|>NEWland Expanding the Music > Everything is sound |
"My
very first group was called GERÄUSCHE
(NOISES). When a lot of people make noises, they become an orchestra.
If you bang a stone on linoleum, it's a solo-piece.
If you record these sounds on different tracks it becomes a composition.
Make as much noises as you want. If you organize
this noise, it is no longer pure chaos...and it can be turned
into music."
Every kind of noise is sound - every sound can
turn into music.
The discovery of the idea of the expanded sound and hearing was one of
the major requirements of all those upcoming experiments.
The obvious parallel to Beuys'
expanded notion of art, did certainly not arose by chance. Conrad
Schnitzler, owner of the 'Underground'-club Zodiak
and co-founder of such influential groups as Kluster,
Eruption and Tangerine Dream, initially came, as many of his colleagues,
from the fine arts and
was one of first students of Beuys.
[More on the ZODIAK club, it's artists and the Berlin-scene in the next chapter.]
A congenial predecessor from Italy: Luigi
Russolo, initially a painter and member of the Italian futurists,
built his own instruments
and wrote a number of polemic essays, published under the title L'arte
di rumori [The Art of Noise].
"We
really have enough now
from all those symphonies.
We receive much more pleasure, in weaving
together the noises of the railways and car-motors, the carriages
and the roaring crowds, as having to hear the "Pastorale" or the "Eroica"
yet another time."
Also for Kraftwerk,
whose origins lay far deeper in the "free" / experimental music, as Autobahn
a.o. later works would suggest, the liberation of the noises
and sounds was a crucial element
in the development of their music:
"Our
model, our aim is the entire
world of sound - with all it's noises. We receive our greatest
inspiration from everyday live. We want to turn everyday life into
sound.
We reflect this inspiration and turn it into music.
You can read music, language has a melody, phoneme's are musical sounds,
cars, trains and machines
can sing. Our idea was a combine
all those elements.
That is our electronic music."