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MUSCLE MEMORY: THE INIMITABLE FEEL OF THE RECORD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2018

Tullis Rennie
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Abstract

Muscle Memory is a new record I have made in collaboration with pianist Matthew Bourne (playing Memorymoog) and trumpeter Graham South. Comprising two composed sound pieces, it was released on vinyl in 2017. The pieces are structured around recordings made in the houses of each collaborator, documenting the act of listening to records. The compositions include conversation between composer and collaborators, samples of music from records heard/discussed, improvised instrumental sections, and electronically manipulated materials. Muscle Memory has since been presented to a number of audiences attending ‘living-room’ listening sessions – held in small, intimate and domestic spaces across the UK. Participative listening of this type is understood through Simon Frith and Christopher Small as an inclusive, collaborative, compositional action. The tactility (Mike D'Errico) and ‘objectness’ (David Grubbs) of records is also of importance. This text is a document of that listening experience.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Information
Tempo , Volume 73 , Issue 287 , January 2019 , pp. 76 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Frith, Simon, ‘Music and Identity’, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. du Gay, Paul and Hall, Stuart (London: SAGE, 1996), p. 109Google Scholar.

2 Frith, ‘Music and Identity’, p. 124.

3 Small, Christopher, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), p. 9Google Scholar.

4 D'Errico, Mike, ‘Technologies of Play in Hip-Hop and Electronic Dance Music Production and Performance’ in Critical Approaches to the Production of Music and Sound, ed. Bennett, Samantha and Bates, Eliot (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), p. 139Google Scholar.

5 Grubbs, David, Records Ruin The Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (London: Duke University Press, 2014), p. xCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Grubbs, Records Ruin The Landscape, p. xi.

7 Evans, Bill in Davis, Miles, Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959)Google Scholar.

8 Waters, Simon, ‘Tullis Rennie's Muscle Memory: Listening to the Act of Listening’, Contemporary Music Review, 34/1 (2015), pp. 22–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.