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Exploring the Turntable further: Maria Chavez

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Maria Chavez is an artist who I have used as a research point within previous works, as she is a turntablist, like myself. Once discovering Maria’s work, I was opened up to the sonic possibilities availiable to myself if I were to use the turntable in more abstract ways. However, I aleways felt as though her art in itself, whilst interesting and thought evoking, did not speak to me on an emotional or enjoyment level, which is how I usually like to consume art.

This makes one wonder, what is art and must it always be enjoyable? We do not need to be moved by or be entertained by a piece of art for it to be usueful to the trajetory of our lives. This is what I learned in accordance to my own life after an in person lecture and workshop from Maria Chavez. Having this realisation also allows me to understand that I become more invested in art when I am exposed to the artist’s creative vision and process, what they are trying to portray within their works becomes clear.

Maria’s interest in her practice stems from her observation that “when [she] was a kid, if you gave [her] something, it always broke”. By becoming fascinated by her misfortune, her way of looking at art has been fundamentally altered. I resonate with Maria’s experience of things breaking, as I feel that items, particuarly electronic items, often malfunction when in my posession. Perhaps if I took interest and curiosity in this feeling, that way in which I percieve and create art will be re-wired. Maria’s performance practice is a performance of chance, putting restrictions of the depths of her creativity, which in turn can deepen creativity. As I have become more involved with improvisation, I become fascinated with the idea of a “performance of chance”, and is something I’d like to invest time into researching.

Maria Chavez is a part of a trio of abstract turntablists including herself, Victoria Shen and Mariam Rezzai. I found it interesting that Chavez noted the importance of having a network of people that share similar expereinces to oneself, working within the same artistic realm of oneself.

Chavez is of Indigineous Peruvian heritage, which she is inspired and moved by. She tells us of her interest in “archaelogical sound”. From this, she has discovered her interest in working with stone, and would describe herself as a sculptor, not a sound artist. She also uses this frame of thinking to piece where her love of the turntable stems from- the physicality of the turntable reminds her of stone. She is interested in how sound and information were preserved in ancient times, and notes how foley sound in these periods were not made for musical purposes, but rather for the purpose of science and preservation. Maria’s notes on archaeological sound and its relevance as archaic forms of technology are of interest to me.

What defines technology isn’t its relevence to electricity and mechanical development, but rather its relevence in aiding humanity’s progression via methods out of human control. We can see paralells in ancient technology in the technology we use everyday today, most vividly seen in our use of “the scroll”. Before books, we as human would read written information via the form of the scroll, a paper which had to be unravelled from its tubular form to be deciphered. Today, in our turn to the digital age, the scroll has been repurposed in our digital information recieiving methods, whether that is reading an online PDF or the endless scroll of our social media feed.

Here are some statements and concepts from Chavez that I felt resonated with me:

  • “No other device has the stronghold on humanity that the turntable does”
  • The turntable as a macrophone: viewing the turntable as a large contact microphone.
  • “Sound is the most democratic medium to use as an artist”
  • “The body hears, the mind listens” – Pauline Oliveros on listening as being the closest thing to conciousness.

Where Maria is interested in archaeological sound, her work often nods towards this, either through sculpture, re-conceptualising set frameworks for what defines music, and repurposing th eturntable to prove her concepts. Where Maria didn’t like the regularity and normalised experience of creating sound within the music indsutry, she wrote and presented her book Of Technique: Chance Proceedures on the Turntable as a conceptual album. This is a nod to her interest in archaic technologies. Chavez is interested in dissasociating the vinyl record and the turntable from technological sound, using and presenting it in ways that shows how disconnected from technology and / or electrical echanisms the turntable can be.

Chavez’s work , in a way, encourages a “return to nature” through severing our connection with mechanical technology. I myself, however, am interested in deepening our connection with technology in order to embrace a “return to nature”. By familiraising myself with Chavez’s work and concepts, I will be able to construct ways I can present my ideas surrounding technology and nature through art.

Maria Chavez’s practice is not only useful for situating our perspectives on nature, preservation and technology, but also for the development and wiring of our minds. Chavez describes her practice of abstract turntablsim as a way of creating new neural networks within our brains- we should look at her process as a way of adding new methodologies and perspectives to our frameworks when creating art.

When using the turntable, we are physically diaplying and exposing the waveforms which might appear within digitally created sound. When working with abstract turntablism. specifically where one record is being layered atop another, the concept of “chopping” within sampling in loop-based sound making becomes physically depicted.

Bridging Practices: The Power of the Pedal Board

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Taking my experiments in improvisation further, I have come to incorporate a loop pedal as an instrument in my set up.

As seen in the image above, there has been more of a focus on using the turntable as an instrument as opposed to my classical instruments, although I am still incorporating them within my experiments. The turntable is the instrument I am most confident in, and therefore is easier to manipulate in a setting where the loop pedal is involved, as the loop pedal requires a presicion of timing.

It is important to incorporate the turntable for conceptual reasoning: this is an instrument that signifies the world and humanity’s relationship with technology, which is where my interest in writing lies at the moment. The turntable is an analogue instrument, relying on electricity, power to be utilised. In this sense it is highly technological, and its invention in the nineteenth century was a key point in the development of humanity’s understanding of technology. Being analogue, it howevever is also very easy to humanly manipulate.

The loop pedal is an intersting device, as not only does it allow the user to record, store, and build on ideas, it fascillitates tempo manipulation, as seen in the video above. This meant that I was able to record at much lower tempos to have more control when playing in basslines and creating the loop of the breaks.

The loop pedal is a great way for me to build a live set where I can build on sounds to create a whole piece of music, as opposed to improvising on one instrument, where I cannot build and creat a whole piece of music.

The granular pedal was an addition to the set up that allowed for variation and more experimental qualities to be added to my performance experiments.

Click image for full video of experiment using BOSS loop station, turntable and live instrumentation.

As seen in the video, the performance piece I am planning uses existing drum and bass records to build on breaks to create my own sounds. However, as I am still experimenting, it trakes a while for the track to build; this could be boresome to an audience and may not translate well in a live setting. There was also complications in incorporating the double bass- in the clip, you can see it fall over. In a live setting, not only would a double bass be impractical to transport to venues, but it may fall over as did in the above practice session. In addition, due to the nature of the double bass being an accoustic instrument, when recording a bassline to add o the piece, it picks up on the sound of the room. This could be combatted by using a contact microphone. In later experiements, I used my housemate’s bass guitar instead, as it could be connected directly to the loop pedal to construct clear basslines undisrupted by the sound of the room. The bass guitar is also smaller, and strapped around my body so as to avoid any damage to the instrument.

Although I heavily enjoyed the process layed out in the above video, the performance so far is still very situated in the realm of UK dance music, and not the art world. To make the performance more experimental, I would like to deviate from the drum and bass DJ style set that the performance currently feels it has. To do this, I am going to start the performance with elements other than percussion, and sample records which aren’t drum and bass. I would love to sample my own soundscapes and percussion textures, however the costs involved with pressing vinyl can be high, and the time to get the pressings back may not coincide with the deadlines of the unit. Nevertheless, it is something I will research to expand the scope of this piece.