Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in ... - Aaaaarg

MUSICAL PRECEDENTS TO ELECTRONIC MUSIC 37
continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant,
strange, and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.
The musical evolution is paralleled by the multiplication of machines,
which collaborate with man on every front. Not only in the roaring
atmosphere of major cities, but in the country, too, which until yesterday was
totally silent, the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of
noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any
feeling.
On the other hand, musical sound is too limited in its qualitative variety
of tones…. this limited circle of pure sounds must be broken, and the
infinite variety of noise-sound conquered.
We Futurists have deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great
masters. For many years Beethoven and Wagner shook our nerves and
hearts. Now we are satiated and we find far more enjoyment in the
combination of the noises of trams, backfiring motors, carriages and
bawling crowds than in listening again, for example, to the Eroica or the
Pastorale.
Away! Let us break out since we cannot much longer restrain our desire
to create finally a new musical reality, with a generous distribution of
resonant slaps in the face, discarding violins, pianos, double-basses and
plaintive organs. Let us break out!
We want to attune and regulate this tremendous variety of noises
harmonically and rhythmically. 4
Russolo wanted to extend the accepted spectrum of music by introducing
nonmusical sounds in a controlled fashion. With the help of the painter Ugo
Piatti, he designed and built various mechanical noise-producing instruments. He
called them intonarumori (“noise-intoners”) and built them to produce “families”
of sounds, ranging from “roars” (thunders, explosions, etc.) to whistles (hisses,
puffs), whispers (murmurs, grumbles), screeches (creaks, rustles), percussive
noises (metal, wood), and voices of animals and humans.
Russolo designed and constructed noise-intoners for each of his six categories
of sounds. Outwardly, each instrument consisted of an oblong wooden box with
a large metal megaphone attached to amplify the sound. Inside, there were
various mechanical devices used to generate the desired sounds by turning
cranks, tapping stretched membranes, and other means. Some had levers and
wires to rattle pots or cardboard canisters filled with objects. One used an air
bellows to create wind or breath sounds. Another used a skin stretched like a
drum head that, when scraped or tapped across its diameter, produced a sequence
of pitched tones. This last type of noise-intoner was used to imitate the starting
of an automobile engine. Russolo also found that he could adjust the timbre of
these stretched membranes by preparing them beforehand using various
chemical baths. The noise-intoners were mostly played by holding a lever with