Medium Specificity

For my medium specificity assignment, I was inspired by John Cage's song "4'33", as well as his song "Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano".  In "4'33", Cage emphasizes the role that silence plays in music.  In "Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano", he toys with the idea of tonal uncertainty by putting screws and nails inside of the piano.  By doing this, the musician has no way of knowing how the notes are going to sound when he plays them.  I decided to do something similar to this with my project.  I wanted to focus on the limitations and, paradoxically, the endless possibilities of music.  In technical terms, there are only thirteen different musical tones (excluding quarter tones), yet with these thirteen tones, all kinds of sounds can be made.  My idea was to write out a rhythm section (shown at the beginning of the video) and to play as many songs on as many instruments as possible using only this rhythm.  Some of the melodies are happy, some are sad, some are fast, some are slow, some are all high notes, some are all low  notes, and some are just random notes being played.  By doing this, I was able to explore the possibilities of musical limitations (such as adhering to the same strict rhythm) and endless musical possibilities created through different combinations of the thirteen tones. 

            I originally planned on using multiple instruments, such as trumpet and guitar, as well as multiple musicians in order to see how they would work creatively under the rhythmic limitation.  I wanted to show how even if you play the exact same melody and rhythm on two different instruments, you are still going to get a completely different, unique sound.  However, as time went on, I ended up simplifying the project so that I play all of the instruments used in the video.  This is why piano is used predominantly in the project.  However, while filming, I realized that I didn't need to limit myself to just playing the keys.  Percussion is also a form of music, so I experimented with pounding out the rhythm on top of the piano at various tempos.  While playing the harmonica, I decided to experiment with an aspect that is unique to the harmonica, which is the ability to create music by blowing and sucking in air.  During one take, I decided to play a melody by only sucking in air through the harmonica.  On another take, I did the exact opposite.  All of these experimentations helped me to explore the endless possibilities as well as the structural limitations of music.

           In Scott McCloud's comic "Setting the Record Straight", he discusses the importance of defining, or redefining, a medium.  He elaborates on the difficulties in convincing mainstream audiences to consider comic books as an artful medium.  But when he sits down and tries to define what makes up the medium of comic books, he comes up with a broad definition that not only opens up the possibilities of what a comic book is, but comes to the realization that comic book storytelling has existed for millennia and is, in fact, an art form.  In many ways, music is very similar.  Some of the songs in my project are not pretty to listen to, and some may not consider this project to be music.  However, it is only because people can  have a very limited, preconceived notion of what music is and what it can be.  By focusing on just the rhythm and the idea of unlimited combinations of tones, I was able to attempt to do what McCloud suggests in his comic: redefine how I see the medium of music.