Date
15th July 2018
Sounding 1 – Prologue Remix
This piece used texts from John 1. ‘In the beginning was the Word’ is the phrase it starts with. A phrase that appears in several sound discourses. The passage itself has several repetitive words and as such gives the opportunity for a rhythmic sounding. The aim is to record a live reading of the particular phrases from the text and remix them live. For this I prepared a patch in the software Max/MSP.
This sounding was one I had done before. It was done in the context of a workshop on worship and then done one in an actual service. In terms of effect this rendition wasn’t as strong as the previous times. The Max patch was setup so that I could edit out the silences as soon as I had captured the sound but at that moment it completely slipped my mind. So there were silences and single voices sticking out.
Also one of the participants started coughing. And since I’d missed the editing bit I was trying to mix without drawing attention to the cough. What I had heard in previous remixes was the coming together of words and sounds that seemed bring out different meanings and effects. In this one because of the various silences I missed that coming together.
On reflecting on it in the session the coughing actually demonstrated what the research was meant to do. The cough was a ‘noise’; a disruption to my preconceived sound of the piece. This was actually the intention of the bringing together of the sounds; that it would disrupt received meanings and ways of knowing. My own efforts to supress the noise alerts me to my own biases but also the possible ways people can react to this.
Participants all said that they were initially listening out for their own voice. So, it made it difficult to hear the voices together. The second listening allowed for a bringing together of all the sounds and particular words sounding over and through each other.
Sounding 2 – Whispering Grove
This was based on an installation, Whispering Tree (2017). It is hearing different texts from different genres within the bible all sounding at the same time but at very low volumes. The texts were chosen based on different genres. The genres were: Mythic, Law, Wisdom, Song, Prophetic, Bios, Letter. Whispering Tree had voices playing through 20 speakers. Listeners could listen to the whole and go close and listen to single speakers. They were encouraged to then pick two speakers and listen to both.
Whispering Grove was about the people sounding these passages. It was different in that it was human bodies that were providing the sound. Further to that the ‘grove’ was the group the participant belonged to. Importantly participants were the sounders that made the grove whisper. In conception it brought up the idea of texts being made and heard in community. Language given to us as we give to it. The presence of the body also meant that there needed to be a distance between the listener and the sounder. It created a ‘between’ that evokes Jean Luc Nancy –
‘The “between” is the stretching out [distension] and distance opened by the singular as such, as its spacing of meaning. That which does not maintain its distance from the “between” is only immanence collapsed in on itself and deprived of meaning.’[2]
Since sounding all the passages wasn’t possible there needed to be a randomised selection. The readings were divided into three groups according to size. Participants were asked to choose one from each group. Then were asked to choose one from their chosen three. I hoped that this would allow for some randomisation.
Detailed instructions were written in order to give everyone a chance to listen. Ideas for this were taken from Playing with Words[3] and Writing aloud[4].
The instructions for the sounding were possibly not as clear as it should’ve been. The first listener enjoyed it so much that she stayed in the grove for a very long time and after a while the rest of us got impatient. However, after that everyone had their turn listening.
In discussion there were several responses.
‘I found it meditative.’
‘Nothing was distinct.’
‘I’ve had problems with hearing since I was a child and it reminded me of the confusion I had, when I was a child.’
‘It was cool, I could hear everybody and hear everyone distinctly.’
‘I tried to hear everyone and wanted to take a key phrase from each one and incorporate it into my own speech.’
This piece needs more work. The listener possibly needs some kind of a limit. I assumed that listeners would feel shy and walk back as soon as possible. The randomisation that I had hoped in terms of reading 5 times until a space becomes free needs clearer explanation.
Sounding 3 – Contrapuntal Reading
A sounding based on Jacqueline Lapsley’s reading of the book of Ruth through the book of Job.[1] Texts were taken based on Lapsley’s references but also further resonances that I researched. It was picking up on commonalities but also to put certain sounds against each other. ‘Almighty – Bitter’. It was titled ‘Contrapuntal Reading’. There wasn’t a simultaneous reading each sounding was on its own but with multiple voices. We were in two groups of four. A score was prepared based on my readings of Word Events.[5]
In hindsight calling this contrapuntal is probably a misnomer. It is contrapuntal in that the two sources of the books from which the texts were picked are independent. But my treatment of them was to find the explicit resonance between them.
Lapsley presents the book of Ruth actually as the book of Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law in the narrative. In that presentation she says: ‘Attentive readers of the bible will hear in Naomi’s story an echo of Job’s grief and subsequent railing against God as the author of that grief.’[6]
The reason for going for this is that Naomi is a hidden voice, for the book is named after Ruth, her virtuous daughter-in-law and ancestor of king David. Lapsley’s focus on Naomi, voicing her as a type of Job, draws out a voice hidden and brings out the particularities of the woman who rails against God. As such it provides many rich possibilities. I referred to Lapsley’s own sources where she analyses particular phrases uttered by Job and Naomi and their meaning, eg. ‘Hand of God.’ The ‘hand of God’ is a negative term uttered by both characters as an expression of God’s unfair treatment of them. Added to this I researched for some more resonances.
I placed the echoes next to each other as a way of hearing the texts next to each other. I didn’t explain this prior to the sounding. All that was given was the instruction to follow the ‘score’ and that they were texts from two different sources in the bible.
We were two groups of four and read our bits through. In the discussion following there was an appreciation of the rhythms of the words and the repetition. One of the participants said she just didn’t get it. She didn’t see the point. I pointed to the Jean Luc Nancy quote that I’d placed at the top of one of the handouts I’d given.
It underlines one of the challenges I face. For some participants, texts will be primarily semantic. The sound is ‘just’ a medium. To hear the sound for itself and make a meaning requires a category shift, possibly a worldview shift. Especially with a text, for some which is considered sacred and not just contains, but ‘IS’ the truth.
It highlights the concerns of the early sound poets and several sound artists. For me the point is not to be rid of semantic meaning but to hear the voice first. Then if semantic meaning arrives as it inevitably seems to, that is a different matter.
To stop hearing the prior voices of interpretation and knowledge is difficult but for such participants it will be possible to learn how to listen to the sound itself. For in music we learn how to listen to the various parts of a piece and to the various instruments within it. As such, a more layered listening can be learnt.
References
[1] Jacqueline E Lapsley, Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005). pp. 89-108
[2] Jean-Luc Nancy, Robert D Richardson, and Anne Elizabeth O’Byrne, Being Singular Plural (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
[3] Cathy Lane, Playing with Words: The Spoken Word in Artistic Practice, 2015.
[4] Brandon LaBelle and Christof Migone, Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language (Los Angeles, Calif.: Errant Bodies, 2001).
[5] John Lely and James Saunders, Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation (New York, N.Y.: Continuum, 2012).
[6] Lapsley. p.94