Current of Music

Theodor W. Adorno, Robert Hullot-Kentor, Theodor W. Adorno

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780745694634
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Fleeing the Nazis, Theodor W. Adorno lived in New York City as a refugee from 1938 until 1941. During these years, he was intensively involved in a study of how the recently developed techniques for the nation-wide transmission of music over radio were transforming the perception of music itself. This broad ranging radio research was conceived as nothing less than an investigation, partly empirical, of Walter Benjamin's speculative claims for the emancipatory potential of art in the age of its mechanical reproduction. The results of Adorno's project set him decisively at odds with Benjamin's theses and at the same time became the body of thinking that formed the basis for Adornos own aesthetics in his Philosophy of New Music.

Current of Music is the title that Adorno himself gave to this research project. For complex reasons, however, Adorno was not able to bring the several thousands of pages of this massive study, most of it written in English, to a final form prior to leaving New York for California, where he would immediately begin work with Max Horkheimer on the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Robert Hullot-Kentor, the distinguished Adorno scholar, reconstructed Adorno's project for the Adorno Archive in Germany and provides a lengthy and informative introduction to the fragmentary texts collected in this volume.

Current of Music will be widely discussed for the light it throws on the development of Adorno's thought, on his complex relationship with Walter Benjamin, but most of all for the important perspectives it provides on questions of popular culture, the music of industrial entertainment, the history of radio and the social dimensions of the reproduction of art.

1 Radio Physiognomics

Contents

PART I The Idea of Radio Physiognomics
Chapter I	The Problem of the »How« of Radio
Chapter II	»Radio Voice«
Chapter III	A Model for Radio Physiognomics
Chapter IV	Methodological Inferences
PART II Categories of Radio Physiognomics
Chapter V	Time – Radio and Phonograph
Chapter VI	Space Ubiquity
Chapter VII	Ubiquity-Standardization and Pseudo-Activity
Chapter VIII	Image-Character of Radio: Hear-Stripe
Chapter IX	Atomistic Listening: Culinary Qualities of Music

Part I The Idea of Radio Physiognomics

Chapter I The Problem of the »How« of Radio

At first sight it seems unsuitable to attempt to introduce »physiognomic« considerations into the field of social sciences. The concept of »physiognomics« comprises studies of expressive movements of the human face, based upon a definite philosophy for which terms like »expression« and »individuality« are as completely beyond dispute as the method of ascertaining them by intuitive life-experience. The original meaning of the term, which gained fame through Lavater,¹ was to use an analysis of human features as a reliable indication of the personality behind those features. The premise of that sort of physiognomics holds that the features and expression are always consistent and this consistency is interpreted as an indicator of the coherent personality. This personality is considered by Lavater and his followers, among them Goethe, as a last indivisible and indelible entity, and the consistency of features is supposed to prove its very unity and indivisibility.

Now it is obvious that this concept of physiognomics is obsolete. The assumption that features are consistent with themselves and with the personality behind them survives only as a problem. Modern psychology has to investigate whether that consistency exists at all, and if so, to what extent. It cannot be taken for granted. The concept of »personality« itself, in the metaphysical sense of the term during the late eighteenth century, has been subjected to most serious doubts not by modern psychology alone. In the chapter on psychological paralogisms in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,² there is a severe attack on the assumption that the soul can rationally be proved to be a self-consistent, indelible and independent entity. This criticism necessarily hits the older physiognomics. Only if the personality is accepted as a priori substantial and self-consistent is it reasonable to interpret the features and expressions of the face in terms of that personality. Again, only if the relation between the features and the personality appears self-evident may the observer trust any immediate intuition about physiognomic expressions without subjecting that relation to more discursive analysis. It is not accidental that the heritage of older physiognomics, based on assumptions such as these, has gone to pseudo-sciences down to chiromantics – a sort of depraved-romantic thinking which can survive only within the corners of present-day consciousness.

