När jag läste Boris Vians Dagarnas Skum som sjuttonåring blev pianocktailen min idé om den ultimata patafysiska möbeln med dess korspollinering av matematisk ordning och total slumpmässighet och dess fantastiska förenande och harmoniserade av ljud, doft, smak och syn:
-Would you like a drink, asked Colin. My pianocktail is finished, you could try it out.
-It works? asked Chick.
-Perfectly. I had trouble getting the bugs out but the results go beyond my expectation. I got a truely astounding mix out of Black and Tan fantasy.
-How did you make it work? asked Chick.
-With every note, said Colin, I've matched a spirit, liqueur, or flavouring. The loud pedal corresponds to whipped egg and the soft pedal to ice. For seltzer water you need to do a trill in the upper register. The quantities are in direct proporion with the duration: the 64th note equals a 16th part, a quarter note one part and a whole note four parts. When playing a slow tune, a leveling system is put to work so that the quantity is not increased - that would make for an abundant cocktail - only the alcohol content. And depending on the length of the tune, the parts valence can be changed, reducing it for example to one one-hundreth to get a drink that takes into account all of the harmonies by means of a lateral regualtor. (...) And besides, what's more, the piano really works!
-That's marvellous! said Chick.
-There's only one problem, said Colin. The loud pedal for the whipped egg. I had to put in a special system of interlocking parts because when you play a tune that is too "hot" pieces of omelet fall into the cocktail and it's hard to swallow. I'll modify that. For the time being you just need to be careful. For the sour cream, it's a low G.
-Would you like a drink, asked Colin. My pianocktail is finished, you could try it out.
-It works? asked Chick.
-Perfectly. I had trouble getting the bugs out but the results go beyond my expectation. I got a truely astounding mix out of Black and Tan fantasy.
-How did you make it work? asked Chick.
-With every note, said Colin, I've matched a spirit, liqueur, or flavouring. The loud pedal corresponds to whipped egg and the soft pedal to ice. For seltzer water you need to do a trill in the upper register. The quantities are in direct proporion with the duration: the 64th note equals a 16th part, a quarter note one part and a whole note four parts. When playing a slow tune, a leveling system is put to work so that the quantity is not increased - that would make for an abundant cocktail - only the alcohol content. And depending on the length of the tune, the parts valence can be changed, reducing it for example to one one-hundreth to get a drink that takes into account all of the harmonies by means of a lateral regualtor. (...) And besides, what's more, the piano really works!
-That's marvellous! said Chick.
-There's only one problem, said Colin. The loud pedal for the whipped egg. I had to put in a special system of interlocking parts because when you play a tune that is too "hot" pieces of omelet fall into the cocktail and it's hard to swallow. I'll modify that. For the time being you just need to be careful. For the sour cream, it's a low G.
Boris Vian, Mood Indigo - Foam of the Daze, Brian Harpers engelska översättning, p12.
I vår lägenhet har vi ett stadigt bordunt C, rödvin, an oackompanjerad monoton dricka. I köket radar de upp sig, påminnelserna om förflutna nöjen, en sisyfosisk lott att dra till glasinsamlingen på andra sidan the Meadows. Uttrycket, I can't be arsed, denna oöversättliga colloquialism, springs to mind, straxt följt av en begynnande törst. Istället sätter jag mig i min säng och kontemplerar drömmen att skapa musik ur det omusikaliska. Musiken liksom estetiken generellt, ett matematiska mysterium, för skalat ner inpå bara skelettet är musik trots allt inte annat än ljudvågor.
Det kan vara att detta är min något rastlösa första egentliga dag av ledighet och total ensamhet, men jag påbörjar riktningslöst en serie efterstudier i pianots historia som mycket snart uppenbarar detta eleganta instrument som en veritabel cornucopia av planer om surrealistiska modifieringar.
