English No. 20 HEAR THE WORLD

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HEAR THE WORLD THE MAGAZINE FOR THE CULTURE OF HEARING

FREIDA PINTO PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRYAN ADAMS

ISSUE TWENTY

S OF LD R A 5 YE E WOR E R TH HEA NITIATIV I F ES O LD U S 20 IS HE WOR E RT HEA AGAZIN M

Why language acquisition is child’s play for kids A toast to poison and champagne, devils and clinking glasses James Turrell’s Quaker meeting house in Houston The history of human beatboxing The voice of Sam Prekop

Nothing to see.

Everything to hear.

It is more than just a virtually invisible hearing aid.

Phonak nano is the perfect combination of maximum hearing performance and minimum size.

So small and comfortable – just wear and forget.

Contact your hearing care professional today to discover Phonak nano. www.phonak.com

It’s not rare to be asked to lend my name to a good cause. These days I tend to focus on projects supported by my own foundation, but as a musician, I’m naturally sympathetic to a cause like Hear the World which is dedicated to helping people appreciate and preserve an individual’s sense of sound.

Through my photography, I have been able to support this cause and we did our first shoot back in fall 2006 with Plácido Domingo. To know that images of artists are being used to convey the message of improvement of hearing for those impaired, makes the Hear the World photos we do together so much stronger. I have great respect for the generosity and talent of the many people who have lent their name to this cause.

Hear the World have also extended their generosity to friends and colleagues of mine who suffer from hearing loss. The personal highlights in my five years working with the foundation are many and I am looking forward to many more successful years helping Hear the World to spread its word.

Happy Birthday Hear the World!

Bryan Adams

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TH A NK YOU. Your contribution helps children regain their hearing.

Support our “Regain Hearing – Join Lifeâ€? project in Nairobi, where we are building a care network for children with hearing loss – providing diagnostics and hearing aid ďŹ ttings right through to speech therapy and a self-help group for adults.

Together, we give children the chance of a better future.

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HEAR THE WORLD ISSUE TWENTY

Editorial

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Hear the World Initiative Five years of the Hear the World Initiative, 20 issues of HEAR THE WORLD magazine

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COME AGAIN News A new musical trend

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Frequently Asked Questions

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What’s that sound?

Cheers!

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Products

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HEAR THE WORLD Why language acquisition is child’s play for kids

SAFE AND SOUND Promoting culture alla turca

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From kindergarten to Madison Square Garden

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Famous myths about hearing and how Echo gets the last word

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EASY LISTENING The Ameropean

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A global star overnight – A portrait of actress Freida Pinto as a young woman

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The history of human beatboxing

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DJ Spooky: Work-play balance

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Girly music or: What’s next, Jamie Woon?

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Philipp Rathmer – A sharp eye

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Our amazing ears: More than just hearing

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Clink and drink! A toast to poison and champagne, devils and clinking glasses

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Certainly not small-minded – Open-air library in Magdeburg

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The voice of Sam Prekop

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The hole in the roof – James Turrell’s Quaker meeting house in Houston

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IMPRINT

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EDITORIAL

Dear reader, This is the 20th issue of HEAR THE WORLD. We are delighted to be celebrating this little anniversary, which coincides with another, namely the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the eponymous initiative and foundation.

In our fast-lived day and age, this is an encouraging sign of reliability and continuity. And we still have a lot planned!

The fact that the magazine is so well received by you, dear readers, not to mention the multiple awards it has won from renowned expert juries, is motivation enough for us to aspire to many more anniversaries in the future.

Both the magazine and the Hear the World Foundation see it as their duty to do everything they can to make people realize how important good hearing is for a good life. For so much that makes life fulfilling and worth living revolves around the sense of hearing. It is good hearing that enables good conversation with others, that enables people to understand and be understood, to enjoy music and the sounds of nature, and all this gives us a sense of well-being and safety.

A beautiful woman adorns our cover this month, Portuguese-Indian actress Freida Pinto. You may know her from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, a wild, romantic, funny and tragic story from the slums of Mumbai. We are proud that in the person of Freida Pinto we have gained yet another famous ambassador for the Hear the World Foundation and our cause. Christian Arndt profiles the young actress.

The story Klaus Jahnke tells in this issue is very fitting on the occasion of our 5th birthday. It is highly probable that one of the first melodies a person hears is that of the birthday song “Happy Birthday” To You, which is sung in almost all the world’s languages. Yet this song is by no means “common property”; somebody owns it and they have the right to royalties. The strange story of a universal hit …

Max Ackermann delves into the greatest myths about hearing and their reception over time. Stories range from that of the nymph Echo through the song of the Sirens to Orpheus, and are still used and artistically modified to this day. An amazing piece of cultural history.

What do you think when you read the words bossa nova?

Presumably you don’t think so much as hear, namely that rhythmic and at the same time somewhat melancholy music that, along with the samba, stands for the Brazilian way of life. Uli Rüdenauer recounts how the “inventor” of this sound, Joao Gilbert, created bossa nova in the 1950s and shows how the American singer Sam Prekop has taken on this legacy in a unique way. Prekop, who comes from Chicago, enriches the bossa nova sound with soul influences. An example of the global power of original music to repeatedly generate new syntheses.

Do we have to learn to hear? The answer is no. And when we observe language acquisition in small children, we cannot help but be amazed at how quickly and easily they recognize sounds, words and voices and pick up grammatical structures. Anno Bachem shows us in his article how playful language acquisition is and how we learn to talk and understand through our ears. I would like to add: We need to protect and preserve this first, most important “gateway to the world”, especially in children! Let’s make sure that they (and all of us) stay “all ears”.

I trust you will greatly enjoy this anniversary issue.

Best wishes,

Alexander Zschokke

ABOUT THE COVER Freida Pinto was photographed by Bryan Adams.

Both artists support the Hear the World Initiative.

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HEAR THE WORLD INITIATIVE

Pulling out all the stops for good hearing: five years of the Hear the World Initiative, 20 issues of HEAR THE WORLD magazine As part of the Hear the World Initiative, in December 2006, five years ago now, hearing aid manufacturer Phonak established the non-profit Hear the World Foundation. At the same time, the initiative also produced the first issue of HEAR THE WORLD, the magazine for the culture of hearing.

You are now looking at its 20th issue.

Since then, the Initiative, Foundation and the editorial team have been working on their joint objective, namely explaining to people throughout the world just how important the subject of hearing is in our lives and just how greatly disadvantaged those of us are who, because of hearing loss, are often excluded from social interaction.

For some of these people, every day brings a large number of difficulties that people who can hear normally just cannot imagine. But as many as some 800 million people in the world are affected by hearing loss! Two thirds of them live in developing countries. Here, people with hearing loss struggle not only with social isolation, discrimination and everyday problems, but are fighting for their existence.

Countries suffering from great poverty, places where people are dying of hunger, are not in a position to draw attention to the needs of people with hearing loss, nor do they have the means to do so.

5 years Hear the World Foundation – explaining effectively, helping energetically All of this does not have to be the case. The staff and partners of the Hear the World Foundation do everything within their power to offer these people as normal a life as possible and to enable them to be integrated into their societies. After all, in hardly any other sphere of medicine do new technologies and exact diagnoses make it possible to achieve such incredible successes. The earlier in childhood hearing loss is detected and medically treated, the greater the chances are for such children, fitted with suitable hearing aids, to experience normal speech development, to attend schools like everybody else and to lead independent lives with the education that they have acquired. For this reason, children with hearing loss are the focus of the Foundation’s work – here we can really make a difference.

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In developing countries over half of all cases of hearing damage could even be avoided if, for instance, purulent inflammation of the middle ear were treated correctly and medicines – like those to combat malaria – were used and dosed in such a way that the patient’s hearing is not impaired as a side effect. Many audiologists and ENT doctors throughout the world are fighting – supported by Hear the World – for better hearing through medical and technical assistance and educational measures.

This year, the focus is on a new project. For the first time, the Hear the World Foundation is supporting the Special Olympics, the summer games of which took place in Athens in June. The Special Olympics represent the world’s largest sporting event officially recognized by the IOC for people with mental or multiple disabilities. Some 3.5 million athletes from 150 countries are members of this association.

Approximately one quarter of these are affected by hearing loss. Often, these people do not have hearing aids, or they have inadequate ones. During the games in Athens, as part of a large-scale screening action, Special Olympics and the Hear the World Foundation Volunteers tested 2,658 athletes for hearing loss. Vouchers for 344 hearing aids were issued free of charge to competitors with treatable hearing loss.

On their return to their home countries, they were then able to take receipt of high-grade Phonak devices specially adapted to their own particular needs from their respective local Phonak partners and benefit long term from support in the form of fittings and follow-up checks.

Hearing ambassadors However, it is not only thanks to the tireless commitment and high professionalism of numerous partners all over the world that the Foundation has enjoyed so much success since it was established five years ago. Hear the World now boasts more than 50 prominent ambassadors from the worlds of music, cinema and sports, whose commitment contributes to the repute and success of Hear the World. What started in 2006 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Plácido Domingo has now grown into a large community of supporters. World-famous musicians such as Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Bryan Ferry and Annie Lennox are as much part of the initiative as are reputed movie stars: Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. Sports personalities such as Formula One racing driver Jenson Button are also active on behalf of Hear the World. A man who has used his camera to produce highly expressive black-and-white portrait photographs of all these ambassadors and who has thus provided the Hear the World Initiative with its own very special face has, until now, been more familiar to most people as a musician: Bryan Adams. Adams is active throughout the world as a highly committed photographer and has also made a name for himself in this field. Alongside our prominent supporters, community ambassadors who are themselves affected by hearing loss also assist the Foundation by encouraging other people with limited hearing, by offering them valuable tips and exchanging experiences with them – something that nobody else can do as well as they can!

20 issues of HEAR THE WORLD magazine – the fascinating world of hearing With its 20th issue, the HEAR THE WORLD magazine is now celebrating an anniversary. It is only by consciously experiencing and comprehending that we can really understand, appreciate and protect. HEAR THE WORLD magazine seeks to awaken and raise awareness of the subjects of hearing and hearing loss. Accordingly, four times a year, the magazine invites you on a journey of sensory discovery through the world of hearing. Every issue presents a wide range of topics such as music, art, nature, sport and offers insights into the world of the senses. And common to all articles is a connection with hearing.

The Foundation does not incur any costs for the magazine; these are completely covered by hearing aid manufacturer Phonak. The entire net proceedings go to the Hear the World Foundation and can thus immediately be reinvested in projects. Hear the World would not be possible were it not for Phonak’s corporate social responsibility; both the work of the Foundation and the magazine are only possible thanks to the company’s support.

A new challenge day-in day-out Over the past five years, the Hear the World Initiative has achieved a great deal and has received more than 20 prestigious awards and prizes for its work. But every day we again hear heartrending stories and, more than anything else, we see how much can be achieved in the lives of the people affected. Anyone who has seen the smile on the face of a child whose hearing aid has suddenly enabled him to hear the sounds around him and who immediately sets about trying to imitate these sounds and to shape his first words, will never be able to forget it.

Help us to continue to put smiles on more and more faces and to offer children an education and with it opportunities for their future.

