# II /// Three questions : Silence, emptiness, boredom, slowness /// Peter Ablinger, Thomas Lehn, Manfred Werder
Currently, there is more and more possibility to feel kind of necessity of silence, being in silence and closing into the depths of your own heart. It is a time for re-opening a space for stories, not visual ones but sonic ones, that can be discovered only by a well-set and open ears. There are often stories about nothing, full of gaps, edges and the rustle of primordial vibration. What does these Silence mean to you and what place it takes in your poetics?
"Once — I believe it was 1986, high summer — I came on something remarkable while on a walk through the fields East of Vienna near the Hungarian border and close to the birthplace of Haydn. The corn stood high and it was just before harvest. The hot summer east wind swept through the fields and suddenly I heard das Rauschen (noise/the sound). Although it was often explained to me, I can still never say how wheat and rye are different. But I heard the difference. I believe it was the first time I really heard outside an aesthetic circumstance (say, a concert). Something had happened. Before and after were categorically separated, had nothing more to do with each other. At least it appeared to me then that way. In hindsight I recognize/remember other comparable experiences that had to do with a jerking open of perception, but the walk through the corn fields was perhaps the most momentous. For one way or the other, it seems to me, all the pieces I’ve made since have to do with this experience. Even the pieces not dedicated to noise, or those played with traditional instruments, etc."
***extract*** : Peter Ablinger - Moiréstudie Für Chiyoko Szlavnics (2014, Augmented Studies, Maria de Alvear World Edition)
It depends on its definition, but at least on earth true silence does not exist, as you have vibrations and vibrating air in all kind of frequencies everywhere. However we could consider extremely soft sounds (or for our ears non-perceivable sounds) as "silence".
Personally, I am not much interested in "silence" as a musical "stylistic" element (as in sense of a "style"), as I am not interested in being identified (and limited) in "styles" in general. I think the present time demands from us not to be identified too much with anything: whether it is religous/phylosoghical/political believe systems, nationalities, cultures, etc. and neither with certain pratices and ways of creations in arts and music.
Viewing through history we realize, problems and conflicts human being species and its multifold manifestations and cultures derive (among others) from these over-identifications and its group-consciences.
In other words regarding musical practices, silence is for me such an equally considered musical element like any other soundig elements (all from sine-tone to whiet noise).
Same I clearly say for questions of other musical parameters like density, simplicity/complexity, durations, speed/time, timbre, directive or non-directive progressions, intentional/non-intentional creation etc. pp.
I think we generally need openess to embrace all musical materials (of which silence is part). The question what is "true" and "right" in a given moment of time lies - to me - in searching and - if we are lucky - finding the right balance between the used elements. There is no general rule or "recipe" how to do this. However, a pre-condition might be the necessity to be entirely open to anything and to commit oneself fully to the development and refinement of our senses, perceptions, thinkfeelings and attitudes, both, introverted and extroverted.
***extract*** : Thomas Lehn - Feldstärke 1 (2000, Feldstärken, Random Acoustics)
***extract*** : Manfred Werder - Zwei Ausführende (Seiten 357-360) (2012, Wandelweiser Und So Weiter, Another Timbre)
***extract*** : Toshiya Tsunoda / Manfred Werder – Detour (2014, Detour, Erstwhile Records)
***extract*** : Manfred Werder – 01-3-10 (2012, 2005¹, Winds Measure Recordings)
This is connected with the transition from speed to slowness, with interest in long-term processes and reduction of musical material. Can we currently observe a growing interest in “philosophy of reduction” in sonic works?
check this : 12 TONES IN EXILE: Hauer and Conceptual Art
***extract*** : Peter Ablinger - Augmented Study: für 7 Violinen (2012)
I think we are already way beyond this.
The movement towards so-called "reduction" in improvised new music during the 90ies, was I think an important step to change and to learn.
Speaking for myself, it was always a field of experimentation and curiousity to see what happens with my music if I intentionally reduce the material. It never became (and will never become) a "believe system" for me. I think believe systems (= over-identification with something) are the least what we need today!
Saying all these things, I do not deny, that the idea and the regard of silence in music became very important in a world of so many noises everywhere! It also became for a time important in musical creation considering the "too much" and the density and fullness of musical production, and the regardlessly too much used materials. So, in this sense silence and reduction was teaching us to refine and re-define our thinking, perception and practices.
But once silence and reduction became a "school" or a "style" or a "trend" or a (stiff) "model", its effect turned into the opposite and became itself difficult in that sense I described above.
***extract*** : Keith Rowe / Thomas Lehn / Marcus Schmickler - Segment 8 (2003, Rabbit Run, Erstwhile Records)
At the same time we can follow changing the way of listening to such sonic works. Do you think that there exist a cultural model - the silence listener?
check this: Headhearing: Notes about perception
***extract*** : Peter Ablinger - Membrane, Regen - Weiss/Weisslich 31e, Konzertante Installation Mit 8 Glasröhren (2013, Regenstücke Vol. 2, God Records)
Aside of some considerable objective factors, listening remains at the end a very subjective, individual and intimate phenomenon.
Of course we observed in the last 10-15 years, that there is an audience for so-called "reductionistic music" and silence, as humans - unfortunately - tend to join group-consciences. In this regards, I would not at all appreciate a "cultural model" of the silence listener; that would mean a narrowing of the so much needed openess to all forms of manifestations of being on this wonderful planet.
***extract*** : Thomas Lehn / Marcus Schmickler - Live at Unlimited 27, Schlachthof, Wels, Austria, 2013-11-09
Christian Scheib: Static's Music - Noise Inquiries (fundamentals about Peter Ablinger's work)
G. Douglas Barrett: Kus pro výlohu: Jak vidět a slyšet hudbu Petra Ablingera (preklad Petr Ferenc)
Matthew Mendez: “It Is Always the OTHER that Creates Ourself”: On Peter Ablinger’s Vocal Automatons
Petr Vrba: Ovládat nahodilost / Thomas Lehn
Interview 2013 - Simon Reynell and Manfred Werder
The Sounding of the World
