Sound Window

The aesthetic content of Sound on Cinema

2011-12-28T23:07:00.006Z

"In itself, accurately recorded sound adds nothing to the image system of cinema, for it still has no aesthetic content.
As soon as the sounds of the visible world, reflected by the screen, are removed from it, or that world is filled, for the sake of the image, with extraneous sounds that don't exist literally, or if the real sounds are distorted so that they no longer correspond with the image— then the film acquires a resonance."

Tarkovsky, in "SCULPTING IN TIME - Music and noise"

Pierre Henry or THE ART OF SOUND

2011-11-22T12:22:00.001Z

Experimental French composer Pierre Henry, one of the pioneers of musique concrète, is the subject of this documentary that traces his development of a new sound that shocked the music world. During the 1950s, the radical innovator and his colleague Pierre Schaeffer created a unique form of music based on electronically modified environmental noises.

Musical Polystylism

2011-08-17T12:58:00.002+01:00

Zorn has identified the composer of the sound tracks for many of the Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1940s, Carl Stalling, as one of his greatest musical influences:

"Carl Stalling is the most revolutionary in terms of musical time.
It does'nt have a development the way the other music have a development."

Reinvention of musical time and sound effects

2011-08-17T12:42:00.005+01:00

Merrie Melodies: Carl Stalling and Cartoon Music por CarlStallingEnthusiast

artisans of sound

2010-04-12T12:23:00.001+01:00

Making music with Soundscapes

2010-02-18T14:48:00.002Z

Rhythm

2010-01-27T18:54:00.002Z

Rhythm (from greek ῥυθμός – rhythmos, ("any measured flow or movement, symmetry") is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events.

(wikipedia)

What's that sound?

2009-07-12T22:07:00.005+01:00

"What's that sound?
Is it a noise?
Does it bother you?
Do you take this sound personally?
Can you take a sound or just listen to it?
Why interpret?
Is it less dangerous?
Scary?
Impersonal?
Why do you want to know the source of this sound?
Are you concentrating?
On listening?
Are you bored?
Are you interested?"

(Jeph Jerman)

http://www.kraak.net/displacedsounds/jephjerman.html

Music is always existing on space

2009-06-21T05:01:00.002+01:00

My material is audibility.

2009-04-18T23:41:00.001+01:00

My material is not sound.
My material is audibility.

While others work with sound
perhaps set a sound and than a pause
I set audibility then inaudibility.

Inaudibility can arise through various means.

Through quietness but also through loudness.
Through too low notes and through too high notes.
Through slowness but also throuh swiftness.
Through too little occurring but also through too much occurring.
Through too much closeness and through too much distance.
Through too short durations and through too long durations.
Through emptiness and through fullness.

Writings by Peter Ablinger

Prospero's Books, A TEMPESTADE

2009-04-08T17:52:00.003+01:00

Film is Rhythm

2009-02-19T23:49:00.003Z

A imaginação é um sonoplasta

2008-11-19T18:15:00.001Z

Dois grandes movimentos do imaginário nascem perto dos objectos: todos os corpos da natureza produzem gigantes e anões, o rumor das ondas enche a imensidade do céu ou o interior de uma concha.
São esses dois movimentos que a imaginação viva deve viver. Ela ouve apenas as vozes que se aproximam ou as vozes que se afastam. Quem escuta as coisas sabe bem que elas vão falar demasiado forte ou demasiado suavemente. É preciso empenhar-se em ouvi-las. Já a cascata ribomba ou o riacho balbucia.
A imaginação é um sonoplasta, deve amplificar ou abafar. Depois da imaginação se tornar senhora das suas correspondências dinâmicas, as imagens falam realmente.

In “ A Água e os Sonhos – Ensaio sobre a imaginação da matéria”, de Gaston Bachelard
(Trad. António de Pádua Danesi)

By the sweet power of music

2008-11-10T23:14:00.003Z

LORENZO

(...)
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

in "The Merchant of Venice", Act 5, by William Shakespeare

. . .

LORENZO

(...)
"Imagina um bando de animais selvagens,
Uma raça de potros novos por domar
Aos pulos e aos puxões, aos rinchos e aos relinchos –
Natureza do fogo que lhes vai no sangue –
Se por acaso um som de trombeta os toca,
Ou se um ar musical lhes sopra aos ouvidos,
Verás que simultâneos se quedam em série,
E os seus olhos selvagens se amansam num fito
Pela rédea da música. Por isso o bardo
Disse que Orfeu trouxe árvores, pedras e águas;
Já que nada há tão firme, duro e furioso,
Que a seu tempo a música não lhe altere a essência.
O homem que não traz em si nenhuma música,
Nem o move a concórdia de notas dulcífluas,
É dado a estratagemas, traições, e pilhagens;
Os impulsos do seu espírito são obscuros
E os seus sentimentos negros como o Érebo.
Não se confie em tal homem. Ouvir a música!"

in "O mercador de Veneza", Acto V, de William Shakespeare
(trad. Daniel Jonas)

Être vrai au théatre / The verity in the theatre

2008-10-23T16:47:00.006+01:00

"Réfléchissez un moment sur ce qu'on appelle au thêatre être vrai.
Est-ce y montrer les choses comme elles sont en nature? Aucunement.
Le vrai en ce sens ne serait que le commun.
Qu'est-ce donc que le vrai de la scène?
C'est la conformité des actions, des discours, de la figure, de la voix, du mouvement, du geste, avec un modèle idéal imaginé par le poète.
Voilà le merveilleux."

