeners and still wrapped in
a dilation of time where I can sense microseconds, I notice a gaping roughly
one centimeter tear in the balloon where the pin has torn the surface. The
explosive burst of sonic energy that has the ability to rapidly activate the
hundreds of square feet this hall encompasses has been replaced by an even more
dramatic, nearly inaudible, hissing. My staccato attack on the immensely tense
surface of the balloon has failed to produce a loud wrap and instead my instrument
has transmuted from percussive blast to an eerily lyrical slow hissing of air.
In the ensuing moment I have choices, where to turn,what to do, I was asked to pop a balloon and it is
not going well. I waiver slightly attempting to draw the
audience into the sublime nearly inaudible whistling of air escaping the
balloon. Then in an even larger gesture I punctuate my grand performance
with a second more vigorous jab that ruptures the balloon sending several
pieces of latex to the floor. The sound is nearly as unimpressive as the blackhole that has sucked the sonic energy from my
performance. I look up from my performative trance to
the laughing audience and think to myself, how did I end up here?
The larger event in which
I have performed my underwhelming sonic sorcery is a concert called The
Icons of Sound. A group of fifteen early music chant specialists are
performing a recent transcription of Byzantine chant within an electronic
recreation of the acoustics of the Hagia Sophia. I am
one of the many technical people who has contributed
to making a giant ambisonic reverb happen for this
concert. Before the concert, Chris Chaffe asked if I
would support his presentation by illustrating the Òballoon popÓ method of
exciting an acoustic space used for collecting an impulse response. This
multichannel reverb, with room correction, fifteen live inputs and deployed
over an ambisonic 24-speaker array is a significant
technical achievement. To explain the technical side of this setup, Dr. Chaffe takes the audience through the various aspects of
creating a convolution reverb and chooses to include an embodiment of some of
the fun that we have as artists/researchers, namely the balloon pop. This
decision to not only describe the cutting edge technical aspects, but to tease
out and embody some of the fun represents a choice on Dr. ChaffeÕs
part. His presentation locates the intellectual and technical challenges within
the larger emotional motivation, a joyful playfulness. It is this intersection
of technical and playful that inspires this essay.
EMOTIONAL ECOSYSTEM
This notion of fun as an
element that is embedded in the highly refined aesthetic creations that we
generate as composers is the elephant balloon in the room. To often, we dance
around the issue, holding fast to the rigor learned from critical analysis. We
create elaborate technical rationalizations that obscure the sublime joy
encoded in the DNA of our compositions. While there is a limited language to
discuss this, it is important to consider the importance of emotion in shaping
a musical composition. It will be illustrated later that notions of the sublime
and more generally the emotional, operate on a different level than the
cognitive/intellectual. In considering the sublime it is important to acknowledge
the range of emotions that manifest, from the positive to the negative. While
profound gravity and deep anguish are components of the human psyche they are
not the only aspects of human emotion that are embedded in musical
compositions. Humanities radical ability to find humor and joy in even the most
desolate depths of depravity and despair is a remarkable and important
component of the human condition. The goal of this article is to emphasize the
positive inclination of the human psyche and advocate for the acknowledgment of
this in both the consideration and creation of compositions. In order to
achieve a balance in the creative process, this focus on the felicity of music
making must act as the conduit for deep technical prowess and balanced critical
reflection. To be clear, technique and critical thought play an important role,
but it is part of an ecosystem of thought and emotional energy that is focused
and applied when composing, performing and curating music.
CRITICAL BIAS
Writing in Microsound, Curtis Roads notes
ÒIn academic theory, formal coherence is one of the most vaunted
characteristics of musical composition.Ó [1] This emphasis on intellectual
technique in the theoretical domain accounts for a bias. As composers,
performers and generally as artists, a high level of technical skill must be
continually exercised and refined. This attention to craft provides a vehicle
through which to articulate an acoustic imagination. What is sonically conjured
by the composer is a reflection of the times and the culture occupied. This
article is an attempt to step back from the proverbial technical trenches
and identify the importance and location of the emotional landscape. This
emphasis is undertaken in order to establish awareness and encourage consideration
of ways in which the practice of creatively organizing sound can evolve.
