Sound

Hi all,

I have found a recording of Marcel Duchamp's La mariée mise a nu par ses celibataires...meme (The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor's Even) a "musical erratum" to the sculpture of the same name. It accompanies an interview of Tristran Tzara by Olivier Todd from 1959.

Tristan Tzara with Olivier Todd. Sound: Marcel Duchamp(ND)/performed and recorded by Mats Persson and Kristine Scholz 1980: Dada into Surrealism from, if I am not mistaken, the recording Futurism and Dada Reviewed, LMT Publishing 1988/2000. I have no translation I am afraid.




La mariée mise a nu par ses celibataires...meme according to the above recording notes by James Neiss and Paul Hammond can be described as "a possible system of musical composition." Duchamp's sound works require elements of chance: " the requisites are a funnel, a toy train with open trucks and balls to be placed in the funnel. The balls are numbered and represent separate notes- a piano, for example. Chance decides the tonal sequence of the composition, which is thus made variable" (Neiss, J and Hammond, P, 1988/2000).


The above version uses "ordinary pianos" which "replaced the ordinary action with a small electric motor with a rotary disc which moves against the strings to produce various overtones" (Neiss, J and Hammond, P, 1988/2000).

The sound that Duchamp achieves is similar to the sounds I wish to create for my moving images, some of which are featured somewhere in this blog (see the entry New Developments: Deepest Autumn and a Big Thank You).