Abstract
“Certain sounds, even when they are loud or heard from close by, conjure small sources.” Small sounds, as Chion (2016) describes them in this quote, usually appear in intimate or contained settings, where their relatively low strength will not be spoiled by the masking effects of a noisy public sphere. What happens, however, when they are shared with an audience in a concert venue? Privileging a distributive understanding of agency, I explore the interactions of instruments, techniques, and processes through which the composer Clara Iannotta (b. 1983) brings small sounds to the public space of the concert hall in the first minute of her composition Intent on Resurrection – Spring or Some Such Thing (2014). By articulating the technological means harnessed to allow for the qualities of small sounds to emerge, I reveal the conditions that are required for sound to be recognized and experienced as intimate. Along the way, I draw connections between the amplification aesthetics of Iannotta’s work and Hyperrealist art, and theorize the concept of the “grain of the instrument” drawing on ideas from Roland Barthes, Pierre Schaeffer, and Brian Kane.
Highlights
By articulating the technological means harnessed to allow for such a quality to emerge, we reveal the conditions that are necessary for a sound to be recognized as intimate—even when it is experienced in a large public venue
As listening is always at the boundary between nature and culture, we should expect that our affordances craft small sounds just as much as small sounds craft our abilities
We witness the combination of compositional and performance techniques that enable the emergence of what I have called the grain of the instrument, leading the audience in turn to experience a haptic sense of intimacy
Summary
The bones I feel inside my skin are scaffolding that holds me in. Earth will glean them when I’m chaff, and wafted off. The Irish poet Dorothy Molloy envisions yet another world of small sounds deep underground She can hear the “hollow sound” of her bones pounding “ fortissimo,” damped by the deafening silence of the earth.. In this article, I explain Intent on Resurrection’s small sounds not in conjunction with the course of New Music, but rather in relation to the emergence and withdrawal of the affordances of the sonic techniques and technologies of the past century. While following Intent on Resurrection’s small sounds at the intersection of the acoustic and the perceived worlds, between human and instrumental technologies, we will necessarily follow the linear trajectory imposed by the means of writing. As listening is always at the boundary between nature and culture, we should expect that our affordances craft small sounds just as much as small sounds (and the network of techniques and technologies involved in their production) craft our abilities
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