MUSIC FOR THE INNER EAR
-an exploration of sonic potentiality
Music begins where words end - so said Goethe.
Where words leave off, music begins - said Heinrich Heine.
Jean Sibelius claimed that Music begins where the possibilities of language end.
Music for the inner ear is an artistic research project, which sets out on a quest to challenge these dicta, by claiming that music begins when words begin.
Prior to this artistic research project, Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard had already written an entire symphony for the inner ear, bearing the title Symphony No. 1. In this text, Løkkegaard describes a symphony in 3 movements, in language that is difficult to access, unless the listener has an immense knowledge of music and musical terminology.
The main intention behind this artistic research project (Music for the inner ear) was quite the opposite. This time, Løkkegaard sought to create music for the inner ear – with texts that would describe music and sound in a non-metaphorical way, and without musical terminology.
Music for the inner ear employs language that is accessible to a wider range of listeners - listeners who would in turn become composers, by creating music with their inner ear, while reading the texts.
All along, hoping to complete an ancient cycle of sounds becoming written words - becoming sounds again, as stated below by McLuhan (The Medium is the Massage):
The phonetic alphabet forced the magic world of the ear to yield to the neutral world of the eye. Man was given an eye for an ear.
This project seeks to give back an ear for an eye.
A utopian quest with multiple paradoxes embedded within, as well as multiple ramifications.
