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ALTERNATE SPEEDS OF SOUND

Greggory MooreWed. September 16
 

The Slow Sound Festival asks only one thing: listen


PHOTO by GLENN BACH

Even the most revolutionary ideas appear not out of the void but as part of a continuum. Yet there can be seminal moments. For the “Slow Sound movement”—a term which may (or may not) have been coined by Glenn Bach, curator of the Slow Sound Festival—that moment may have been John Cage’s 1952 stroke of genius 4’33”, a scored piece of live “music” without a single note.

What’s the big whoop about four-and-a-half minutes of silence? The fact that it’s not silence: it is a frame for the sound—whatever sound—that takes place when the performer(s) and audience share a space for the duration of that “performance.”

Understand this and you’re halfway to grasping what the Slow Sound Festival is all about.

“Slow Sound is the mindful practice of experimental music [. . .] where the practitioner is attempting to be present in the moment more so than usual,” Bach explained recently at Portfolio as we tried not to be distracted by Billy Corgan’s eavesdropping on us from the next table (or maybe just paying attention to his own conversation—I can’t be sure) prior to Corgan’s show at {open}. “The idea that a performer can spend as much time listening and not playing as he or she does playing is something to keep in mind while in the moment.”

This is not Bach’s first time at this kind of fair: in 2005 he curated so.cal.sonic, six consecutive nights of “experimental and improvised music” sprinkling over two dozen sound artists of all stripes throughout five Long Beach venues.

Bach conceived the Slow Sound Festival after forming qqq with sound-art duo SMGSAP and then serendipitously being contacted by Richard Cooper of CSULB’s Music Department about coordinating a series of events to coincide with the University Art Museum’s exhibition of Brian Eno’s “77 Million Paintings.” The final, natural maneuver was to partner with the SoundWalk, FLOOD’s yearly transformation of the East Village Arts District into a gallery of the auditory for one night only. (Read all about it in this very space two weeks from today.)

That in 2009 there’s a veritable sound month in Long Beach is hardly coincidence.

“I think the fact that the Slow Sound Festival is Long Beach-based [. . .] speaks to the idea of Long Beach/SoCal as being a hotbed for quiet music and Slow Sound,” Bach says. “There is a cluster of people who are trying to come up with an alternative to the typical group improvisation where everyone is playing, trying to be heard in the mix.”

Bach groups the roster in toto as “practitioners of either quiet music, lowercase sound, minimal/sparse compositions, and artists who are open-minded enough to experiment with material that’s quieter and not as dense.”

But he is quick to declare that Slow Sound “is not an -ism nor a genre of music; it’s more of . . . a reminder to be present, to be quiet and to listen. [. . .] By focusing on an attempt to stay still and stay quiet, you’re able to discover a lot of things and broadcast a lot of sounds in combination with other sounds that may never be heard again.”

To be sure, this has to do with ambiance, but only in the sense of attending to the entire aural river flowing around you. “The ideas of ambient music are Slow Sound are simpatico,” he says, “but they’re not the same thing.”

Not surprisingly, our conversation winds its way to Cage’s 4’33” and its part in “democratizing the sonic palette. [In a given sonic moment] a composed note on a piano that’s arrived at via thousands of years of Western musical tradition is sonically no more important than that person’s laugh,” he says, his last words referring to a jarring chortle occurring behind us as if on cue. “We’re offering up Slow Sound as a frame, without defining how that frame is to be applied.” You can hear Bach getting a bit excited just reflecting on it. “It’s a pretty remarkable phenomenon, if you think about it, all these people processing [a performance] in different ways, in the moment, in real-time.”

Stop. Listen. Right now. Close your eyes from this page for 20 seconds and listen. I’m completely serious. Do it, and listen.

Now, imagine the possibilities.

SLOW SOUND FESTIVAL VIENTO Y AGUA • SEPT 16 & 23 7:30PM • {OPEN} • SEPT 17 & 24 8PM • CSULB • SEPT 18 & 25 8PM • FREE-$5 • CHECK WEB SITE FOR SPECIFICS • SLOWSOUND.ORG

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  • i hope everyone remembers to turn their cell phones off. :)
  • redandblack
    The fact that it’s not silence: it is a frame for the sound—whatever sound—that takes place when the performer(s) and audience share a space for the duration of that “performance.”

    No, understand this, or even pretend to, and you're a lot more than halway on the way to being a pretentious dilettante.
    If all art is of equal importance I'll never understand why I once vomited a daisy chain into my happy meal and yet thus far the world has been quite stubborn in its failure to recognize my genius.
  • Greggory
    No one ever thinks he's being closed-minded. But I'm sure it couldn't possibly be that you just don't get it. So whatever you do, don't entertain the possibility that you might be able to expand any of your conceptions. Your education is most certainly completely, and your critical sensibilities couldn't be improved upon. (Although your reading comprehension might not be beyond reproach, because "[whether] all art is of equal importance" is not even addressed in this piece. Better luck next time.)
  • redandblack
    a composed note on a piano that’s arrived at via thousands of years of Western musical tradition is sonically no more important than that person’s laugh

    while this might not be the same as saying that all art is of equal importance, that idea is certainly "touched upon" if not outright "addressed". I figured you could tell I was trying to be hyperbolic; but, again, I've learened that you are very literal and that there is not a nit in the world that you won't pick if given half the chance.
  • Greggory
    There is zero doubt that I am a nit-picker when it comes to language, logic, maybe everything.

    Anyway, what the line you quote is saying has nothing to do with valuation but simply with the idea that no element that by necessity (except one of one's own making) enjoy a privileged position in aesthetics. You know who really brought this to the fore in "pop" music? The Beatles. I think you like them, yes? And if you think "Revolution 9" was just a throwaway piece and not something Lennon considered as legit a sonic creation as anything else they did -- even though it almost entirely lacks "notes" -- you just don't know your Beatles. I'll be the first to say that PERSONALLY I don't have much use for "Revolution 9" -- but that's a statement about me, not about art.
  • redandblack
    The notion of culture I reject is that it's any dammned fool thing offered up------Richard Rorty.
    when people tell me their minds are open I usually believe them because it certainy seems everything has fallen out. though I have to admit that book I never got around to writing was truly a "stroke of genius"; and now that I've announced it I expect it to be inordinately praised as such by some fatuous journalist.
  • Greggory
    No idea if/where Rorty said that, but you've certainly misunderstood it to use it here, as he's the last guy who would subscribe to your demarcated notions of art and not-art. And you're still misunderstanding 4'33" to liken its frame to the mere announcement of an unwritten book. If you were to open your mind and let some of your prejudices fall out, you'd be less likely to make such mistakes. That's not to say you would -- or should -- give a damn about Cage; or about what a given journalist has to say, fatuous or otherwise.
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