WEB INTRODUCTION
The Four Horsemen Sound Poetry Performance Group dedicated itself
to live performance, sometimes to the point of limiting what could be
recorded, both in audio and video media. Much of the group's best work
was performed without a score; some of its most interesting scores did
not chart its best performances.
As we prepared The Prose Tattoo for publication, bpNichol, in
consultation with the other members of the group, and I carried on a
running discussion of what would work in the book, what might falsify or
otherwise get in the way of live performance, what was the relationship
between each score and visual poetry, and other questions that arose
from the nature of scoring. That it took bp a year to write the book's
introduction suggests some of the deliberation that went not only into
the introduction but also into selecting scores to publish.
While the book was in progress, we also began a series of audio tapes,
intended to present solos by each member, and a fifth tape of the group
in rehearsal. This final tape was meant to suggest the incomplete nature
of any recording. The three tapes that were produced are still available.
Paul Dutton has continued to record, a major figure among North
American sound poets, both as soloist and contributor to other performance
ensembles. A brief discography follows the introductions. For the
recordings of The Horsemen ensemble, as well as out of print and out of
press publications of all sorts by the members of the group, your best
bet is probably Damian Lopes's Prose and Contexts catalogues.
Now that bp's gone, and the other Horsemen have gone their separate ways,
these scores become part of an incomplete record of a poetry of seemingly
boundless enthusiasm and invention. On one level, the scores supplement the
group's audio and video recordings. On another, the scores may be useful
for other performance artists and sound poets in scoring their own work.
On yet another, they give some clues as to the working methods and orientation
to performance of the group at the time of publication. Some of the
scores, particularly "The Room (A Valentine) Winter's Day" and "The
Oldest Voice In The World," function very well as visual poetry,
though this should be seen in context of bp's insistence on authors'
intention, making a clear distinction between these scores and poems
conceived as visual poetry.
At the end of his introduction, bp says that performance artists must
gain permission via his address or in care of me. Well, I wish I could
believe in Oidja Boards or Mediums -- I'd like to be able to get in
touch with bp. If you want to try performing any of these scores, you
might try contacting one of the surviving members of the group.
shows some of the problems we were up against. It looks more like a flow
chart & was very hard to follow. But does that mean that "Seasons" was
first? Probably not. But I think that's the version of the story I like
best, because "Seasons" was the first group composition. Everybody wrote
for it & the recorded version of the piece remains one of the most
interesting pieces we've done. And it makes sense, this origin story,
because the complexity of the piece means we would have had to come up
with a workable notation system to even compose it. So let's say that's
the "official" version & go on from there.
The grid has not been our sole method of notation. Like most acoustic
sound poets we have used Raoul Hausmann's notion of
optophoneticism-sound reading/interpretation of spatially organized text.
Hence compositions like "Sixteen Part Suite" & "The Room (A
Valentine) Winter's Day." But does this make the scores "visual
poems"? In the strict sense no. They are meant to be read aloud &,
indeed, in some cases we have deliberately worked against the
"pictorial" sense of page in order to foreground the texts' compositional
basis as fixed element in an interactive dialogue with the speakers. We
have often taken optophonetic mini-texts & used the grid as a way of
organizing them as in "The Dreams Remain." And, of course, we have
used variations on the basic grid in order to achieve different effects,
remembering always that both "page" & "grid" are simply conventions.
This raises another point. The movement from page to page, & the
movement from rectangle to rectangle in the grid, are used to the same
ends - to notate transition points. The grid does not, indeed cannot,
dictate pitch, rhythm, duration or any coloration the performer may put
on the text. What it does do is define who's doing what when, with
whom, & what elements they have to work with. Thus a combination
of optophonetic or grid notation systems, old-fashioned memory work,
& extensive improvisation (in terms of both abstract sound & dialogue)
have been the basic elements in all our performances. This in itself
tells you what is missing from this selection, i.e. many of what we think
of as our major pieces - "Mischievous Eve," "Stage Lost," "In The
Middle Of A Blue Balloon," "Theme," "Tetralogue," "Mixed
Metaphors," & "Paul Dutton's Dream." They are not included for the
simple reason that they are not notated. Their notation exists only in
our minds & in isolated text elements.' And this highlights the
compositional reality of the group, which is that the four of us
have composed the major pieces. These are the real flowering of our
twelve year project in collaboration. The texts offered in this collection
(with the exception of "Seasons" & "Schedule For Another Piece") are
the ground, individually or collectively offered, from which the major
work grew. Obviously then they are central to our work but they are
not the center. The center is an ongoing compositional workshop in
which the four of us take anywhere from days to years to compose as a
group and to which we bring fragmentary fines, half-formed ideas,
dreams, works in progress, et cetcra et cetera, and out of which, thru a
kind of bricollage, the compositions take shape. For example "In the
Middle Of A Blue Balloon" began as a solo piece by Rafael, grew into
an expanded exploration of psychosis performed by the group, was then
recorded & the recording has now been worked in as an element in the
most recent version with Rafael, its originator, standing silently (almost
invisibly) in the background as bp & Paul fight in the foreground &
Steve appears to be attempting to watch the original piece on a
television whose back is toward
the audience. The solo version of "Blue Balloon" shows up again as an
element in "Final Repetitions" (included in this collection under its
earlier title, "Strongarm For Louis"). These short descriptions do not do
the performed pieces justice but give you some idea of what can happen
to a single text.
