Dr.Godfried-Willem RAES

Kursus Experimentele Muziek: Boekdeel 9: Literatuur en aktualiteit

Hogeschool Gent : Departement Muziek & Drama

9504

Electronics & Textsound:

LARRY WENDT

werd geboren in 1946 in Napa, California. Sinds 1971 is hij als electronicus aktief aan de San Jose State University, de plaats waar Allan Strange elektronische kompositie doceert. In de tweede helft van de jaren 70 raakt hij gefascineerd door Textsound komposities. Textsound wordt hier meestal vertaald als klankpoëzie, maar is daar in feite een typisch Amerikaanse uitloper van, met komponisten als Charles Amirkhanian, Kenneth Gaburo, Carl Stone en Larry Wendt. Zij springen om met taal (zowel inhoudelijk als vormelijk) als met muzikale materie (wat erg vergemakkelijkt wordt als het linguistische medium Amerikaans is). Daardoor ook gaan zij veel minder vlug een grens trekken om hun medium af te bakenen. Zo varieert bvb. het werk van Wendt van "konventionele" geschreven of gesproken taal, via poëtische en technologische behandelingen van die taal, tot zuiver elektronisch instrumentale stukken waar geen taal meer te bespeuren valt. Voor de meeste elektronische manipulaties gebruikt hij zelf ontworpen digitale apparatuur (DSP-processoren).

Wendt schrijft "naiëve" verhaaltjes en vertelt deze aan zijn apparatuur. Door hun interaktie ontspint zich een klankbeeld doorheen het verhaal. Dit klankbeeld, soms ook verschillende klankbeelden, ontwikkeling zich als een pseudosemantische tweede en derde stem doorheen het verhaal, naar analogie met muzikale polyfonie.

Er zijn vele luistervoorbeelden van Wendt's werk beschikbaar in het klankarchief van Stichting Logos.

excerpt from MY SUMMER VACATION by Larry WENDT

(...) From a simulated ancient Greyhound bus station, many travelers take a day trip out to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, a popular picnic spot in the area. And don't forget, no two rooms are the same in the famous Madonna Inn.

San Louis Obispo is a harmonious mixture of urban planning concepts which has made Californa famous and one can find tastefully modern shops amid historical structures, new buildings which are made to look like historical structures, and empty lots which were once the sites for historical structures. After all, we all know that California is a place where urban renewal is often considered in the same breath as mowing one's lawn.

Every Thursday evening, officials close down Higuera Street in the center of town and hold an old fashion computer swap meet. Sure, it adds to an already difficult lack of parking space, but original equipment manufacturers and venture capitalists come from miles around to peddle their wears amid a festive environment complete with sprouted brown rice salads and barbecued tou ribs. One can find good buys on everything from the latest Micronesean clones to used American supercomputers of historical significance.

Yes, San Louis Obispo is a special place for he technologically minded tourist. Why, they even have a nostalgic alleyway in which everyone sticks their old integrated circuits on the wall as they pass by.

When I finally arrived at the polytechnical school, I registered for classes and told everyone in charge that I was there on a summer vacation. So they gave me this tastefully modern split-level town house to live in that was on the side of a small quiet hill and from which I could see the whole campus and town below me. Hey! It's nice to know that this is as good as it gets!

There wasn't much course work to do in my poultry classes--it was more of a how-to-do-it sort of situation and I had plenty of time to wander around the campus. The Dining Common was comfortable, well established, and garnished with quotation marks. It was the perfect place after class to meet to discuss the day's instruction. There would always be a heated argument or two going on there concerning some finer aspect of poultry polemics, or bovine bureaucracies, or equine eschatologies.

The food wasn't so bad either. We'd have things like roastquail with lavender honey sauce, straw potato and wild mushroom cake, scallions vinaigrette, braised peacock ravioli withwhite truffles in consomme, grilled pigeon with endive gratin, risotto of suckling pig , and things like that, you know, just good, honest, down to earth food.

However, every so often though, I would get this real compulsive craving for a little nouvelle cuisine and sneak off down the road to the local member of a well-known fast food nouvelle cuisine and stock up on mounds of newt burgers with gobs of frog-egg shushi and mint lizard enchiladas on the side and wash it all down with a couple of gallons of frothy carbonated, liquefied crocodile.

Often, while I was standing there, waiting formy name to be called so that I could pick up my peanut butter and jelly fish sandwiches or whatever, I'd occupy myself by looking at all the photographs that festooned the walls which depicted world famous scenes from the Polytechnical college's past--such as a shot of the winning team in the state-wide hay bailing contest of 1896? the legendary winning of the national dead-horse pulling contest in 1945, dirt clod chucking during a stormy winter in Santa Barbara, an old fashioned sewing be of seamstresses putting the finishing touches on an anti-radiation suit, moth-mating experiments in an on-campus eugenics lab, and the revolutionary discovery and construction of integrated circuits in the shapes of small chickens. Yes, it appeared that the whole history of the college was collected in these photographs which covered the walls like fly specks on a time machine. (...)

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