Answering these questions is complicated by the arbitrary binary setup in (PN 1999-30) between “spoken word” and “music.” Such a limited imaginary seems to dismiss radio’s capacity to be a medium involving the entire soundscape. While commercial radio appears to be bound by such artificial strictures, campus and community radio can contribute to the wider development of the medium itself. It is, perhaps, useful to note that Canadians are pioneers in the development of soundscape studies, sound ecology and musique actuelle.(1) Radio is, in many ways, the obvious medium for addressing issues related to the wider sonic world, creatively, politically and socially. One way of defining this sound world for radio would be in terms of the broad category “foregrounding”, that is, creative and intellectual content that draws from a variety of sound sources. In addressing the definition and provenance of radio art, we want to make the case for a campus radio policy that recognizes and, indeed, encourages the development of radio art, and its unique contribution to Canadian culture.
a) Definition – Is Radio Art Music?
“If a broadcaster were to sing the news would that be spoken word or would that be music?”
Radio art may be considered a sub-set of the broader genre of audio art in which sound is used as a medium to create a sonic object, or composition. It might be useful to think of this as a virtual sound sculpture built out of sounds derived from the surrounding environment, including pre-recorded sources, acoustic sounds, and not ignoring either music or spoken words. The difference between radio art and audio art generally is that radio art makes specific use of the medium of radio in both its performative and its communicative capacities.
It is important to stress that radio art may be concerned with the same ingredients as music, such as form, rhythm, timbre, repetition, pattern, and dynamics, but it goes beyond music because it includes all manner of sounds not commonly considered music. Often it includes sounds that most people would reject as music. Simply put, it is an aesthetic response to sound, a definition that would include music, but goes beyond the conventions of music. It is these conventions of music that have long been called into question by such diverse thinkers as John Cage, Murray Schafer, Edgar Varese and Kurt Schwitters.
Indeed, the problem of definition lies in one’s ideas of what constitutes “music” and “spoken word”. Does spoken word presuppose an emphasis on semantics? Is Lillian Allen’s dub poetry musical? Does music mean a hummable tune, or at least a “bona fide” work by a qualified composer? It is not so very long ago that much of what is now considered to be desirable and widely accessible “world music” was considered primitive and bizarre! We might do better with a definition of music such as that used by Cogan and Escot, who state that “the essence of musical power derives from the inventive use of whatever [sonic] space is available”.
Radio is a medium that has unparalleled access to sonic space.
Here are some examples of radio art created by Michael Waterman for broadcast on Trent Radio, 92.7 CFFF-FM Peterborough, Ontario.
(a) “Radio Guided Walking Tour”, Trent Radio, Winter of 1998 to May 1998.
Using a portable tape machine, Mr. Waterman recorded a forty-five minute sound-walk in Peterborough each week. In a process of pre-production, the sounds of the walk itself were manipulated, while other sounds were mixed into the recording. At an advertised time, the walk was broadcast so that people could take the walk while listening to the broadcast on a portable radio. On several occasions, further sonic events were added during the broadcast, as well as commentaries before and after the walk.
(b) “Organically Evolving Radio Show”, summer of 1998.
The first broadcast was improvised live on the air using found sounds and real-time acoustic sounds. In the second week, Mr. Waterman improvised along with the tape of the first week, creating a new template. For the third week, he improvised with the tape of the second week and recorded it. Thus, through twenty broadcasts the improvisation built upon the accumulated sediment of all the previous broadcasts.
(c) “The Mannlicher Hour”, a live-to-air, three-city radio art link, October 1998 – April 1999.
Mannlicher Carcanno is an audio art ensemble made up of artists Michael Waterman (aka Porter Hall), Doug Harvey (aka Really Happening) and Mike Jacobson (aka Gogo Godot). Harvey and Jacobson make their contributions from Los Angeles and Winnipeg respectively, via a teleconference line to Trent Radio’s live-to-air phone line. Mr. Waterman mixes their sounds with his own contribution made live in the studio to produce this weekly, live, hour long “jam”. The common denominator in all three of these programs is that they are all art works that explore the medium of radio. They address some of the unique qualities of radio in which real-time performance can be broadcast from more than one location simultaneously, and pre-recorded material can be blended with live performance. Radio art takes the ingredients of audio art and blends them with a performance of radio in which the medium is, indeed, the message. The purpose is not to convey information but to experience the process of radio within an aesthetic frame that allows for community interaction with the medium.
b) Provenance – Should Radio Art be considered Canadian Content?
The simple answer to this question (and we would apply the same criteria to turntabling) is this: If the radio art work is created by a Canadian artist, then it is a valid expression of Canadian content and should be counted as such by the CRTC. Because the work itself is a unique creation by the radio artist, it transcends the origins of the sound samples incorporated into the work.
(4) Radio art is, by definition, a performance of the medium of radio, which is just as quantifiable as a musical selection. The issue becomes even more important when we recognize the significant contributions by Canadians to the broad genre of audio art. For instance, both the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council recognize audio art as a legitimate category of artistic expression. If the purpose of CanCon is to support the efforts of Canadian artists, then Radio Art made by Canadians must qualify. It is important to note that the body of recorded releases by Canadian audio artists is always growing, so that programmers may well be playing these works on their shows in the same manner in which they might play musical selections. Perhaps it is SOCAN that needs to catch up with the cutting-edge genres of today! The question should not be framed in terms of the musical or non-musical qualities of radio art, but in terms of its status as made-in-Canada art.
It remains to answer the question posed in item 63 (4): How can the difference between music and spoken word programming be defined? In fact, there is a real danger in defining radio purely in terms of musical selections and spoken word. Such a definition of radio puts campus and community radio in the same commodified bind as commercial radio. Ironically, this narrow definition makes it harder for campus and community radio stations to fulfil the mandate, given to them by the CRTC, to “offer programming that is different in style and substance from the programming offered by other types of radio stations.”
Radio art is not (only) music and it is not (only) spoken word, but like music, it is performance and it is an aesthetic creative act. A better division, if one must be invoked, would be between information radio and creative radio. In this context, creative radio would include music, poetry, drama, radio art, turntabling; in short, any artistic use of the medium. We strongly urge the CRTC to not to put campus and community radio into the same limited box as commercial radio, but to recognize and foster the creative potential of the medium itself.