Henry Cowell's writing on various aspects of music in the middle of the 20th Century.
Edited with an Introduction by Dick Higgins.
Preface by Kyle Gann Order here from Amazon
Henry Cowell “The Joys of Noise”
MUSIC AND NOISE, according to a time-honored axiom, are opposites. If a reviewer writes “It is not music, but noise,” he feels that all necessary comment has been made.
Within recent times it has been discovered that the geometrical axioms of Euclid could not be taken for granted, and the explorations outside them have given us non-Euclidean geometry and Einstein’s physically demonstrable theories.
Might not a closer scrutiny of musical axioms break down some of the hard-and-fast notions still current in musical theory, and build up a non-Bachian counterpoint, a non-Beethovenian harmony, or even a non-Debussian atmosphere, and a non-Schoenbergian atonality?
My interest in noise as a musical element began when I discovered my delight on hearing Varese’s Hyperprism. Not until I looked at the printed score of it, however, did I release the depravity into which my musical taste had fallen. This wicked work is recorded for seventeen percussion, and only four melodic instruments. I had been intoxicated by a composition seventeen twenty-firsts noise, yet noise is not a musical element! Although I had often taken and given surreptitious joy with tone clusters, euphometrics, and other concoctions of my own, in which noise was an important element, my musical demoralization was finally completed by Stokowski, who offered the 198-proof noises of Varese within the pure walls of Carnegie Hall itself.
Having thus become acquainted with Varese, and later with Antheil, I began an operation, which I shall merely outline in this article — for technical detail would be out of place — calculated to undermine musical standards. Being now beyond reform myself, I shall attempt to show that the noise-makers are developing a little considered, but natural, element of music, rather than dealing with extra-musical material.
In almost any reliable book on harmony, you will find the axiom that the primary elements of music are melody, harmony and rhythm. If noise were admitted at all, and I doubt if it ever has been, it would unquestionably be classified as part of rhythm. This, however, is a faulty idea of rhythm. Rhythm is a conception, not a physical reality. It is true that to be realized in music, rhythm must be marked by some sort of sound, but this sound is not itself the rhythm. Rhythmical considerations are the duration of sounds, the amount of stress applied to sounds, the rate of speed as indicated by the movement of sounds, periodicity of sound patterns, and so on.
Sound and rhythm thus are the primary musical elements, sound comprising all that can be heard, and rhythm the formulating impulse behind the sound. Before sound can be divided into melody and harmony, another, and more primary, division must take place: a division into tone —or sound produced by periodic vibration —and noise — or sound produced by non-periodic vibration. Tone may then be divided into melody and harmony; noise remains, a much-used but almost unknown element, little developed from its most primitive usages perhaps owing to its ill-repute.
The most natural musical expression is to be found in the music of primitives. All primitive music consists in part of beating on percussion instruments, which produces noise-sounds. Without the impelling rhythm induced by these sounds, the backbone of the entrancement of the music would be removed. No primitive can sing comfortably without a flow of beats on some drum-like instrument to support him; and the piling up of the hypnotic spell, which will lift primitives to fanatical ecstasy, is impossible without the ceaseless percussion thuds. When the same rhythm is marked by tones rather than by noises, the force of the music is immeasurably weakened.
Although oriental nations vary greatly in their music, all of them use many percussion instruments; the Chinese not only announce all change in musical form by beats in different gongs — but the leader of the orchestra is the man who plays the wood-blocks, so important is that position held to be.
We are less interested, however, in primitive and oriental uses of percussion than in our own employment of it, and it’s power of moving. Noise-making instruments are used with telling effect in our greatest symphonies, and were it not for the punctuation of the cymbal and bass drum, the climaxes in our operas would be like jellyfish.
In the search for music based on pure tone, we may turn hopefully to vocal works, only to find that they too are riddled by noises; for it is only while singing a vowel that a singer makes anything like a “pure” tone — the pronunciation of most consonants produces irregular vibrations, hence noise.
But the most shocking of all is the discovery that there is a noise element in the very tone itself of all our musical instruments. Consider the sound of a violin. Part of the vibrations producing the sound are periodic, as can be shown by a harmonic analyzer. But others are not: they do not constantly re—form the same pattern, and consequently must be considered noise. In varying proportions all other instruments yield similar combinations. A truly pure tone can be made only in an acoustical laboratory, and even there it is doubtful whether, by the time the tone has reached our ear, it has not been corrupted by resonances picked up on the way.
As musical sound grows louder, the noise in it is accentuated and the tone element reduced. Thus, a loud sound is literally noise than a soft one; yet music does not touch our emotional depths if it does not rise to a dynamic climax. Under the best circumstances, the conditions are aroused by musical noise and lulled by musical tone.
Since the “disease” of noise permeates all music, the only hopeful course is to consider that the noise-germ, like the bacteria of cheese, is a good microbe, which may provide previously hidden delights to the listener, instead of producing musical oblivion.
Although existing in all music, the noise-element has been to music as sex to humanity, essential to its existence, but impolite to mention, something to be cloaked by ignorance and silence. Hence the use of noise in music has been largely unconscious and undiscussed. Perhaps this is why it has not been developed, like the more talked of elements, such as harmony and melody. The use of noise in most music today s little beyond the primitive; in fact it is behind most native music, where the banality of the thumbs often heard in our concerts would not be tolerated.
Men like Varese, in his Hyperprism or Arcane, or Bartok, in his Piano Concerto, where he uses percussion noises canonically, render a service by opening a wide field for investigation. —although they arrive at nothing conclusive. If we had scales of percussion sounds, with each “key” determined by some underlying quality, such as drum-sound, cymbal-sound, and so on, we could produce music through the conscious use of the melodic steps that would then be at the disposal of the composer. Perhaps this is one of the things music is coming to, and a new chemistry of sound will be the result.