Inte långt från Vian's drink-jazzorama, är till exemple Piesse's doftorgel. Septimus Piesse (a name made for legends!) var kemist och parfymerare och övertygade om att musik kunde översättas till dofter, tunga dofter korresponderade med dova toner, medan skarpare, mer stickande aromer kunde illustreras med gällare toner. I Piesse's version av det klassiska pianot figurerade en serie parfymspray som kunde triggas av piano tangenterna. 1922 publiceras en artikel i ämnet i sedan länge utdöda tidningen Science and Invention:
"The suggestions comes from Dr. Septimus Piesse, a French chemist, who claims that every perfume produces its own particular effect on the end organs of smell terminating in the mucosa, mucous membranes lining of the nose. The organs are called the olfactory cells, and just as every note has its effect upon the ear and as the colors have their effect upon the retina of the eye, so this transposed music, the music of smells, will have its effect upon the olfactory organs. (...)
Of course, the combination of odors will creates a smell entirely different from any individual qualities of the various perfumes and it is necessary that, in the soft, dreamy compositions, the odors blend harmoniously. Discords will have a decidedly unpleasant effect but inasmuch as the composers did not dwell upon discords to any great extent, the audience will be saved the rather unusual embarrassment of smelling disagreeable combinations. Some music would perhaps have to be changed and the odors carefully graduated so that no particular perfume will predominate, except when the loud pedal, or rather in the smell organs, the *strong* odor pedal is trod upon.
It is, therefore, up to the perfumer to combine the mixtures in much that same way that an artist blends colors, or as a good florist makes a bouquet. If it is desirable to insert a little contrast into the bouquet, the appropriate blossoms or grasses are used, and so the perfumer likewise would have to employ the proper aromas."
Artikeln avslutar med ett exempel på Doftorgelns skala (BASS CLEF: C patchouli, D vanilla, E clove bark, F benzoin, G frangipane, A storax, B clove, C sandalwood, D clematis, E rattan, F castorium, G pergulaire, A balsam of Peru, B carnations and pinks, C geranium, D heliotrope, E iris, F musk, G Pois de senteur, A balsam of tolu, B cinnamon, C rose etc...)
En mer bizarr (och mindre djurrättskorrekt) variant annars, Kattpianot, die Klatzenklavier, där en serie katter spänns fast i pianot, tangenterna hamrande mot deras utsträckta svansar, vilket straxt utlöser en kakofoni av smärta när katterna, ordnade efter tonläge, jamande klagar. Tysken Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813)lär ha ansett att instrumentet kunde fungera som ett slags bot mot vansinne för patienter som förlorat förmågan att fokusera och knyta an till verkligheten. Katterna skulle, enligt Reils Rhapsodieen über die Anwendung der psychishen Curmethode auf Geisteszerrüttungen 1803 (citerad i Robert J. Richards, "Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano, or Johann Christian Reil and the Foundations of Romantic Psychiatry", 1998) "be arranged in a row with their tails stretched behind them. And a keyboard fitted out with sharpened nails would be set over them. The struck cats would provide the sound. A fugue played on this instrument--when the ill person is so placed that he cannot miss the expression on their faces and the play of these animals--must bring Lot's wife herself from her fixed state into conscious awareness."
En tidig LOL-cat alltså om inte annat. Detta så ofrivilligt komiska djur. Reil var knappast först med den sjuka zoomusikologiska idén däremot. Redan 1650 hade den eccentriske allvetaren och siste ordentlige renässansmannen värd namnet, herr Kircher formulerat visionen i sin Musurgia Universalis:
"In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy."
Det ryktas också i etern om ett grispiano för Louis XI, ett kattpiano spelat av en gigantisk björn (It held a bear that played the organ; instead of pipes, there were sixteen cat heads each with its body confined) och en åsnekör. Men här börjar min energi tryta alltmedan fjädrarna i min säng börjar gnaga sig in i höftbenet och skärmenavspeglingen kastar besynnerliga skuggor över rummet när blicken för ett ögonblick åter stjäls av verkligheten. Fredag kväll, ett stadigt C, howling through the hallway, godnatt.
Bilden överst förresten Geraldine och Nicolas Schenkels realisering av Vians Piano.
Det kan vara att detta är min något rastlösa första egentliga dag av ledighet och total ensamhet, men jag påbörjar riktningslöst en serie efterstudier i pianots historia som mycket snart uppenbarar detta eleganta instrument som en veritabel cornucopia av planer om surrealistiska modifieringar.
