MEMOIRE NEW MUSIC IN THE LIGHT OF NOBLENESS A SCANDINAVIA DREAM An expatriate’s view of avant-garde Norway, 1969-1979 By Harold Clark
* Copyright © 2021 by Norsk Musikforlag A/S, Oslo www.musikkforlagene.no Det må ikke kopieres fra denne bok i strid med Åndsverkloven, eller i strid med avtaler om kopiering inngått med Kopinor, Interesseorganisasjon for rettighetshavere til åndsverk. Kopiering i strid med lov eller avtale kan medføre erstatningskrav og inndragning, og kan straffes med bøter og fengsel. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this publication by any means including photocopying is an infringement of copyright. N.M.O. 14751 ISBN 978-82-7093-734-9 (printed)
Copyright © 2020 by Harold David Clark Printed with support from Fritt Ord
All Rights Reserved Printed in Norway by Norsk Musikforlag A/S. www.musikkforlagene.no Printed in Norway September 2020 First Edition Printing
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How to improve the world, (You will only make matters worse…) John Cage
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CONTENTS PROLOGUE Cultural Refugee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 CHAPTER ONE Music Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Electronic Music and Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 CHAPTER TWO First Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 CHAPTER THREE School Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 CHAPTER FOUR Scandinavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Culture Shift and Context in Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Emigration and Immigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 King Harald’s Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 CHAPTER FIVE European Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Emigration Preparation I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Emigration Preparation II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Emigration Preparation III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Jorvik – York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 CHAPTER SIX War - Higher Mis-Education – Peace Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 CHAPTER SEVEN Improvisation and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Electronic Studio Development for Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Studio Research Visits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Norwegian Studio for Electronic Music (NSEM) . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Afterthoughts and a Look Forwards (2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 CHAPTER EIGHT Analysis – Participation – And Re-Grouping a Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Project Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 NSEM – Lectures & Presentations Outside of Norway . . . . . . . . 106 Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 OPUS & INDEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (from) 111
Cultural Refugee Artist’s and their cultural vocations often emigrate (from afar or regionally) seeking an unhindered freedom of expression, artistic integrity and sustenance recognition for their crafted works. Free from commercial trappings, the unveiling of new musical art, in its vulnerable capacity to stand on its own amidst a civilized and economically supportive social structure, requires a listening public trust. Must the artist’s work be a “thing”, physically and fiscally tied only to commercial enterprise or social acceptance to always retain inherent cultural value in a civil society? Who is qualified to judge and place an economic value on an artist’s creations? What are the criteria for the days, months and years toiled to develop cultural significance? Who is able to evaluate the underlying ‘meaning’ of an artwork from the context in which it lives, be it a group, town, city, country or global context, human or machine? Where does art have a place? Where are there places of refuge, peace, well-being and time-enabling inspiration, human will and grace of the muse, to activate honest creation? Is contemplative art only a figment for the one-percent, or can it freely subsist amidst an entire population from socially sustained venues? Agile minds do not poverty seek. Would a university be considered a general “artist’s” refuge only for an erudite public? How might radio and broadcast media be a cultural refuge for artistic truth and formative expressions from creative well springs? What are the keys that unlock a democratic social order from rejecting cultural refugees of the “other”, to welcoming cultural refugees as a relationship expression of one another?
“Egentlig, så jeg ville ha vært fryktelig glad hvis Arne Nordheim hadde vært her.“ (1969) Elisabeth Granneman – Norwegian singer, song writer of popular music
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PREFACE My seventieth birthday compelled me to complete two books based on musical, philosophical and cultural themes playing throughout my life. Both are underpinnings for a future generation. Book One describes two expatriations: my first expatriation (with family) from our Nebraska farming community to southern California at age 7. My second expatriation, journeying to Europe during a period of recurrent social and cultural disruption in and by the United States towards the late 1960’s, seeking yearned-for life choices. During that time, my emerging career objectives and principled values sought a more peaceful, smaller scale, edified society with a tolerance for the art of making and sharing contemporary music. I sought a new music woven through a broader population, socially accessible, instead of funneling this art into encapsulated university music departments. While PhD music degrees may enable tenured employment or research, my objective was to discover, outside of the ‘erudite walls’, why composed, improvised, and creative music thrives in Europe and is relinquished to ghettos (of all classes) in North America. This writing meets Nordic art music, its audiences, technology, processes and contexts, as an outsider. In a humble narrative, I trust my experiences will fill in some historical links of what underlied Norwegian music in the 70’s decade, interacting with other world arts that shaped music’s future. Book Two shall summarize and portray discoveries with contextual theories about modern art music: Steps to an Ecology of Contemporary Music. That forthcoming book will focus on the dilemma new art music confronts as a social communications fact. Rarely do specialist musicians venture outside of their practice rooms to consider how modern art music composers may be on the verge of extinction as an encompassing species. Increasingly, contemporary music’s lack of civil integration into an artistically-meaningful context is perceptibly at risk. My steps move outside of conventional aesthetic theories, as I postulate an ecological view of our multitudinous musical systems. New observations about how we listen, learn, create and interact with music in our cultures will illustrate a foundation for understanding what may be possible for audiences, music creators and the media that convenes them. As a musician, I may often reference the scholarly world in search of puzzle pieces to the whole of what gives meaning to music and its relation to the everyday life of listeners. For me, it all began with ‘sound’. Sound, in all forms, precipitated and aligned my classical music education with an evolving knowledge of technology. From radio to symphony orchestras and electro-acoustics design to music composition, my own aesthetic creations have been nourished from hearing new sounds, from a 20th-Century conception of ‘sound as music’. This was an exploration seeking to unveil the meaning of sound’s nature within the many environments of our humanity. The central idea is that each musical meaning relies on an ‘ecology’ of sound and a social ‘ecology’ of musical experience for both performer and listener. Fortunately, an elaboration of that eloquent discovery occurred for me while living, studying and working with others in the unique Kingdom of Norway. A country of incredible contrasts, a checkered history, linguistic complexity, and a powerfully-small population sitting on the skirt of Europe. 5 N.M.O. 14751
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