3.1 Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I
Stockhausen created the term Mikrophonie, or microphony, to describe the foundational process of his pieces Mikrophonie I and Mikrophonie II. The term Mikrophonie references the practice of using microscopes, or Mikroskopie, which magnifies things that the naked eye cannot see. Unlike the microscope, which reveals what is already present but in higher detail – a visual corollary to van Eck’s supporting approach – Stockhausen’s intent was to use the microphone to create new sonic experiences. “The microphone...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.”1
Using the microphone this way, in what he later called the microphonic process, the composer suggested he was pioneering the microphone as an active musical instrument, in stark contrast to its former use as “a lifeless, passive recording instrument.”2 His attitude towards the microphone can be explained in terms of van Eck’s categories: that he viewed it as only being used in a supportive function rather than in an explicitly interactive manner. As I discuss in the previous chapter, the history of microphone singing shows otherwise. Furthermore, the microphonic process does not employ the microphone alone, but rather an instrumentarium of media that includes microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and other media. Despite the inaccuracy of Stockhausen’s claims, examining how Mikrophonie I employs a microphonic instrumentarium reveals the work’s contributions.
Mikrophonie I was written for six musicians divided into two groups of three players, each consisting of a percussionist, playing a single tam-tam (a non-pitched, flat metal disc used in orchestral percussion); a “microphonist,” who is onstage manipulating a microphone; and a technician, who is set up in the audience controlling a “band-pass” filter and volume faders – what today would be referred to as a mixing console (and the term I will use when referring to both items). The process of sound production for each group is as follows: the percussionist interacts with the tam-tam; this sound is acoustically projected into the space while also being captured by the microphonist at varying positions; then the signal from the microphone is manipulated by the technician using the band-pass filter; this modified signal is sent to two speakers via two volume faders, finally disseminating the electroacoustic sound into the performance space via loudspeakers (fig. 3-1).
Figure 3‑1 (below): Circuit Diagram for Mikrophonie I.3
With regards to the only acoustic instrument involved, the tam-tam, Stockhausen has admitted that the piece could be performed with or “on” any interesting metal object, “I can imagine the score being used to examine an old Volkswagen musically, to go inside the old thing and bang it and scratch it and do all sorts of things to it.”4 Whether a tam-tam or automobile, the acoustic sound of the percussion instrument is still audible alongside the electro-mechanical transformations made by the microphone and mixing console. While for many percussionists the tam-tam is of the utmost importance for interpreting this piece, Stockhausen’s own statements highlight the original intent of the piece, that it is about acoustically exploring a percussion instrument or metal object by means of the microphonic process. Stockhausen notates two parameters for microphone placement, the distance from the percussion object used to interact with the tam-tam (while still being near the tam-tam itself) and the distance away from the tam-tam, with each parameter having three subdivisions of distance.5 Microphone placement inherently influences the quality and volume of captured sound. Van Eck explains that “The closer the microphone is to the object, the more prevalent high frequencies will be in the sound, since rapid air pressure waves decay the fastest. When the microphone is placed further away from the object, there will be not only fewer high frequencies but also more sound input from the space present in the resulting sound.”6
Rather than being unique to Mikrophonie I, electro-mechanical equalization is a natural phenomenon of all microphones, and therefore the microphonic process. This was present as Bing Crosby was developing crooning and when Ella Fitzgerald manipulated the distance of the microphone from her face, further supporting the idea that microphone singers engage in the microphonic process. Still, Mikrophonie I is notable in that it “requires rapid and virtuoso”7 microphone movements according to the score. The piece also requires similar techniques on the mixing console, which despite the piece’s theoretical focus on the microphone, plays a vital role in its instrumentarium.
To form the mixing console used in Mikrophonie I, a W49 Hörspielverzerrer filter was bolted to two W66C volume faders, both of which were manufactured by the German firm Maihak. The faders control the volume of the sound leaving the filters and heading to each of the speakers. Today, volume faders are found on all sorts of physical and digital interfaces, from home stereos to digital audio workstations – on the former, appearing as volume knobs; on the latter, appearing as digital sliders. The W49 filter was designed to be used in radio programs to create effects on the voice, mimicking acoustic environments such as talking on the phone. To accomplish this, it acts as a sieve for sound, electronically blocking some frequencies while permitting others through. Filters such as the W49 are categorized by the range of frequencies they permit through, such as “band-pass,” “high-pass,” and “low-pass.” For instance, a high-pass filter allows sound above a “cut-off” frequency through the sieve, meaning they generally suppress low frequencies only. The opposite is true of a low-pass filter – it suppresses high frequencies. The W49 is a band-pass filter, meaning that upper and lower cut-off frequencies create a band of sound between the cut-offs that is allowed through the filter. The W49 accomplished this through two sliders on a vertical scale, with the top and bottom sliders setting the upper and lower cut-off frequencies respectively. As figure 3-2 shows, the W49 was also a “step-filter,” meaning that the cut-off frequencies were set according to pre-determined steps.