We guarantee that every single donation will be used efficiently for the implementation of a specific new project with our professional partners, be it to prevent hearing loss, provide medical information and diagnoses or treat any hearing loss that has already occurred. 16% of the world’s population is affected by hearing loss – there is still a great deal to be done!

The bank details for donations are as follows: UBS AG, Zurich Account name: Hear the World Foundation IBAN: CH12 0023 0230 4773 8401 U SWIFT: UBSWCHZH80A

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NEWS

A new musical trend Headphone concerts, a booming phenomenon in numerous places, now offer us a very special way of listening to music.

As the name suggests, they involve live music being transmitted to listeners via wireless headphones. Novel, surprising and hardly comparable with a concert in the conventional sense. In fact precisely those elements are missing that actually deďŹ ne a live concert, namely direct contact between musicians and the audience and that special feeling you get as a fan amongst a like-minded crowd.

A new trend at present, it remains to be seen whether the concept takes off. But one thing is certain: it is hardly suitable for all types of live music. After all, heavy metal concerts certainly wouldn’t have the same atmosphere!

Sandra Spannaus

Illustration: Hennie Haworth

Headphone concerts leave plenty of scope for experimentation on both sides, namely for sound artists, whose music is heard in a completely new way, and for listeners, who are able, despite crowds of people, to enjoy music exclusively and maybe even hear the lyrics and quips of their favorite bands for once.

To be there in person and yet still in private. That said, this kind of concert does not particularly promote communication. We can only hope that people take off their headphones during the intervals or set changes at least, talk to one another, and do not disappear altogether into their own world.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

I have a right ear trauma from a recent concert. All the tests I carry say my hearing is normal. But for two months there has been an acuphen. I read that when it comes from a sound, it may disappear after a couple of months. Is it true?

Most of us have experienced a ringing or buzzing in our ears after a loud concert. When that happens, it indicates that we have significantly overstimulated the tiny hair cells in our inner ears. In most cases, this is just temporary in nature and after a day or two our hair cells start to function again and the tinnitus fades. Other times, if the music is loud enough for a long enough period of time, we suffer permanent damage to those hair cells. I’m curious to know if your battery of tests included a test of hair cell function called otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). OAEs are a very sensitive test that allows your hearing healthcare provider to understand if subtle changes have occurred to your ears, even before it would be evident during a standard pure-tone hearing exam. In the case of tinnitus following potential noise trauma, there is a possibility it might fade as time moves on. This has more to do with your emotional response to the noise in your ears than the catalyst for you experiencing it in the first place. As always, the best way to avoid any damage to your hearing during a concert is to wear hearing protection.

Dr. Craig Kasper, Chief Audiology Officer of Audio Help Hearing Center

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Is it correct that a diver (with a burst eardrum) might realize that he is swimming towards the seabed, but cannot coordinate his movements so as to swim up to the surface? Attempt at explanation: water entering the ear interferes with the inner ear’s normal function?

When diving with a burst eardrum, cold water enters the middle ear.

Cold water irritates the organ responsible for our sense of balance. This, in turn, causes a strong sense of dizziness, a loss of orientation, distorted vision and even unconsciousness. This means the diver loses his sense of orientation, meaning that diving is an absolute no-go for people with damaged eardrums.

Dr. Michaela Fuchs, ENT specialist, holds a diploma in travel and tourism medicine

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WHAT’S THAT SOUND?

Photo: Markus Bassler

Cheers!

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PRODUCTS

A feast for the eyes and ears – Rachel Kolly d’Alba Ever since the visual side to things has started to play an important role, classical music has given us artists like David Garrett and Vanessa Mae who have thoroughly revamped the genre’s tired image and are increasingly igniting young people’s passion for classical music.

The extraordinary young Swiss violinist Rachel Kolly d’Alba is definitely one of these artists and is remembered primarily for both her musical skills and her stunning appearance.

With her trademark red hair and striking make-up, the all-round musician pulls out all the stops in her playing and with her album Passion Ysaÿe pays tribute to Belgian composer and violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who died in 1931.

Both have something in common, namely that they started their musical careers at the tender age of five and display a predilection for their instrument, a Stradivari. Yet Kolly d’Alba, a regular at international festivals and a popular guest musician at prestigious orchestras all over the world, is certainly not just an impressive figure in classical music, but moreover displays a great interest in contemporary music. Corresponding recordings attest to the artist’s versatility. At times almost somewhat strident for an untrained ear, Kolly d’Alba demonstrates masterful skill and endurance in all musical fields. The literal passion of Passion Ysaÿe is hard to forget, and it is not only the jubilant international music press that is eagerly awaiting Kolly d’Alba’s upcoming projects. We can hardly wait to see what the soloist will produce next.

Label: Warner Cla (Warner Music Switzerland) ASIN: B003C1SPQ0

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PRODUCTS

Petersen / Radiohus It is rather unusual that a long-established, classic upholstered furniture company renders outstanding services to contemporary design instead of simply doing the jobs it is commissioned to do. And yet that is precisely what is happening at the production plant of brothers Egon and Erling Petersen in Aarhus, Denmark. The identical twins have been working together for 40 years, making furniture such as the Finn Juhl collection on their idyllically situated converted farm with the utmost care and using top-grade materials.

As regards marketing in Germany, the brothers have placed their trust exclusively in the Hamburg-based company Wohnkultur66, which successfully marketed Finn Juhl’s furniture series and specializes in Scandinavian design classics. Prototypes of the Petersen collection are already on display in Hamburg, yet the official premiere together with the Finn Juhl collection will take place at the Cologne Furniture Fair’s special exhibition Passages at Hotel Chelsea.

Juhl collaborated with Danish architect Vilhelm Lauritzen for many years, who in the early 1930s outfitted the radio building in Copenhagen with a series of furniture specially designed for it. Recently, on the occasion of the building’s renovation, the Petersen brothers were asked to reconstruct Lauritzen’s upholstered Radiohussofa. And it seems they have done that so well that they were subsequently able to buy the rights to Lauritzen’s designs. And not only those, but also the rights to other designs such as Nanna Ditzel’s Oda Chair and Ib Kofod Larsen’s Seal Chair, thanks to good relations with those designers’ families. Now they have launched their own collection on the market.

www.wohnkultur66.de

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PRODUCTS

Max Frisch: Man in the Holocene Robbed of the option of leaving the book’s setting, pensioner Mr. Geiser analyzes and categorizes the thunder accompanying a storm in the isolated hills of Ticino. A rumbling, a banging, a beating, a rolling … he establishes 16 different categories of thunder. Geiser is an eccentric old man who cannot tend his garden because of the bad weather, builds crispbread pagodas out of boredom and desperately fights against his advancing memory loss by tacking notes all over the house. The powerful natural spectacle, which in Geiser’s eyes seems extremely threatening and assumes virtually apocalyptic dimensions, and the 16 types of thunder represent man’s mortality and the fear of inevitable death.

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Max Frisch’s late work Man in the Holocene (original title: Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän) was published in 1979 and initially met with little success in Germany. Too autobiographical, pronounced the critics, a judgment that Frisch vehemently denied. It was only later that they recognized the significance of this novella about the issues relating to old age and death.

Max Frisch would have been 100 this year and it is the 20th anniversary of his death. A welcome occasion to pick up one of his books again …

ISBN-13: 978-1564784667 (English)

PRODUCTS

On the beach or in the office – excellent hearing in every environment Wearing a hearing aid and leading an active lifestyle? This is not a contradiction any more. In the past, outdoor activities often represented a challenge for hearing aid users as water, dust and sweat could easily compromise the performance of their devices or even damage them. Today, users can benefit from the latest technology and enjoy all everyday life activities without even having to think about their hearing aids: Working in the office, enjoying conversations in the restaurant, going for a walk on a rainy day or on a sailing trip – a new generation of water and dust resistant hearing aids not only offer enhanced speech understanding in all daily life situations, but also overcome traditional use barriers around water and other extreme conditions.

Featuring the new Spice+ technology, Phonak M H2O has been designed for users who want to benefit from the best sound quality and the highest reliability in every situation.

The hearing aid is equipped with a number of intelligent technologies that automatically adapt to different listening environments, allowing for a clear understanding even in challenging situations like in restaurants, in bars or during meetings. The high level of water protection ensures that the Phonak M H2O functions without failure even when worn around water or in a humid environment.

This small, appealing solution sits safely and virtually invisibly behind the ear, allowing its users to feel safe, comfortable and confident in their hearing, come rain or shine.

The discreet, yet high-performance Phonak M H2O ensures the best possible listening experience in every environment.

Featuring a specific watertight design, plus a special nanocoating which repels moisture and dust, the Phonak M H2O models are the perfect companion during all kinds of outdoor activities, including a run, a bike ride or activities around water. The wearer can rely on the hearing aid all day long and during his preferred activities without having to think about whether it might be damaged.

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KNOWLEDGE

Why language acquisition is child’s play for kids Language acquisition in infants is a remarkable and also largely unheeded exception to the rule that the development from baby to adult entails a straight-line, progressive process of maturation. In the course of evolution, the left side of the brain seems to have developed a program that enables babies and infants to effortlessly deliver masterful achievements in language reception, starting with sound and word recognition through to decoding grammatical structures. This amazing language ability in early childhood, which is far superior to the feeling for language adults have, even enables them to easily acquire not only their native language, but also one or two others simultaneously. This skill is a universal phenomenon applicable to all cultures and all children up until roughly the age of five, providing they are not disadvantaged by hearing loss in some form or other.

Language acquisition – child’s play The precondition for being able to fully exploit this existing language competence is the ability to listen carefully.

In babies this begins even before they see the first light of day and are confronted with the noises they will later hear every day. Today, we know that a fetus in the womb is capable not only of perceiving speech sounds, but also of distinguishing them from other outside sounds. Roughly at the start of the seventh month of pregnancy, the unborn baby listens to the muffled sound of its mother’s voice. But as it cannot hear high frequencies, it only hears the speech melody, the so-called prosody. This means that the foundation for language acquisition is laid at a very early stage.

Indeed, neurologists have discovered that once born, the infant prefers the prosody of its mother stored in its memory over all other sounds. Moreover, the infant has a clear preference for speech sounds over all other acoustic stimulation. And finally it is possible to identify a stronger response to the language of its mother – in other words its native language – when its melody differs markedly from another language, such as German or English from Chinese. Series of sophisticated experiments have proven that babies are able to make this distinction just a few days after birth.

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The fact that prenatal experiences truly do play a role is also supported by the fact that after birth, infants are capable of recognizing a text their mother frequently read out loud to them during the final phase of the pregnancy by its special prosodic features. In other words, language acquisition in infants begins with the prenatal development of a feeling for language, before they are capable of making sounds themselves. This skill must be congenital and imprinted in the neuronal brain structure, because apart from the distorted reception of its mother’s speech, no other speech-stimulating environmental influences impact upon an unborn baby.

All children come wired for speech The same is true of the ability of all babies to identify each of the over 100 known speech sounds in the roughly 7,000 languages existing today, in other words, all the vowels and consonants and including the “th” sounds of English or those of the Shawnee Indians of North America. Not even the unique clicking and clucking sounds of the South African Khoisan languages and the Hadza in Tanzania seem to pose a problem. In brief: children are able to effortlessly learn all the phonemes known to linguistics.

