A sound never walks alone

About mix solos

Original German text by Conrad Schnitzler
Translated into English by Gil Schnitzler
(30.4.07)

When I was asked in the past how I listen to sounds and how I emphasize and record

them I always explained my first experiences with sounds and soundpatterns.Never

before my explanations were written.

How do I listen? What do I feel? How do I react to sounds?

At first there is the single sound.What means a single sound for me?

The single sound for example is:

The sound of the cockcrow I filter out of the sounds surrounding me awakening in the

morning.Even then I realize there`s quite no existing single sound.With the cockcrow

come the taking up of planes, my beloved blackbirds singing, barking of dogs, trucks, children`s

laughter,the `Good morning calls`of neighbours.

There is nearly never the single sound without a neighbour-sound except from the speakers

in the electric studio.

I hear the single sound through headphones,although I have to fade out the cracking of my

bones.

So actually there doesn`t exist a single sound without company of other sounds.

The dream of the single sound remains a dream.I compensate with the totality of sounds,

Mix Solos. Means to accept what comes together, unlikely sound constellations.

Of course I do not speak of music combined from 12 tones of the tone scale that should be

understood. It`s a question of sounds not of music.I´m concerned of sound events,not of

music.What I produce on CDR are sound events no music.

I forges sounds. In this world of sound events I am the coarse smith who combines the

sounds in its brutal form using fire and hammer.

Often I`ve told my old stories of sounds.

What did impress me in sound events?

Do I transfer it in my work?

Yes, of course,what I heard was manifested in my (sub)-conscious.

I consciously compose no programme music for one theme.

What I heard in my childhood and youthtime is burned in my brain.

It is present in the results of the combined sound events I do.

The bulk of Mix Solos is in general the result of the memory in sound I experienced.

I woke up and heard a driving car in the rain, means driving sound and rain.

I heard bells and knew it snowed through the night.

I woke up during the war with its sounds.

I heard bomb shells sitting in the basement seeking for shelter.

I heard the city burning,people screaming,machine guns shooting,tanks driving.

I slept in the train and even though I perceived all sounds.

I worked in the kitchen and inhaled the kitchen noises.

I worked in big factory halls and got into trance about the huge total sound.

This sound of a lot of single sounds lieing and percussive could be so loud,

that it transferred into White Noise interrupted by staccatos of pneumatic drills

working on metal in shrilloversounds that can people drive insane.

A special event happened each evening at closing time when nearly all the machines

were stopped.It weren`t stopped all at the same time as a director would,no.

The silence increased by stopping little by little at different times until the complete

stop of all activities.

At the end of this phase you could perceive peoples voices,paper rustelling,cleaning

sounds.When the overtones ended or the intoxication of sounds in the hall faded

the experience was overwhelming, completely different from a disappearing waterfall

sound.Who didn`t ever hear the nearing train? But its`` leaving sound lasts as double

as long.

I especially remember the sounds presentsence in the different fabrication halls.

The halls were arranged one after another.There were connections from one to the other.

On each side the halls had big irongates,which channeled to a room without contents.

It was used to load the trucks with goods.

From one big hall to the next you could go through this empty barrier in the next hall.

Each hall had its own specific sound. The scale was changing from whispering rustle

to roaring hell sound.

It always surprised me that when I worked in the different halls I enjoyed the special

sounds. And I didn`t realize then to store it all in my brain to work on sound events

with those sound sceneries later I´ll become an artist.

Today while I`m working on it all those memories return.

I consciuosly don`t work with artificial creative principles in the composition of sounds

that combine in a unit.

I won`t kick out one machine off the hall, even if it doesn`t please my aesthetic imagination.

I can`t strike,because the sound doesn`t please me.

The sound is in the hall .It can`t be abolished.

The sounds in the hall are like that, so and not different.

It was somewhat different in the machine rooms of the ships during my navigation time

as machine engineer. There was one sound, the ideal sound.The sound that told me

everything is working normal. Using stethoscopes I controlled driveshafts and machine

blocs, to find out any misfunctions resulting in sounds.

The most minimal gnashing,chirping,rubbing or bubbling could stop the ship,could

damage ,could mean danger

That sort if mis-sounds must have been heard, before the damage became uncon-

trollable.Each moaning of the pistons, too high speed of the screw,that moved the

ship forward, could be an alarm signal.

In that special way I became used to control sounds.

I like the memory of the cacophony on fairs .

So if you listen to my compositions of sounds,tones and noises, try to imagine

my space of imagination. It isn`t easy. You expect music.

Those Mix Solos are different to music in the traditional way sound compositions.

It can be cruel or nice, not often soft, but more often crude and rarely heard.

It`s my space of sound , in which I´m living.

Forgive me, but I can`t change.

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