On the subject of bridge music – yes, an album of the same name of music created by playing an actual bridge – I think the most appropriate analog would be the sound of World War II submarines as they groan in the depths of foreign oceans. Some films such as William Petersen's 1981 Das Boot strip away glamor to portray the tension of sailors in a cylindrical submersible.
What I’m referring to, however, are the realistic soundtracks created by Foley artists and sound designers like Jack Donovan Foley, who was a pioneer in sound innovation at Universal Pictures in the late 1920s and who gave the name “Foley” to the field of creating movie sound effects. What materials must Mr. Petersen have engaged to capture the harsh metallic rings and pings of submarines under the deformation physics of unimaginable pressure?
I propose the similarities of undersea acoustics in a metal capsule mimic the harmonic noise of significant architectural structures. What if a composer actually sampled noise from a bridge? The rings and pings of steel in all their manifestations; load-bearing beams, railings and cable.
Such a composer is Joseph Bertolozzi, who has devoted a career to making music from architectural “instruments” such as bridges. His 2009 album Bridge Music did just that – and reached Number 18 on Billboard’s Classical Crossover chart. And that was only the beginning.
Joseph Bertolozzi. Courtesy of Franc Palaia.
Could the argument be presented that Mr. Bertolozzi has taken the science of Foley from the sound stage to the world stage?
Or might I opine that fundamentally Bertolozzi's Bridge Music and other works fuse the brilliant percussive precision of Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) with the ephemeral ideology of "Bang The Drum All Day" by Todd Rundgren?
I could imagine Mr. Bertolozzi in a vintage underwater craft with the intent of sampling the frequencies and frequencies of metal subject to strain. So his initiative to capture the sound of a structure that is both submerged and above water does not surprise.
While Bridge Music is certainly not going to enlighten passengers in elevators or be heard in your doctor’s office, I find it awakens one's conscious attention to architectural structures and buildings as owning voices that are uniquely their own.
As a child I would drum my fingers on our Formica kitchen table. I subjected the metal banding around the edge to percussive strikes with a knife, fork or spoon. There was a cathartic release in those repetitive taps, which I appreciate in Mr. Bertolozzi's compositions. A sort of rudimentary primitivism; no corrupted or synthesized waveforms that cater to commercialism.
Indeed, one might re-energize their soul to the rhythms of Bridge Music. Or perhaps drum their fingers on a counter in blissful synchronization. I do. As far as playing and sampling pots and pans, I opt to leave that to the professionals of systemic musicology. Or I suppose I could just bang a drum all day before someone grabbed my hand to reprimand me?
On Hearing What Nobody Else Hears
Joe Caplan: You were driving across the Mid-Hudson Bridge one day and where everyone else saw a structure for getting from one side of the river to the other, you saw a massive percussion instrument waiting to be played. What actually happened in that moment – was it a sound you heard, a visual you saw, or something that arrived fully formed before you could explain it?
Joseph Bertolozzi: Well, the original idea was to play the Eiffel Tower. I have a solo percussion project, The Bronze Collection, an assemblage of about 100 gongs, cymbals, and drums. After a performance as a member of the grounds entertainment at the 2004 US Tennis Open, I came home and flopped on the bed, exhausted. We had a poster of the Eiffel Tower in our bedroom, and my wife started to mimic what I look like playing the gongs, arms flying everywhere, etc., and she moved toward the poster, took a swing and said out loud, "BONG!"
Some of the implements used for striking the metal surfaces.
I lifted my head off the pillow and said, "that would work! Everything vibrates; all you'd have to do is find what pitches there were on the structure and you could write a song."
Immediately realizing that I didn’t speak French or have any contacts in Paris, I thought it'd be too difficult to realize, so I looked about for a suitable domestic monument. Analogs between the Eiffel Tower and other similar structures are few and far between but I knew Gustav Eiffel was a bridge builder and engineer so I took my cue from that. Aware that there'd be a significant anniversary in 2009, the 400th anniversary of Hendryk Hudson's sailing up the river that now bears his name, I considered all the Hudson River crossings.
I then walked across the bridge with two baseball bats on my shoulders, an aluminum one and a wooden one. I thought if I stopped and began beating the bridge in one location someone would call the cops on me, so I casually strolled along the sidewalk and took a whack [here and there] as I was walking so as not to stop and draw attention to myself.
The criteria for selection included having enough varied surfaces to yield different tones: cables, railings, spindles, panels of many sizes, etc.
Also needed was a bridge with its flanking shores as close together as possible. Why? This was intended to be a live event with videographers shooting at every musician's station (plus long shots too of course) transmitting to Jumbotrons on each shore; having nearby shores would have added to a communal experience from each side of the river. That settled me on the Mid-Hudson Bridge.