Even babies that are only a few months old are attuned to filtering out from the ambient noises as much speech information as possible, and structuring it. According to studies by the Max Planck Institute, this allows them to separate out from the clusters of words in our everyday language, such as “getabeeroutthefridge”, individual components that they understand. In other words, nature equips them with perfect hearing for speech. This natural talent later disappears and can no longer be acquired by adults.

Consequently, even if a Russian speaks grammatically correct German or English he will hardly manage to completely lose his guttural rolling R and it will likely be impossible for Chinese people to pronounce this R. The extensive repertoire of articulation skills that all babies have over every adult means they are able to perfectly learn every language phonetically if they grow up, say, in a family where two or more languages are spoken.

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Illustration: Hennie Haworth

However, this ability falls victim to a rationalization phase towards the end of the first year in which the infant’s brain unconsciously concentrates on the sound system of its native tongue. This involves children paying exact attention to intonation and stress in order to differentiate between words. As most words in German are stressed on the first syllable, e.g, “Máma und Óma bácken Kúchen,” they quickly learn to differentiate according to this pattern and would not pay attention to a language that places the stress on the second or last syllable, such as French, unless they heard it on a daily basis. However, a predetermined neuronal reception system in the brain seems to be responsible for this differentiation of words based on their inflection and the evolving specific speech melody for their language. For example, you can determine by the screaming melody of newborn infants whether they come from a French or German-speaking environment. In the first case the melody rises, which corresponds with the later stress on the second syllable, in the latter instance it falls, which correlates to the stress on the first syllable.

The “Big Bang” of vocabulary expansion coincides with the formulation of grammatically correct sentences. Towards the end of their fifth year, children have a vocabulary of up to 10,000 words and are practiced narrators, who have such a good command of the grammar of their native language that they have a clear edge over adults, who have laboriously learnt the same language. As adults no longer have the feel for language that infants have, they tend to transfer the particular syntactic features of their own language to one they are learning. For instance, an English person trying to say “I want to drive the car” in German might transfer the English word order and say, incorrectly: “Ich möchte (fahren) das Auto”. The verb drive or “fahren” goes at the end of the sentence in German.

“A healthy three-year-old who has learned German as his native language would never make such a mistake,” says Jürgen Weissenborn, linguist at the Berlin Humboldt University. Children seem to have an innate block against grammatical errors that adults can never regain in foreign languages, no matter how hard they try.

The Big Bang in language development

Innate or acquired? – That is the question

Before a child is itself in a position to formulate its first word, it trains its articulation organs. After six months they are developed such that the larynx, vocal chords and tongue can express speech and can move on from the universally widespread gurgling, babbling and single syllables to so-called baby jargon. In other words, infants articulate incomprehensible clusters of syllables such as dadohpahdu or the like, but in which the rhythm and sentence melody of the native language can already be detected.

After a year to 18 months, the syllables are combined into sensible units and many children form their first words.

As early as the age of 18 months onwards, infants experience a vocabulary explosion also known in developmental psychology as “vocabulary spurt”, with children now learning six to nine new words a day. This spurt may possibly be attributable to the children’s experience that life is easier the more things they can name and the more they can express their wishes. Since words also enable contact, the child experiences more care and attention from other people and accordingly also enjoys more material advantages.

As such, language is also automatically employed as a means of securing one’s existence. Another fact supporting this objective-oriented background to the rapid learning of words is that everywhere in the world, interpersonal issues make up around two-thirds of all conversations.

Linguists, neurologists and developmental psychologists are still far from agreeing on the reasons why children can acquire such a complex system as a language so naturally as if it were a game. Certainly, the unconscious course this process takes is playful and differs radically from the conscious manner of acquiring languages during school education and beyond, as the latter involves considerable cognitive effort. A researcher expressed his admiration for the prowess children show in language reception by boldly asserting: If children knew what a complex task faced them, they would not even start.

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The famous anthropologist and structuralist Claude LéviStrauss, who also concerned himself with issues of linguistics, was one of the first to point out that all linguistic behavior takes place on the level of unconscious thought.

He argued that “when we speak, we are not conscious of the syntactic and morphological laws of our language”, nor “the phonemes that we employ to convey different meanings.” If we consider this characterization of language as a system of unconscious information operations, which comes to us from a “higher mind”, as American linguist Benjamin L. Whorf called the unconscious in 1956, then you can say with complete justification: we do not speak, but rather it speaks out of us. In other words, the automatic nature of language reception and language production, which in infants produces a high receptiveness for universal language acquisition and a phonetically unlimited linguistic ability, continues in adults, albeit to a lesser extent and restricted to the native language.

Considering this automatism, it is only a small step to the theory supported by American linguist Noam Chomsky that the reflex-like acquisition of language is attributable to a specific module in the brain, which he called “language acquisition device”. He claimed this “language device” contained a universal deep grammar, a set of rules common to all languages. The evolution of so-called pidgin languages during the colonial period speaks for this universal deep grammar. Colonialism led to people with different languages and origins in European and American colonies such as Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, Hawaii and so on being obliged to live together in close quarters. In order to communicate, they developed rudimentary hybrid languages with a striking absence of grammatical rules. In various regions of the world these primitive pidgin idioms quickly developed into new and completely adequate languages, which are referred to as Creole. In Hawaii this development was completed within a single generation. In other words, the children of pidgin speakers have taken on a whole series of grammatical rules that their parents did not teach them. They must have “invented” them. The amazing thing is that the grammar of Hawaiian Creole is practically identical with that of all other Creole languages, quite irrespective of the original pidgin combinations of native languages. What led Chomsky to the nativist theory, stating that language and the ability to use this potential fully within the short space of five years are innate, was the observation that infants learn their native language at lightning speed, while teenagers and adults usually find learning foreign languages difficult. The first high hurdle is the foreign phonetics and pronunciation.

When, in the 1960s, the first Turkish “guest workers” came to Germany they had great difficulty learning German. They could only pronounce the German city “Köln” (Cologne) as “Kölün” and called the suburb “Deutz” “Do-utz”, while the square “Wilhelmplatz” became “Velhem Pilas” – mispronunciations still used by older Turkish residents today.

Research on the causes continues There are several weak points in Chomsky’s theory however. This is why it cannot be upheld in its exclusive form, which its proponents have since also conceded. For instance, we must take into account that, on average, children take five years to learn the grammar, and their error ratio is initially high. Moreover, those children whose mothers used a melodic manner of speech suitable for children made faster progress than those who did not receive this regular attention. The so-called baby-talk used by mothers the world over consists of short sentences and is characterized by a high, exaggerated voice and a very clear pronunciation. It also has a characteristic melody that children would rather listen to than all other manners of speaking adults use. As this increased attention stimulates language acquisition, it can be assumed that external impulses influence a language user’s behavior. This assumption is supported by the following finding: The more time mothers devote to their infants and speak in a child-friendly manner and the more often children imitate speech sounds, the larger their productive vocabulary is at the age of roughly 21 months. This has been proven by a series of European studies.

In the early 1950s the behaviorist approach that language development depends exclusively on influences from the child’s environment was widely accepted. The behaviorists called this process “operant conditioning”. Then Noam Chomsky argued, with his nativist hypothesis, that in neuronal terms children are “pre-wired” and programmed.

Today linguists have abandoned this monocausal approach.

As no-one has hitherto formulated an overriding theory for the complex process of language acquisition and language development, the assumption is that both positions should be considered and that, in language acquisition, interactions between inner, innate skills and external environmental stimuli impacting on the child play a role. Just how great a share these two factors have in the process is sure to provide scientists with plenty to talk about for some time to come. Many questions remain unanswered. However, when Noam Chomsky, who was recently awarded an honorary professorship at Cologne University, said that not even the issue of whether language really existed had been clarified, he presumably merely wanted to make certain that researchers devote themselves still more intensively to decoding the mystery of our language.

Anno Bachem

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KNOWLEDGE

Our amazing ears: More than just hearing Remember the first time you placed a seashell to your ear?

We discover so much about the world around us through our sense of hearing, even if it is the misbelief that the sound of the ocean is contained in the seashell. Sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing are the five primary human senses. Hearing not only allows us to discover the world around us but it is also an integral part of our language and communication development. For this reason hearing is often considered one of the most important of the senses.

Music of hearing

The process of hearing can be divided into two stages: • Mechanical • Neurological

The health benefits gained from listening to music is widely accepted both from an anecdotal and a scientific perspective. Listening to music can change the way our brain functions. For example, it has been shown that music with a strong beat can stimulate the brain, resulting in a change of the brainwaves. Music with a fast beat has the ability to sharpen one’s concentration and increase alertness. While on the other hand, slower-tempo music promotes a calming effect. In 1991 the physiological response to listening to music was described by a French researcher as the “Mozart effect”. Dr Alfred Tomatis postulated that he was able to “retrain” the ear by utilizing Mozart music that is rich in high frequencies. He claimed that the music was able to stimulate the auditory pathway in such a way as to promote healing and development of the brain. Since then the popularization of Mozart’s music as a stimulus in increasing intelligence has increased. Although the Mozart effect is yet to be proven to improve one’s IQ, there are plenty of documented benefits of music such as aiding in cognitive recovery after a stroke, stress reduction, increased work productivity and of course improving one’s mood.

A person’s listening experience involves the mechanical aspect which occurs in the ear and the neurological which occurs in the brain. The mechanics of hearing are well understood but how the brain interpets sound is still a matter of dispute among researchers. Whether people even interpret sound in the same way is not well understood. Many believe that no singular listening experience can be duplicated or is the same for two individuals.

But why is it that the sound of scraping a chalkboard with fingernails is so unpleasant to most people? The reason is studied in the field of psychoacoustics. Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of sound perception, in particular the psychological and physiological responses associated with sound, including speech and music. It looks at the impact of sound on the human nervous system.

There is much debate as to whether musical ability is embedded in nature or nurture. Recent results support the argument that we are actually born with a natural sense of rhythm and beat. Researchers played music to sleeping babies and monitored their brain activity. They discovered that newborns have a unique sense of pitch from birth not learned through experience as had previously been thought.

Ears that never sleep Hearing in the modern world

Illustration: Stefan Kugel

Our ears are one of the hardest-working organs in our body – they actually never rest. Even while we are sleeping we are passively listening to sounds around us. During sleep, this part of the brain is still active in analyzing sounds in the environment to decide whether the person needs to be awakened to respond. The frontal lobe of the brain is believed to play a key role in vigilance functions, such as screening new sound and preparing the body to react. This mechanism allows a mother to sleep through the noise of passing traffic but wake quickly to the sound of a baby crying.

This passive hearing while asleep also has the ability to help improve our memory. According to a study in the journal Science, it may be possible to strengthen certain memories while sleeping. Researchers found that hearing certain sounds during a nap helped people remember information associated with those sounds once they woke up. Interestingly, the study found that hearing these sound cues while awake did not have the same positive effect on memory as hearing them while asleep. The results support the fact that the brain works very hard at night, processing things it has learnt during the day.

