# Pieces Like These



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

The piece:








> In a sculptural pianola, Akko Goldenbeld turns the Dutch city of Eindhoven into a pianola roll, so that the landscape of buildings and streets acts as a physical musical score. I think it raises some questions about whether translating the one into the other obscures the experience of a city rather than clarifies it, but that would discount the act of watching it: with the visual connected to the sound, one begins to see the topography of the resulting music.


The question: what is the point?

I don't mean this condescendingly, so please don't take it like that - I'm generally interested in the intention and effect of this kind of music.

I think this is more of a sculptural/visual art piece, but its musical aspect is obviously of equal importance, and I'm sure we could all think of a few more piece of music that would fall into some kind of category alongside this one. But what does it really tell us? What experience does it offer?

My own thought process with these kinds of pieces is something like this: hmm, this is a rather neat idea --> it's certainly a very clever use of an old concept --> but wait a minute, what is the result of it? I'm not actually hearing a city. It's not a "translation" of any meaningful kind - it's a curious arrangement of a physical structure used to make some noise.

Do you think it achieves more?


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Polednice said:


> it's a curious arrangement of a physical structure used to make some noise.


I'm with you here.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Do you think it achieves more?


No. [filler text]


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

It comes across as performance art along the lines of Marcel Duchamp, who wrote a piece whose notes were determined by which balls were randomly deposited by a giant funnel into boxes on a track (somehow I ended up with that recording). It's more a curiosity than something with intrinsic musical value.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I'm sure some would think it's a masterpiece.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

It's just an overblown Rube Goldberg musical box. Converting images into "music" can and has been done far more efficiently with software. For me its merits are more visual, or at the most a kind of kinetic (hands on) art. But in what way is this any more meaningful than the kinds of clever displays you would find at any kids oriented science museum?


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

It ranks right up there with 4' 33" :lol:


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

It would have been worthy of merit if the shape of the buildings had actually made something approaching a pleasant noise.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Polednice said:


> The question: what is the point?


The point is whatever the artist intended. Your example here could very easily be extended to pieces of music by John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, for example. You wrote "it's a curious arrangement of a physical structure used to make some noise", but broadly speaking, so did other composers who made use of other non-musical disciplines construed to make some music/noise, such as from stochastic process (a branch of mathematical statistics), or even leaving the performance of the "score" to some element of pure chance and any performance mistakes are all part of the authentic music making process sanctioned by the composer. But who the hell am I to criticise? So long as some manage to see beauty in it, out of the six or seven billion of us on this planet, that's all it matters for good art.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

bassClef said:


> It would have been worthy of merit if the shape of the buildings had actually made something approaching a pleasant noise.


At least it didn't sound like R2-D2 from _Star Wars_ or me farting.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> I'm generally interested in the intention and effect of this kind of music.


I think the comparison above with Duchamp & probably Cage as well is accurate. It whimsical & maybe meant to be a joke.



> ...I think this is more of a sculptural/visual art piece, but its musical aspect is obviously of equal importance, and I'm sure we could all think of a few more piece of music that would fall into some kind of category alongside this one. But what does it really tell us? What experience does it offer?...


Just the experience of itself. Stravinsky said that music is about nothing but itself. It's just taking that idea to the extreme, I would guess. & yes, it's a conceptual art piece, it's not meant to come across like a Beethoven or Mahler symphony or something like that. But some people today even have "issues" with those kinds of things (see below).



> ...My own thought process with these kinds of pieces is something like this: hmm, this is a rather neat idea --> it's certainly a very clever use of an old concept --> but wait a minute, what is the result of it? I'm not actually hearing a city. It's not a "translation" of any meaningful kind - it's a curious arrangement of a physical structure used to make some noise...


I think you're kind of right. It's like for entertainment value, to make you think a bit, but only for a second, or like 15 minutes of fame. Pop art, Andy Warhol, the commercialization of art, etc. You won't remember, but in the 1990's, the UK advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi invested millions in this type of conceptual art. Then the bottom finally dropped out of the art market - esp. the contemporary art market, and it kind of started with the crash of '87 - & these artworks that had before been worth a lot of money were worth like zero. They meant them as an investment, like gold bullion or something, but it didn't turn out like that, it was a white elephant for the company. Just shows that these fads last for like 15 minutes or less as Warhol said they did/would.



> Do you think it achieves more?


Some of these conceptual art pieces are better than others, I agree that they're better done with latest digital technology, etc. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of gimmickry, stroking of egos and superficiality involved in all this. I like the traditional media better in art for that reason. I don't mind going to concerts where images are projected on a screen behind the performers - with new music, this is almost cliche - but in terms of it being like your example, just kind of mechanical without any narrative or vibe or kind of emotional/visceral/gut impact (like I think some of Cage & a lot of Xenakis does have, btw, to name two greats of the past) it leaves me cold after a few minutes of stretching my brain a bit, nothing much else.



Polednice said:


> The question: what is the point?


I remember hearing R. Strauss' _Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings_, one of the masterpieces of the genre in concert and after the applause, a guy next to me asked that exact same thing to his wife. Obviously he didn't know what the work was about, didn't bother to read the program notes, etc. Or just wasn't able to let go & experience the music and the emotion as it was for some reason. His loss.

As for the piece in your example, you have kind of explained the point in that there isn't really a point per se. It's conceptual art. Another type of art is "art as language" which I find to be worse, it has little or no humour, it is very dry and academic. HERE is a piece by Joseph Kossuth, one of the main guys in that movement in the 1960's. It's a real char, with a photo of a chair and a definition of chair from the dicitonary. At least your example has a bit of whimsy, creativity and humour. My example, Kossuth, is something you'd look at and walk past in like 2 seconds...


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

i think music is an extension to our basic communication. it's not something you should try a win points or be absurd about.

it is interesting to see someone do this but that doesn't mean it's good music.

and it's just a music box really. it also reminds me of piano rolls with holes in the paper. or a modified piano that can understand music written on a computer than this psychically moves the keys up and down.

he has done nothing new. he's just made a really inefficient way of doing what can already be done.

what happens to people that do that usually are forgotten about and even the people that make the noise are listening to proper music most of the time.

i don't think even he belives this is music. i bet his ipod isn't full of it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

LordBlackudder said:


> ...he has done nothing new. he's just made a really inefficient way of doing what can already be done...


I agree. At the same time, you could say similar thing about using analogue camera with real film as compared to a digital camera with no film just storage space or computer chips storing the data.



> ...what happens to people that do that usually are forgotten about and even the people that make the noise are listening to proper music most of the time...


I don't see this artwork or whatever it is as a music piece, it is more like conceptual art or art as language, that kind of thing. Or a happening.



> ...i don't think even he belives this is music. i bet his ipod isn't full of it.


But it can be full of contemporary classical, who knows?...


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

There seems to be no point. A great deal of work leading to very little effect. Mhhh, sounds like Congress.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I find this to be far more entertaining!

[YT]v=8ZQ4VmicDeM&NR=1[/YT]


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

GoneBaroque said:


> There seems to be no point. A great deal of work leading to very little effect. Mhhh, sounds like Congress.


I dont agree with what you said about the music, but that comment about congress earned you a "like" haha


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