Nonmusical Objects

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

October 27, 2015

Blog 4

Reading: Caleb Kelly's Sound p. 28-40, 168-176, 181-185, 194-197

Several of these composers used non-musical objects to create music. To the masses, most people would view this not as music at all, but by John Cage, music does not even need intention to be produced. As long as there is a listener to receive it, we can call the piece music. I found it fascinating and eye-opening to learn that artists such as John Cage view what most people see as "non-musical objects", to be perfectly good instruments to produce a musical piece. Other artists, such as Alison Knowles, use objects to help create a sound, such as in Knowles' Nivea Cream Piece for Oscar Williams. Knowles utilized hand cream as a musical object in the sense that she wanted to create the sound of massaging hands. So objects used by composers don't necessarily have to produce a sound as is, such as running water, but objects could help create sound effects, such as cream being rubbed into numerous hands. 

Certain instructional pieces described by some of these sound artists are quite experimental and new to me, as I have not been immersed into sonic arts until taking this class. To read about performance pieces such as George Brecht's Incidental Music where there are 5 steps to interact with the piano, but not all those steps have you actually play a "traditional" piano musical piece, intrigued me and made me feel in awe. However, as I imagined myself watching this performance live, I would be confused as to what the message as, but also intrigued to hopefully learn what the artist's intent was, with these seemingly random acts that involve a piano, but not necessarily playing "traditional" music. 

I am definitely expanding my thoughts and perspective and what sound can do and what "sound" is, and am very much intrigued by what else we can do with experimenting with sound/different processes in creating sound.