It is a common misconception that ageing is the primary cause of hearing loss. Excessive noise exposure is now widely accepted by hearing experts to be the number one reason for hearing loss. In 1965 a study was published showing that high sound levels were responsible not only for hearing loss but also for increased blood pressure levels. The study was conducted in Africa, with a tribe of people call Maabans. Maaban is a remote place in Ghana.

The tribe live in such quiet that they can hear a whisper from across a baseball field. Tribesmen from Maaban all had significantly better hearing than people of the same age who live in developed areas of the United States. The study was one of the first to show that hearing loss is primarily associated with exposure to elevated sound levels, rather than a function of ageing. Our ears are actually designed with built-in protection against extremely loud noises. Of course a sudden nearby explosion or continuous exposure to loud sounds can cause irreparable damage to the sensory nerve cells for hearing. But if a very loud sound develops gradually, quick-acting muscles can “turn down the volume” by reducing the transmission of sound vibrations through to the inner ear.

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Since the Industrial Age the world around us has progressively become noisier. We now have the term “noise pollution” to describe the excessive environmental noise from sources like construction and transport, which includes cars, planes and trains. Although the brain is quite adept at filtering out unwanted background noise or even adapting to it, the excessive and prolonged presence of noise can interfere in complex task performance, modify social behavior and cause annoyance. It is generally believed that noise is considered “annoying” as it disturbs activities and communication. While calming music is known to relax the body, hearing bothersome noise can cause adverse physiological effects such as increases in heart rate and blood pressure. Occupational studies have suggested that those exposed to continuous noise at levels of at least 85dBA have higher blood pressure than those not exposed to noise. The interaction between the perception of noise and its annoyance is complex, and further studies on how humans adapt to long-term noise may offer more understanding.

The many facets of hearing So why do most people cringe when they hear the sound of fingernails scraping against the chalkboard? One explanation is that the sound is similar to the warning call of a monkey. In 1986 Randol Blake manipulated tape recordings, removing various pitches. He found that the median pitches were the cause of the annoyance, not the high pitches as previously thought. He hypothesized that the median pitches were similar to a monkey’s distress or warning call. The evolution of our survival instincts has meant that we still have a reflex reaction to a sound that in the past would have warned us of impending danger.

Pyschoacoutics is applied in many fields: software development, design of audio systems, in the music industry to create new auditory experiences and even in the defense industry. Much more is yet to be discovered about how sound is processed within the brain and how we humans actively listen to the sounds around us.

Hearing during times of war Shin-Shin Hobi In World War One parrots were kept on the Eiffel Tower in Paris because of their remarkable sense of hearing. The parrots would warn of approaching danger from enemy aircraft long before any human ear could hear it. Even though our ears are not as sensitive as other animals they still play an important role in our sense of orientation and defense.

During the Cold War the US conducted research on a phenomenon called the microwave auditory effect or the Frey effect. The first publication on this effect was in 1961 by an American neuroscientist, Allan Frey, who published results from his experiment on the use of pulsed microwave frequencies. It was found that this stimulus was able to generate a sound that was heard directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device.

Subjects were able to hear the played stimulus from a distance of a hundred meters. These induced sounds were not audible to other people nearby. NASA conducted further research into this for possible use in wireless voice transmission communications. It is alleged that both sides of the Cold war explored its use in non-lethal weaponry due to the side effects caused by microwave hearing such as dizziness and headaches.

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SOFA DEEJAYS. The JBL On Air™ Wireless AirPlay speaker dock streams your music anywhere in the house.

The JBL On Air™ Wireless will revolutionise the way you listen to music.

It streams your entire iTunes 10 library from any Mac computer or PC — and from any iPod, iPhone or iPad device running iOS 4.2 — to any room in your house over your Wi-Fi® network. Now you can listen to any song or playlist, see song titles, artists and album artwork on a full-colour LCD display, and enjoy full navigation and playback control via your iOS device with the free Apple Remote app. So don’t get up — unless you feel like dancing.

© 2011 HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated. All rights reserved. JBL is a trademark of HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated, registered in the United States and/or other countries. JBL On Air is a trademark of HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated. Apple, AirPlay, the AirPlay logo, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. iPad, iPhone and iPod not included. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Features, specifications and appearance are subject to change without notice.

www.jbl.com

Photos: Lobmeyr, Klaus Fritsch

Drinks service no. 267, “Alpha”, by Lobmeyr Design: Hans Harald Rath, 1952

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THE SOUND OF THINGS

Clink and drink!

A toast to poison and champagne, devils and clinking glasses Let’s raise our glasses and toast! Let’s clink glasses – even if we don’t actually know where the tradition really originated. Of course, every sparkling wine advertisement features people clinking glasses and every bubbly commercial is backed by the light chinking of glasses, as well as corks popping, forming the soundscape for sparkling moments and happy, bubbly times. We automatically associate sparkling wine, champagne, or anything alcoholic that bubbles with real elegance and the good life. We imitate the sound of clinking glasses when we say “tchintchin” in France, “cin cin” in Italy or “tim-tim” in Brazil. And presumably for synesthetic reasons, even the color yellow and words like “Pérignon” and “Clicquot” go especially well with the delicate sound of clinking glasses.

We also judge the quality of glasses – hand-blown crystal if you please – by their sound, which should be as crystal clear as possible. Yet sometimes it is simply not appropriate to clink glasses. Specific cultural conventions must be observed and drinking etiquette requires precise knowledge of the culture, country and situation in question.

When toasting the Queen, for instance, it is considered improper to actually clink glasses. Similarly people never actually kiss upon greeting in upper circles, but rather kiss the air next to each other’s cheek. In Germany, upon clinking glasses the holders are required to look each other in the eye to avoid seven years of bad sex.

Numerous attempts have been made to explain why we actually chink glasses before drinking in a group. They look far back in history and so cannot be verified, and all have something to do with poison, death and Satan in some form. According to one theory, the tradition is rooted in the fact that, in times past, people were often murdered by poison in their drinks. So they started clanging their cups together so hard before drinking that a little of each drink spilled into the other cups, meaning that the drinkers could be sure that in case of a murder plot all of them would have poison in their drinks. Another explanation claims that the tradition emerged as a sign of trust that no drinks had been poisoned: by clinking glasses the drinkers expressed their confidence in one another that they weren’t trying to kill them.

A further theory claims that the custom of making a lot of noise as the ruler takes his first sip is the origin of the tradition. Since the sovereign’s cupbearer had to slowly and carefully test the drink for poison, the others present had to pass the time before they could drink together. Thus, once the drink had been declared safe and the ruler happy that they could begin drinking at last, it was duly announced with trumpets and fanfares. Today the clinking of glasses is the only remnant of this musical accompaniment and also means that drinking is a delight for all the senses.

Clinking glasses could also come from that fact that in days of old people feared that by drinking alcohol the devil would possess their body. After all, where did that feeling of malaise the next day come from? And because people exorcized evil spirits by making noise and ringing bells during the carnival season, at New Year and on feast days, they also tried to make enough noise clinking glasses to rid themselves of Satan. At any rate, that would explain why it is tradition almost everywhere to clink glasses only with alcoholic drinks.

Then there is the following theory: Long ago people in a group drank from a single vessel when wishing for good things, thus demonstrating their solidarity and agreement with what was said. At some point people came to want their own cup or glass and clinking them together symbolized their drinking from a single vessel. So chinking glasses represents the unity of a group and at the same time symbolically unites the wine that has been distributed between several glasses. It creates a moment of harmony that connects us to other people in a single, brief ringing sound, that expresses our unity and turns individuals into a community.

And that is what we should really raise our glasses to! So let’s clink glasses, because… it really doesn’t matter why.

Cling!

Markus Frenzl

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ARCHITECTURE

Certainly not small-minded – Open-air library in Magdeburg Libraries are places of learning. Quiet places. We could consider them places of culture, which, like museums, are among the most important construction projects of the 20th century. A small new library in Magdeburg, the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt, is all of this and a little more.

Run by a local residents’ association with financial support from the German government, it considers itself a “meeting point for young and old”. And it would seem that they are living up to their aspirations. Not so quietly, perhaps.

HEAR THE WORLD took a closer look at the multi-awardwinning building.

Like many cities in the east of Germany, the former industrial hub Madgeburg has been afflicted by an exodus of the young and the well-educated, who have left in search of work and a better life. A lack of jobs leads to population decrease and this in turn to buildings standing empty and falling into disrepair. While communities are shrinking, they are also – for the most part – deteriorating as places to live. Back in 2005, against a backdrop of architectural decay and a high unemployment rate, an urban development project called “City on Trial” was initiated in the Salbke district. Using an empty store as a base, participants started collecting book donations and planning an open-air library for the district library that had burned down in the 1980s. They received around 20,000 printed works and built a temporary scale model of the planned library using beer crates on an empty space in the center of the former fishing village.

Now the residents’ library has more than 30,000 books, which are housed in the open-air library designed by architectural firm Karo and inaugurated in 2009. Taking out books here is easy: without any bureaucracy at all, you simply take the books you want to read and bring them back when you are through with them. The shelves aren’t locked; books can be borrowed around the clock. And thanks to residents’ broad participation, it actually works.

As such, the “library of trust” at the heart of Salbke, an area that is almost 80 % unoccupied, plays a pivotal cultural role by creating a new core for the town with a function that benefits the community as a whole. In its architectural design, the library consists of an “arranged” green space complete with shelving and a cafeteria. The architects not only created seating areas with a 30-meter-long bench and so-called reading islands, aluminum cabinets for large books and a stage, but also a contemporary architectural form. The façades of the structure’s individual parts are not merely reminiscent of 1960s department store façades in the former West Germany; they are in fact just that. The aluminum components, which could just as easily be a stylistic reference to the typical architecture of the former East, actually come from a former Horten department store in Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia. The components of these well-known façades were designed by Egon Eiermann, though he only used them on a few of his department store projects. For the architects at Karo they provided a formal element that in line with retro modernity makes reference not only to a wider historical context in terms of architecture, but also the current sustainability debate.

Indeed, in this debate the recycling of buildings is also allocated a new role, namely as the continuation of postmodern “architectural citation” techniques. And the architects even received a rarely-granted special permit for it.

What initially sounds like a nice little building project somewhere in the east has now attracted international attention as well. When competing for the prestigious Brit Insurance Design Award, the architects from Leipzig had no trouble holding their own against global players on the architecture scene such as Herzog & de Meuron or Skidmore Owings and Merrill. Since 2006, the project led by architects Antje Heuer, Stefan Rettich and Bert Hafermalz has received financial support within the framework of a German government research project.

Photos: © Anja Schlamann/ARTUR IMAGES

“Lesezeichen Salbke“ (“Salbke bookmark”) is an urban location that can be put to active use as well as providing the district with a quiet haven – fulfilling the same purpose as many of today’s libraries. At the same time however, this library is more a piece of street furniture than a building. A concrete base encloses the whole ensemble under the open sky, the façade components serve to seal the area off from street noise and lend the construction its shape, while a combination of green glass components and wooden paneling skillfully unites the old and the new. The commissioned graffiti works that decorate the “bookmark” provide further proof of the widespread resident participation in the project, as do the large numbers of readers of all ages who now visit the library – the small heart of the village – every single day.