I repeat that the group compositions are the major compositions.
Obviously they are formed by four individual voices but it is that
moment of group identity that we have striven for. In an historical
sense then this collection runs the risk of falsifying our history, but then
print is an inadequate medium for our ultimate goal. Even phonograph
recordings and tapes run this risk, as they remove the living performers
from the audience's presence, and freeze what should be an ongoing
process. This is part of why we insist that the texts are simply scores,
simply the tracking of an oral intention, not, in their intention or most
basic form, visual poems. The individual group members as
improvisers are what bring the pieces alive, much more so than any
"composer" we could identify. Composer is an inadequate term for
sound poetry. What you do is set up an intentional framework, a
scheme of opportunities. And that is why tho we have listed the
authors of particular pieces in the index, this list should not be taken as
measure of any one person's contribution to the group. No one is more
or less important. We have been and remain four idiosyncratic
presences and only the four of us make up the Four Horsemen.
Our strength as individual writers can be measured by our individual
writing, but our strength as a group is only measurable by what has
happened when we have effectively joined our intentions
compositionally, &, ultimately, in the final stage of composition - in
performance.
If these scores, then, are simply scores for the use of a single
performance group, why publish them? Three of the pieces, "Seasons,"
"Schedule For Another Piece," & "Headspace" are texts which we have
developed into performance pieces. Although the performance pieces
only exist in performance, the texts remain interesting & readable. A
great deal of contemporary concrete poetry has been created primarily
for the eye, but readers have found ways to vocalize it, converting into
sound what was originally intended as image. Many of our grids &
optophonetic scores can be read as secondary visual poems, visual
poems that are by-products of group performance, much in the same
way that many visual poems, originally intended for the eye, have
generated secondary oral readings. Much of the reader's experience
with visual poetry can be brought to these scores; in addition, the
reading of scores as visual poems can extend the reader's ense of the
possibilities of visual poetry in general: imaged sound can fertilize
visual poetry in much the same way as visual conventions have
stimulated recent performance art. We will be pleased if we have
opened doors to further developments in visual poetry thru our
performance work. Readers primarily interested or involved in
performance art may find many uses for this book: we hope that they
include many we have not thought of ourselves. As I said above, our
aim has been to set up a scheme of possibilities. Of course, any
performance artists wishing to use these scores in their own work must
obtain permission from the Four Horsemen. Inquiries should be sent to
bpNichol at 98 Admiral Rd./Toronto, Ontario/Canada M54 2L6, or to
the Horsemen via the publisher.
bpNichol
Toronto
January 1982,
January 1983.
Scores presented here:
The Dreams Remain (bpNichol)
Coffee Break (Paul Dutton) [1]
The Room (A Valentine) Winter's Day (Four Horsemen)
I Took You To My Dreams (Paul Dutton)
My Other Use: To Hear (bpNichol)
The Oldest Voice in the World (Paul Dutton) [2]
3 Poems (Arranged by bpNichol)
Discography for these scores:
[1] On Canadada (lp) Griffin House, Toronto, 1972.
[2] On Bootleg Underwhich Cassettes, Toronto, 1981.
Additional Discography:
Live in the West (lp) Starborne Records, Toronto, 1977
Solos:
bpNichol, Ear Rational; Sound Poems 1970 - 1980 New Fire Tapes, Light and Dust, Milwaukee, 1982
Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Scrabble Babble New Fire Tapes, Light and Dust, Milwaukee, 1984.
Paul Dutton, Blues, Roots, Legends, Shouts, and Hollers [lp, Dutton on one side,
P.C. Fencott on the other.] Starborne Productions, Toronto, 1981.
Paul Dutton, Fugitive Forms New Fire Tapes, Light and Dust, Milwaukee, 1986.
Paul Dutton, Decisive Moments Audio CD recording, with CCMC Group,
Track & Light Recordings, Toronto, 1994.
Return to Light and Dust
Poets.
Web Introduction copyright 1997 by Karl Young.
Original introduction copyright 1983 by The Four Horsemen, and used by
permission of Eleanor Nichol.
Light and Dust Mobile Anthology of Poetry.
