artists :: Jeph Jerman : excerpts from the sound diary

nov. 19, 99

  slowly working on a score for a large group of people, involving sections of sound masses moving w/in each other, then shifting to new sound masses. it would be possible to make a recording of it with 5 or 6 people and an 8track machine. thinking i should leave behind any theoretical, etc ideas about these "pieces" and concentrate on the SOUND, and the process by which i believe it can be achieved. it sometimes seems to me that the playing of this kind of music in nature is the most important thing. (music without any illusion of communication of human ideas orfeelings).
  have made recordings of the desert south of our house (walking up a dry wash), and the chimes hanging in the dead tree outside our western window.
[ > écouter les sons_listen to the sounds ]

nov. 22, 99

  if i build sounding objects to interact with wind, is this then, "my music"? if i then record it, is this art? do these sounding things show the patterns of wind? am i imagining that birds and insects are interacting with them? or am i just paying attention to the sounds of all these things together, my mind insisiting that they "make sense"?
  when i've built a wind chime and hung it, the"craft" (what little there is), is in the building. i am not causing the sound to happen, i am merely listening to it, experiencing it. the "music" happens when attention is payed, or rather, it's there all along, and the experiencing is notice of it's happening. it isn't "my music" unless, perhaps, I am the only one listening (paying attention) to it. if it is shared with others, it is simply, music.

nov. 23, 99

  i can hear... the low smooth sound that the hot water heater makes when it's heating water, Eleanor's mouth chewing, swallowing, fork stabbing & scraping the wooden bowl, pages turning in her book, and from outside... the occasional clunk and click of the large chimes blown by the wind, usually a succession of clunks, all four at once, two, one, one, one two three four at varying speeds depending on how long the gust of wind lasts. the scratching of my mechanical pencil on the paper and an occasional quail song. there seem to be very few planes today. (2pm)

  (7:30) only aware of a few planes today. before dinner, built a fire and added the sounds of the wood stove. the low roar of air/fire being sucked up the chimney, the wood crackling, clanks and squeaks of the metal door of the stove.
  our refrigerator has three sounds. one is an electrical hum, concomitant with a mechanical sort of motor sound, a kind of whirring, and a low-pitched gurgling kind of thing that continues after the other two sounds stop.
  my chair creaks when i lean back. the radio is on, a high school basketball game on KTNN, the navajo station broadcasting from window rock. the volume is low, so i can only make out voices, but not words, and the occasional crowd noise.

nov. 24, 99

  another night, a new fire. tonight i notice the tiny ringing sounds emerging when i place new wood, (really old, dessicated) on live coals. like bits of falling glass, but faint. i listen, spellbound. tonight i filled the kettle with water, so for awhile my music tapes were accompanied by soft sputtering and whistling. i was listening to music, but after awhile it struck me as an intrusion, a habit i am trying to break, which itself reminds me of it's unhealthiness.
  (the kettle whine rises and falls...hadn't noticed Ocause the refrigerator was running).
  sitting on the john i hear several loud explosions, (gun shots? they sound like fireworks...), and for the next 10 to 15 minutes the neighborhood is a riot of barking dogs.

  now the kettle and the hot water heater sing together.

  last night i recorded the fire, for my fire tape, and i've been seized by the longing to record every fire, every night, and i realize that my wanting to record things is also my wanting to say to friends, acquaintances, total strangers... "listen to that...do you hear that?"
  perhaps my growing disdain for radio and television is tied to my hearing. everything sonic on tv is one dynamic level, (as is also most popular music now), LOUD. in your face, even, as though no one would notice it if it wasn't smacking them in the face repeatedly.
  later, i decide to try music again. i listen to an old collection of recordings from different people, many of which were engaging me nicely. i am gripped once again by the desire for a radio transmitter, or at the very least, a radio show.