Marcel Krenz

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ART

The hole in the roof – James Turrell’s Quaker meeting house in Houston It was back in 2001 that US artist and devoted Quaker James Turrell, who has become known most notably for his land art works in the Roden Crater in Arizona and his simple yet enigmatic light tunnels, designed the Live Oak Meeting House in Houston, Texas. With an opening in the roof, lending the light an unequivocally religious connotation and turning the sky itself into an artistic creation, the building is a true artistic synthesis. Following extensive renovations and the reconstruction of the adjustable roof components, the meeting house is once again open to the public for an hour before sunset. HEAR THE WORLD took another look at this spiritual interpretation of the sky over Houston.

In an interview the artist said: “I began the Skyspace series (…) in order to create a situation in which the sky is brought down to earth, making direct contact. Art dedicated to the subject of light has been around for a long time now; I seek to employ light as a material in itself. I consider it a question of how to form a closeness to these things so that they become a part of your own realm here on earth. That’s a very important aspect for me.” As is the case in many of Turrell’s works, this installation addresses the perception of light, which both quiet art lovers and those engrossed in their prayers sitting on simple benches can experience in equal measure.

Ever so slowly, the mechanical roof panels open up, revealing Houston’s azure evening sky. On this cloudless day in the Live Oak Meeting House, which belongs to the Quaker community, James Turrell’s Skyspace celebrates a natural phenomenon and likewise offers those less spirituallyinclined visitors a unique artistic experience. The Houston Chronicle printed the following description: “At sundown, light shifts softly from porcelain transparency to silken cobalt blue and velvet black. Eyes turn inward, and a hush descends. The Skyspace transforms the spare, white meeting room into a luminous chamber, a metaphor for the body and soul.”

Turrell has worked with projections, light tunnels as well as installations with sophisticated “light illusions”, and in doing so questioned our depth perception or created the illusion of three-dimensional objects, although these in fact do not exist. Yet the simplicity of this special sky-work is not to be topped, for the one and only material used is light. Aided by hidden blue neon tubes only, we would otherwise never get a chance to see a sky that is as marvelous as this one seen through the framed skylight – an illusion that cannot really be described as such. “A light that fills the space so that you can directly experience your own physical presence.”

In his Skyspaces the famous light artist combines art and science using, as in Houston, a clearly defined opening in the roof to reveal a view of the ever-changing sky. It is difficult to pull yourself away from these continuous transitions of light before complete darkness descends. It is an artwork that leaves a deep impression without the need for commentary or explanation, that is easy to understand and immediately opens itself up to the visitor. But Turrell’s work also becomes a kind of calm, meditative exercise in a room full of people, who all stand looking at a hole in the roof.

Turrell conceives these skylights in the time-proven tradition of Western painting as camera-like spaces: “Light on a cathedral such as Monet’s paintings from the Impressionist period. You take an object that in reality has no deeper meaning, a haystack for example,” he explains, “or Rothko, here the light appears to come from the surface, from the color – it looks like a light source.”

And while Turrell’s works are represented in private collections and permanent installations in museums the world over, here it is perhaps this simple construction, this experience of transcendence that turns this skylight into a painting that is alive, changing within the natural order of the world. Definitely worth a look!

Photos: Florian Holzherr

Marcel Krenz

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Photos: Antonia Henschel

TRAVEL

Promoting culture alla turca High up on the roof, in the tip of the Perili Köşk tower, there is a small pavilion, just a few square meters in size. The pavilion’s entire interior is decorated with thin horizontal stripes in dark red and earthy tones and contains a coffee machine, an ashtray and a few armchairs. A small refuge, a place to reflect while looking out over the Bosphorus.

Perhaps this is the spot where ideas are born, such as the idea to open this historical building (it currently houses offices full of artworks) to the public at weekends, transforming it into a museum; the idea to use a renovated townhouse in the middle of Istanbul’s busiest shopping street to house a museum for contemporary art; or the idea to bestow upon Turkey its own veritable symphony orchestra.

Thus culture seems to be very important to the company, not merely as a PR tool, but forming an integral part of the company, even involving its employees. However, this multiplicity of funding areas and activities must come across as too widely diversified and with insufficient focus to those who are more accustomed to the promotion of culture having clearly identifiable, company-related goals. It is perhaps a little too driven by the desire to deliver a sweeping clout of culture in the country and to indulge in anything that sounds as if it could be high quality. But at an annual cost of around $ 10 million (the total amount spent by Borusan on promoting culture), one can certainly allow for a minor lack of stringency as well as a little exaggeration.

These are the brainchildren of Ahmet Kocabıyık – head of one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, Borusan Holding, and through the group’s own cultural foundation Borusan Kültür Sanat probably the largest private promoter of cultural affairs in Turkey. Art Center/Istanbul is just one of the projects that benefits from the foundation’s support; the project provides promising contemporary artists with studio space in the city’s Beyoğlu district. Another project to receive funding is the Borusan Music House, which was opened in 2010 in a historical building on the Istiklal shopping promenade, which is brimming with life around the clock, and offers concert and performance space for young artists as well as several floors for art exhibitions.

Moreover, the foundation awards scholarships to musicians and artists, and finances maintenance of the Borusan Music Library, supports excavations at Ephesus, promotes book projects, and finances a children’s choir, a chamber quartet, a chamber orchestra and even an entire symphony orchestra.

“My father wanted to give something back to his country,” says Zeynep Hamedi, the daughter of the company’s founder and chairperson of the cultural foundation. “He came from a small Turkish village, which he sponsored, focusing particularly on issues revolving around upbringing and education. The company’s second generation then went on to concentrate on culture.” The best-known and most spectacular result of this new focus on culture is the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra or BIPO. As early as 1993, its predecessor was founded as a chamber orchestra aiming to bring classical music, which receives very little state support, closer to the Turkish people. When Gürer Aykal assumed the role as the orchestra’s director in 1997, he did so under the condition that they remodeled it as a philharmonic orchestra. The BIPO gave its first concert in May 1999. In 2006, Borusan sponsors decided to go a step further and take the orchestra beyond its national borders in the long term, making it a match for the best philharmonic orchestras in the world. Vienna-based Sascha Goetzel was appointed the orchestra’s chief conductor and creative director and since 2008 has flown regularly to Istanbul to shape the orchestra and give it its characteristic sound, as well as to conduct five to six concerts each month.

The role of culture within the company is also demonstrated by the plan to open up the headquarters to visitors interested in art. After a checkered history, the Perili Köşk, a brick building dating from 1911, has served as the company’s headquarters since 2007. Its offices and conference rooms are artistic treasure troves housing a whole host of works from the company’s own art collection as well as special installations, specially made for the site. As it will soon be open to visitors on weekends, the first “office museum” in the world, employees will have to have their desks especially tidy by close of business on Fridays.

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Goetzel, who despite his young age (40) has all the attributes one expects given the cliché of a “star conductor”, enthuses about the exceptional energy and verve of the orchestra’s musicians. Yet he says it is still a little too early to speak of a sound that is distinctive to the orchestra, which is mostly made up of musicians who are between 35 and 40 years of age, come from Turkey and have attended master classes abroad. That said, it shouldn’t take more than a few years for the BIPO to evolve into a musical ensemble with its own language, its own dialect. When it comes to this common dialect, it is imperative that the Turkish musical culture and tradition be allowed to flow into the music; this may only have a very young culture of classical orchestras, but it is nonetheless characterized by an extraordinary feeling for rhythm and pianissimo. “This orchestra combines remarkable passion with remarkable sensitivity,” comments Goetzel. “This orchestra’s sound is a sound of extremes, not of mediocrity.”

In a country where there are television channels that play traditional music 24 hours a day and still manage to attract large audiences, the introduction of classical European music remains an exceptional challenge. Thus the monthly program of concerts that the BIPO performs in the European part of the city stands in remarkable contrast to those that can be found in the city’s Asian part, where the hall is smaller and the audience older and more traditional in their tastes. And so, Goetzel has taken on the task of bridging the gap between these two worlds and, on the one hand, establishing an orchestra based on the Western model, but on the other finding an independent Turkish form for it. A tour in Turkey is already being planned and he has now begun to encourage contemporary Turkish composers to write new compositions, which he can then include in their repertoire.

The orchestra’s debut album, which was released by the record label Onyx in January 2010, features works from the first half of the 20th century by composers Ottorino Respighi, Florent Schmitt and Paul Hindemith, making the numerous links between East and West audible. Even here, a clear orchestra sound is discernible; it is characterized by a particular energy and demonstrates its full potential with complex rhythms and melodies inspired by the Orient. Just recently the orchestra recorded its second album, featuring works by Ravel, Holst, Prokofiev and Bartók, as well as pieces by Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff and Turkish composer Ulvi Cemal Erkin. As was the case with the first CD, the new album was recorded in a room above the Borusan BMW branch. For despite all the support the young symphony orchestra receives from the large corporation, it is yet to receive its own concert hall or rehearsal space. Once again it suddenly becomes clear that this is an orchestra that, despite its endless attempts at high culture, remains charmingly improvised, free of the arrogance of a well-established group and, notwithstanding its successful start, is still in search of its own characteristic focus.

The question as to whether the orchestra represents an independent creative path or an imitation of Western models is the touchiest question one could put to the sponsors at Borusan. No, of course it isn’t a matter of imitation, is the answer, followed by a statement that they hope to be in a position to compete with Western symphony orchestras in just a few years. Thus the project engenders a pang of fear that, as a Turkish orchestra, it will not be taken seriously in the West, as well as a little Eurocentric arrogance with which the foreign visitor looks upon this ambitious undertaking. Yet it is clear that there is hardly any other orchestra that currently holds so much potential to really constitute a link between worlds and cultures as this one. At present, nowhere else in the world would we find more dedicated young artists who are certain that they are in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

There is a remarkable energy that emanates not only from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, but also from the company’s many other cultural commitments.

It conveys an image of a country that’s going places, very different from what we see about Turkey in the news. And so perhaps the refuge in the little pavilion on the roof of the Perili Köşk, with a view of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge connecting Asia and Europe, is particularly symbolic: a place between heaven and earth, past and present, tradition and modernity, business and culture, East and West.

Markus Frenzl

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THE WORLD OF THE SENSES

From kindergarten to Madison Square Garden Anyone who strikes up the song “Happy Birthday to You” at a public celebration is usually unaware that in doing so they are technically entering a gray area, legally speaking.

Under certain circumstances they would in fact be required to pay royalties, for “Happy Birthday to You” is not a folk song belonging to the general public, but a registered composition that is under copyright. In Germany, the rights are due to expire in 2016, but in the USA it will remain in effect until 2030. License fees go to the US company Warner Chappell, which in 1998 bought Birch Tree – the former rights holder – for around $ 25 million. The investment proved to be a highly lucrative one; annually the song fetches around $ 2 million. In Germany the collecting society GEMA acts as Warner’s collection partner.

However, the legal regulations surrounding the song’s performance at celebrations are so complicated that those well-wishers who cannot help but burst into song should not be afraid to do so. Today, royalties are mostly paid for the song’s use in movies.

