The Spirit Inside Each Object
Richard H. Brown · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2019
This chapter addresses the question of sound on film, that is, the optical imprint of sound in the recording mechanism within the realm of visual music studies. The conceptual critique of visual music vastly expanded in the 2010s as composers and sound artists have explored the predecessors of digital signal processing and audiovisual software, looking back to the earliest technologies that unveiled the nature of sound through the diachronic representation of soundwave structure on the optical soundtrack. This chapter begins by clarifying the historical and chronological details of one of the most cited interactions in the history of visual music studies between John Cage and German animator Oskar Fischinger in the 1930s and 1940s. Further examination of this connection reveals an important technological foundation to Cage’s call for the expansion of musical resources. New documentation on Cage’s early career in Los Angeles, including research Cage conducted for his father John Cage Sr.’s patents, explains his interest in these technologies. Concurrent with his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, Cage fostered an impressive knowledge of the technological foundations of television and radio entertainment industries centered in Los Angeles. Adopting the term “organized sound” from Edgard Varèse, Cage compared many of his organizational principles for percussion music to film-editing techniques.