Soundscape For The Ears, Not The Eyes

Rien à voir (nothing to see) is not true. When Robert Normandeau sets up tomorrow night at the Robert Gill Theatre, the stage will in fact be filled with something — a load of sound-amplifying speakers. Anything else, like real people or just a simple music stand, might get in the way of the musical sounds. And that’s one thing that won’t happen at a Normandeau concert of electronic music. Here the sound is a spectacle even if it has nothing to show (perhaps a word should be coined for this sound-only show, something like an “auracle.” There have been those over the years who have urged the 46-year old composer to add a visual element. “But we resist,” he replies. “It’s called Rien à voir to make clear to everyone this is not a show.” This can be a problem for some people. So can the sounds Normandeau creates — abstract, tuneless rhythm-free whooshes and swooshes, and electronica that goes ping in the dark. Tomorrow night, he is joined by two other practitioners of this art in the dark: his mentor, Francis Dhomont and a younger colleague, Louis Dufort. “At this concert, there really is nothing to look at,” Normandeau says. “There is nothing of interest to sit in front of. The performance itself is minimal. It is often presented in the dark.” Does this sound like a lot of fun? Well, it can be, he goes on. “In this way, the audience becomes an audience,” he says. What happens is probably the most musical experience in anyone’s life. Electroacoustic music was Normandeau’s turf well before he got his degree in musical composition from Université Laval in Québec City in 1984. Back in the early ’80s, it looked like the place to be. It looked like it might be the future of serious music, taking it to the next level. It even had a base in popular culture. All those techno-Brit bands were making electro-sounds so fashionable in hip magazines like The Face. Even Paul McCartney talked about Stockhausen, electronic music’s Big Cheese. So much for yesterday. Instead of replacing symphonic classical music, electronic music became its frighteningly eccentric second cousin. Since then, we’ve had no choice but to love it on its own terms. “Electroacoustic music should not be compared to anything else,” says Normandeau. “The major innovation in it is that the composer does everything in the studio. He doesn’t have to care about the reality of the stage or the realism of his gestures. He doesn’t have to think about someone else reading his score.” “I think being this kind of composer is a lot closer to being a writer or sculptor. We work like sculptors; we sculpt sound and space. We have to adjust our performance to the acoustics of the hall. Basically the music is written in the studio, but we have to fine-tune it for the performance.” “But even with this kind of taped music, I don’t think a live performance can be replaced. The live performance is important for human beings. It is a ritual. Going to a place and spending time with other people is something we need in our lives. “In the past, when we thought about electronic music as being the extension of the instrumental musical world, it didn’t work out very well because the electronic instruments are pretty primitive compared to regular instruments. The quality of sound you have when you play a violin or piano comes from centuries of research. In fact, we haven’t invented a new instrument in over a century. The last one was a saxophone.” Yes, but there is the computer, he admits. This is good news for composers and bad news. The bad news is that, “when you are working with a computer, you lose contact with the music. You watch what you are doing. You lose contact with the sound. Yet because with computers so many people are working at home, music can become very personal and very intimate.”