Today there is no denying that “Happy Birthday to You” is the most famous song in the world. It has been translated into countless languages, making it one of the USA’s most successful cultural exports. Like Coca-Cola, Elvis or McDonald’s, it has ousted existing traditions or at least given them a run for their money.

“Happy Birthday to You” was actually written for children around the end of the 19th century. Sisters Mildred J. Hill and Patty J. Hill worked in a kindergarten in Louisville in the US state of Kentucky. The musically gifted Mildred was, amongst other things, a skilled pianist and one day a simple but very catchy tune sprang to her mind that she could use to greet the children in her morning lessons. Patty then contributed the lyrics: “Good morning to you / Good morning to you / Good morning, dear children / Good morning to all.” The sisters first published the score and lyrics in 1893 as part of a songbook. As the song was in fact sung by the children and not the teacher, the lyrics soon changed to “dear teacher” in place of “dear children”.

In other countries too, however, there are songs that have survived to the present day and enjoy almost equal popularity to “Happy Birthday to You”. For instance, “Sto Lat” (“One hundred years”) is a Polish song that congratulates those celebrating their name day or birthday, an anniversary or even a sporting victory. They are wished a long life as well as a whole host of other pleasantries, which are in part added spontaneously to further verses, at which point it is OK if it all becomes a little rough around the edges.

“Sto lat” is also used in everyday language and roughly translates as “All the best!”

Mildred would not live to see her composition’s rise to worldwide fame – she died in 1916. Patty subsequently transferred to Columbia University in New York, where she became director of kindergarten teaching, part of the University’s Teachers College. In 1924, the sisters’ song caught the attention of an inventive lyricist, Robert C. Coleman, who went on to tweak a few notes, re-write the text and add another verse; and so “Happy Birthday to You” was born. The Hill family, who had not approved Coleman’s changes, filed a lawsuit against Coleman for his use of the melody; the court decided in their favor. After a long legal battle, in 1935 the sisters were registered with ASCAP – the US collecting society – as the official copyright holders. By this point their song could already be heard in every corner of the world. The song’s swift rise to prominence is mostly due to its use in movies. Patty died an extremely wealthy woman in 1946.

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Yet the song’s rivals have certainly put up a good fight.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the second most famous song in the world is For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow. This is a particularly popular choice in movies and TV series, as it was composed in France back in 1709 and therefore does not require the payment of license fees.

It was extremely popular in Great Britain in the 19th century, later spreading to the US. Those in the know are familiar with the subtleties of the serenade, which is not only a favorite on birthdays but other special occasions too: “And so say all of us” is the closing line of the British version, while Americans sing “Which nobody can deny”.

In Latin America, “Las Mañanitas” (“The small hours of the morning”) is very popular and one of Mexico’s bestknown folk songs. The lyrics go “Wake up my dear, wake up, see that the day has dawned” and are just as fitting for a birthday celebration as they are for serenading a beautiful woman. As is also the case with “Sto Lat”, the composer is unknown. The origins of the song, which has featured in numerous movies, go back to the 19th century.

By contrast, a more devout side to things is evidenced in Germany, where alongside “Hoch soll er/sie leben” (“Long may he/she live!”), in particular “Viel Glück und viel Segen” (“Best wishes and many blessings”) prevails as a respectable alternative to “Happy Birthday to You”. This birthday canon was written in 1930 by German songwriter Werner Gneist, who set to music poetry by Christian Morgenstern and Joseph von Eichendorff, amongst others.

If you listen closely, you will often hear the variation “Gesundheit und Wohlstand” (“Health and wealth”) in place of the official “Gesundheit und Frohsinn sei auch mit dabei” (“Health and happiness should also be included”). Is this a kind of apocryphal version deployed in Christian circles as it went against the Christian ethic of self-sacrifice?

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Illustration: Malin Rosenqvist

There is another song that quickly became a classic: “Wie schön, dass du geboren bist” (“How nice that you were born”) was composed by songwriter Rolf Zuckowski in 1981 and was soon a permanent fixture on song lists in all kindergartens and elementary schools in Germany. The closing line, “Wir hätten Dich sonst sehr vermisst” (“We would have missed you very much”), could be seen to throw children into philosophical and logical doubt at a very young age (“Would we really have missed them?”).

Much to the annoyance of singles and childless couples, the song is now a long-established feature at adult birthday parties too.

But why do we sing at all on birthdays? The origins of this convention can presumably be traced back to very old traditions. In Greece, birthdays were celebrated as early as the 8th century BCE and later in the Roman Empire, too.

In many cultures with pagan deities, people feared the advance of evil spirits on important occasions in one’s life, for example on birthdays. So they made their celebrations noisy affairs with singing and dancing, in order to keep such evil spirits at bay.

The Bible provides no foundation for the celebration of birthdays in Christian culture, and it is for this reason that they were not officially honored in many regions until well into the 19th century. Even today, in devout Catholic communities name days continue to hold greater significance. In those places where birthdays were celebrated, from the very start there was a whole host of rituals that made for a good celebration – from crowns and cake to songs. Their roots in the pagan tradition, in superstition, are still very much apparent today, an example being candles on birthday cakes, which should be blown out in one puff to avoid bad luck in life. There is also great significance to be found in the number of bumps a person is given during the birthday song “Hoch soll er/sie leben”; this is based on the person’s age and one too few results in bad luck, one too many on the other hand good luck. When it comes to the US import “Happy Birthday to You”, traditionalists insist that it is only sung when the birthday cake is carried into the room.

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Like many other rituals, these traditions die hard and so even the most secularized amongst us hold on to at least a little superstition by taking part, a hint of the idea that human life is perhaps not left entirely to chance, but falls in line with a set of higher principles. There is, however, a highly pragmatic reasoning behind the musical elements of a birthday celebration: The birthday serenade ensures that all attention is focused on the birthday girl or boy.

During this group sing-along, the guests experience a feeling of community, even if they do not know one another. At the same time the serenade, however enthusiastically it is sung, loosens everyone up and even the most reserved of characters let their hair down for a few moments. It is not uncommon for an uncertain smile to flit across guests’ faces at first, before they then join in. But you just have to get on with it – those who instead nudge their children forward to sing or put on a CD of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” are looked upon in disgrace.

Incidentally, those who do not know how to perform “Happy Birthday to You” to the greatest effect should take a look at YouTube. There you can marvel at Marilyn Monroe’s legendary performance of the song for President John F. Kennedy at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In a tight, glittery dress that left little to the imagination, she stood, adored by 15,000 spectators, stroked the microphone and sang, or rather whispered, a now immortal version of “Happy Birthday Mr. President”, incidentally quite clearly a performance requiring the payment of royalties.

That was on May 19, 1962. Kennedy wouldn’t celebrate his actual birthday for another ten days. Could that have brought him bad luck?

Klaus Janke

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Illustration: Daniel Lachenmeier

THE WORLD OF THE SENSES

Famous myths about hearing and how Echo gets the last word Heavy curtains with a brightly lit stage before them. And they stand there – the women in smart suits, the man in a business suit … A woman repeats what they have just heard. Two others, sisters perhaps, lure with sounds in a strange yet seductive manner. And then there is a man who intones a song and whose rendering makes the entire theater cry; not only the audience, but the walls too.

It is one of those modern performances that seek to bring bygone stories into the present and act as though they have to clad characters in modern costumes to raise them from the dead. But the nymph Echo, the beautiful yet monstrous Sirens and the singer Orpheus are by no means as bygone as you might think. They never really fell into oblivion. Their stories do not date from time immemorial, or from way back when, but possibly from yesterday.

After all, myths were and are an arsenal of art, a trove for constant remixing and the source for a whole wave of adaptations. Especially in the northern hemisphere, especially in the so-called West, in Europe and the United States it is the myths of classical Greek and Roman antiquity that still float across to us, or some at least. And when Zeus or Jupiter hurl their lightning bolts we hear the rumble of thunder. But not many of us hear the appropriate tone for Marsyas.

The original stories, however, are difficult to identify as they were constantly being overwritten like a palimpsest, a piece of parchment that, because it was so expensive, was used numerous times and thus bears a host of superimposed characters.

So let us start from the very beginning, in the Olympus of the Greek gods, on the mountains and in the gorges of Greece. This is where the nymph Echo once encountered Narcissus, or Narkissos. A terrible story, like many of these myths: the youth Narcissus was extraordinarily beautiful, even as a boy. Though loved by many, he did not return anyone’s love. He was proud and visually fixated. No-one was attractive enough, but Echo fell in love with him. She had had her voice taken away by the queen of the gods (Hera in Greek, Juno in Roman mythology) who was infuriated with Echo for distracting her with stories to keep her away from her continually unfaithful husband Zeus.

Echo could only repeat the last thing she had heard, usually a single syllable. Another version says she was punished for eavesdropping.

The beautiful youth Narcissus ignored the almost mute nymph and the pain made her fade away so that only her voice remained. And Narcissus? He did not fare well, either. As he had scorned everyone who loved him, all that was left for him in the end was to gaze into the mirror.

Looking into the water of a pond he saw only his reflection.

And day after day he lay there and stared at himself and disappeared a little more until he finally died; face to face with the only creature he had ever loved: himself. Maybe he killed himself out of unfulfilled longing. And some versions claim he changed into a flower or was changed into a flower which is named after an “anesthetic”: the narcissus, which has the same root as the word “narcotic”.

This myth has been interpreted in hundreds of different ways. It is about the triviality of visible beauty or the evil magic of mirror and gaze. For psychologists, narcissus became the “ideal type” for pride and egotism, incapable of forming relationships. And Echo, whose story has also been included at the latest since the Roman poet Ovid wrote his Metamorphoses? Echo has a different problem, namely of barely being herself. First chattering or eavesdropping, then repetition and finally just a voice without a body wafted by the wind between forest and mountain.

In other words, in the worst case seeing only sees itself and hearing only repeats the others …

The borders between nature and myth, myth and art were fluid. After all, in the form of metaphors, sayings and images, myths were usually an integral part of all three.

Aristotle, Lucretius and Pliny examined the echo as a scientific phenomenon, but their findings were in part somewhat incredible. For example, according to Varro’s Res Rusticae and Virgil’s Georgics, echoes were thought to be unfavorable for bee-keeping – perhaps because Echo did not have a good relationship to the fertility god Pan, who not only ruled over the shepherds, but also beehives.

Even the playwrights Euripides and Aristophanes valued echo effects in speech. And from the Middle Ages onwards, but especially in the 18th century, people loved echo galleries, spaces full of surprises. From the 19th century onwards the emergence of Alpine tourism led people to search for echoes in the mountains, both an acoustic performance and a miracle of nature.

