Re: Much Ado About Humming - Glenn Gould's Imaginary Orchestra

[Sean Malone <spm29386@oregon.uoregon.edu>]

I use the word "vocalizations" to include all types of vocal sounds coming
from Gould.

Also, you will often find that Gould changes the timbre of his vocalizations
and structurally significant moments in a piece. I feel this is akin to some
sort of orchestration - of course, not in the deliberate sense that he is
trying to sound like some other instrument. What I mean is, that at those
moments, some sort of "change" takes place, and he reflects it in his
vocalization.

> Hi List,
>
> Just watching some of Gould videos.
>
> Seems like the Monsaingeon ones will be the best for out study here because
> Gould's voice is miked in order to pick up the discussion he's having with
> Bruno.  You can here his "hums" quite clearly and much more clearly than in
> the music recordings where the engineers tried to remove them.
>
> And guess what I found out from my viewing.
>
> So far he's hardly ever gone "hum."
>
> What he does do, to my ears, and I'm sure the phonetic spelling must be a
> bit off, is make the sounds
>
> "Dee"
>
> "Dah"
>
> "Tha"
>
> He seems to like to make the "tha" sound during fast staccato passages.
>
> And the "dee" and "dah" for the more lyrical and slower ones.
>
>
> Just some general observations from watching about 30 minutes of film.
>
>
> Has Sean ever tried to categorize the exact type of vocalizations he makes,
> and when he makes them, and has Sean ever noticed a pattern or speculated on
> why, how they fit into the musical scheme of things?


Yes, in the long and complete version of my research, it address all of
these things, especially when his eyes close and when his vocalizations
change - these are moments where I believe he is drawing from a more
structural conception of the piece. No longer on the surface, he approaches
the middleground.

>
>
> Jim