LOCATING EMOTION
ÒÉ in
contemplating the discovery, we are looking at it not only in itself but, more
significantly, as a clue to a reality of which it is a manifestationÓ. With
this statement, Polanyi introduces the notion of a tacit dimension
within the human condition and emphasizes the lack of a tangible location. This
conception posits the act of discovery as a surface which
provides access to an inner reality. This reality can be intuitively
understood, but it eludes intellectual segmentation and understanding. Polanyi
exemplifies this by pointing out that the performance of a skill occurs without
a specific awareness of all the muscular acts involved, Òwe can know more than
we can tell.Ó [2 p.4] This architecture serves as a blueprint for compositional
activity, where the skill of creating a new work arises from the interaction of
technique in organizing notes, gestures and structures, motivated by an
emotional underpinning. This emotional state eludes a precise knowledge
(Polanyi Òwe can knowÓ), the same way a
performer can not articulate particulars muscular combinations, except in vague
terms (Polanyi Òmore than we can tellÓ). This lack of a precise
understanding withstanding, people continue to devote large portions of their
life to practicing and developing facility as a performer or a composer.
PolanyiÕs tacit
dimension illustrates the implicit connection between the various layers of
compositional work and the location of emotion. The choice to narrowly focus on
such an elusive target as the emotions motivating compositional choices is
motivated. Emotional content of a work and the emotional state of a creator or
receiver has profound ability to shape perception. This perceptual malleability
can be understood as analogous to the way an instrument convolves with the
unique sonic character of a performance space. In the case of an acoustic space
we can spectrally decompose and analyze the frequencies of an impulse response.
With human emotion there is no technique analogous to spectral decomposition.
But just as descriptions of sound have evolved over time, from something
intuitive and suggestive to something quantifiable, so is our evolution of
emotion progressing. In order to orient creativity on a positive bearing, play
is a useful tool. Richard Serra notes, ÒThe freedom of play and its
transitional character encourage the suspension of beliefs whereby a shift in
direction is possible; play ought to be part of the working processÓ. [3] Using
play as a tool to remove the constraints levied by critical assumptions is a
way to engage positively in the creative act. In considering the social and
evolutionary impact of emotional content, it is important that these musical
decisions provide agency for the profound depth of joy. The notion of joy is
clearly articulated by the philosopher Sharon LeBell
ÒThis happiness, which is our aim, must be correctly understood. Happiness is
commonly mistaken for passively experienced pleasure or leisure. That
conception of happiness is good only as far as it goes. The only worthy object
of all our efforts is a flourishing life.Ó [4] The Òflourishing lifeÓ as goal
contextualizes the importance of continued research and development in this
area.
INCREASING HETEROGENEITY
An extension of this
discussion of positive emotions is the culture of composition and the lack of
diversity. McSweeney points out that the field of
composition is dominated by a culture of the Òcomposer as genius.Ó This
cultural position stifles the diversity of practitioners. Put another way,
composition Òshould acknowledge ways in which the traditional definition of composer
may exclude, intimidate, and alienate.Ó [5] Many compositional approaches are
rooted in trial and error along with notions of play. The positively oriented
emotional state that underpins play widens the definition of composition.
Indeed, play is a point of access to, as well as a component of the craft of
composition. This expansion of the definition of composition has the added
benefit of increasing heterogeneity of the compositional population by
welcoming those traditionally left out. Increasing diversity is a manifestation
of the type of growth that suggests a flourishing.
There is much to be
learned in discovering the ways in which composers and more broadly humans can
understand and influence emotional activity in the creation of music. It is
important to acknowledge the ways in which higher order compositional
activities can reveal lower level emotional structures. Recognizing the tacit
dimension provides a bridge to anticipating the ways in which a positive
emotional proclivity can not only be identified but
also manifest creatively. This positive orientation, facilitated by play,
increases the chances that composition will not only evolve but
flourish. As humanity increases the ability to quantify emotion it is important
for composers to recognize their ability to positively form culture.
CITATIONS
[1]
C. Roads, Microsound, MIT Press,
(2001).
[2] M. Polanyi, The
Tacit Dimension, Doubleday, (1966).
[3] R. Serra, If Not
Now, When?,
<http://archives.williams.edu/williamshistory/commencement/2008/serra.php>,
(2008).
[4] S. Lebell, The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Cirtue ,
Happiness and Effectiveness, Harper San Francisco, (1995).
[5] E. McSweeney, How Our Concept of the ÒGenius ComposerÓ Is
Hurting Everyone,
<http://www.artistshuddle.com/blog-2/2016/3/15/g4gcsxzky4gypw91zicvc5sudvnrjr>,
(2016).