Doubly provocative is the application of the term, physiognomics, to any branch of radio research. Not only does it appear to contain all the associations of an arbitrary and immature method of pioneer days of psychology, but it also appears to apply this method to an unsuitable object. The physiognomic method was bound to the immediate understanding between one living being (the studied face) and another (the student). When we are faced with the direct opposite of this life-experience – the study of a fundamentally technical tool – it is hard to see any reason to apply such a method. Radio and the sound which we receive over our radio sets are not a human face. To apply the term, physiognomics, to a study of the phenomena presented to us by radio seems to be of purely metaphorical value, if any. We find ourselves in the position of pursuing an approach which can be expressed only by an oblique comparison with a science which has lost its reputation even in its proper field. Hence we must make clear why we insist upon calling our attempt »physiognomics«.

This question is not purely terminological. It involves the relation between this study and the individual sciences of psychology, technology and sociology. Roughly speaking, we insist upon the physiognomic approach because the phenomena we are studying constitute a unity comparable to that of a human face. Here we are concerned more with analyzing the conditions of this unity, no matter what they may be, than with analyzing the divergent psychological, sociological and technological elements bound up with it.

After the assumption that radio has a face, in the literal sense, has been dismissed, what does this face-like unity consist of? Whenever we switch on our radio the phenomena which are forthcoming bear a kind of expression. Radio »speaks to us« even when we are not listening to a speaker. It might grimace; it might shock us; it might even »raise its eyes« at the very moment we suddenly realize that the inarticulate sounds pouring from the loudspeaker are taking the shape of a piece of music which particularly touches us. To clarify the meaning of this type of phenomenon, and to show the fundamental structure within which every radio phenomenon is bound to take place is the purpose of our study.

Here we must avoid a fundamental misunderstanding. We do not intend to discuss the expression or meaning of the material which radio gives us. We are not speaking about the expression of the voice of the singer, transmitted to us by radio; nor do we speak of the meaning of the words of the commentator to whom we are listening. We are speaking about characteristics of the radio phenomenon as such, devoid of any particular content or material. We consider the way any voice or any instrumental sound is presented over the radio. It will be very difficult to abstract this expression of the »radio itself« from the expression of what is actually broadcast, and we shall see later that these two layers of expression influence each other. Still, the attempt can be made within sufficiently large margins. The following example may serve somewhat to clarify the sort of expression we have in mind. A person who enters a room where a radio is turned on may be momentarily struck by the sound before being able fully to realize what the content of the broadcast is. In this study our attitude is largely like that of this man, confronted by a radio phenomenon without understanding the meaning of its material, but only the fact that »radio is speaking to him«. Naturally, this attitude rarely survives for any appreciable time, and of course it cannot survive in this study either. However, in confining ourselves to a description of the radio phenomenon, consciously abstracting it from the concrete content and avoiding its reduction to social and psychological forces behind it, we are keeping faith with this attitude. Just as anthropological studies can say that »physiognomics« are justified as long as they refrain from an interpretation in terms of an underlying personality and remain strictly descriptive of features, motions of these features and gestalten, we may feel safe in doing the same within the field of radio phenomena.

The elements of the radio phenomenon which concern us here we call the »how« elements; the elements of its content we call the »what« elements. Although they are closely connected it is first necessary for us sufficiently to clarify the former elements before bringing them into the right relation with the latter. The study of the »how« elements has been neglected up to now except by musical specialists, sound engineers and radio manufacturers. It has escaped the attention of researchers that they may be of any real importance for the psychological effect and social function of modern radio. The problem of radio programs, the ratio between their items and techniques for getting great numbers of listeners before the radio set has completely overshadowed the analysis of how all programs, from Toscanini³ to the Lone Ranger,⁴ are all subjected to conditions of a specific »how« in contemporary radio. This sort of study is usually considered either the business of »technicians« who must try to attain the best possible conditions for broadcasting and reception, or of snobbish aesthetes who are concerned with shades of sound while neglecting the fundamental content. But this attitude is biased. The problem of what a technician should consider »the best possible« transmission or reception is certainly not settled, nor is it certain that the »how« is the shade and the »what« is the substance. Because they are so general, because they are at work in every field of radio, the temptation is entirely to neglect them since at first sight they are not expressed in differences within the radio mechanism. Just here lies the problem. Although they do not affect the differences, they may cause everything in radio to become fundamentally different from everything outside. And the less conspicuous such a change is, the less able the listener is to abstract from the phenomenon; the more attentive must he be to the pure »what«; and the more completely is he overpowered by qualities which are inescapable whenever his radio is turned on.

