CALL FOR PAPERS – TACET, EXPERIMENT AL MUSIC REVIEW #2

Dear all,

sorry for crossposting. Here is the call for papers for the second  
issue of Tacet.

Kind regards

Matthieu Saladin



CALL FOR PAPERS – TACET, EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC REVIEW #2

www.tacet.eu
EXPERIMENTATION IN QUESTION

Issue edited by Matthieu Saladin – IDEAT (Université Paris 1/ CNRS),  
Le Quai École supérieure d’art de Mulhouse

According to one of the definitions of experimental music formulated  
by John Cage, the role of experimentation is to ask questions rather  
than to provide canned answers. This issue of TACET seeks to turn this  
saying back on experimentation itself, by examining its principles,  
manifestations and challenges, both historical (provided they question  
our contemporaneity) and current.

 From a historical point of view, the expression “experimental music”  
has typically been used to describe the practices of musicians and  
composers, mainly Anglo-Saxons, reunited around the music and ideas of  
John Cage, or at least directly or indirectly claiming as such.  
Indeterminacy, process and the interest in “new” sounds are its major  
lines of research. However, this expression equally refers to previous  
musical and/or artistic trends (futurism with Russolo and the  
emergence of sound poetry, the first electronic music works in Russia,  
etc.) which have contributed to the bringing back of rules that  
governed sound creation to the drawing board. At the same time as Cage  
carried out his first experiments with chance, Pierre Schaeffer was  
also able to use the name “experimental music” in a very different  
sense. From the 1970s, the field covered by this expression widened  
under the momentum of improvised music, experiments carried out in the  
nebulous world of rock, minimalism and electronic music. Today, its  
application appears to have become so varied that its meaning is no  
longer clear, as ultimately, due to the lack of appropriate terms, it  
encompasses any musical practice with “suspect” noises.

The fact remains that this expression “defines” a field of  
particularly heterogeneous sound practices, or even one with  
antagonistic issues and modalities, at times. Whilst experimentation  
has been able to attempt to call into question a progressive thinking  
of modernity, equally, it has been able to contribute to it in its  
demands for novelty. Likewise, while a certain experimental tradition  
calls for the withdrawal of the individual into their project, other  
forms seek to experiment with limits, both amongst musicians and  
listeners, or to question relationships with the collective. But the  
ambitions of experimentation are also to seek to disrupt the  
boundaries between art and life – or between the arts (polyartistic  
dimension) -, to invest in the possibilities offered by new  
technologies as well as questioning their domination and exploiting  
their shortcomings. To this elusive diversity, however, responds the  
contextual and local aspect of experimentation as such, which is in a  
position to question the claim of general or continuous  
experimentation, or even the ontology of musical trends defined in and  
of themselves as experimental. Where is experimentation to be found,  
therefore, within the diversity of experimental music? When is there  
experimentation? What are the processes used? What may be the  
differences and the tensions between the multiple uses of the term,  
which also vary according to the cultures and the socio-historical  
contexts? What are the forms of sound experimentation today? What  
movements can be observed, from one generation to the next, in the  
musical problems, but also the social and political problems that  
experimentation poses?

Taking the heterogeneity of experimental music as a starting point for  
reflection means rethinking the scope of the practices that it may  
involve. Indeed, whilst experimentation is often identified, at least  
in modernity, as coming under avant-garde music, it cannot be reduced  
to this and it can just as easily be found in practices which are not  
immediately “labelled” as “experimental music”, first and foremost in  
popular music. What forms of experimentation are at work in this  
music? What devices do they employ? What influence does popular music  
have on so-called experimental music and vice versa?

Another research perspective could examine the discourse that  
justifies these practices. Numerous musicians dedicated to  
experimentation, particularly in the 1960s, were able to gain  
inspiration, in a more or less critical manner, from philosophical and/ 
or spiritual schools of thought, such as the philosophy of experience,  
the theories of information or even the Eastern philosophies. What use  
can musicians make of these theories in their own practice? In what  
way can these discourses inform us of the challenges and the  
postulates of the experiments undertaken? Which are the discourses  
that circulate in contemporary practices? Such discourses often go  
beyond the scope of experimentation alone and reveal concerns relating  
to wider cultural phenomenon: what, then, could these paramusical  
discourses that feed experimentation be a symptom of?

Finally, while we often emphasise the creative processes behind the  
playing of experimental music, the way experimentation is received  
appears to be little questioned. Numerous performances in the past  
have resulted in scandals or have been greeted with a certain reserve,  
whilst others have given rise to collective experiences that have  
reached beyond the moment of the concert alone. What are the  
conditions (social, institutional, cultural) under which  
experimentation is received? What does experimentation mean to the  
listeners? Who does it affect? What could be the experience of  
experimentation of different audiences?

Other lines of reflection may involve:

The concepts that define experimentation, but also the aporias and the  
myths that surround these practices.
The relationship with technologies, from DIY and détournement to  
interest, sometimes similar to scientism, for new technologies; the  
differences and similarities between scientific experimentation and  
sound experimentation.
The political analogy of experimentation; the social and critical  
ambitions of certain experimental music practices, their potential or  
actual recuperation; the modalities and challenges of a collective  
experiment.
The problem of categories and distinctions in experimental music. The  
questioning they bring about and the new maps and genealogies that  
they plot.
The impact and the development of experimental music beyond the West,  
and in turn, the influences of other musical traditions on Western  
experimental music.
The relationships with subjectivation and identity which are at play  
in experimentation.
The issue of gender in traditions and musical trends which are still  
largely male.
The ways in which subcultures, communities, scenes or networks can  
come together, unified around an experimental ambition (noise and  
extreme volume in noise, impromptu meetings in free improvisation etc.)
This issue of TACET seeks to address these questions from an  
interdisciplinary perspective (aesthetics, philosophy, musicology,  
cultural history, cultural studies, gender studies, sociology,  
political science, literature, psychoanalysis etc.) and it aims to  
bring together an ensemble of studies in which experimentation will be  
examined in the diversity of its forms and the heterogeneity of its  
problems. We await general analyses, special cases and cross- 
disciplinary studies.

The questions proposed in this call for papers are not exhaustive.  
They represent a few suggested general avenues of research for  
potential contributors. They do, nevertheless, seek to serve as a  
reminder that the TACET review expects in-depth studies with a well- 
argued subject. The Editorial Board will, in addition, pay particular  
attention to the editorial quality of contributions, considering that  
literary and poetic dimensions all have their place in the  
articulation and transmission of a thought. Authors are equally  
reminded that the journal is aimed at a broadened readership.

Authors should first inform the Editorial Board of TACET of their  
proposal for an article by email, stating the title of their  
contribution and attaching an abstract of their proposal. The articles  
themselves should be sent by email before the 15th of April 2012 to  
the following addresses: [email protected] and [email protected]

Attached to the article should be an abstract, a few key-words and a  
brief biography of the author. We ask authors to follow the  
instructions (article format, bibliographic standards) available at  
the following address; compliance with them will aid and thus speed up  
the editorial process.

www.tacet.eu