Up until this point in the course, we have not taken the time to address the term or idea of sonic art or sound art.
At once, this term is both self-explanatory and elusive. The term sonic art refers to “art” which deals with the realm of sound, audio, and/or the sonic. We will not discuss nor define the term art (I will save that for your art criticism, theory, and history courses). This is a conceptual hole best reserved for these other spaces. Instead, it is assumed you have embodied knowledge and understanding of what art is. However, the terms of sound art and sonic art are less common and therefore, less understood.
When tracing the “birth” of sound art, scholars typically pinpoint it to somewhere in the first half of the 20th century. However, the use of the term, sound art, would wait a few more decades and does not emerge until the 1970’s, when it was used colloquially at first by artists of the Avant-Garde scene (Dunaway, 2020). At the time, this term was used interchangeably with the terms audio art, sound poetry, sound sculpture, and experimental music. It was printed for the first time in 1974, in one of the last publications by Something Else Press, in their Something Else Yearbook 1974.
We will consider the term sonic art to refer to practices, activities, research, creative work, events, or performances that deal with sound, audio, sonics, listening, or hearing as one of their primary topics or mediums.
Obviously, this is a vast definition, encompassing many (many, many, many…) possibilities. As an important note; this definition also allows for work where the medium of presentation is visual to be considered sonic art if the topic it explores is based in the sonic. For me, this breadth and lack of specificity in the term’s definition is perfectly fine. Just as the term visual art is wide ranging and encompassing, so too, is the term sonic art.
The strength in such a nondescript definition is that it allows artists to narrow the term to their work, or in defining their work as they see fit. It does not force someone to shoehorn or fit their work into a definition or category. Instead, this term can serve as a welcoming place for many activities, practices, and approaches, encompassing them all under a large tent.
One critique and question of a broad definition may be “why do we need this term when there are other more specific categories, terms, styles, genres, creative practices, or research practices that could better describe this work?”. The answer of course, as with all social constructs, discrete categories, and classification systems is that the existing “boxes” may not be flexible enough to account for new ideas and evolving understanding.
As I see it, there are two specific forces that conspired together during the 20th century to force the creation and adoption of the term or idea “sonic art”. These are the larger fields of art and music.
The taste makers, artists, composers, and elites of the 20th century who were in positions of power found themselves driven towards categorization and definitions of what IS and what is NOT art and music based on evolving notions of aesthetics, technical skill, and elitism. Rather than allow for anyone to explore, experiment, or create in the means that they were driven towards, the people in power dictated the definitions of what was good and what could be considered of value. This was mirrored in common culture through notions of conservatism that raised notions of beauty and accessibility of art as being most important. This left those creators and artists whose work did not fit into these notions without the definitions needed to ground their work. At the same time, there were many artists who rebelled against the notion of the gallery and museum as the only arbiters of taste and value.
The idea that a work of art could be sound-based makes it difficult to sell as a high-value artifact in a gallery, unless it is a physical sculpture. This is a problem for an art form that may include written descriptions as art, directions for participants, or what might more typically be described as musical scores or compositions.
{ TODO: } Before discussing music, I want you to do the following;
- Create a new digital note or grab a pen and paper
- Contemplate for a moment your understanding of, and working definition for music. What types of qualities does it have and what does it exclude? What criteria should it meet?
- Write your current working definition for music
Music as a term, like art, can be difficult to define as we have an embodied understanding of what music is, but we are not often pushed to fully explain and justify it. My assumption is that many of your working definitions included some of the following terms or ideas;
The problem with this definition is that it creates unnecessary constraints about what music IS and IS NOT.
Generally, until challenged otherwise, most people consider music to be made up of the 12-notes that divide an octave and are used to define western musical scales. However, these notes are a result of western culture. Other cultures have other ways of dividing octaves and do not use the same set of notes and relationships that western culture does. Likewise, western culture often considers rhythm or a “beat” to be a requisite part of music, but again, this is just one way to divide and organize time, whereas other cultures divide and mark time according to their own systems. The reality is that differing cultures will have differing priorities for what music IS. The oft cited idea that “music is the universal language” may be true on some levels, but not in the way that western-society conceives. The idea that music is universally the same, utilizing the same 12-note system with deference to harmony or rhythmic structure is false.
The first half of the 20th century saw many artists and composers of Western society challenge these conservative notions of music. The Italian Futurists celebrated the “noise of the city”, discussing the beauty in the sounds of the new everyday. Likewise, artists of the Dada movement found reward in exploring non-sensical spoken word performances. At the same time, composers started to explore the concepts of silence and moves away from the conceptual complexity of melody and harmony that defined modern music, towards works that were based on sound gestures, “sound-masses”, and qualities of sound.
It is during the first half of the 20th century that composer Edgard Varèse was credited with coining the idea that music is defined as “organized sound” (Wen-Chung, 1966).
For this class, we will adopt a variant of this definition of music. Music is the organization of sound, be it by a composer/artist or listener.
John Cage would build upon this evolving idea, which would encompass his own compositional activities, including explorations of both chance operations and silence. At the same time however, Cage was comfortable in allowing people who did not consider his music to be what they considered music to call it something else. Cage saw no point in trying to force someone to view his work under categories or definitions that they fundamentally could not identify with.
Cage was not alone. Many musicians and composers of the 20th century, whose musical inclinations took them further away from the conservative notions of music, were able to find a home in adopting the term of “sound art” for their work.
What gets more tricky is trying to delineate where sound art ends and music begins. In fact, there is a significant overlap between the two ideas. Music is clearly an art form that deals with the sonic.
However, it is also clear that including all music-related activities under the moniker of sound art is too reductionist of an approach. The reality is that the distinction between the two terms is quite fuzzy. As an example, very few people would consider Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as anything other than music.
However, as a further example, some would have issue calling Scandinavian artist Leif Inge’s “9 Beet Stretch” version, in which he used digital signal processing (dsp) to stretch the 1-hour symphony over 24-hours, music.
{ TODO: } Please listen the following NPR story on Inge’s work.
The above work is music, it uses music, and should be listened to as such. However, some people will simply not accept the idea that it is in fact music.
Likewise, when we start to think about some of the work created that may fall under the term “experimental music,” we will inevitably run into people who have a difficult time referring to it as music.
On the opposite side of the coin, there are sound artists who take issue with the conceptual baggage that working under the term “music” implies. Rather than struggle to explain how their work is music, or deal with the embedded cultural expectations of what music should be they choose to utilize the sound art or sonic art label as a way of opening up possibilities for their work.