Thanks, Henk, David, and Ellen!
David Kirsh wrote,
> It's got several spiral lines (the staff) and dots between the lines (the
notes).
> My girlfriend proposes turning the "music" into motifs that can be the
basis for a composition. Would this be a first?
An ad for Georgia Public Television showed a composer with a case of
writer's block looking out the window and seeing birds on some wires strung
between poles, like notes on a staff. Voilą, a new musical composition was
inspired.
In real life, many composers have experimented with such "found art",
including John Cage. The oldest example I can think of is Mozart, who used
dice to suggest the notes of a composition. This should be distinguished
from using music to suggest an image or event, such as Smetana's "Moldau" or
Hovhaness's "Mount Saint Helens Symphony", because this compositional
process depends on imitating natural rhythms and tones as well as applying
synaesthetic effects (e.g., using a series of rising pitches in walking
rhythm to suggest ascending a mountain). "Found notes" may be hard to listen
to as music, but curiously interesting since dots on a shell may not be
randomly arranged, and natural arrangements are often pleasing.
In case you haven't heard Hovhaness's work yet: It should appeal to those
who enjoy either New Age or classical music. He blends classical Western
music with Armenian, Japanese, Scottish, and native American music to
achieve works that often sound hymnlike. The "Mount St. Helens Symphony"
obviously includes the loud explosion of a volcano, but only after he paints
a picture of a perfectly symmetrical mountain with a calm lake beside it. It
works surprisingly well. A shorter work, "Mysterious Mountain", has been
played quite a bit on National Public Radio in recent years.
So, by all means, give "found music" a try!
Cheers,
Andy
Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama
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