Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[David Badagnani <>]

Japanese composer/performer Yoshiaki Ochi's "Beat the Water," "Beat the Wood," etc.

http://www.dakinirecords.com/~English/Ochis_Works.html

Miya Masaoka has worked with plants and insects:

http://www.miyamasaoka.com/interdisciplinary/brainwaves_plants/index.html http://www.miyamasaoka.com/interdisciplinary/skin_insects/index.html

If you want to trace it back further, since you say your project is historical in nature, many, if not most traditional cultures around the world have legends about humans first learning about the concept of musical sound from birds or other animals.  The ethnomusicologist Steven Feld has noted that the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, for example, "sing with, to and about birds, water, insects."

http://tinyurl.com/2wmj7dp

And some of the earliest surviving musical instruments are flutes (often made from the bones of birds or other animals, or clay).  So the concept goes back much further than John Cage. :-)

--
David Badagnani
Kent, Ohio
United States

--- On Thu, 6/3/10, Nicolás Carrasco <> wrote:

From: Nicolás Carrasco <>
Subject: [silence] Re: Re: music and/including nature in its manner of operation
To: "simon reynell" <>
Cc: "Simon Roy Christensen" <>,
Date: Thursday, June 3, 2010, 1:23 PM

Just seconding Simon Reynell and others:

Toshiya Tsunoda, Michael Prime, Francisco López; David Tudor's Rainforest & Sea tails; Lee Patterson

add Jeph Jerman, marvelous music with and/or in nature: from amplifying insects, to field or location recordings, to his Animist Orchestra (7 or 8 players all improvising with sticks, stones, leaves, bones, feathers, shells), etc.

Michael Pisaro

David Dunn

N.

2010/6/3 simon reynell <>

 Hello Simon

I know and like all the examples you cite, but there are lots of others.  In fact nature-based music of one kind or another is now a pretty crowded field.  There are dozens of people producing pieces from field recordings (with various degrees of editing / manipulation) that use natural sounds as their source (some of the best-known examples can be found on the Touch label, people such as Chris Watson, BJ Nilsen and Toshiya Tsunoda). 

And then there are several very interesting musicians using natural phenomena in various other interesting ways:  in my opinion it's particularly worth checking out Jeph Jerman (http://www.jerman.littleenjoyer.com/) and Patrick Farmer (who released a beautiful disc called Apis Mellifera from gently transformed recordings of honey bees).  The latter runs a web label called 'compost and height' which has free downloads of several free eco- / natural-based musical constructions:  compostandheight.blogspot.com

The sound artist / improvising musician Lee Patterson is also very interesting in this respect, and - like Michael Prime, who you mention - uses a lot of natural phenomena in his work, eg the amplification of sounds given off by burning hazelnuts, and hydrophonic recordings of pondlife etc.  His solo disc 'Seven Vignettes' is well worth checking out.

And several works by the US-based composer Michael Pisaro are also relevant, I think, in particular recent works such as July Mountain, Fields Have Ears and A Wave and Waves, all of which in varying ways use natural phenomena as the basis of their composition.

And going further back both Christian Wolff and Cornelius Cardew used stones as sound source in works from the 1960's and 70's.

I can pass on contact details for most of the above-mentioned if you are interested.

best wishes

Simon Reynell

70 High Storrs Road, Sheffield, S11 7LE, UK

www.anothertimbre.com

 

---

From: Simon Roy Christensen <>
To:
Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010 0:14:14
Subject: [silence] music and/including nature in its manner of operation

hello hello

I hope this is not too off topic, but I'm about to write a music-historical paper/essay on music including nature, or maybe rather the acting of nature. Here I'm thinking of examples like some of Max Eastley's sound sculptures, Paul Panhuysen and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot use of birds,  John Cage's "Atlas Eclipticalis" or the sounds of fungi and plants made audible by Michael Prime, for instance. Some of it probably helped along its way due to Cage's renowned remark of having an art 'imitating nature in its manner of operation'. But maybe there are even pre-Cage examples also?

I was thinking that this might be a good place to ask if any of you can recommend artists, works, literature or something else that spring to mind, which might have some kind of relevance to this - it would be very nice to hear!

thank you, 

simon