Hello, György
After years of hunting around online, and surely I was looking in all the wrong places, I finally procured the holy grail of electronic music scores, György Ligeti’s Artikulation. Ligeti composed it in 1958 and recorded it at the Studio of Electronic Music of the West German Radio in Cologne. The piece predates the modern analog synthesizers of the late 60’s and early 70’s – the sound sources are a combination of generated sound and tape manipulation.
When you hear it you can’t help but think of R2D2, and yet Artikulation was written 20 years before Star Wars was released. I can’t find any proof that Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Star Wars, was directly inspired by the piece. He used an ARP 2600 and some acoustic sounds for R2D2. But it’s hard for me to imagine that he came up with those sounds without hearing Artikulation, and apparently I’m not alone in that thinking.
Twelve years after Ligeti recorded the piece, Rainer Wehinger created an “aural score” for it. My first introduction to the score was in a music notation class. There were three of us and a teacher in a large room, pouring over various scores week after week. We covered the traditional rules of western notation and we were required to use calligraphy pens to develop our copying skills. Our treble clefs had to look good, our stems had to be the correct length. But we also explored non-traditional 20th century notation, and this score stood out because its unique system was so well thought out and reading the score required no learning curve.
The liner notes for the score provide an explanation for what’s going on in the music:
The piece is called ‘Artikulation’ because in this sense an artificial language is articulated: question and answer, high and low voices, polyglot speaking and interruptions, impulsive outbreaks and humor, charring and whispering.
To realize this in a score, Wehinger used a timeline measured in seconds, and used shapes and colors instead of notes on a staff. He used dots for impulses and combs for noise. He used different colors to represent variations in timbre and pitch.
The score and the music still feel fresh despite the long history of electronic music that follows it. I’ve always thought it would make a good motion piece, especially after seeing some incredible music visualizations online. Originally this was going to be the beginning of an endeavor to put the score in motion so that everyone can follow along.
Well, thank god for the internets because someone has done all the hard work for me:
very cool. i like ligeti’s music a lot and the visualization is great.
Thanks for this. Great video a must watch.
oh and Reacting to…
“R2D2, and yet Artikulation was written 20 years before Star Wars was released”
Please keep in mind that R2D2 existed A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and word may have spread before the release of the Star Wars documentary of his sounds and may have inspired this piece.
I agree that R2D2’s voice pretty much has to be lifted from this track. Toward the end there’s one section that literally uses the same two notes as one of R2D2’s common expressions. I found this blog entry looking for proof that the inspiration came from Ligeti. Maybe someday we’ll know for sure.
[...] Visualizing Artikulation (via Bad Assembly, da cui è tratta la [...]
I own the original numbered limited edition score. Yes, it’s a beauty and really corresponds well with the music. The original score also comes with a 7 inch record which explains in German how the various sounds were created, plus the full recording.
BTW-some of you might be interested in The Center for Visual Music in L.A.
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/
Something is wrong here. I saw and heard it with the score in 1970, no later, so the score was not done 20 years later. i believe also i have seen this score attributed to Ligeti.
[...] more on Artikulation here [...]
Please, visit http://www.sinestesia2009.info and also: MuVi2 price ( visual music 2). Next april 2009 in Granada Spain.
http://silentlight.blogspot.com/2008/01/thing-what-started-it-all.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer
http://www.metaplexity.org/santiago/reArtikulation
thanks for the post!
nice clip. music vizualization has an exciting long life ahead!
[...] the classical world, partially due to Stanley Kubrick’s use of his music in several films. As Nathan Holloway writes, Ligeti’s “Artikulation” makes you think “of R2D2, and yet Artikulation was [...]
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When I saw the “aural score” I was instantly reminded of this application: http://www.hyperscore.com/ (Perhaps Rainer Wehinger was their inspiration)
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