Within the Mikrophonie I mixing board, the volume faders are used in a typical, if virtuosic, fashion, to manipulate the volume coming out of the loudspeakers. The writing of Sean Williams reveals much about how Stockhausen used the W49 filter.8 Stockhausen frequently used this filter in his works, first using it in Kontakte in 1959, then regularly starting in 1964 with Mikrophonie I and continuing with Hynmen (1966), Prozession (1967), Kurzwellen (1968), and Aus den Sieben Tagen (1968). Figure 3-3 shows an excerpt of the filter notation in Mikrophonie I, where the smooth, diagonal lines direct the technician to fluidly move in between the steps, rather than set the cut-off frequencies according to its built-in steps.
Using the filter in such a way, however, causes it to elicit “clicks, crackles, and pops” which are only made stronger over time by the temporary relief that lubricant spray provides. These “extraneous” sounds have since become an important part of historically informed interpretations of the work.9 Stockhausen believed that the idiosyncratic sounds created by using the limited equipment outside of its design were essential: “Such materials are glorious, aren’t they? The two metal levers of the filters scrape along on the carbon strips, and spray must now and then be used. Today, if you try to substitute computerized filter simulations, the characteristic sound goes to hell.”10 According to Williams, “The repurposing of the W49 filter is therefore consistent with the approach demonstrated throughout the piece in which Stockhausen is pushing each performer to extend the music-making potential of each instrument or tool in order to create a larger, polyphonic sound that goes beyond any of the individual elements comprising it.”11
All of this reinforces why Mikrophonie I can be viewed as a highly interactive piece of music over 60 years after its premiere. Why then can the instrumental nature of the microphone in the hands of popular artists, such as Bring Crosby, be overlooked? Partly, this can be explained by pieces and practices. Believing that “If it is imitable, then it is also not worth much,”12 the enduring novelty of Stockhausen’s work relates to his intention to develop a piece using techniques never meant for mass adoption. The source sounds from the tam-tam are not produced in a manner typical of its orchestral setting, while microphonist was not, and is not, a common role within music performance, notwithstanding the degree to which vocalists engage in the microphonic process. Moreover, the sound resulting from the interactions between the tam-tam, percussionist, and microphone are shaped by virtuosic and unconventional actions on the mixing board in ways rarely seen today. Conversely, Crosby, not being a composer at all, instead developed a microphonic practice that was adopted throughout popular singing. He found a balance between new technology and musical taste, performing songs using his new practice that were already well known or had the potential to become commercially successful, and therefore broadly impacted vocal performance. These varying intentions and outcomes heighten the perceived interactive/instrumental nature of Mikrophonie I and obscure the instrumental innovations of popular microphonists like Crosby and Fitzgerald.
Figure 3‑2 (left): The W49 band-pass filter.13
Considering these cases as differing examples of the microphonic process opens up Mikrophonie I to further scrutiny. The work did not reimagine the microphone as an active musical instrument – this had already been done by early microphone singers and later vocalists. If it is microphone virtuosity that makes the work unique then, one would only need to find examples of popular singers making rapid motions with the microphone to call into question the piece’s original contributions. Perhaps it was instead Stockhausen’s use of the mixing console that should receive attention? Continuing this line of inquiry, Williams’ work shows that Jamaican producer King Tubby (1941-1989) similarly employed a step-filter in dub reggae of the 1960s.14 Furthermore, master hip-hop turntablists of the 1980s and 90s, such as Grand Master Flash (b. 1958) or the X-Ecutioners (active 1989-2005) used mixing consoles with incredible technical prowess. Such comparisons undermine van Eck’s vaulting of Mikrophonie I to a higher level of interactivity than that of popular microphone practice and also reveal how an overt focus on the microphone does not serve a thorough understanding of the piece. While these facts may refute claims of superiority or originality vaunted upon (or made by) Stockhausen in one particular area, they do not lessen the significance of his contributions to avant-garde classical music. In this sense, analyses of the microphonic process should, therefore, not be done to qualitatively evaluate the instrumentality of a single device between musical contexts, as the work of van Eck suggests, but rather be used to understand how the entire microphonic instrumentarium relates to the genre’s conventions.
Figure 3‑3: Sample notation for the W49 filter.15
Analyzing every medium and interaction within microphonic pieces and practices, whether popular or avant-garde, is a challenging and complex endeavour. While I have provided some insight into the previous examples, there is much more that could be said. For example, why have I not discussed the role of loudspeakers? Surely the loudspeaker would have affected the perception of Crosby’s voice on the radio in the 1930s, and similarly, Stockhausen would have preferred certain loudspeakers over others, having deliberated over almost every other detail. While loudspeakers would have played an active role in the production of sound in these cases, the performers did not interact with them for explicit musical ends. This points to the importance of van Eck’s interacting category in conceiving of sound reproduction media as musical instruments and examining the microphonic process. Without real or perceived interactions between performer and media, the instrumental nature of the device is weakened or hidden, as demonstrated in this chapter. To examine the role of loudspeakers the microphonic process then, I discuss Hugh Davies’ classical work Quintet, followed by the electric guitar-feedback pioneer Jimi Hendrix.