. . .

Reflect awhile on what in the theatre we call verity. Does this mean being true to life? By no means.
Verity in that sense would be more commonplace.
So what is verity in the theatre?
Is when actions, speech, facial expression, voice, mouvement and gesture are in harmony with with an ideal model imagined by the poet. Therein lies the marvel.

in "Paradoxe sur le comédien", Denis Diderot

Solfège de l'objet sonore

2008-08-29T01:13:00.001+01:00

Solfège de l'objet sonore (1967), by Pierre Schaeffer. Sound examples by Guy Reibel and Beatriz Ferreyra. Published by INA-GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), 1998-2005.
Narrator: Pierre Schaeffer.

Original in French with English subtitles.

There Is A Silence

2008-04-25T19:25:00.005+01:00

There is a silence where hath been no sound
There is a silence where no sound may be

. . .

Existe um silêncio onde nunca houve som
Existe um silêncio onde nenhum som pode existir

Thomas Hood, 1799-1845

Underwater Sculpture

paying homage to Portuguese guitar player - Carlos Paredes

2008-04-02T22:12:00.004+01:00

It's SPRINGTIME!!

2008-03-23T19:36:00.000Z

'You Must Believe In Spring' - a jazz piano lesson

O Dono do Mundo

2008-03-11T11:53:00.002Z

Não existe expressão mais concreta da potência do que a actividade do maestro.
O maestro considera-se o primeiro criado ao serviço da música.
O maestro está de pé.
A erecção da pessoa é uma lembrança arcaica que ainda desempenha um papel importante em muitas representações de potência.
O maestro está de pé sozinho.
A sua orquestra está sentada à sua volta, atrás dele está sentada a plateia com os seus ouvintes, apenas ele, de pé, ocupa uma posição marcante.
Encontra-se acima do resto, visível de frente e de trás.
À frente, os seus gestos agem sobre a orquestra, atrás, sobre a plateia.
As suas indicações, propriamente ditas, dá-as com a mão ou com a batuta.
Eis que, mediante um pequeno gesto, de súbito ele desperta e anima tal ou tal voz, e faz calar todas as que quer silenciar.
Tem pois um poder de vida ou de morte sobre as vozes.
Uma voz de há muito morta pode ressuscitar sob as suas ordens.
A diversidade dos instrumentos representa a diversidade dos homens.
A orquestra é como uma assembleia de todos os tipos humanos mais importantes.
A solicitude que mostram em obedecer permite ao maestro tranformá-los facilmente numa unidade, que passa então a representar então para eles, ante todos os olhares.

(...)

Mas eis o maestro.
O silêncio instaura-se.
Ele coloca-se em posição; arranha a garganta para aclarar a voz; levanta a batuta: toda a gente se cala e fica especada.
Enquanto ele dirige, ninguém se deve mexer.

Mal termine, as pessoas são obrigadas a aplaudir.
A necessidade de movimento, despertada e acrescida pela música, deve acumular-se até ao fim, mas explodir nesse momento.
É para as mãos que aplaudem que ele se inclina.
Para elas volta quantas vezes o quiserem.
É a elas que se entrega, mas só a elas, é para elas que vive.
O que assim colhe, é a antiga aclamação do vencedor.
A grandeza da sua victória traduz-se pela intensidade dos aplausos.

Durante a execução, o maestro serve de guia à multidão na sala.

As vozes dos instrumentos são as opiniões e convicções às quais ele dá extrema atenção.
É omnisciente, pois enquanto os músicos apenas têm diante a sua parte, ele tem toda a partitura em mente ou na estante.
Sabe exactamente o que é permitido a cada um a cada instante.

Pelo comando da sua mão, indica o que se faz e impede o que não se deve fazer.

