Comments on: Music as a weapon http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2008/03/13/music-as-a-weapon/ Roger Bourland writes about music and life Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:14:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Rosa http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2008/03/13/music-as-a-weapon/#comment-72265 Rosa Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:35:12 +0000 http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2008/03/13/music-as-a-weapon/#comment-72265 Well, not everything Mort wrote in the past was solid gold. He once insisted on giving a lesson outside the cafeteria, writing to me that "the sun was out". How I wished that had happened! We did meet for our lesson outside the cafeteria, however. The real lesson: don't smoke. Over $20,000 a year for a cup of coffee with a world famous composer - duped. Relatively nice guy, though. There's always 4' 33'' - that might get the people moving. Well, not everything Mort wrote in the past was solid gold. He once insisted on giving a lesson outside the cafeteria, writing to me that “the sun was out”. How I wished that had happened! We did meet for our lesson outside the cafeteria, however. The real lesson: don’t smoke. Over $20,000 a year for a cup of coffee with a world famous composer - duped. Relatively nice guy, though.

There’s always 4′ 33” - that might get the people moving.

]]> By: Brad Wood http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2008/03/13/music-as-a-weapon/#comment-72263 Brad Wood Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:20:16 +0000 http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2008/03/13/music-as-a-weapon/#comment-72263 A favorite New Yorker cartoon some years back: A man with an enormous ghetto blaster walks by another man on the street. The boom box is pumping out "Push! Push! In the bush!" The thought ballon from the other man: "They're writing songs of love, but not for me..." Once I was prompted to work on a Very Illegal Thing for Alden Ashforth---something to jam the across-the-street neighbors' AM radio, who were fans of that oompah-pah south-of-the-border style and played it blasting from incredibly distorting speakers in the open doors of their trucks. Alden also contemplated arranging horn drivers along the side of his house and beaming Varese at them. Things were going well in preliminary testing: the transmitter was offset 3.33kHz from the KWKW carrier, thus producing a loud whine at that frequency as well as incredible heterodyne artifacts beating with the program material---truly hideous-sounding. But probably fortunate for us all from the legal standpoint, the neighbors switched to cassettes, against which no sub-nuclear remedy would suffice. A favorite New Yorker cartoon some years back: A man with an enormous ghetto blaster walks by another man on the street. The boom box is pumping out “Push! Push! In the bush!” The thought ballon from the other man: “They’re writing songs of love, but not for me…”

Once I was prompted to work on a Very Illegal Thing for Alden Ashforth—something to jam the across-the-street neighbors’ AM radio, who were fans of that oompah-pah south-of-the-border style and played it blasting from incredibly distorting speakers in the open doors of their trucks. Alden also contemplated arranging horn drivers along the side of his house and beaming Varese at them.

Things were going well in preliminary testing: the transmitter was offset 3.33kHz from the KWKW carrier, thus producing a loud whine at that frequency as well as incredible heterodyne artifacts beating with the program material—truly hideous-sounding. But probably fortunate for us all from the legal standpoint, the neighbors switched to cassettes, against which no sub-nuclear remedy would suffice.

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