College Record 2013

Music is Everywhere
by John Duggan, Creative Arts Fellow
One question that I’m asked frequently is: ‘What do you actually do in your role as
Creative Arts Fellow?’ It’s a good question. I have no teaching responsibilities and
my research doesn’t involve visits to a laboratory, or sitting in the Bodleian poring
over ancient manuscripts. My job description states that the College expects me
‘to contribute towards the cultural life of the College and to increase awareness
of and interest in Music.’ I sometimes joke that the description is broad enough
that I could probably get away with popping in for lunch every now and again, and
wandering around the quads looking tortured and interesting. But where’s the fun
in that?
Actually, contributing to the cultural life of the College does involve a certain amount
of dining because it is here that I get the opportunity to meet other Wolfsonians:
Fellows, Research Fellows, graduates, technical and administrative staff. It is here,
over food and wine, that we get to discuss the collaborative possibilities. During
lunch I might find myself arguing the technical and aesthetic pleasures of the
counter-tenor voice; over dinner it might be hearing about the Greek Cypriot folk
tradition, or discussing the possibility of combining music with images from an
electron microscope.
Each term I put on at least one event, open to all members of College, which in
some way illuminates an aspect of the world of music. In Michaelmas term, I kicked
off my Fellowship with a talk based on the words of the American composer, John
Cage:
Music is everywhere, you just have to have the ears to hear it
I wanted to encourage people to open their ears and listen. We humans have learned
to screen out most of the data that bombards our senses. If we didn’t it would
probably drive us to insanity. What’s interesting though – and what I think John
Cage is driving at – is that this world of noise can become music when mediated
through time and space. Sounds occur at particular moments and in particular
places. Our finely honed gift for pattern recognition and our delight in spotting
differences and anomalies can transform these seemingly random events into
something that has (or appears to have) meaning.
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