In the philosophy of this age, the echo underlines loneliness, of all things. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s work we find sentences such as, “Those who live alone do not speak too loud nor write too loud, for they fear the hollow echo – the critique of the nymph Echo.” And in fellow philosopher Kierkegaard’s book Either/Or we read: “I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it from me.” We imagine the Sirens to be anything but passive. In Homer we hear their “honey-sweet voices”, but at the same time they sit amidst “a great heap of dead men’s bones (…) with the flesh still rotting off them”. Odysseus, the great sailor, had been warned by the sorceress Circe and he stopped his HEAR THE WORLD 53

crew’s ears with beeswax and had them tie him to the mast so as to withstand the desire to hear ever more and surrender himself to their song. In the first century CE, Pliny the Elder doubted the existence of the Sirens and believed them to be mythical creatures, even though Dinon, the father of the famous contemporary historian Cleitarchus, had insisted that they came from India and their song beguiled like a lullaby, before they tore apart whoever slept. Yet not only their grace and brutality, but also their bodies made them double-natured creatures. Apollonius from Rhodes, for example, described them as maidens above and birds below. In contrast, in Ovid’s The Art of Love the ambivalent story becomes a simple piece of advice: “Song is a thing of grace: girls, learn to sing: / for many your voice is a better procuress than your looks.”

Someone who could already sing, and who sang like no other, was Orpheus. “All opera is Orpheus,” stated philosopher Theodor W. Adorno very fittingly in his essay on Bourgeois Opera. And indeed, musical theater between the Renaissance and Baroque begins with all manner of “Orfeos”, from Angelo Poliziano’s Orfeo of 1480 through Jacopo Peri’s Euridice and Claudio Monteverdi’s Orpheo from 1607 to Calderon’s El divino Orfeo from the mid-17th century. Authors and composers alike seemed especially interested in Orpheus’ tragic failure and the topic of song as the highly fitting justification of a new art form. Yet in the preceding and following centuries, Orpheus was not simply the occasion and pars pro toto of the opera, but as Pindar calls him, “the father of songs”, the “father of music” altogether. In classical antiquity the figure of Orpheus was known because his art soothed nature. His songs even moved trees and stones. In the Argonauts myth he drowned out the Sirens with his singing. And when his beloved wife Eurydice died, he gained entry to the underworld by singing a beautiful, melancholy song. Charon, Cerberus and even the shades were all entranced by his music. And so he was finally allowed to take Eurydice back with him to the world of the living, but only on the condition that on the way he restrained his desire to see her and did not turn around to look at her. In Ovid and Virgil his attempt to save her ends tragically. Orpheus wanted more than just her voice and looked back, upon which his beloved vanished. Distraught, he sang no more for anyone and avoided women until the Thracian Maenads tore him to pieces. Presumably because they so lusted after him and his song. Yet his head was spared. It fell into the river Hebrus and was then washed out to sea, where it never ceased to weep for Eurydice. In Christian times depictions of Orpheus, who overcame nature and death, were transformed into images of Christ and later of St Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds.

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And what about the lesser-known myths about hearing?

Such as the one with Marsyas. He was a Phrygian satyr who found a flute. The goddess Athena had made it, but thrown it away because playing with it distorted her face. Marsyas became a master of the instrument and dared – allegedly while drunk – to challenge the god Apollo to a musical competition. And he was so confident of victory that he agreed to a dangerous condition, namely that the winner could deal with the opponent as he saw fit. The judges were the Muses.

And everything was fine for some time. Marsyas kept up.

Until Apollo asked him to play his instrument back to front.

Apollo played the lyre and it was no problem for him, but the flute cannot be blown backwards. By this trick, the god won and took his revenge. He strung Marsyas up on a pine tree and skinned him alive. Legend has it that a river sprang up from his blood and the tears of his friends.

The more famous myths about hearing have been part of our culture for centuries. They have been recalled, modernized and in part rewritten. While they make reference to their origin, they always have a new message for us.

Perhaps this correlation can best be described with an old saying: “You can shout for a long time before the echo dies.”

Max Ackermann

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Photo: Stefano Bottesi

CLASSICS

The Ameropean He is one of the most exciting personalities among today’s conductors: John Axelrod, born in Houston, Texas in 1966, is not to be pigeonholed into any of the usual categories.

Neither an egomaniacal star of the conductor’s podium nor modernist crossover advocate, he has found his very own style between musical worlds.

The man has a vision, namely to make music that spans generations, that touches both 16-year-old adolescents and 80-year-olds who claim to have already seen, heard and lived through everything. When John Axelrod, Chief Conductor of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, takes the podium, it is not uncommon to hear performances of a Beethoven symphony and a commissioned piece by electro musician and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev all in one evening. “If we don’t seek to understand the living environments and realities of today and attempt to make sense of them, there is basically no future for classical music,” Axelrod says, getting straight to the point. “My teacher Leonard Bernstein taught me that we shouldn’t be scared of contact with so-called ‘light music’, there is only good and bad music, just do it!”

It was also Bernstein who encouraged Axelrod – after a detour via music management and a role as director of Mondawi Food & Wine Center (he is still passionate about good food and wine) – to pursue a career in music. Anyone who experiences John Axelrod live in concert or giving an explanation of music today will sense a great deal of Bernstein’s charismatic nature, his curiosity, openness and unbridled joy in music.

Axelrod likes to speak of an almost spiritual occurrence that brought him back to music for good. One evening, when he was driving through Napa Valley on his way home from a fine dinner accompanied by inspiring conversation, he suddenly started to hear the overture of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde (his absolute favorite) in his head with an intensity the likes of which he had never experienced before. Unable to drive any further, Axelrod stopped, got out of the car and took in the perfect tranquility of Napa Valley. It was in this instant that he was overcome by the overpowering realization that he simply had to return to music. When he got back into the car and turned on the radio to hear – as if by a miracle – the overture of Tristan & Isolde, the decision had been made. He handed in his notice the very next day and once again focused his full attention on music.

His encounter with conductor Christoph Eschenbach, who was chief conductor in Axelrod’s native city of Houston and whom he would later assist with Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival and with Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, was instrumental in his artistic breakthrough in Europe. In Houston, John Axelrod had founded Orchestra X, an orchestra for Generation X consisting mainly of music students with which he conducted successful experiments going above and beyond the borders of classical music. Today, these experiences play a decisive role in his artistic work with leading European orchestras; first of all as chief conductor of the traditional orchestras of Krakow and Lucerne, then later in the same function at the Orchestre des Pays de la Loire and Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, made up of many young, talented musicians. Thus he launched events such as “Beethoven, Beer and Barbecue”, where an evening of Beethoven symphonies is rounded of with a BBQ and a few beers. Or Amadeus – a musical play about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Each event is based on a specific theme and follows a particular dramatic plot.

According to Axelrod, “it is crucial that we always play as though it were a matter of life and death; only then do we keep our audience and also gain new followers.”

The musical integrity of the composition remains untouched here. “For me the integrity and quality of the composition takes center stage,” says Axelrod, “but we have to adapt the presentation framework to the present day. It is always a matter of listening, interacting and understanding. The audience wants to be taken seriously, on a musical journey in a contemporary way.” Axelrod would like to be seen as a musical creator, not just a curator. “It is up to us to design and present, not to administrate,” he says, quite in the tradition of Bernstein.

When asked about his musical roots, Axelrod likes to describe himself as an “Ameropean”, in limbo between two worlds, who seeks to combine the American laidback nature and willingness to experiment with European tradition and seriousness. And so, his two mentors Leonard Bernstein and Christoph Eschenbach may well represent each of these different worlds. They are both to be found within John Axelrod – an exciting symbiosis.

Daniel von Bernstorff Details of John Axelrod’s next concert can be found at www.johnaxelrod.com

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MODERN

A global star overnight – A portrait of actress Freida Pinto as a young woman Thanks to her marvellous performance in the multiple Academy Award winning British-Indian production Slumdog Millionaire, Freida Pinto rose to international stardom in 2009. As an ambassador for the Hear the World initiative she intends to use her celebrity status towards raising awareness of hearing and hearing loss. “The gift of hearing is something I cherish every day,“ says Pinto. “It enriches my abilities as an actress and my experiences as a human being.”

When British Director Danny Boyle was looking for the male lead in Slumdog Millionaire, he considered over a hundred actors without discovering the one he was looking for. The Bollywood stars on his list were too buffed-up and muscular for the role. So when his daughter made him aware of Dev Patel, a lanky British youth of Gujarati parentage with his ears sticking out, Boyle was reportedly thrilled. Although Patel had some screen credits from his successful stint on the British teen comedy drama series Skins, and is also a black belt tae kwon do fighter, he had never starred in a movie before. Neither had Freida Pinto, but she had to travel a much longer, more winding and somewhat bumpy road to get the female lead role alongside Dev Patel. After seeing her on video, Boyle came over to Mumbai for what became “six months of auditioning and screen testing, over and over again, twice a week.” While she knew from day one that she was perfect for the role, Boyle was convinced only after she did the first screen tests together with Patel in the second-to-last audition. According to Pinto, it was “instant chemistry”. Freida has got what it takes to charm the socks off any audience anywhere in the world: A bright and beautiful smile, a great sense of humor, timing and a talent – honed since her early childhood – “to be a bit of a drama queen”. While Kate Winslet professed to have practiced her Oscar acceptance speech as an eight-year-old holding a Shampoo bottle, Pinto recollects “imitating everybody else from television” as a young child, standing in front of the mirror and probably holding a hairbrush in lieu of a microphone to interview her mirror image.

Unlike her Slumdog costar, Freida Pinto actually grew up in India and thus has had “twenty-two years to prepare” for the role of orphan girl Latika. But she is still baffled and fascinated by the way in which the film portrayed her “hometown”, the behemoth city of Mumbai with its population of an estimated 20 million and counting. She was raised in a middle class family and – like most Indians – weaned on a diet of opulent, bright and colourful Bollywood movies.

“I am really bad at dancing. I have some rhythm in my body, but poor coordination, I guess,” as she told the New York Times. But thanks to either a great editing job or the coaching of her martial arts expert co-star, Freida dances very well in the final scene set on a platform of Victoria Terminus, and although she has barely 20 minutes of screen time in total, she seems to cast a sparkling cloud of pixie dust over the entire film. With a shrug and a smirk, Pinto concedes that she is “not famous in India” at all, and she doesn’t seem to be unhappy about it. First of all, with her 60 HEAR THE WORLD

petite figure and “clumsiness” (in her own words), she “wouldn’t fit the bill” of most Bollywood movies. Secondly, by staying – at least until recently – under the celebrity radar in India, she is able to walk the streets of Mumbai’s fashionable Colaba district without being chased by fans and paparazzi. Not so in London, Paris and New York, where Pinto receives the full attention of the tabloids, and not always in a positive way. In the West, Freida Pinto is quickly becoming the superstar she had imagined herself being in her childhood, and her talent is widely recognized. She is very happy about the fact that the success of Slumdog Millionaire “gives you the chance to say ‘yes’ to projects that you want to do and ‘no’ to projects that you don’t want to do.” And right after her big screen debut, she said “yes” to two very different films, two choices which tell a lot about her ambition and personality.

