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by Philippe Le Goff |imed_9524-0001|
To Sophie
“Men go by many paths. Those which they follow and which they
compare will give birth to figures which seem to belong to this great
ciphered writing which one sees everywhere: on wings, on the shell of the
egg, in the clouds, in the snow, in crystals and in rock formations, on the
waters which turn to ice, inside and outside the mountains, plants,
animals, men, in the lights of the sky […], in the filings around the
magnet and in the singular junctures of chance…”
— The Disciples in Saïs, Novalis
These four Studies are the fruit of my immersion in the Inuit culture of
the Canadian Arctic; the country where there are no trees. Upon entering this
world where nature bears down with all its weight on life, where the boundary
between art and games is tenuous and words are used sparingly, the necessity
of a ‘speech of sounds’ imposes itself. In this world, the
relationship between the sonic environment, language and music is such that
electroacoustic work takes on its fullest meaning. The sounds, inextricably
connected to life, begin to breath of themselves. The result is that this
speech of sounds generates a work where music, Inuit conversations, laughter,
the wind and the light exist side by side and intertwine. In traveling
through these Studies, I sought to weave the sounds into a living material,
endowed with breath and with a soul, as have humans, the animals and the
elements.The term ‘study’ (étude) underlines the speculative
nature of these works. It is a line of work that, without being properly
scientific, is nonetheless supported by investigations into Inuit culture and
language. The result is a personal and poetic reading of this world. It
should be understood as an autobiographical account. The form of this account
is based on a particular trait of the Inuit culture in which one can create a
new myth by the linking together of pre-existing myths. This is also
characteristic of games and chants. These Studies are therefore an attempt to
create an agglutinative and integrated musical form.
The CD title Titakti is a term
belonging to moderm Inuktitut. It refers to ‘white music’ and is
used mostly on Baffin Island. The word probably is an onomatopoeia where
titaktitaktitakti… would be the way to sing the music of the
whale hunters. This fact was told to me by Leah
Nutaraq (107 years old) from Cumberland Sound (Baffin Island).
Philippe Le Goff,
Paris (France) [i-95]
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