Monday 27 August 2007

2007 – Sem2 – AA1 - Week 5 – Sound Art

Butterfly Piano – Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross, 1951.

George Percy Grainger was born on 8th July 1882 at Brighton, Victoria. He had his first concert tour when he was twelve and soon after travelled to Germany with his mother to further his training as a pianist and composer. Between 1901 and 1914, Percy and his mother lived in London where his talents flourished. During this time, Colonial Song and Mock Morris were published. Towards the end of his life he worked on his ideas of Free Music. This type of music is not limited by time or pitch intervals. The
Free Music machines he created in association with the scientist Burnett Cross may be regarded as the crude forerunners of the modern electronic synthesisers. On 20th February 1961, he died at New York, and is now buried in the family grave at Adelaide, South Australia.

http://www.percygrainger.net/

http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/free_music_machine/index.html

This piece is called Butterfly Piano. The piano has been retuned in a particular way to create “6th tones or three divisions to the half tone” so I’m assuming that means 1 semitone has now been divided into 3 notes. This kind of music will always get my eyes rolling, but I can appreciate that these artists have broken rules layed down by classical composers to realise their musical styles. Without these people I highly doubt that diverse film scores such as from the film Wolf Creek or sound creation and sound designers like Ben Burtt would be where they are today.
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Haines, Christian. 2007. “AA1-Sound Art.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 21st August.

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