I rarely use the term “Noise” myself, and I certainly don’t use it to describe my music. My interest in electronic sound, from the 1960s on, has always been based on a respect, even reverence, for the sound itself as a fascinating physical entity. The association of the word “noise” with unwanted sound is very foreign to me. All sounds are sounds, and I want them all; as Wikipedia puts it “From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water.” Another definition puts it as, “a sound, especially one that is loud or unpleasant or that
causes disturbance.” There is a political sense in which “disturbance” is a valuable contribution of art to society. However, for me this distinction doesn’t really exist. Like so many phenomena I understand sounds as varied spectra of sound qualities, all of which may have a place in my music; none of them are “unwanted”. Finally there is the technical description of noise as non oscillatory sound.A noise generator is a standard device on many synthesisers.
I am fully aware that many people may find some of my sounds not to their taste, but that does not make them noise. For many years I have been fascinated by the sounds of metal objects, which frequently have many inharmonic partials. I add to this the often similar sounds produced by electronic modulation. My Signal Processing Instrument (Casserley, 1998) draws on this with transformations based on single sideband modulators, using the Hilbert transform [1]. The many inharmonic sounds produced by the SPI are a feature of my music since the 1990s. I love and revere these sounds, and I hope that others may also enjoy them.
The use of inharmonic sound goes right back to the beginning; my first electronic piece, The Final Desolation of Solitude from 1969, uses ring modulation in various ways that produce quite complex sounds, and my first collaboration with the great sound poet Bob Cobbing, 15 Shakespeare Kaku from 1972, features the manipulation of the rich sound of Bob’s voice alongside electronically generated sound. However, neither of these pieces use anything I would call noise.
The solo CD The Edge of Chaos from 2001 combines amplified metal instruments with the SPI creating many complex interactions. In the opening track Ragnarök cymbals and gongs combine with SPI modulations to depict the beginnings of a descent into chaos; some of the sounds are harsh, but not noise.
My duo CD Garuda from 2012 (Bead SP12) with violinist Philipp Wachsmann adds Phil’s exquisite playing to my percussion and SPI. The opening track Whirling Dervish 1 contrasts the violin with strong transformations of its sound, creating a counterpoint of sound qualities.
A more recent CD Isla Decepción (Setola di Maiale SM3970) by the trio Sverdrup Balance, with vocalist Jean- Michel Van Schouwburg and pianist Yoko Miura, posits another approach to sound. As the liner notes put it, “Each player has a unique musical personality that is clearly stated, but also submerged into our collaboration.The unity and the diversity are the essence of our interaction.” Three very different sound worlds combine in a constant flux, as shown in the track Cathedral Crags.
Jean-Michel appears again in Corps et Biens (Creative Sources 853 CD), our second album of the duo MouthWind. In many tracks, for example “Et des carillons et des cascades” the different relationships between the voice and the transformations are very clear.
In a review of our first CD MouthWind Dan Warburton commented,«… Casserley does not distort [Jean-Michel’s vocal sounds]; instead, he tweaks them to make them more themselves, a subtle but important difference. If electronics can dehumanise music in some contexts, the opposite is true here; the electronics serve to emphasise the all-too-apparent humanity of Van Schouwburg’s voice» No space for noise here!
So is noise simply an annoyance? A deliberate attempt to disturb? Or simply a matter of opinion? For me the answer is to view all sounds as fascinating objects; complexity is interesting! Are there any sounds I don’t want to hear? Of course – Muzak, and other “waiting” music on the phone and other places; – wide swathes of popular music (although there are notable exceptions here of course) – loud traffic… Even these can have exceptions; in the 1980s and 90s I was known for playing music on motorbikes [2], so who am I to complain about noise?
Notes
[1] The Max/msp implementation of the Hilbert transform used in the Signal Processing Instrument is shown below:
This patcher creates 90 degree out of phase signals, known as real and imaginary numbers, shown as inputs to the second patcher.
The real and imaginary are modulated by a sine wave, then recombined to produce the result. Positive shift frequencies are added to the input to produce higher pitches, and negative frequencies are subtracted to produce lower pitches.
The shifts are linear, so different tuning relationships to the original are produced.
For more information about the Hilbert transform see this LINK
[2] Several examples of this can be found HERE
Bibliography
Casserley L., A Digital Signal Processing Instrument for Improvised Music, in «Journal of Electroacoustic Music»,Volume 11, 1998. LINK
Recordings
Casserley, Lawrence
The Final Desolation of Solitude
Fixed Media, Studio: Royal College of Music, London, 1968-9
Casserley, Lawrence and Cobbing, Bob
15 Shakespeare Kaku
Fixed Media, Studios: Goldsmiths College and Synthesizer Music Services, London, 1972-3. The concrete poems that Bob used as source material had been published in Poems for Shakespeare published by the Globe Playhouse Trust in 1972.
Casserley, Lawrence
“Ragnarök”, track 1 from CD The Edge of Chaos
Percussion and Signal Processing Instrument (Casserley)
Recorded at Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam
Sargasso Records SCD28042, 2002
These tracks can be found on Lawrence’s Soundcloud page in the album “roots§routes” HERE
Casserley, Lawrence and Wachsmann, Philipp
“Whirling Dervish 1”, track 1 from the CD Garuda
Violin and Viola (Wachsmann), Percussion and Signal Processing Instrument (Casserley)
Bead Records SP12, 2016
Casserley, Lawrence, Miura, Yoko and Van Schouwburg, Jean-Michel
“Cathedral Crags”, track 4 from the CD Isla Deceptión
Voice (Van Schouwburg), Piano (Miura), Signal Processing Instrument (Casserley)
Setola di Maiale SM3970, 2019
Information on this CD is HERE
The track can be heard on the Soundcloud link above.
Casserley, Lawrence and Van Schouwburg, Jean-Michel
“Et des carillons et des cascades” track 1 from the CD Corps et Biens
Voice (Van Schouwburg), Signal Processing Instrument (Casserley)
Creative Sources 853CD, 2024
Lawrence Casserley (born UK, 1941) has devoted his professional career, as composer, conductor and performer, to real time electroacoustic music. In 1967 he became one of the first students of Electronic Music at the Royal College of Music, London, UK, on the new course taught by Tristram Cary. Later he became Professor-in-Charge of Studios and Adviser for Electroacoustic Music at the RCM, before taking early retirement in 1995.