By emphasizing again the sound value of poetry, words in their printed form
will not have any meaning that people need to labor over deciphering. Consonants
will become empty, purely auditory, simple lines having physical
meaning only in the listener's ears. By placing value on effects beyond their
usual meaning (in words), poetry will create a new sensitivity. In the place of
the cerebral beauty that was created in the chiseling style of poetry, one responds
simply with direct auditory understanding. It is then a matter of discovering
the unknown abundance of purely oral constructions; of untangling the
intangible accents in vocabulary. Poetry is thus liberated from all prose (reading
for meaning without regard for tones), to become an instrument of lyrical
communication. Poetry realizes its mission which is precisely to broadcast
local imperceptibilities and applied suggestions, because poetry was created
by individuals who wanted to understand each other, sensing the linguistic
vibrations against their palates. Verse is the result of a need to consider the
phonetic effects produced in other people's imaginations.
Letterism intends to introduce this beauty, which is limited in the present
system of oral communication by lack of rules and even of letters. This is why
it is necessary to regu late the stabi lity of auditory frequencies by constructing
elements specially designed for the purpose. It is a matter of enriching the
possibilities for denoting the changes that occur between sound values. These
particles of language, still inferior and unexpressed, must acquire proper signs
so that they can develop in their own category, the auditory.
On Recitation and the Reciter
Based on phonetic accents, the poem becomes dependent on the person
recruiting . The return to what was valuable (sound) as compared to what was
fallacious (signs) signals the final poetic route.
The author - or another person in the role of performer, with a suitable
voice - leans on the expression and the linguistic inflections. A new manner
of reading aloud is to be created, putting it in conflict with the reader.
In the chiseling period , the reader tended to meditate on the meaning ,
forced to read internally, focusing on what the author wanted to express. In the
new amplic phase external focus is exalted, relying on the material, conceived
by the voice and vocal interpretation. Poetry receives the stamp of whoever
reads it and that person 's dramatic talent, not of their intellectual
understandng. In Letterism, effects are established by the expression of the
existing verse and by its coloring. This is just as in music, where the symbols
on a score are devoid of meaning. The notes sound false when there is a correct
understanding but an erroneous interpretation. Henceforth the poem remains
in a book only in gloomy inactivity. It acquires its value in performance,
and each repetition imprints its value on it. The written poem - impounded in
words - has no more meaning than a dead letter.
From Claude Debussy to Isidore Isou (Excerpts)
The destruction of musicality by musicians themselves continues up to the
orchestra of pure and monotone sounds created by Russolo. The Italian
futurist no longer seeks to evoke any emotions. His effort was to work with the
huge number of sounds that did not yet exist as music and to make them
musical. It is against music apparently to call on mechanical means. But these
sounds were prior to mechanics, in primitive shouts. His ensemble of
noise-makers is the anti-orchestra. The howlers, groaners, cracklers, shriekers,
buzzers, gurglers, shouters, whistlers, croakers, and rustlers who made up the
rumorharmonium can be classified in the same shrinking pathway that is pushIng
back towards its orig ins: the voice and noise.9
In justifying this work, music today can be said to be in a phase of plodding
in place. Just as with poetry, with music too people no longer know how to go
forward nor what goal to go after in following this golden line which is the line
of progress and artistic revolution. All that is needed now is to take the final
step, which is the most difficult but the most substantial and rich in promise.
Take up the shout and the voice which are at the origins of music as the
primordial elements of art. After Satie, Schoenberg and jazz, 10 the next step is
easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment