The foundation of my work is that sound itself is the primary expressive phenomenon. I come to that state of thinking by the influence of a couple of sources: one, experience performing and then composing modern classical music, and another, the realization that what I love about rock and roll music is the combined sound quality of a group. For both of these, it is the nature of the entire complex of sound, the whole entity, that impresses me. The term that most closely describes this phenomenon is timbre, though we refer to the relationship of all items present as texture. For this essay, I’ll just call it sound.
The signature item that represents the changes in the world of music wrought by the twentieth century is the electric guitar, and it is especially the electric guitar sound which identifies a particular group in rock music. Some players had a very particular sound they preferred and that identified them, while others, like Jerry Garcia, were so fascinated by the changes they could make to the total sound energy that it became a focus of their playing. I remember being at a Dead show, sitting far back so I could see the whole crowd, and witnessing Jerry cease playing for a bit and dropping back to his amps and processors. After a few adjustments, he would come out with a new timbre that would send huge waves of recognition rushing through the crowd.
The electric guitar also represents for me the larger phenomenon of electrification, amplification, and recording technology and the way this has transformed music itself. Many angles might be pursued in thinking of that huge influence, one of the most important being the entire realm of electro-acoustic and computer music: musique concrète began the trend of altering real-world sounds and making music from them, while electronic music started from sources that produced sine tones and other waveforms. These designations have long since blurred, but their influence into the present is undeniable. Once heard, who will forget the first time they heard auto-tune in the popular context, most likely in Cher’s “Believe”? Perhaps they won’t know that the tune sung by HAL in 2001, A Space Odyssey (A Bicycle Built for Two) was produced by computers using the same means of sound production (amplitude modulation) way back in 1962.
There’s another incredibly important aspect of rock and other modern styles, the quality of a singer’s voice. In the classical world voice quality is of course important, but differences of vocal sound tend to be minimized in favor of blending together. In rock music, we could name a whole list of singers who will be dismissed by many listeners as bad, not a singer, etc. Think Neil Young… I once met a classical music devotee who rejected all singers who “sing through their nose”, a group that would include almost every jazz singer as well as virtually all rock or folk singers. The age we now inhabit by-and-large perceives the quality of a singer’s voice as a basic part of their expression, an aspect of singing to be modified according to what is being sung and the emotional twist one desires to create.
The business world certainly has recognized the power of sound to connect their product to a deep place in the memory. The use of sonic branding is a growing phenomenon that uses a particular sound to connect a product deeply into the memory.
Many marvel at the ability of music to express without definite meaning, and point to that as one of its most attractive features. On the other hand, we have come to realize that incorporating real-world sounds into a composition delivers the impact of the reference sound into the mind of the listener (think of a police siren). Of course, the internal energy created depends on one’s experience with the reference phenomenon, so this means that specificity of impact is not necessarily implied, just that the impact will be altered by a person’s memory.
It stands to reason, then, that a continuum exists from sounds that reference absolutely external, real-world sounds (sirens again) through strong resemblance to external sounds, to just hints of a real-world source in a sound. That understanding means that to reckon music’s impact on an individual, we must then grapple with the importance of the sound itself. A subtle reference in a sound similar to one we fear or love might well transform our reaction into revulsion or attraction.
The various strands mentioned here are the cause of my belief that we have entered a new age of music, an age increasingly reliant on sound itself for its impact. No musical practice goes away any more – people will always love melodies, and singing – but the singing we hear, judging from today’s popular music, is more and more surrounded by electronically processed sound.
This essay just scratches the surface of sound quality as a primary foundation of musical expression. I will definitely return to the topic again, but for now one more comment is in order. It is about surface: just a century or so ago, the “surface” of music – its pleasing qualities in particular – was derided by many music theorists, critics, and listeners as unimportant to structure, to real meaning. I vehemently disagree: sound itself is not only structural, it is (obviously!) the very foundation of meaning in music.