PROBES #32

In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music).

A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of ‘music’. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do.

In PROBES #32 we trace the history of some newly invented instruments, including the Chromelodion, the Boo, the Mazdaphone, the Quadrangulis Reversum, the Crystal Baschets, Harry Bertoia’s Sonambiente, the unearthly Daxophone and Arthur Harris’ Mother Lap Cello Harp, Whispering Harp and the14.5 metre viol, whose lowest strings are inaudible to the human ear.

Musical references

01  Gregorio Paniagua, ‘Anakrousis’, 1978
02  Harry Partch, ‘Dark Brother’ (excerpt), 1942
03  Harry Partch, ‘The Dreamer That Remains’ (excerpt), 1972
04  Harry Partch, ‘Windsong’ (excerpts), 1958
05  Harry Partch, ‘A Court in Its Own Contempt Rises to a Motherly Apotheosis’ (excerpt), 1955
06  Erik Satie, ‘Gnossiennes No.1’ (excerpt), 2014
07  Footnote
08 Cristal Baschet, unidentified track, (excerpt)
09  Michel Deneuve, ‘Iranon’ (excerpts), 1981
10  Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet, ‘Manège’, 1966
11  Jean Tinguely, unidentified museum clip (excerpt)
12  Harry Bertoia, ‘Sonambient’ (excerpts), 1970
13  Harry Bertoia, ‘Unfolding’ (excerpt), 1974
14  Hans Reichel, ‘The Duke of Syracuse’ (excerpt), 2002
15  Harry Bertoia, ‘Unfolding’ (excerpt), 1974
16  Hans Reichel, ‘The Duke of Syracuse’ (excerpt), 2002
17  Twang
18  Hans Reichel, ‘Street Song’ (excerpt), 2002
19  Kazuhisa Uchihashi, ‘Opening Address of the King Pawn’, ‘Deep Roast’ (excerpts), 2017
20  Heavenly sound
21  Yuri Merzhevsky, Michelle Kinney, Christopher Cunningham and Philip Blackburn, ‘Ironia’ (excerpts) 2003
22  Footnote
23  Bart Hopkins, ‘Savart’s Wheel’ (excerpt)
24  Uncredited demo, ‘Voyage of Time’ (excerpts), 2013
25  Les Phones, ‘La Danse des Fourmis’, ‘Megalithe’ (excerpts), 1995/7
26  Footnote
27  Uakti, ‘Arrumacao’ (excerpts), 1996
28  Gregorio Paniagua, ‘Anakrousis’, 1978