EPISODE · Dec 31, 2016 · 7 MIN
Electronic Tonalities
from Bohacz & Frenz · host Bohacz & Frenz
“Electronic Tonalities” represents my earliest audio art and improvised electronic music. I began making audio recordings when I was around five or six years old (1963-64). While playing with our Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder I discovered a way to create feedback. If memory serves the feedback was created by moving the microphone near the audio level meter (this audio level meter was interesting on its own, it looked like a little mouth moving with the lowest audio level looking like it was open and the highest level registered by the mouth closing). The speaker also may have had something to do with the sound, I had no headphones back then. I’ve isolated the pure feedback by removing the noise floor and cutting out those pops (usually start and stop functions) and long silences that I felt were not essential to my play. What remains has me singing at the beginning, discovering and beginning to play with the feedback, then full blown improvisation. The last part has me accidentally mixing the feedback with a TV soundtrack (a foreshadowing of my “Video I Ching” method I worked with years later at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Video Area). Years after that I had a similar experience creating the video "The Machines Possessed Me." You can find "The Machines Possessed Me (Abstract Version)" at https://youtu.be/8o3pu5wE1f0 and https://vimeo.com/435367103. Here’s a new version where I digitally augmented the track: https://on.soundcloud.com/W7CjEGf3STeqXnaQ6.
What this episode covers
“Electronic Tonalities” represents my earliest audio art and improvised electronic music. I began making audio recordings when I was around five or six years old (1963-64). While playing with our Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder I discovered a way to create feedback. If memory serves the feedback was created by moving the microphone near the audio level meter (this audio level meter was interesting on its own, it looked like a little mouth moving with the lowest audio level looking like it was open and the highest level registered by the mouth closing). The speaker also may have had something to do with the sound, I had no headphones back then. I’ve isolated the pure feedback by removing the noise floor and cutting out those pops (usually start and stop functions) and long silences that I felt were not essential to my play. What remains has me singing at the beginning, discovering and beginning to play with the feedback, then full blown improvisation. The last part has me accidentally mixing the feedback with a TV soundtrack (a foreshadowing of my “Video I Ching” method I worked with years later at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Video Area). Years after that I had a similar experience creating the video "The Machines Possessed Me." You can find "The Machines Possessed Me (Abstract Version)" at https://youtu.be/8o3pu5wE1f0 and https://vimeo.com/435367103. Here’s a new version where I digitally augmented the track: https://on.soundcloud.com/W7CjEGf3STeqXnaQ6.
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Electronic Tonalities
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