A stethoscopic use of the microphones foresees its delivery into the hands of the musicians. In my project, as well as in the examples already seen of Cartridge Music by Cage, or Mikrophonie I by Stockhausen, performers produce significant musical actions through an active use of microphones. Mikrophonie I is one of the first cases in which microphonist movements are even accurately notated in the score, as if the microphone has to be considered a fully-fledged musical instrument.
After finishing the score of Mixtur for orchestra and ring modulators, I searched for ways to compose – flexibly – also the process of microphone recording. The microphone, used until now as a rigid, passive recording device to reproduce sounds as faithfully as possible, would have to become a musical instrument and, on the other hand, through its manipulation, influence all the characteristics of the sounds. In other words, it would have to participate in forming the pitches – according to composed indications – harmonically and melodically, as well as the rhythm, dynamic level, timbre and spatial projection of the sounds (CD booklet - Stockhausen-Verlag CD9, p.17-21).
The manipulation of the microphone through specific actions and gestures assigned to the performer seems to imply for Stockhausen its use as a musical instrument. But, whether a microphone could be actually considered a musical instrument, as Stockhausen seems to state, is a delicate and non-trivial question.
An interesting contribution by Sarah-Indriyat Hardjowirogo addresses the issue of constructing instrumental identity within the context of contemporary music production. The development of phonography, sound-reproduction technology, and all processes of electrification, digitalization, and interconnectedness led to the creation of many new musical instruments. As a consequence of such techno-cultural progress, the understanding of what a musical instrument is has thus been challenged - also because there are evident differences between musical instruments of the 21st century and those of the earlier times, both in terms of appearance, and of technical functionality, playing technique, and sound. In her contribution, Hardjowirogo outlines a few main criteria to shape the concept of instrumentality, which should allow a better understanding of the specific qualities of musical instruments, the connections between traditional and contemporary instruments, and the distinction between musical instruments and other sound-producing devices.
Usually, a musical instrument is defined as any object that produces sound. This definition appears insufficient because of the existence of different categories of objects able to produce sound but commonly not understood as musical instruments. Examples could be all sound reproduction devices - such as radio, cd-player, turntables, etc – or everyday objects originally designed with other purposes, even if often used to produce sound in musical contexts.
Hardjowirogo explains that instrumentality has to be understood as the result of an intentional instrumental use, of certain sounding objects: “an object is not per se a musical instrument (ontological definition) but it becomes a musical instrument by using it as such (utilitarian definition)” (Hardjowirogo, 2017 p.11).
Instrumentality tends to present different degrees, which make some objects appear as more ‘instrumental’ than others, depending on the process of culturalisation undergone, i.e on their regular and extended use as musical instruments, within the context of a specific culture. Instrumentality has therefore to be intended as a dynamic concept, resulting from processes of “cultural negotiation” (Hardjowirogo, 2017 p.12). An object is more or less identified as a musical instrument depending on the degree of shared understanding of its contingent functions. Actions and meanings enabled by the sounding device are more relevant than its physical properties in the construction of its instrumental identity.
Instrumentality in this sense represents a complex, culturally and temporally shaped structure of actions, knowledge, and meaning associated with things that can be used to produce sound. […] the term must not be understood as denoting a property an object per se has or has not, but it is rather intended as a means of capturing the instrumental potential of a given artifact (Hardjowirogo, 2017 p.17).
Taking into account significant literature about the argument, Hardjowirogo starts her preliminary list of criteria of instrumentality, with “Sound Production”, which represents a traditional musicological notion of the instrument, from von Hornbostel and Sachs (1914) on, with a substantial difference between traditional instruments, whose sound is the immediate result of the physical characteristics of the object, and digital musical instruments, whose sonic features are designed independently from the physical ones. “Intention and Purpose” figures as the second criterion; playing a musical instrument always requires both the intention to do so and the purposeful use of something (that can also have originally a different purpose) as a musical instrument. The third cited criterion is “Learnability and Virtuosity”: each instrument requires practice, exercise, and learned skills. This seems to be a valid criterion not only for musical instruments, but for instruments in general, as previously seen when speaking about the stethoscope and mediate auscultation.
“Playability/Control/Immediacy/Agency/Interaction” constitutes the next point in the list. Playability and control imply the immediate reaction of the sounding instrument to the performer’s actions. What might change is the degree of agency ascribed to the instrument, in the interaction between it and the performer. The physical aspect of instrumental performance is addressed by three different concepts of “Expressivity/Effort/Corporeality". The notion of physical action, or even effort, required by instrumental playing is linked with the romantic idea of virtuoso expressivity, which in some cases is kept and searched as a feature also in the design of new instruments, confirming the idea of the musical instrument as a means of musical expression. Next criteria are “Immaterial Features”/Cultural Embeddedness". Both notions imply the cultural negotiation of value and meaning of a musical instrument. The last point of Hardjowirogo's list is “Audience Perception/Liveness”, both important criteria because it is precisely in the context of the performance that the perception of liveness from the audience legitimates the notion of instrumentality.
