What I maintain as the avant-garde is exciting possibility. It offers glimpses into what the future of aesthetics may hold, what kinds of sounds could be included within music phenomena, and what ideas or philosophies drive creation.
The Ancestor of the Modern Synthesiser
Invented by French musician Georges Jenny in 1941, the Ondioline was created with the intention of making available a version of the then extremely expensive Ondes Martenot synthesiser, to a larger consumer market. The instrument has a knee-lever to control dynamics, lateral vibrato and touch sensitive keys, a copper wire-bound ribbon for percussive effects, and a multitude of knobs and switches which allow for a multitude of sounds both mimicry of traditional tone colours, as well as absurd and novel electronic textures, to pour from its speakers.
“You can dial in an incredibly wide range of sounds on the Ondioline, and the unique mechanics for playing it allows you to create sounds very sensitively and with a musical deftness I just feel isn't present on most other electronic instruments from the '40s – or decades since.” — Wally DeBacker
In the early 1950s, Jenny loaned the instrument to French medical student, Jean-Jaques Perrey who, in a matter of 6 months, became the Ondioline’s only virtuoso and key demonstrator. Perrey often accompanied himself on piano, playing bass and chords with the left hand whilst his right played Ondioline melodies with the aid of his knee, in a way challenging the expectation of solo performance textures and thicknesses. Both instrument and execution reckoned with traditional conventions of serious music, that is creating an aesthetic which relied on playfulness to question, rather than the almost goading nature of the musical avant-garde of the same period.
The Paradox?
However, there is a paradox here in categorising the works of Jean-Jacques Perrey as valid components of the avant-garde.
“You have these instruments that were right at the vanguard of technology and promising all sorts of new sound possibility, but then to legitimise them it was always pulling back to the deepest Western art music traditions” - DeBacker
In a way, this was Perrey’s aim; to popularise the instrument and its compositional capabilities. As a huge classical music fan, Perrey called upon his love for all things Tchaikovsky with an arrangement of Swan Lake, subverting its Romantic harmony into the ludic, cartoony soundscapes on his 1966 ‘Swan’s Splashdown’ In the same way ‘Spooks in Space’ from the same 1966 album The In Sound from Way Out, has melodies drawn from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre.
Yet if we refer back insofar as to what makes avant-garde music, avant-garde, we are left with its intention of provocation, and the challenging of social and artistic value. Ie. John Cage questioning the very role of particular sounds or lack thereof, as constituents of music in his ‘Silent Piece’.
Perrey “never intended to be part of the avant-garde. His goal was to popularise electronic music by deploying it in happy, simple tunes and arrangements”. Yet despite this intention, it didn’t work. The Ondioline was left largely unheard of, and the instrument, and its footprint on modern electronica, faded away.
So if we take the position that the musical avant-garde relies on intention alone, then how is it that one could argue the inclusion of Perrey’s work within such a movement? If not for intention, is rarity a requisite of the movement and another route in to such discourse? This leads us away from the paradox and into the possibility that perhaps music is able to ‘grow into’ the concept of the avant-garde.
Built 26 years before the debut of the Moog, only 600 Ondiolines were ever made, with a little under 100 still in existence today. This is where Gotye comes in.
“Through the natural energy of entropy, and the passing of people’s spirits and lives that some things get unfairly forgotten, and some things are worth going back to and worth celebrating” - DeBacker
The Possibility?
It took 5 years for Wally DeBacker (Gotye) to come across an Ondioline, which then took a further year to restore back to working condition.
Over the last couple of years, DeBacker has taken the instrument on the road with his Ondioline Orchestra, playing homage to both the instrument itself, and its closest friend in Perrey, who passed away in 2016. DeBacker shares in the philosophy of pushing the boundaries of music in a way that still remains accessible to ears; his discography is a subtle critique of the accepted tone colours amid popular music, by subverting more unique sounds and samples into conventional structures, tricking the ear into hearing something familiar. It’s almost a subconscious invitation to explore what is really going on, those with an inquisitive ear have the opportunity to delve deeper to find where these sounds are coming from (fences, whales, trains, traditional Taiwanese folk samples, Turkish drum loops, etc.), and from there are introduced into the themes of the avant-garde which DeBacker employs. Challenging the critical listener, without the violence often associated with more overt expressions of the avant-garde.
Running with this philosophy, one shared with Perrey, it could be argued that DeBacker has given the Jenny, Perrey and Ondioline trio the opportunity to be recognised as a part of the movement. By bringing attention to a “relic of long-gone possibility” what we are left with is a perfect example of a true inside outsider, an identifying dichotomy of avant-garde; knowing the rules before you break them sort of idea, challenging what had been before, by pursuing what may come after.
“You know, the Ondioline, is very rare”.
An Argument in Poor Taste?
But we are still pushing a square peg through a round hole — rarity doesn’t equate to the avant-garde. Whilst the Ondioline Orchestra is ultimately a celebration of work, it brings it back into a conversation, essentially validated by a known name, allowing the challenges to begin. Almost Berkeley-esque, in that if a tree falls with nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound. In the same way that the avant-garde values provocation and questioning norms, if nobody hears it, if it is that rare, how then might it become included within the musical avant-garde?
Well through its resurrection in DeBacker’s projects, unreleased work is now available, translated instruction manuals are also available, Ondiolines are getting restored… perhaps now is the time we will start discussing, and being challenged, years after the fact.
“You have different periods and different technologies and see what happens when you bring those things together” - DeBacker
If the role of the avant-garde is to challenge traditional understandings of what music can be, delivering the shock of the new, perhaps the Ondioline and its partnerships with both Perrey and DeBacker outline two different tales; one being the ability to grow into the avant-garde, and the other being its ability to be expressed in an unfettered frivolity and joy. The challenge of the avant-garde is not always so violent to the ear.
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