Laurent Corvalán Gallegos et Vincent Isnard 3/4 : Acousmatic massages / From a Composer’s Perspective
As part of their artistic research residency and in the perspective of a large-scale experiment that took place mid-September in order to refine their protocol, Vincent Isnard et Laurent Corvalán Gallegos looked around for subjects willing to try out their acousmatic massage apparatus. Amongst them was composer Marco Stroppa, a regular at IRCAM. He accepted to share his views with us.
Why did you accept to take part in this “acoustic massage” experience? What drew you to it?
The concept of “acousmatic massage” immediately sparked my curiosity. The idea itself was captivating: how can we “massage” with acousmatic sounds? My interest also stems from my appreciation for acousmatic music in general. Because I’m sensitive to the expressive and structural potential of sound, I like that approach. Besides, I often go to concerts at the GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales).
Now we have discussed the “acousmatic” part of the project, what about the “massage”?
I admit that at first, I did not think of “massage” in the sense of treatment or wellness practice, even though the experience, as it was described, seemed similar to mindful meditation. I am used to meditating – which for me doesn’t have any esoteric connotation – so this wasn’t a deterrent for me. Same goes for the protocol: listening with my eyes closed is completely natural for me. My view is that all composers should learn to listen in this way, so that they can get a better feel for the sound. Even at concerts, I listen with my eyes closed: it helps me focus not only on the sound but also on the interaction between sounds and space. When I eliminate the visual dimension, I can perceive the spatial signature of a sound phenomenon (in the physical sense, not unlike what I tested with my totem made of speakers (link: https://medias.ircam.fr/numericDocument/fr-entretien-avec-marco-stroppa.-le-compositeur-artisan). I find that we don’t do enough to develop the habit of listening to the radiation of a sound source, i.e. not just its physical location, but how the sound wave stimulates the air occupying the space through which it passes.
As someone who is used to acousmatic sounds, what were your impression of this “acousmatic massage” experience which includes both electroacoustic and acoustic sounds in a spatialized setting?
I found that the combination of prerecorded and “hand-made” sounds in real time was rather convincing, especially regarding their respective spectro-morphological characteristics. Naturally, the type of source, be it acoustic or electroacoustic, was immediately identifiable. Even more so when “hand-made” sounds were getting closer: it was clear then that they were made by a real, living performer because that kind of feeling of proximity is difficult to recreate using speakers, except with WFS, which is however a very heavy system.
Sounds were sometimes accompanied by physical contacts, which stimulated touch as well as hearing.
I was curious about this unusual kind of synesthesia combining sound and touch. However, I still have mixed feelings about it – at least for the version I was able to experience; perhaps things have changed since then. I have the feeling that there were either a little too many contacts, to keep the experience purely acoustic, or not enough. I would have probably liked these contacts to have been both more frequent and more independent of the sound being heard. Perhaps by exploring a different kind of relationship between certain sounds or sound morphologies and the contacts, or quite simply a language of touch that would have a different logic from the language of sound.
Isn’t this scarcity creating a sense of expectation that is integral to the experience?
Vincent and Laurent certainly focused on that dimension, but I still find that when it is too rare, we lose the sense of expectation. Of course, even though I had been warned ahead of time, I was still a bit surprised at the first touch, but I kind of lost interest after a while.
You said that, being used to meditating, this experience seemed similar at first. Now that you have done it, did it make you change your mind?
I must first specify that, even though I do meditate, I am absolutely allergic to “meditative music”, which I think often is nothing but bad electronic music. When I am meditating, I am in a different state of mind, and I was kind of expecting the same thing when they explained to us how the experience was going to go. I knew of course we were not going to listen to techno music, but rather be introduced to a unique listening mode. It reminds me of another experience that I had some time ago, when I went to a restaurant where you dine in the dark. Guests are welcomed by a visually-impaired staff who is naturally more at ease in complete darkness. From a musician standpoint, I found the way you experience food, textures, and even the tableware in such a setting very interesting. This acousmatic massage session was a rather similar experience: in both cases, we are exposed to, or at least we try to find, a different kind of connection to reality, in this instance mostly through hearing.
As a composer, what do you think of this new kind of experience?
To me, the experience was more like a changing environment than a piece whose form follows a specific musical narrative. Yet, materials evolved through the piece: some appeared, some disappeared. But I experienced it the same way I do a creative installation, rather than how I experience a live concert. I liked this deep dive into a very pianissimo atmosphere, which was close to complete silence for almost an hour, without any dynamic peak that could shape the form or any interfering sound. Once the ear gets accustomed to this feeble acoustic pressure, just like the eye gets accustomed to darkness, you start catching several micro-articulations, micro-directionalities and micro-nuances, until you are forced to develop a much more creative micro-hearing, into the depth of sound. The very nature of these sounds supports auditory abstraction: even at the pianississimo level, if the sound was that of an orchestra, the semantics would have been completely different. Listening to electroacoustic sounds helps us ignore our listening habits and dive into this concept of acoustic darkness.
What do you take from this experience? Do you think of using any part of it in your work?
I don’t think that it gave me any concrete ideas that I could immediately apply to my musical practice. First of all, because my music does not need to be listened to in a specific environment to be appreciated. Any concert venue would do. I don’t have anything against trying different listening experiences, but they should always serve a coherent aesthetical purpose, which is naturally the case here. Still, if that system, though rather rudimentary at the moment, could be developed and if music institutions would imagine experimental modular spaces that integrate volume variations to the architecture itself – like Boulez intended when the Opéra Bastille was built – I believe there would be then a possibility to explore new kinds of relations to music.
On the other hand, this experience of sparseness in a very special space, shared with no more than a dozen people, was a great source of motivation for me and I came away from it feeling very inspired. As someone who is really interested in sound synthesis, this kind of listening setting would allow me to bring sound images to life that would be impossible to recreate in a traditional concert venue. For instance, spatialized sound that would fall like a shower on the audience and break into thousands of spectral fragments…
Interview conducted by Jérémie Szpirglas
