Bettered by the borrower - copyrights and music composition

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1987 by John Oswald

HANDS-ON LISTENING

Sounding utensils, from the erh-hu to the Emulator, have traditionally provided such a potential for varied expression that they have not in themselves been considered musical manifestations. This is contrary to the great popularity of generic instrumental music ("The Many Moods of 101 Strings," "Piano for Lovers," "The Trucker's DX7," etc.), not to mention instruments which play themselves, the most pervasive example in recent years being preprogrammed rhythm boxes. Such devices, as found in lounge acts and organ consoles, are direct kin to the juke box: push a button and out comes music. J.S. Bach pointed out that with any instrument "all one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time and the thing plays itself." The distinction between sound producers and sound reproducers is easily blurred, and has been a conceivable area of musical pursuit at least since John Cage's use of radios in the Forties.

Just as sound producing and sound reproducing technology become more interactive, listeners are once again, if not invited, nonetheless encroaching upon creative territory. This prerogative has been largely forgotten in recent decades: gone are the days of Hvely renditions on the parlor piano.

Computers can take the expertise out of amateur musicmaking. A current music-minus-one program retards tempos and searches for the most ubiquitous chords to support the wanderings of a novice player Some audio equipment geared for the consumer inadvertently offers interactive possibilities. But manufacturers have discouraged compatibility between their amateur and pro equipment. Passivity is still the dominant demographic. Thus the atrophied microphone inputs which have now all but disappeared from premium stereo cassette decks.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

As a listener my own preference is the option to experiment. My listening system has a mixer instead of the one-choice-only function of a receiver; an infinitely variable-speed turntable, filters, reverse capability, and a pair of ears.

An active listener might speed up a piece of music in order to more clearly perceive its macrostructure, or slow it down to hear articulation and detail more precisely. One might the motifs of the Indian raga Darbar over Senegalese drumming recorded in Paris and a background mosaic of frozen moments from an exotic Hollywood orchestration of the 195Os, a sonic texture like a 'Mona Lisa, which, in close-up, reveals itself to be made up of tiny reproductions of the Taj Mahal."

During World War II concurrent with Cage's re-establishing the percussive status of the piano, Trinidadians were discovering that discarded oil barrels could be cheap, available alternatives to their traditional percussion instruments which were, because of the socially invigorating potential, banned. The steel drum eventually became a national asset. Meanwhile, back in the States, scratch and dub have, in the eighties, percolated through the black American ghettoes, for perhaps similar reasons. Within an environmentally imposed limited repertoire of possessions a portable disco may have a folk music potential exceeding that of the guitar Pawned and ripped-off electronics are usually not accompanied by users' guides with consumer warnings like "this blaster is a passive reproducer " Any performance potential found in an appliance is often exploited.