I can visualise the last part in its entirety, for a change. As if the mist faded away. I know exactly when and what sounds will resound; I also know why it will be this way. But I won’t reveal it. I cannot; I am banned from it. If this log-keeping benefits me in any way, it is by making me more and more convinced, or sure of my intuition, that some things not only need not be spoken of, but also must not. Crossing certain borders of explanation is hardly beneficial, and it can be downright harmful. It can mislead and misguide.

According to George Crumb, humans should never ever fly to the Moon, as this would kill the symbol. I used to consider it childishly naive, or even silly. Now I comprehend it more. I suppose the innocence, the blatant incompatibility with the reality resounding in this plea, is deliberate. It serves as a tool to throw the ultra-rational, progressive mind off the track. The contemporary man, struck by such a plea, is bound to be left with cognitive dissonance, speechless for a while. And perhaps thanks to it, for a split second, one could sense in their muscles and bones, in a reflex of an amused yet incredulous wince, that the so-called physical matter is but a manifestation of a thing, and not its essence. Meanwhile the essence manifests itself in many different ways. In fact, I would say the same about Crumb’s music. I’ve always liked it, yet I felt it was slightly too innocent in its mysticism. Or that it was metaphysics, and somewhat infantile at that. Now, however, I accept it and view it as a deliberate move to trigger a sense of vulnerability. Exaggeration with a tinge of childishness forcing you to drop your guard. In the American landscape, there are a few more figures I regard similarly: La Monte Young, Harry Partch, Charles Ives at times. In this context, although it's a whole different story, I also understand Roberto Calasso's works a little better than I used to. Constant circulation, losing the track to find it again, avoiding non-negotiable claims at all costs – it all used to annoy me. Meanwhile, I felt there must have been a profound and important truth to it, yet never managed to grasp it for I was probably too stupid. Now I see that that’s exactly the point. Non-negotiable truths are an illusion. A dangerous fantasy. And indeed, I am too stupid, but maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

I can’t reveal exactly the what, the how and the why, but I can say a little bit about it. Last week I was mainly reading the last part, but I also spent a long time sliding the so-called EBow device over the strings of the electric guitar. The EBow is a handy invention (patented in the late 1970s, it is nearly my age) that makes use of the loopback to cause continuous vibration of strings. For those interested in how exactly it works: US Patent 4075921. In a nutshell: two coils wound on a single core plus an integrated circuit that causes one coil to stimulate the electromagnetic field of the transducer and the second one to produce a field that stimulates the string at the input frequency, or in the second mode of operation, at the higher overtone’s frequency. In all these cases the voltage is provided by a 9-volt battery. What I find important is that sliding the device over any string makes it possible to explore its harmonic spectrum while the sound is strongly amplified and it can be sustained continuously. As a matter of fact, it’s a hands-on spectral experiment, without any additional hardware or software. It resembles listening intently to the multiphonics of wind instruments. It would be best to play it myself, but in the absence of such a chance, this week I spent quite a lot of time on the aforementioned Bärenreiter’s website with a set of saxophone multiphonics, and I found it really invaluable. These are one of the few doors that I feel like opening in the otherwise very appealing world of spectralism.

My first exposure to this trend was immediately on a large-scale. As a third-year student, in 2003 I attended the “Warsaw autumn” festival for the first time, and I listened to the legendary concert with the first Polish performance of the Quatre Chants Pour Franchir Le Seuil by Gérard Grisey. I bet everyone felt we were taking part in something extraordinary that night. One example: as far as I know, after that concert, Paweł Mykietyn threw away a significant part of his prior compositions and turned to microtones... I, at the time, didn’t have anything to throw away yet, and I didn’t understand much in general either, but I was left with an unforgettable impression. A while later, probably with Andrzej Chłopecki’s help, I dug out Les Espaces Acoustiques and was nearly as impressed. The very Prologue left me stunned and amazed. The viola’s melody conveys some kind of a primitive truth. The melody is reminiscent of the surface of the sea, beneath which lies depth that cannot be seen, but can be felt. You need not dive into the sea to experience its depth. In fact, actual immersion can defeat its very purpose ultimately and painfully, and end all experience whatsoever. Grisey, however, is an exception to this rule. The spectral analysis is, to my mind, quite often a rather primitive plunge. I don’t fancy swimming underwater. Nor do I feel like getting on a submarine, most certainly. It’s enough for me to stare at the depth up close, yet on the surface. Petrified.

Another example: Fausto Romitelli. He also stares at the depth without attempting to measure it or to touch the bottom, but rather trying to roughly reflect the impression it makes on him. In his case, however, the sea is not serene. It is rough and angry yet merry. Like a storm in full sunlight (it happens). Or when the waves and currents rush from different directions and crash against one another. Like in the Skagen area, where the Baltic Sea meets the North Sea, or in the Pentland Firth strait, where the North Sea mixes with the Atlantic Ocean. 

Another practical, first-hand experience I had with the sound spectrum was aboard the S/Y Stary yacht, on which I took part in the longest and the most intense cruise in my life – the one to Iceland. The Stary yacht was (and still is, I believe) equipped with an Ursus 4410 engine installed in its rear end, in a compartment right next to the mini-cabin I was accommodated in. I was separated from the engine by a one centimetre thick plywood panel – or, on occasion, by nothing at all, as the panel was prone to falling off its hinges. The Stary yacht is built from steel panels of varying surface, welded together so that they form a hull that has acoustic properties similar to an unevenly tempered Caribbean steel pan drum.

Recently, while in Szczecin, I visited the harbour, curious if the yacht would still be there. It was. It was winter, so the yacht was taken out of the water. This is it (by the way, it greatly proves that what is hidden underwater should remain hidden to preserve the majesty of what is visible)

The Ursus engine, running at a constant high rotation, makes this drum resound with a multitude of different vibrations entering into various interferences with one another, with a distinct base tone of the engine itself. Lying in total darkness with my head by the Ursus engine, sometimes sleepless for long hours, tossed in all directions by storms and tempests, I experienced intense and unforgettable sensations (the engine on a yacht is not started very often, but when it is, it runs sometimes for several days). When Wagner was composing the prelude to Das Rheingold, I believe that’s the effect he imagined. 

The sound of an Ursus, by the way, is one of my earliest sound memories in general – as a child, I once spent harvest time with my Father in his hometown of Nienadówka near Rzeszów. I can remember the sound, the smell and the pure majesty of the yellow tractor clearly.

Everything is intertwined. Everything goes round in circles, appears and disappears to appear again. But the end is inevitable.

(transl. Zuzanna Wnuk)