
One of the curses I've faced as a recording engineer is that the symphony of every day life drills itself through my skull. It can be quite distracting. People try to converse with you, and all you can focus on is the groovy rhythm coming from a rattly interior bit. Avant-garde musicians and composers have been attuned to the music life creates for many years. John Cage, for instance, wrote pieces that use big fans as an orchestral section. Cage's 4'33 would be the perfect cellphone ringtone, but until that's available, I'd settle for a piece penned by University of Maine music professor Philip Carlsen.
Inspired by Cage's work, professor Carlsen came up with "Car Life: a traffic jam session for automobile orchestra." There aren't too many traffic jams at the Framingham, ME campus where the performance occurred, but for a fleeting moment in time, you could close your eyes and imagine yourself in Manhattan. Initially, the idea was to arrange the automotive orchestra by the timbre of their horns and also incorporate warning buzzers and alarms, but it ended up as a more random affair. There was a "chorus" of Toyotas, however. Like many modern artistic endeavors, not everyone will get it. It's as much a cacophony as incidental music or musique concrete ever was, but we definitely appreciate Carlsen's goal of encouraging people to tune in to the sounds of the world as a type of music.
Click here to hear the symphony
[Source: Hemmings]











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
idpimp @ Apr 13th 2007 2:59PM
Please Autoblog...I would really not like to waste my precious time reading worthless posts like this one when I'm wasting time at work.
No, really, joking aside, it was terrible.
Dan Roth @ Apr 13th 2007 3:03PM
there's one in every crowd...
Will @ Apr 13th 2007 3:11PM
Can I have the last 4 minutes of my life back please.
Bob @ Apr 13th 2007 3:31PM
Not to cast aspersions on the artistic efforts of Prof. Carlsen, but I'm going to have to watch that Ferrari Shell commercial at least four times to get that out of my head.
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/03/22/video-ferrari-f1-cars-taking-it-to-the-the-streets-thanks-to-s/
gus @ Apr 13th 2007 4:21PM
The same guy directed the Ferrari Shell commercial directed a spot for Honda - the reversal of the above - people making car noises.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s22N8ZLPEaY
Lee Roy Brandon III @ Apr 13th 2007 4:32PM
Clever reference to John Cage... wasn't 4'33 simply 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence? And we must remember "Rocket 88" by Sam Phillips - considered by many to be the first rock and roll song, partly inspired by the rythmn of the V8 motor (along with the distortion in the guitar amp which was broken when it fell out of the car). Thank God for the sounds of the automobile...
Losers @ Apr 13th 2007 6:01PM
I so want to scratch the principal's Toyota Solara
hoeun kim @ Apr 14th 2007 5:36PM
thanks for the experience of a lifetime. now i know better to not watch crap like this.