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At 12:58 PM -0500 3/21/01, LEE, THANIEL I wrote:
>i think the sounds my fridge makes are pretty i like the low fluxuating
>humming sound it makes at night. i also like the sound of a empty office
>flouresent lights make a wonderfully strange hum. copy machines make
>dancable beats, so do old dot matrix printers, and people walking on hard
>wood floors.
At 10:29 AM -0800 3/21/01, Simran gleason wrote:
>often find myself singing along (I do throat singing drones, so it's easy
>to
>harmonize with a bathroom fan or cetera).
When I was in graduate school I participated in composer Robert
Erickson's legendary Timbre Seminar. On the first day of class he
handed out a chart of the Fletcher-Munson curves that included a
reference to the pitches ranges of common orchestral instruments, and
he suggested that we all carry pitch pipes with us at all times. Over
the ensuing weeks I found myself listening with new ears, picking out
the overtone structures of everything from leaf blowers and lawn
mowers to air conditioners and refrigerators. I especially enjoy the
sound of two leaf blowers of similar, but not identical, pitch as
they beat against each other.
Another class of sounds that Erickson enjoyed was what he called
"rustle sounds," a category including fallen leaves moving before the
breeze, the crinkling of aluminum foil, an so on. I was at a concert
the other day in which one solo performer played a small plastic bag
as a brief interlude - no amplification, just gentle manipulation of
the crumpled up bag to create a soft susurration.
Erickson's book, "Sound Structure in Music," is an outgrowth of his
investigations of musical timbre and of his seminar in the music
department at UCSD. Out of print, unfortunately, but probably
available at any decent music library.
--
______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD zvonar@zvonar.com
(818) 788-2202 voice zvonar@LCSaudio.com
(818) 788-2203 fax zvonar@well.com
http://www.zvonar.com