Understood as the identity of musical instruments, instrumentality is therefore constructed through the interplay of various criteria. The contribution by Hardjowirogo addresses this issue from a quite broad perspective, concerned with the understanding of new and contemporary musical instruments, especially the ones created in the electronic and digital domain. More specifically related to the possibility of understanding microphones as musical instruments is, instead, the perspective offered by Cathy Van Eck, in her book Between Air and Electricity. Here, the author's concerns about instruments and instrumentality bring us back to Stockhausen's statement, since the core question of the book is: “Are microphones and loudspeakers musical instruments?” (Van Eck, 2017, p.1)
Van Eck investigates the role of microphones and loudspeakers in contemporary and experimental music. The author starts from observing how, over the twentieth century, microphones and loudspeakers have become an omnipresent technology in music, as well as in everyday life. Since their introduction, many aspects related to music and music-making have changed enormously. On a technological level, high-fidelity has been among the main criteria for the design of microphones and loudspeakers: sound reproduction technology has been developed to become as invisible and sonically transparent as possible. Nevertheless, the presence of microphones and loudspeakers has been brought to the front and questioned by many diverse artistic experimentations. Most of them have worked directly with microphones and loudspeakers, looking for different kinds of interactions with conventional musical instruments, with daily objects, or directly turning microphones and loudspeakers into sounding devices (a long, accurate and very significant list of musical works that have been developing from creative uses of microphones and loudspeakers is given by Cathy Van Eck in her book). In proposing a taxonomy of sounding objects used as musical instruments, Van Eck individuates three main general categories. The first is that of traditional musical instruments, whose primary and main intended function is to produce music. The second includes all devices not usually identified as musical instruments, but whose main function involves sound in several ways, like radios, record players, mixing desks, as well as microphones and loudspeakers. The third category includes all objects not associated with sound at all in their main function, but consciously used within a musical experience, such as glasses, boxes, spoons, tables, bicycles, etc. For the two latter categories the author considers as implicit the intentionality of the composer to bring these objects in the realm of musical instruments, intending them as such. The degree of instrumentality recognized to these objects has to do also with the special treatment they undergo during the performance, as well as the fact that their unexpected use as musical instruments becomes a determining aspect of the musical experience. It is thus easy to observe that some of the above-mentioned criteria such as intentionality, playability of the object and its perception within the performance, as well as the cultural negotiation of its musical value and meaning, emerge as important aspects in the definition of the identity of the musical instrument.
Van Eck's starting question “Are microphones and loudspeakers musical instruments?” resonates as particularly significant in the context of my project, for which I need to articulate the role of piezo, displaying the emerging relationship with the traditional musical instrument, and with the performer.
When Van Eck talks about artistic projects using contact microphones, she outlines two main approaches: on one hand they are used to develop new instruments from scratch transforming daily objects into sound-making devices, on the other, they are used to transform conventional instruments. The first approach relates to all experimental practices of developing new instruments combining everyday objects with contact microphones. As already seen in the first chapter, one of the first examples that fits this category is the work of Richard Lerman, who has spent many years of his research in working with piezo. In Travelon Gamelon (1977) he uses piezo to amplify bicycles, obtaining original percussive musical instruments; or, a more articulated example is the work by Hugh Davies, as in the case of the Shozyg. Assembling different objects in the cover of an encyclopedia volume, the Shozyg becomes a sophisticated musical instrument, able to produce a large variety of sounds, also thanks to the combination of amplification with different kinds of contact microphones and other close miking techniques such as magnetic pickups. The second approach could be exemplified by the project Inside piano by Andrea Neumann. Here the soundboard of a grand piano is amplified by several kinds of contact microphones and all musical actions are diffused through loudspeakers. As Cathy Van Eck explains:
In Neumann's performances the grand piano has been changed into a different instrument which can only function properly by interacting with microphones in order to obtain a specific sounding result. Elements of the piano which would not normally emit much sound in themselves become audible in this instrumental set-up. What is resisting to sound in a common grand piano might be resonating here and become an essential part of the instrument. The microphones are not fixed at a specific spot, but can be adapted anew between and even during performances. This new instrument focuses mainly on producing many different sonic qualities, in contrary to the conventional grand piano, which is built to produce the same sonic quality but at eighty-eight different pitches (Van Eck, 2017, pp.109-110).
In all the examples cited, contact microphones are exploited for their capacity of bringing unperceivable sounds to the front, and giving them a unexpected colour. This is a central aspect also in my research: the peculiar colour of amplification is pivotal and determinant for the artistic value of each work. A big part of my research on sound material and its treatment within the compositional process starts exactly from the specific features of sounds produced and amplified by unprocessed piezo. Moreover, I share with both above-mentioned approaches the aspect of combining my contact piezoelectric microphones within a certain set-up, that as a whole can be understood as a new musical instrument. However, my project is peculiar because the introduction of the piezo can be interpreted as a sort of invasion of the space of someone else's instrument. In experimenting different combinations and uses of the piezo with various traditional instruments, such as the guitar, the cello, the violin, the piano, etc., I am not playing myself, but I provide the performer with one or more piezos, together with a set of instructions about how to play with them. Therefore, I come to question which role the piezo assumes in these new contexts, and how it actually interferes with the pre-existent and consolidated system of someone else's traditional instrument.