Inte långt från Vian's drink-jazzorama, är till exemple Piesse's doftorgel. Septimus Piesse (a name made for legends!) var kemist och parfymerare och övertygade om att musik kunde översättas till dofter, tunga dofter korresponderade med dova toner, medan skarpare, mer stickande aromer kunde illustreras med gällare toner. I Piesse's version av det klassiska pianot figurerade en serie parfymspray som kunde triggas av piano tangenterna. 1922 publiceras en artikel i ämnet i sedan länge utdöda tidningen Science and Invention:
"The suggestions comes from Dr. Septimus Piesse, a French chemist, who claims that every perfume produces its own particular effect on the end organs of smell terminating in the mucosa, mucous membranes lining of the nose. The organs are called the olfactory cells, and just as every note has its effect upon the ear and as the colors have their effect upon the retina of the eye, so this transposed music, the music of smells, will have its effect upon the olfactory organs. (...)
Of course, the combination of odors will creates a smell entirely different from any individual qualities of the various perfumes and it is necessary that, in the soft, dreamy compositions, the odors blend harmoniously. Discords will have a decidedly unpleasant effect but inasmuch as the composers did not dwell upon discords to any great extent, the audience will be saved the rather unusual embarrassment of smelling disagreeable combinations. Some music would perhaps have to be changed and the odors carefully graduated so that no particular perfume will predominate, except when the loud pedal, or rather in the smell organs, the *strong* odor pedal is trod upon.
It is, therefore, up to the perfumer to combine the mixtures in much that same way that an artist blends colors, or as a good florist makes a bouquet. If it is desirable to insert a little contrast into the bouquet, the appropriate blossoms or grasses are used, and so the perfumer likewise would have to employ the proper aromas."
Artikeln avslutar med ett exempel på Doftorgelns skala (BASS CLEF: C patchouli, D vanilla, E clove bark, F benzoin, G frangipane, A storax, B clove, C sandalwood, D clematis, E rattan, F castorium, G pergulaire, A balsam of Peru, B carnations and pinks, C geranium, D heliotrope, E iris, F musk, G Pois de senteur, A balsam of tolu, B cinnamon, C rose etc...)
En mer bizarr (och mindre djurrättskorrekt) variant annars, Kattpianot, die Klatzenklavier, där en serie katter spänns fast i pianot, tangenterna hamrande mot deras utsträckta svansar, vilket straxt utlöser en kakofoni av smärta när katterna, ordnade efter tonläge, jamande klagar. Tysken Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813)lär ha ansett att instrumentet kunde fungera som ett slags bot mot vansinne för patienter som förlorat förmågan att fokusera och knyta an till verkligheten. Katterna skulle, enligt Reils Rhapsodieen über die Anwendung der psychishen Curmethode auf Geisteszerrüttungen 1803 (citerad i Robert J. Richards, "Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano, or Johann Christian Reil and the Foundations of Romantic Psychiatry", 1998) "be arranged in a row with their tails stretched behind them. And a keyboard fitted out with sharpened nails would be set over them. The struck cats would provide the sound. A fugue played on this instrument--when the ill person is so placed that he cannot miss the expression on their faces and the play of these animals--must bring Lot's wife herself from her fixed state into conscious awareness."En tidig LOL-cat alltså om inte annat. Detta så ofrivilligt komiska djur. Reil var knappast först med den sjuka zoomusikologiska idén däremot. Redan 1650 hade den eccentriske allvetaren och siste ordentlige renässansmannen värd namnet, herr Kircher formulerat visionen i sin Musurgia Universalis:
"In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy."
Det ryktas också i etern om ett grispiano för Louis XI, ett kattpiano spelat av en gigantisk björn (It held a bear that played the organ; instead of pipes, there were sixteen cat heads each with its body confined) och en åsnekör. Men här börjar min energi tryta alltmedan fjädrarna i min säng börjar gnaga sig in i höftbenet och skärmenavspeglingen kastar besynnerliga skuggor över rummet när blicken för ett ögonblick åter stjäls av verkligheten. Fredag kväll, ett stadigt C, howling through the hallway, godnatt.
Bilden överst förresten Geraldine och Nicolas Schenkels realisering av Vians Piano.
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