Com efeito, para a orquestra, o maestro representa a obra inteira, na sua simultaneidade e sucessão, e como durante a execução, o mundo deve resumir-se inteiramente à obra, é ele que, durante esse tempo exactamente, é dono do mundo.

in "Crowds and Power", de Elias Canetti

Maestro Daniel Barenboim (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)

tone-painting

2008-03-10T12:42:00.003Z

I want you to listen to the opening movement of this wonderful piece about The Sea.
It is called "From Dawn to Noon on the Sea", and as you listen, see if you don't get the impression--the suggestion--of the absolute stillness of the ocean just before dawn, which sounds like this:
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]

Claude Debussy LA MER 1st movement"De l'aube à midi sur la mer"performed by Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado.

then you will hear, I say, hear, the first spooky rays of light:
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]
You see what I mean by a suggestion of rays of light? Then you will hear the first faint cries of sea birds:[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]and then the waters begin to stir and rock as the first breeze come up:
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]
and then as the movement goes on, you will hear a bright new sound from the cellos and the horns which is like the sudden appearance of the sun over the horizon:
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]
You see how golden that is? And from there on the music grows in power and color and movement, until at the very end the sun has climbed to the height of noon and hangs there, blazing in space.Now this is a great moment of musical painting that Debussy has made with his last chord of this movement, by suddenly taking away all the high notes and all the low notes from the chord, and leaving only the brass chord hanging there in the middle like a ball of fire in the middle of space. Just listen:
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]
Isn't that a marvelous image, you can almost see the sun shining there like a big ball. Now here is the first movement of Debussy's great tone-painting, La Mer - From Dawn to Noon on the Sea.
[ORCH: Debussy - La Mer]
Isn't that a marvelous piece of tone-painting? And that's just what it is--painting for the ear instead of the eye. But now let's get down to the really interesting part and find out just what Debussy does to get these strange, new sounds of impressionism. I say new sounds, even though they're 50 years old or more; but they've become so imitated in American popular songs and Hollywood scores and record-album arrangements and what not that these sounds seem to us like the normal, every-day sounds. And yet, compared to the sound of Bach, Beethoven,and Brahms, they're absolutely new, brand new, and in the hands of a master like Debussy they sound as fresh today as they did 50 years ago.

in "What is Impressionism", by Leonard Bernstein

Arte Poética / Art Poétique

2008-02-22T16:54:00.003Z

Antes de qualquer coisa, música
e, para isso, prefere o Ímpar
mais vago e mais solúvel no ar,
sem nada que pese ou que pouse.

E preciso também que não vás nunca
escolher tuas palavras em ambiguidade:
nada mais caro que a canção cinzenta
onde o Indeciso se junta ao Preciso.

São belos olhos atrás dos véus,
é o grande dia trêmulo de meio-dia,
é, através do céu morno de outono,
o azul desordenado das claras estrelas!

Porque nós ainda queremos o Matiz,
nada de Cor, nada a não ser o matiz!
Oh! O matiz único que liga
o sonho ao sonho e a flauta à trompa.

Foge para longe da Piada assassina,
do Espírito cruel e do Riso impuro
que fazem chorar os olhos do Azul
e todo esse alho de baixa cozinha!

Toma a eloquência e torce-lhe o pescoço!
Tu farás bem, já que começaste,
em tornar a rima um pouco razoável.
Se não a vigiarmos, até onde ela irá?

Oh! Quem dirá os malefícios da Rima?
Que criança surda ou que negro louco
nos forjou esta joia barata
que soa oca e falsa sob a lima?

Ainda e sempre, música!
(...)

Que teu verso seja um bom acontecimento
esparso no vento crispado da manhã
que vai florindo a hortelã e o timo...
E tudo o mais é só literatura.

Arte Poética, de Paul Verlaine

. . .

Of music before everything—
And for this like the Odd more—
Vaguer and more melting in air,
Without anything in it which weighs or arrests.

It must also be that you do not go about
Choosing your words without some carelessness:
Nothing dearer than the greyish song
Where the Wavering and Precise are joined.

Something like beautiful eyes behind veils,
Something like the trembling wide day of noon,
Something like (when made gentle by an autumn sky)
The blue jumble of clear stars!

For we desire Nuance yet more—
Not color, nothing but Nuance!
Oh! only nuance brings
Dream to dream and flute to horn!

Keep away from the murderous Sharp Saying,
Cruel Wit and Impure Laugh,
Which make weep the eyes of Blue Space—
And all that garlic of low cooking.

Take eloquence and wring its neck!
You will do well, in energetic mood,
To use Rhyme made wise somewhat.
If it is not watched, where may it not go?

Oh, who can tell the wrong-doings of Rhyme?
What deaf child or mad black man
Has made for us this penny toy,
That sounds hollow and false heard precisely.

Let music be, more of it and always!
Let your verse be the thing in motion
Which one feels who flees from an altering soul,
Towards other skies to other loves.

Let your verse be the happy occurrence,
Somehow within the restless morning wind,
Which goes about smelling of mint and thyme...
And all the rest is literature.