If this could be established it certainly would have a fundamental bearing on the analysis of radio phenomena. To say that radio-music sounds completely different from live music may be superfluous for the difference between classical and light-popular music in radio – although this is by no means certain a priori. Radio minimizes the difference between light-popular music and classical music, unifying them in comparison to live music. A consideration of this new unity of radio music where style plays only a minor part would be a contribution to our knowledge of radio, and is worthy of being pursued.

Chapter II »Radio Voice«

Radio physiognomics must deal not only with acoustic events. Of course, this is in no way concerned with the visual physiognomics of faces. Radio physiognomics is justified not only in the sense of a »physiognomic« discussion of the human voice. It is possible to undertake a description of the elements of a human voice containing its expression; its specific sound color; its modulations; its clearness or being veiled without any reference at first to the content of the voice. Everyday statements like, »This woman has a nice voice«, or »This man’s voice sounds arrogant«, imply physiognomical problems. In that sense the question of radio physiognomics would be, »Does radio have a voice of its own?« and »What are its specific characteristics?«

Radio terminology seems to corroborate the assumption that this »radio voice« is spread unconsciously among the masses of listeners. The instrument through which the broadcast is heard is called the »loudspeaker«, thus hinting that radio »speaks for itself«. Of course this is not the case. It merely distributes the voices of other speaking people. But by calling the instrument a »speaker«, language seems to indicate that radio itself appears to speak when taken at face value as immediate perception, although crediting the tool with a voice may sometimes become completely irrational. Children, especially, may frequently react this way, a fact which has been noted within educational broadcasting. Mr. Robert J. Havighurst⁵ lists the following characteristics in his statement on radio as a medium for general education, made at the »Conference on School Broadcasting«, January 27th to 29th, 1938:

a.) In the case of people the listener feels close enough to form direct impressions of a speaker’s personality; around the voice he hears, the listener builds a person as real in many ways as if he had been actually met.

b.) This illusion of closeness makes the listener feel that he is actually present at the place where the broadcast originates – or purports to originate.⁶

The »illusion of closeness« is as intimately associated with the »radio voice« as the subject matter of radio physiognomics. The obvious reason for this illusion of a speaking radio is that the listener directly faces the apparatus instead of the man who is playing or speaking. Thus the visible tool becomes the bearer and the impersonation of the sound whose origin is invisible. No matter how easily this experience may be corrected by the slightest afterthought, it still may very possibly affect our relation to radio much more deeply than most people realize. Attributing the sound of radio to the real, present radio set may make people who are not concentrating attentively forget the unreality of what they are hearing. Thus they may be inclined to believe that anything offered by the »radio voice« is real, because of this »illusion of closeness«. This voice can dispense with the intermediary, objectivating stage of printing which helps to clarify the difference between fiction and reality. It has a testimonial value: radio, itself, said it. For example, we know that a number of WOR correspondents consider the Lone Ranger and his companions to be real people and even send them presents.⁷ The most recent example of the »illusion of closeness« and its astonishing effects is the case of OrsonWelles in the H. G. Wells’ broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System.⁸ It might be worthwhile to study whether children and naïve persons are really thoroughly conscious that radio is a tool, and whether they identify it with the voice they hear, or even personify radio itself. The very fact that they are confronted by »voices« without being able to argue with the person who is speaking, or even may feel somewhat in the dark about who is speaking – the machine or the man – may help to establish the authority of the tool. The absence of visible persons makes the »radio voice« appear more objective and infallible than a live voice; and the mystery of a machine which can speak may be felt in atavistic layers of our psychical life.

