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by Hildegard Westerkamp |imed_9631-0002|
I feel that sounds have their own integrity and need to be treated with a
great deal of care and respect. Why would I process a cricket’s voice
but not my daughter’s? If the cricket had come from my own garden, had
a name and would talk to me every day, would I still be able to transform it
in the studio? Would I need to?
The moment of recording the cricket in the Zone of Silence (a desert
region in North Eastern Mexico) had been a magical moment (see Cricket Voice’s
note). So, studio ‘manipulation’ of the sound seemed somehow
inappropriate. Its transformation into a composition had to become a new
sonic journey of discovery to retain the level of magic first expe-rienced. I
remember when I had to say ‘Stop’ to electroacoustic
experimentation: the cricket was in danger of being obliterated.
Same experience with the raven in Beneath The
Forest Floor. Slowed down, it reminded me of a westcoast Native Indian
drum. By sampling a small portion of the slowed down raven’s cry, I
tried to make it beat with a regular drumbeat. But it simply wouldn’t
let me. It kept turning into a drum machine. It took a whole day to fly off
into ‘electronic land’ before returning to the original raven
call, finally really hearing it and letting it be what it was in the first
place: a sound reminiscent of the drum.
On the other hand I was ruthless with the truck brakes in A Walk Through
The City. I processed them until they were unrecognizable: by filtering
out all the low frequencies from the surrounding traffic, I managed to
extract pure-pitched sounds, mixed them with each other into chords that
ended up giving the composition a melancholic undertone, most unexpected from
such a screechy, ear-piercing sound source.
I hear the soundscape as a language with which places and societies
express themselves. In the face of rampant noise pollution, I want to be
understanding and caring of this ‘language’ and how it is
‘spoken.’
I compose with any sound that the environment offers to the microphone,
just as a writer works with all the words that a language provides. It is in
the specific ways in which the language is selected, organized and processed
that composition occurs.
I like to use the microphone the way photographers often use the camera,
searching for images, using the zoom to discover what the human eye alone
cannot see. I like to position the microphone very close to the tiny, quiet
and complex sounds of nature, then amplify and highlight them for radio or
any other electro-acoustic medium: to make them audible to the numbed urban
ear. Perhaps in that way these natural sounds can be understood as occupying
an important place in the soundscape and warrant respect and protection.
I like walking the edge between the real sound and the processed sound. On
the one hand I want the listener to recognize the source, and thus want to
establish a sense of place. But on the other hand I am also fascinated with
the processing of sound in the studio and making its source essentially
unrecognizable. This allows me as a composer to explore the sound’s
musical/acoustic potential in depth.
But I abstract an original sound only to a certain degree and am not
actually interested in blurring its original clarity. I transform sound in
order to highlight its original contours and meanings, similar to the manner
in which a caricaturist sharpens the contours and our perception of a
person’s face.
These compositions are now on this disc, an altogether abstract place, far
away from the places in which the sounds originated. They now may have to put
up with bad playback equipment and noisy living rooms, with car radios or
distracted ears. A forest piece in an apartment by a freeway… can it
draw the listener back into the forest? An urban piece in quiet country
living… is it necessary?
Recordings for the live portions of this CD (Kits Beach
Soundwalk and Fantasie for Horns
II) as well as the final mix for Kits Beach
Soundwalk were done at Ireme Studio in Surrey (BC), the studio of
Canadian composer Sergio Barroso. I
would like to thank Sergio and Michael Maguire for
lending their experienced ears to this process. The final mix for Fantasie for Horns
II was done at the composer’s own studio Inside the Soundscape.
Hildegard
Westerkamp, Vancouver [viii-95]
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