I’m coming around on sound art installations. They’re
easy to dismiss – strange men with too much grant money. But lately I can’t
stop reading about them and listening to them.
What’s bringing me around? Robert Frobisher, mostly. Frobisher
is the visionary (fictional) composer from David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas (if you haven’t read it, stop
screwing around here and go get it). Frobisher thinks in music.
In the smoky firelight the
two old men nodded off like a pair of ancient kings passing the eons in their
tumuli. Made a musical notation of their snores. Elgar is to be played by a
bass tuba, Ayrs a bassoon.
Another thing bringing me
around: Charles Spearin’s album The Happiness
Project. Spearin interviewed his apartment complex neighbors on what happiness
means to them, and composed music to their recorded answers. This is an album to
make you cry from joy. Spearin shows us beauty in the most mundane speech
patterns – a beauty that we ignore all the time.
What a way to experience
the world! We swim through a sea of sounds every day. But I won’t stop to
appreciate them unless I am informed that
they are worth listening to. Seems like I missing out on half of my own
existence.
I am no musical genius. But
I’m going to try to start appreciating good sounds like a good sunset. And
these sound installations – what a great way to explore the world of those
sounds around us.
Here are some of my favorites:
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