Finally there's the aesthetics of the presentation: a venue consisting of a monumental civic structure with hills rising up to the sky above.
But no matter what it sounded like, the exhilaration of completing the task was exciting enough to inspire me to keep at it for five years.
JC: Most people cross a bridge and never listen to it. You crossed one and heard an entire orchestra. Is that a gift, a trained skill, or the result of a lifetime of listening so carefully that the world eventually starts talking back?
JB: I actually didn't hear what I eventually got out of it...I simply thought it would a transcendent experience if I could harness all the bridge's sounds and create something recognizable as music. So...love of music and sound, curiosity, deep musical training, and a black belt in patience brought us to the final product.
JC: You've said that whether it's playing the pipe organ, a rig of 60 gongs, or a suspension bridge, you have a predilection for large instruments. Is that about scale – the physical size of the sound – or is it about something else, something more like the relationship between a small human body and an enormous resonating object?
JB: Ha ha, I said that as a joke. It just turned out that the music I'm most known for is drafted from huge instruments. Right now I'm actually learning how to play the ancient Greek lyre; a bass lyre actually or barbiton. It has a very sweet intimate sound and sits in your lap.
JC: Did you tell anyone about the idea immediately, or did you carry it around privately for a while – testing it against your own skepticism before letting anyone else weigh in?
JB: No skepticism whatsoever. I knew I could make it happen with the right amount of funding. I'd supply the sweat equity. But I didn't start to mention it aloud until I'd had a few meetings with the New York State Bridge Authority and the mayor of Poughkeepsie at the time, Nancy Cozean.
JC: You've described the two typical reactions when you first tell people about Bridge Music – either immediate enthusiastic bafflement or complete incomprehension. Which reaction do you prefer, and what does each one tell you about how people hear the world?
JB: It's rare that anyone who doesn't already know about it can really understand what you're talking about. The bafflement you describe is amusing because most people are courteous enough to keep smiling and nodding their heads "yes," while you can see their eyes are registering a "what?" But it's been up for 17 consecutive years, so I run into more and more people who've heard of it, if not actually having experienced the installation in person.
Joseph in action, bowing a cross frame.
On the Mid-Hudson Bridge – Learning to Play a New Instrument
JC: In 2007, with state-of-the-art contact microphones, audio engineer Ron Kuhnke, and a band of bridge laborers, you spent time collecting the sounds of hundreds of different parts of the bridge – railings, suspender ropes, cables, panels, spindles, fences, trusses, even the steel sign bearing its name. What was that process like – was it systematic exploration or intuitive discovery? Did the bridge teach you where to go next?
JB: My method of operation was to sample every of surface, not every surface. So once I had a good recording of spindles, cables, railings, etc., on the south or west sides of the bridge (for instance) I didn't feel the need to do the analogous surfaces on the north or east sides. The Mid-Hudson Bridge is built modularly, so the expectation was that there wouldn't be significant difference from side to side; a 135 foot long suspender rope on the east side would match the same ones on the west.
The process was driven by the amount of time I was allotted, so I was very systematic in my approach. No time for exploration, I didn't evaluate the samples while recording them, as there simply wasn't enough time to do so. I figured I'd just get them into the computer, then listen to and catalog them back in the studio. We just needed clean samples and I trusted my engineer Ron Kuhnke.
JC: The bridge surfaces you recorded included suspension ropes, railings, girders, and conduit – struck with various mallets. What did you bring with you in terms of mallets and implements – and did you discover new tools on site that you hadn't anticipated needing?
JB: I brought implements of different materials: wood, latex, rubber, steel, iron, Lucite, etc. I also used steel hammers, but wanting to avoid denting the surfaces, I used steel that was softer than the steel that makes up the bridge. I did this on the Eiffel Tower as well for Tower Music, but that is made of iron; iron is much softer than steel, so no steel hammers were used there!
The interactive display on the Mid-Hudson Bridge.
JC: Every part of the bridge makes a different sound. Did it have a range, like an instrument with low notes and high notes, or was it more like a percussion ensemble where each element is its own voice entirely?
JB: The latter. There was nothing in the way of complete sequential notes making up a scale. Most of the music revolves around a scale anchored in G minor or its complement B flat. To reinforce a melody I had to carefully double or triple the notes that happened to have octave equivalents, but largely there was so little latitude with different scales and chords that the music manifested itself as rhythm and variations rather than theme and variations.
JC: Were there parts of the bridge that surprised you – sections whose sound was completely unlike what you expected when you looked at them?
