FEB 08 | Noise and Music

---

Read Before Class

Discussion led by: N/A

• Script for “Symphony of Sirens” by Arseni Avraamov (WI p. 245-252)
• “The Future of Music: A Credo” by John Cage (available here)
• “The Art of Noise” by Luigi Russolo, 1913 (ubuweb PDF)
• “A Beginner’s Guide to Pro Tools” (customized for Cooper Film/Video students from the original blog post at radio journalism site transom.org.)

Optional:

• “Engineering Noise Abatement” from The Soundscape of Modernity by Emily Thompson (p. 144-157)

In Class

• Introduce Cooper’s sound effects library
• Discuss noise and the way it was rejected and accepted, aestheticized and modified by 20th century artists and composers
• Explore the percussive symphonic noise of Edgard Varése, the mimicry of Russolo’s Intonarumori, the actualities of Musique Concrete, and John Cage’s embrace of all sounds as inherently musical.
• Introduction to Pro Tools and CD-burning.

Screening

• Cage documentary from “4 American Composers” series
  (dir. Peter Greenaway, available on ubuweb)
• Varése – “Ionizations” (alternate version on ubuweb)
• Russolo – Intonarumori samples (on ubuweb)
• Schaeffer – “Etude Aux Chemins De Fer”
  AKA “Railroad Study” (excerpt on youtube)
• Cage – “Williams Mix” (excerpt on media art net)

Further Research

• Every New Year’s Eve at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, you can recreate “Symphony of the Sirens” thanks to their chief mechanical engineer and his collection of whistles. Seriously!
• Space Calculated in Seconds by Marc Treib. A book describing the Philips pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair (focusing on Poeme Electronique and the work of Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis, and Edgard Varése).
• An in-depth blog entry about Poeme Electronique.
• John Cage’s excellent book, Silence.
• In class today we introduce Pro Tools, the industry-standard  multi-track audio editor. Pro Tools has artificial limitations and an outrageous price tag, but media professionals still use it. There are free/cheap alternatives and some are also open source which is better in the long term.
  Free/Cheap Alternatives to Pro Tools:
• • Reaper (Win, Mac) is a multitrack editor that rivals Pro Tools. There is a fully-functional free trial that does not expire. (If you like it, buy it.)
  • Ardour (Linux, Mac) is a free open source multitrack editor. It’s a bit complex and daunting, but it’s also very powerful. Note that you are required to donate something ($1 is OK) before you can download the latest Mac version, so you need a paypal account.
  • Audacity (Linux, Mac, Win) is a free open source editor that makes sense if you just want to edit the length of something, or apply simple changes like loudness. I would not suggest using it for multi-track mixing, even though it does support such things.
  • Of course, you can use Garage Band, Logic, Nuendo or anything else.
• Burn (Mac only) is very similar to the popular CD/DVD burning app Toast, but free and open source.