Art Poétique, by Paul Verlaine
Translation by Eli Siegel

The meaning of words / O significado das palavras

2008-02-10T15:17:00.000Z

"Only the words break the silence,

all other sounds have ceased

If I were silent I'd hear nothing.

But if I were silent the other sounds would start again,

those to wich the words have made me deaf,

or wich have really ceased.

But I am silent, it sometimes happens,

no, never, not one second.

I weep too without interruption.

It's an unbroken flow of words and tears.

With no pause for reflection.

But I speak softer, every year a little softer.

Perhaps.

It is hard for me to judge.

If so the pauses would be longer, between the words,

the sentences, the syllables, the tears,

I confuse them, words and tears,

my words are my tears, my eyes my mouth.

And I should hear, at every little pause,

if it's the silence I say

when I say that only the words break it.

But nothing of the kind, that's not how it is,

it's for ever the same murmur, flowing unbroken,

like a single endless word and therefore meaningless,

for it's the end gives the meaning to words."

in "Texts for Nothing", by Samuel Beckett

. . .

Apenas as palavras quebram o silêncio,
todos os outros sons cessaram.
Se eu estivesse silencioso, não ouviria nada.
Mas se eu me mantivesse silencioso, os outros sons recomeçariam,
aqueles a que as palavras me tornaram surdo, ou que realmente cessaram.
Mas estou silencioso, por vezes acontece, não, nunca, nem um segundo.
Também choro sem interrupção.
É um fluxo incessante de palavras e lágrimas.
Sem pausa para reflexão.
Mas falo mais baixo, cada ano um pouco mais baixo.
Talvez.
Também mais lentamente, cada ano um pouco mais lentamente.
Talvez.
É-me difícil avaliar.
Se assim fosse, as pausas seriam mais longas,
entre as palavras, as frases, as sílabas, as lágrimas,
confundo-as, palavras e lágrimas,
as minhas palavras são as minhas lágrimas,
os meus olhos a minha boca.
E eu deveria ouvir, em cada pequena pausa,
se é o silêncio que eu digo quando digo que apenas as palavras o quebram.
Mas nada disso, não é assim que acontece, é sempre o mesmo murmúrio, fluindo ininterruptamente, como uma única palavra infindável
e, por isso, sem significado,
porque é o fim que confere o significado às palavras.

in "Textos para Nada", de Samuel Beckett

I will do nothing now but listen

2008-02-04T18:24:00.001Z

I think I will do nothing now but listen,
To accrue what I hear into myself—to let sounds contribute toward me.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals;
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice;
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following;

Sounds of the city, and sounds out of the city—sounds of the day and night;
Talkative young ones to those that like them—the loud laugh of work-people at their meals;
The angry base of disjointed friendship—the faint tones of the sick;
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence;
The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves—the refrain of the anchor-lifters;
The ring of alarm-bells—the cry of fire—the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts, with premonitory tinkles, and color’d lights;
The steam-whistle—the solid roll of the train of approaching cars;
The slow-march play’d at the head of the association, marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse—the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

I hear the violoncello (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint;)
I hear the key’d cornet—it glides quickly in through my ears;
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

I hear the chorus—it is a grand opera;
Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me;
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.

I hear the train’d soprano—(what work, with hers, is this?)
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies;
It wrenches such ardors from me, I did not know I possess’d them;
It sails me—I dab with bare feet—they are lick’d by the indolent waves;
I am exposed, cut by bitter and angry hail—I lose my breath,
Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death;
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call BEING.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

Just Listen

2008-01-25T10:46:00.001Z

"I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could learn to listen to them properly, cinema would have no need of music at all."

Andrei Tarkovsky
Music and Noises

. . .

"Acho que os sons deste mundo são tão belos em si mesmos que, se aprendêssemos a ouvi-los adequadamente, o cinema não teria a menor necessidade de música."

in "Esculpir o Tempo"/ "Sculpting In Time" , de/by Andrei Tarkovsky

Stalker, 1979
by Andrei Tarkovsky

The poem is only a symbol

2008-01-24T10:45:00.001Z

"
When the composer writes music for a lyrical poem... he, as a musician, is not excited either by the images or by the feelings speaking through this text... A necessary relation between poem and music... makes no sense, for the two worlds of tone and image are too remote from each other to enter more than an external relationship.
The poem is only a symbol and related to the music like the Egyptian hieroglyph of courage to a courageous soldier.
"

Friedrich Nietzsche
On Music and Words

. . .

Breve tradução:

"
Quando um compositor escreve para um poema lírico... ele, enquanto músico, não está interessado nem nas imagens nem nos sentimentos que o texto possa evocar. Uma relação necessária entre poema e música não faz sentido; apenas se consegue uma relação externa. Relacionado com a música o poema é apenas um símbolo, tal como um hieroglifo de coragem o é para um corajoso soldado.
"

from "Música e Poesia",
de Maria Cristina Aguiar