JB: Yes. The main handrail sounds like a clearly rung bell, as does a hinge on one of the gates. The suspender ropes, which are draped vertically over the main cable and hold the roadway/deck up in the air, alternated between a bass guitar sound [the short ones, nearest the shores or in the dead center], and deep "punches" fluidly modulating in pitch [the longest ones].
JC: Were there parts of the bridge that disappointed you – sections that looked like they should ring magnificently but turned out to be acoustically dead?
JB: I couldn't allow myself to be disappointed. The Mid-Hudson Bridge wasn't calibrated as an instrument, [so] it shouldn't have to behave like one. It was my job to harvest the sounds and then be a composer, writing for what I had in front of me. The ribs of the saddles on the ends of the bridge were surprising because they had almost no sustain. To be honest, that comes to mind but it wasn't a disappointment; just as I said, they were a surprise, but what they did reveal was a perky, xylophone-type sound, and that was another surprise!
JC: You were a native Poughkeepsie son raised in the very shadow of the bridge. Did growing up next to it change what you heard when you finally listened to it as an instrument, or did familiarity make it harder to hear?
JB: I went into this with no preconceptions. I think that's been made clear. I knew I couldn't start to think of the music I aspired to create before I knew what it sounded like, so the task was to gather sounds and then look at my canvas.
An unconventional way of getting sounds.
On Composition – Writing Music for a Bridge
JC: You sampled the bridge's sounds into a computer, categorized them by location and note value, and digitally linked them to music notation software, so that as you composed, those notation files triggered the sampled sounds upon playback, turning the bridge into a virtual instrument. At what point in that technical process did it stop feeling like engineering and start feeling like composition?
JB: You're right; only after everything was cataloged and I had a firm grasp of what notes were available to me did it feel like composing, and then it was instantaneous. But just entering the notes on the staff yielded only pitch relations. I had to immediately start to modify its different parameters: slow up a rhythm here, pick up the pace there, often several times in one phrase in order to give breath and life to the performance and not make it sound like computer music; vary the dynamic intensity [loud/soft] relations, create foreground, background, [and] middle-ground textures; craft balances between high and low, fast and slow, etc., all in the service of attracting and maintaining the listener's ear.
JC: Composing for a conventional instrument means working within a known vocabulary: the range, the timbre, the technical limitations are understood before you begin. Composing for a bridge means discovering the vocabulary as you go. Which approach is more frightening, and which gives you more freedom?
JB: I can proudly say that as a composer I follow the muse. I don't deny myself either a symphony or a simple melody. I'm not locked into an aesthetic. And you'll see that in both Bridge Music and Tower Music there is a wide range of styles, from breathtaking avant garde utterances to gentle waltzes, from darkly introspective meditations to perky morsels, from melodies with a long arc to solely percussive statements.
JC: The resulting pieces include something called "Bridge Funk." A bridge producing funk is a genuinely remarkable sentence. What does funk sound like when it comes from steel and cable rather than bass guitar and drums – what carries over, and what becomes something entirely new?
JB: Well, there were bass and drum analogs on the bridge. What carries over is as much formal structure as feel. "Funk" presents crisp, sharply defined bass lines and visceral drum grooves that take you hostage, while melodies snap in lockstep with them both. It also often punctuates with stabs from a brass section and wicked guitar licks. This is broadly speaking of course, but those are the general elements of the style. One doesn't characterize an accordion as a funk instrument but in the right hands it could be done. It's not about the instrument. Instruments don't play themselves; it's about the performer. So what is for all purposes funk in style, a given instrument, a suspension bridge in this case, may not present the expectations of the genre, yet one can still hear the funk and be moved to dance and rock about. Then the definition of the word "funk" is expanded.
One of my favorite stories is when people tell me they heard the music without knowing what they were listening to and then asked, "What is that instrument? What is that band?" And I've heard this many times. So it's about the music performance.
JC: The music contains no sounds outside the bridge itself. That's an absolute constraint – no additions, no substitutions, nothing external. Did that constraint liberate the composition or limit it? And was there ever a moment where you wanted to break it?
JB: I turn air into music, that's my superpower. I'm confident in viewing limits only as a framework from which to start. I compose, that's what I do.
Break the constraint? I rejected using effects such as reverb [echo], filter sweeps, or even boosting the treble or bass. If the point was to hear what the bridge sounded like, why would I mask its sounds with computer effects? I had a clear vision of what needed doing and I stuck to it. Maybe another composer could do something different, as they should.
JC: You composed music for an instrument that cannot be moved, that exists in a specific place on a specific river, that is subject to weather and traffic and the physical wear of time. Does the permanence of the instrument change the nature of the composition – does a piece written for something immovable feel different than a piece written for a portable instrument?
