Talking to a Loudspeaker
Dan Lander, Gregory Whitehead
Programme notes
Although radio has been cited as a warm medium — due to its relative openness for interpretation when compared to television — it is nonetheless a one way medium. The listener is compelled, via the loudspeaker, to construct meaning without the benefit of a mechanism for re-address. In addition, radio as we have come to know it is limited by a host of predetermined factors
Synopsis
- Mister Speaker is a truncated visit to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario where members address “Mister Speaker” without response. Protocol is the order of the day, with the allotted time for input devoted to maintaining its dominance.
- The Weather, excerpted from actual radio reports, begins with a compilation of the subjective style inherent in such presentations and evolves into a minimalist rendition of number
: an incantation in celebration of degree, measurement and prediction. - In The News, the listener is presented with two points of view, one from the left (channel) and one from the right (channel). Mimicking the simplistic regulatory notion of ‘balanced programming,’ this section suggests that the interpretation of news ‘events’ is contingent on factors beyond the prevail of media control.
- Call Now, introduced with a string of telephone numbers designed to allow for maximum cultural interaction, devolves into a call-in program in which the host retains his composure even though not one listener — due to ‘technical problems’ — is able to connect.
- The complexity of transmission infrastructure and technological maintenance and monitoring is addressed by the resident radio technologist in Talking About Ether. Through his machines, the world of aural transmission is rendered visual and his analysis, which at first appears to be scientific and objective, concludes with the assertion that radio “must be strictly controlled.”
- Broadcast Quality
? raises a question — “Is this broadcast quality? ” — with the implicit knowledge that monopoly, enforced and sustained through arbitrary controls, is not a healthy phenomenon. Health in this case is retained through irreverence and humour. - In The Sponsors, a narrative is constructed via commercial radio utterance, creating a simple condensation of the manipulation of desire predominant in contemporary media.
- We Live in the Age… (of having to state the obvious) is comprised of few words, spoken in an aural phantasmagoria of a living soundscape. It represents an attempt to breathe — if in fact breathing in this case is possible — life into the dead space of radio.
- Which brings us to Dead Air and the falling away of authority, creating a presence articulated by absence.
- The piece ends with Here Comes Everybody, a telephonic, radiophonic, tongue-in-cheek liturgy in which utopian global communication theories are sung into sleep
: here comes every(body), there goes no(body).
Talking to a Loudspeaker was commissioned by New American Radio and Performing Arts Inc (New York City, USA, 1988, 90). The piece premiered on the National Public Radio (NPR) Network
Premiere
- 1989, Concert, NPR, USA
- Composer(s): Dan Lander, Gregory Whitehead
- Year of composition: 1988-90
- Duration: 24:28
- Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- Commission: New American Radio and Performing Arts Inc
- ISRC: CAD509511590
Movements
Mister Speaker
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
The Weather
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
The News
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
Call Now
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
Talking About Ether
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
Broadcast Quality?
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
The Sponsors
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
We Live in the Age…
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
Dead Air
- Composer(s): Dan Lander
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
Here Comes Everybody
- Movement of: Talking to a Loudspeaker
