SOUND/AMBIENCE
As score produced by chance encounter of unlikely sounds
John Cage, is an American composer who explored the use of chance and indeterminacy in his compositions. To communicate his musical compositions, Cage developed intricate techniques of graphic notation to represent his notions. Cage’s Fontana Mix consists of ten sheets of paper, four multi-channel tapes, twelve transparencies and six differentiated curved lines. Through overlaying transparencies, this structure allowed for a performance score to be made. The sheets interpreted differences in many elements such as tone, duration, volume and a variety of different sound events. It was basically a manual to go along with his “music”. Cage intentionally manipulated two specific sounds and played them simultaneously. This gave appealing ideas of chance and how silence can be notified as music when read together with his sheets. I have recorded a total of 8 various sounds within the Prince Centre and created it into one continuous musical structure. It includes every sound of each task I carry out daily such as the walking of my footsteps, scrunching of paper, running of water and the silence the atmosphere of the Prince Centre creates. Coming to the Prince Centre for classes is a huge part of my architectural experience with the city, hence why I chose to record the sounds created inside this space. Within the midst of this silence, sound still does exist and I have captured this for a whole 30 seconds which plays in the background layering over several other sounds. The most prominent circular shapes in my image (Figure 1) represent each sound clip taken. The size of each circle is the actual length of each sound in seconds. The coloured in circles signify tone, and how each step I take created difference in tone. Moreover, the arrows symbolise volume and how it decreases as you go towards the end of the sound clip. Finally, the zig-zag line represents the scrunching of the paper which emphasises the difference between tone, duration and volume.
Reference List:
Straebel, Martina Sauerwald, n.d.,viewed 28 May<http://www.straebel.de/praxis/text/t-cage-fontana.htm>