Even though we know that the »radio voice« is not really radio’s own voice, it certainly filters every sound. And we must discuss how this filter affects the listener. Our subject-matter is not the attitude of children or primitives but the elements which make radio appear, in a way, to be speaking. These elements, of course, have much in common with the experience of children and primitives and we cannot neglect them when they play so important a role for the appearance of the »radio voice«. An approach to a mass phenomenon like radio cannot be biased by any sort of rationalistic psychology. Thus our knowledge that radio really has no voice cannot affect our analysis of its appearance as the bearer of a voice.

There is another possible approach to the »radio voice«. We may disregard entirely the fact that radio transmits human voices or human sounds so that they are suggestive of being produced by the tool. Further, we may disregard the fact that these basically human sounds are affected by the tool so that they actually sound like its own sound, to a certain extent. We still may maintain, however, that the »abstract characteristics of the radio sound« are somewhat similar to the voice. Attempts should be made empirically to verify this similarity by a survey of radio technique. In certain aspects the reception of live music, its transmission and the ultimate reception of the broadcast can be regarded as substitutes for human sense organs. In a way the microphone does the work of »listening« and the radio set the work of »speaking«. It might even be worthwhile to follow up the suggestion that there is an analogy between the technical structure of the microphone and the ear. Similar hints are obvious in radio sets. In form the older loudspeakers resemble the mouth. From this point of view, that the radio mechanism is a sort of mechanization of human sense organs which were used as its pattern, the concept of the »radio voice« might sound less mystical than at first. It may be that the specific characteristics of the »radio voice« are due partly to this imitation and partly to the shortcomings necessarily to be found in any attempt to undertake the function of a sense organ. Finally, how far the radio’s ear and the radio’s voice replace the listener’s own ear and voice will have to be asked. It is upon the answer to this question that much of the »influence« exercised by radio may be based.

This offers a first glimpse of the theoretical possibilities of a physiognomic study. The very fact that the features we intend to study reach consciousness only rarely either because they are regarded as self-understood or because they are not noticed at all, which amounts to practically the same thing, may even add to their importance. One of the guiding principles of the physiognomic approach is our conviction of the importance of these invariant, and hence unconscious elements of the radio »phenomenon« which the loudspeaker presents to the listener. And it is this principle to which we shall repeatedly have to refer.

We feel ready now to state our problem more concisely. The subject matter of the physiognomics of radio is the »radio voice«. This can be compared to the live voice because of the »illusion of closeness«. The »radio voice«, like the human voice or the human face, is »present«. At the same time it always suggests something »behind« it. We do not actually know what this »something« is, but it appears within the radio phenomenon and seems to be very intimately linked with its experience. This is parallel to facial physiognomics. Whenever we listen to a voice, or whenever we look at a face, we are dealing with something more or less vaguely »behind it«, not distinctly separated from it, but apparently intimately connected, although not identical with it. To put it in psychological terms: within our experience of live voices and faces the phenomenon is not a merely superficial sign of whatever is behind it, replaceable by another as well. It is connected with the content by being its expression. This relation between the »radio voice« and the hidden forces behind it, whatever they may be, is emphasized by the illusion of closeness. If the »radio voice« expresses these unknown forces we must study the categories of that expression as the radio phenomenon offers them without referring to our possible knowledge of what is presented and what is going on behind the phenomenon. Thus we may define radio physiognomics preliminarily as the study of the elements of expression of the »radio voice«.

The emancipation of the term »physiognomics« from real, human individuals is not unprecedented in contemporary psychological research. We refer to the discussion between Sándor Ferenczi and Siegfried Bernfeld on the applicability of psychoanalytical terms to biology. Bernfeld explicitly discusses the »physiognomics of organs« in Chapter IV of his study, i.e. the physiognomics of individual organs of the human bo...