JB: Not inherently. I wrote what the sounds suggested to me, what I could do with the available sounds. The revelation of the Mid-Hudson Bridge's music enhances what it brings to the community. Again, it expands the definition. The bridge is permanent and so far the installation itself has run consecutively for 17 years, making it a permanent fixture of the structure all these years so far. I have great partners with the New York State Bridge Authority.
As for portability, I have made percussion quintet versions of both [the] Bridge Music and Tower Music [albums] so that live musicians could play them in a theater or any venue. That's where the integrity of the music proves itself, if it can engage the listener without being tied to the novelty of the music being born from a civic monument. Remember, each opus was intended to be played live on the structures. Lack of adequate funding smothered those realizations, and not for lack of trying on my part.
On the Eiffel Tower – Taking the Concept to the World's Stage
JC: You used Bridge Music as a proof of concept to present to SETE (the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel), the authority that controls the Eiffel Tower, to convince them to let you do the same thing in Paris. What was that conversation like, walking into a room and telling the custodians of one of the world's most iconic structures that you wanted to hit it with mallets?
JB: Well, there's a culture of embracing new art in Europe where it wouldn't be so outrageous to present a project such as mine and then actually realize it. And I have to say to the New York State Bridge Authority's credit, after it was explained to them, they gave me a few days to do a proof of concept for them, and they embraced it as well...perhaps with a little more initial skepticism than their Parisian counterparts, but who can blame them? The thing is, our world actually is filled with people who want to see and encourage new and beautiful things. You need to look for them and bring a fresh idea. So I met with SETE in person a couple of times before returning to do my sampling. They listened seriously to my proposal and after proving to them that I'd be respectful of their treasured tower they let me loose.
JC: Tower Music reached number 11 on the iTunes Classical charts and number 16 on the Billboard Classical Crossover chart. Bridge Music also charted at number 18 on the Billboard classical chart. Did commercial success change anything – did it validate the concept in a way that critical praise hadn't, or are those two kinds of recognition entirely separate?
JB: I wasn't the first person to implement the concept of using non-traditional sounds to create music, but most likely I brought it before the world in the most larger-than-life manifestation than it ever had previously. As for critical praise, I can show you some juicy hate mail I received before and after completion, ha ha! So you do it because you love it, not for accolades. That said, the overall positive reception these works garnered has been gratifying, I must say.
JC: The Eiffel Tower is made of iron and the Mid-Hudson Bridge is made of steel, and are structures from roughly the same industrial era – the late 19th and early 20th century. Did they sound similar, or completely different? What does French iron sound like compared to American steel?
JB: They are similar in the way a sax is similar to a clarinet, or a harp is similar to a lute: related but with their own character. The iron panels and girders of the Eiffel Tower and the steel of the Mid-Hudson Bridge are all under tremendous tension, being clamped down with rivets and each carrying specific weight loads. Each surface has its own physical dimensions as well, so it's not simply a question of iron vs. steel. Then it matters mightily what you play it with, just like a drummer will use sticks on their drums for one piece and brushes for another.
JC: The Eiffel Tower is arguably the most photographed structure in the world. Did that level of cultural iconography – all the associations, all the history, all the tourism – get in the way of simply hearing it as a sonic object? How do you listen past what something means to hear what it actually sounds like?
JB: No, nothing got in the way. Just working it revealed this new perspective. I approached it "artist to artist," Gustav Eiffel to Joseph Bertolozzi, engaging each other's disciplines with mutual respect. Consequently it's "meaning" now includes music. Expanding that definition again...
JC: You had to negotiate with French authorities to gain access to the Tower as an instrument. Was there a moment in that process where you thought it wasn't going to happen — and what kept you going?
JB: I wouldn't have devoted 17 years to these two endeavors if I didn't think the concept was so massively cool. The most difficult obstacle to overcome was making [the] initial contact. I wrote the Mayor of Paris six times before receiving an answer that [said] "yes, we'll review your idea and respond." I heard nothing further for weeks. I called the reporter from The New York Times who covered Bridge Music just to keep him up to date, as he [had] asked to be updated on any progress. I specifically said there was really nothing to report, but that I [had] made initial contact with the City of Paris and [was] in a holding pattern. That same reporter took it upon himself to investigate, and next thing you know I'm reading about it in The New York Times! He quoted someone in the Eiffel Tower administration (SETE), and I thought to capitalize on this article by contacting that same person. I hadn't had a contact name before; now I could ask for them by name.
This interview will be concluded in Part Two in Issue 237.
Header image: Joe playing the Eiffel Tower. Courtesy of Franc Palaia,(c) 2013. All other images courtesy of the artist except where noted.
0 comments