In 2010 she appeared alongside Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins and Josh Brolin in Woody Allen’s latest comedy You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, as Brolin’s character’s shy and yet very sexy muse. It is not a big role, yet it was a great adventure to work with Allen, “one of my great idols” whose films she had seen and whose plays she had been reading since her teenage years. Besides, sharing the screen with a diverse cast of established stars might have been a little tempting, too. Playing the title role in Julian Schnabel’s Miral was a different and much more serious task for the young actress. The film is based on the partly autobiographical novel written by Schnabel’s wife Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian journalist and novelist. Miral is a Palestinian teenager whose widowed father takes her to the orphanage of Hind al-Husseini, a courageous woman who (in real life) saved 55 orphaned girls and educated them to become responsible members of Palestinian society. In this intense and often disturbing film, Freida Pinto is at the center of attention, not only because this religious-political drama is set in Jerusalem at the time of the first Intifada. Seeing her walk the streets of East Jerusalem in a school uniform is an amazing experience, considering where she comes from, and critics who might have doubted if her acting talent was strong enough for a dramatic lead role will think twice after Miral. Since she has entered the international scene, Freida Pinto keeps surprising her fans – as a brand ambassador for L’Oreal, posing for sexy magazine photo spreads, or goofing around alongside her onscreen sweetheart Dev Patel who has been her real-life boyfriend since Millionaire. Why not star as a senuous priestess in a Greek mythology swordand-sandal blockbuster for a change? Done it. It is called The Immortals and will be released in November 2011. Or playing the female lead alongside James Franco in the spectacular revival of The Planet of The Apes saga? Done that, too. In cinemas at press time. In short: at 27, Freida Pinto most definitely has a few more aces up her sleeve…

Christian Arndt Quotes from: www.youtube.com/user/TheNewYorkTimes The New York Times – “T Screen Test Films: Freida Pinto” Aug 20, 2010 ITV1 Daybreak Oct 19, 2010

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Illustrration: CĂŠline Meyrat

MODERN

A mouthful of beats: The history of human beatboxing Beatboxing = the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, nasal passage and throat. (www.humanbeatbox.com) As the name suggests, in the first instance human beatboxing involves imitating the sounds of the legendary beatboxes and drum machines – from the Boss Dr. Rhythm to the Roland TR 808, which was popular with hip hop and techno DJs alike. The reason for this is simple: in the early 1980s hip hop and electro beats were new and very much “in” on both sides of the Atlantic, yet the equipment needed to produce them was still relatively expensive. And so hundreds if not thousands of kids – above all in the rap city of New York – suddenly began making their own beatbox sounds with their mouths. Amongst the pioneers of this art form was Darren Robinson alias Buff Love. As the “The Human Beat Box”, he formed the rhythmic backbone of the trio The Fat Boys. In the early 1980s Buff took part in a rap contest at New York’s Radio City Music Hall together with fellow rappers Prince Markie Dee and Kool Rock-Ski – both just as well-built as Buff – and won a record deal with a label, which was in fact yet to exist at the time. The organizer, a native of Switzerland called Charles Stettler, was a go-getting music manager and owner of a roller disco. Despite the little white lie about the non-existent record label, he actually succeeded in getting the trio their first record deal and shortly afterward the heavy-set boys released Reality, an earthy rap tune that, although reminiscent of Grandmaster Flash’s global smash hit The Message, was based on purely vocal sound effects as opposed to Grandmaster Flash’s scratch technique using two vinyl decks. It is said that Buff Love was the first to record his percussion sounds, and all other instruments were then arranged to suit. His trademark was the resonant inhaling and exhaling between the beats, which was incorporated as an additional melodic element, accompanying numerous other and at times very strange noises.

In interviews, Robinson himself repeatedly said that his art was born of necessity, as it were, because as a teenager he had no money for expensive instruments and DJ equipment.

Unfortunately, Buff Love died of heart failure in 1995 at the young age of 28. He weighed over 200 kilograms at the time of his death.

The Fat Boys’ hottest competition was Douglas E. Davis alias Doug Fresh, who claimed the title of ultimate beatbox innovator in 1984 with the single The Original Human Beatbox. Supported by his Get Fresh Crew and rapper Ricky D alias Slick Rick, he had a smash hit in 1985 with The Show. Back then, Doug E. Fresh’s trademark was the percussive clicks (they sounded like bouncing tennis balls) which he masterfully integrated into his tracks. His partner Slick Rick used his characteristic nasal voice to lay down a range of quotes from pop history for the title tune of the cartoon series Inspector Gadget; Michelle by the Beatles was amongst them. The two vocalists then perfected their call and response technique on La Di Da Di, another hip hop classic from the Fresh arsenal. A third cofounder of the genre, who is still going today, is the heavyweight Biz Markie, whom we have to thank for another popular style element in beatboxing. In addition to the beats and bass sounds he fabricated with his mouth, nose and voice box, he was one of the first to incorporate small snippets of rap into his songs, just like a DJ does with scratching, but Biz Markie did it using only his mouth.

Rahzel, “The Godfather of Noyze”, is one of the best artists worldwide who are still actively beatboxing today, taking his cue from both Grandmaster Flash and The Fat Boys.

Hardly anyone has researched or stretched the limits of vocal feasibility as systematically as he has over the last 20 years. He used two basic cassette recorders to tape his initial attempts and then, using a “multi-layering” technique, superimposed beats, instrumental sounds, vocals and effects, continuously created new layers until he had completely recreated well-known rap and disco tracks using just his mouth. In so doing, he perfected his technique to such an extent that he reached a point where he no longer needed tape. Competing in beatbox battles, Rahzel fought his way through all five of New York’s boroughs to become champion, soon gained a great reputation in other US states, and finally hit the international stage. The rest is history: He became a member of the influential hip hop band The Roots and featured on tracks

by Erykah Badu, Björk, Sean Paul, French cult hip hop band Alliance Ethnik and German rappers Die Fantastischen Vier. When asked about the secret to his success, he told me: “Practice, practice, practice – 24/7! When I want to learn a new piece or a new pattern, I put on my headphones and listen to it over and over, even while I’m sleeping. And when I wake up in the morning, I can beatbox it,” he added with a mischievous smile and shrug of the shoulders. Even today, his 1999 album Make the Music 2000 is considered the most influential beatbox album ever.

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Anyone who has a YouTube clip with 41 million views must have a talent you don’t see everyday. Kyle Jones, better known by his stage name Scratch, is one of the few who could take on the Godfather of Noyze; he too was a member of The Roots for some time. In his performances it is much more than a question of simple “mouth percussion”.

Jones samples current hits as well as classics in his mixes and he doesn’t just scratch, but can recite entire passages backwards without his inner beatbox losing the beat.

Anyone who wants to make it on the international beatbox scene has to get past him and Rahzel first.

The Austrian group Bauchklang stands for a very particular type of human beatboxing, established back in 1996.

One of their three albums of pure vocal percussion and song is not only called Live in Mumbai, but was in fact produced during a festival performance in India. The quintet’s music moves away from the well-trodden territory of hip hop; here, their group beatboxing has been reprogrammed to work with dance and reggae. The members of Bauchklang compose and play their own pieces, at times with minimalistic, technoid keyboard sounds and sirens and then again with reggae-inspired vibes. It may be less technically challenging than the intricate solo performances by Scratch and Rahzel, but the “tight” ensemble sound unleashes an outstanding power that doesn’t lose any of its strength whether played in small clubs or to large festival crowds. If you just listen to them, there is a real danger of forgetting that there are no technical aids – apart from a microphone of course – at play here at all.

Today, thanks to the Internet, young beatbox talents can not only watch and hear the best performances by the genre’s greats, but also measure their skills against others their age; the preliminary stages of the US Beatbox Battle World Championship of course take place online too. For the most part, the quality and variety of the clips entered is literally “breathtaking”. As well as the (white) Californian SySyGy, who breathes an absurd drum & bass track with 160 beats a minute into the microphone, a very young American girl of Chinese descent is also in the running with her track IX, where she unleashes a firework of pipes, scratches, synthie sounds and hectic beats, recorded in her bathroom at home (that’s the room with the best acoustics).

Human beatboxing is also very popular in Japan, and as if it weren’t enough that they just snatched the FIFA Women’s World Cup from underneath the Americans’ noses; a young Japanese musician is aiming for the beatboxing championship title. Daichi not only serves up his fast freestyle track with a powerful baseline and a funny Eye of the Tiger quote, but also layers a whole series of excellently executed scratches on top. The whole thing sounds so masterful that a positively amazed YouTube viewer asked “How many radios has this guy eaten?”

In summary, this art form, which first evolved around 30 years ago in the metropolises of the United States, is not only very much alive and kicking, but is continually developing and now actually in its third generation. Not only in New York, London and Tokyo, but also in Paris, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin and of course internationally – online. In contrast to the Baseball World Series, the Beatbox Battle World Championship is now being fought out by solo artists and crews from all over the world and that is surely a good thing for the future of the genre.

Christian Arndt www.humanbeatboxing.com www.beatboxbattle.tv www.youtube.com www.myspace.com/therealrahzelpage www.daichibeat.jp www.bauchklang.com

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“…I PUT ON MY HEADPHONES AND LISTEN TO IT OVER AND OVER, EVEN WHILE I’M SLEEPING. AND WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING, I CAN BEATBOX IT.”

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MODERN

DJ Spooky: Work-play balance Spooky. Yep, that’s it. The man is spooky. Spooky, because his output is just immense; spooky, because he works in so many different fields. DJ Spooky: the name really hits the nail on the head. Or in full: DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid. Paul D. Miller, which is his “real” name, borrowed this last part from a book by William S. Burroughs. Subliminal – a DJ who works under the threshold of consciousness?

It is actually a good description for someone who in most people’s eyes is only there to make other people dance. Yet Miller, born in 1970, does not see himself as a DJ. At least, he didn’t want to be one, as he told me in an interview: “I never planned to do deejaying. It was meant to be a side project. I was planning on being an artist and writer – music kind of took over. I tried to pull myself out of it, but it won’t let go, so people say: He’s a DJ! No, I’m a writer, I do books, I do iPhone and iPad apps, I’m a software developer.”

Working in the world of software for smartphones and tablet computers has paid off. The tools he helped develop have been downloaded over 6.5 million times so far and enable him to pursue his other interests. “I don’t need to deejay that much anymore. I want to focus on other things like my books and my museum and gallery installations.

Right now I’m known as a DJ who occasionally does art, even though I do art all the time. I’m trying to remix that so I’m more of an artist who occasionally deejays.”

Miller is simply turning the tables. An interesting perspective, which is not surprising in view of his background. He studied philosophy and French literature – also rather unusual for a “regular” DJ. Miller uses the idea of the remix in a unique way, creating something new from already existing material. He also applies this technique to other fields, be it as an artist, writer, software developer, teacher or musician. Thus Miller’s method of working is similar to that of a disc jockey, but he is not to be found behind the turntables in the world’s hottest clubs. Miller is no conventional DJ, he experiments with sounds. His field is collage, remixing. And so alongside his sampling he also greedily soaks up all other impressions, mixes and edits them and spits them out as new compositions. Just making music would be too boring for him: “I never planned to do normal music. Music is very reductionist.”

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Miller defies classification. He is always on the go somewhere in the world and never stops for breath. He is the prototype of a new, restless artist type – he is THE modern “renaissance man”.

A look at his immense output is clear proof of this. As a multimedia artist, Miller has exhibited works at the Venice Biennial, Art Basel Miami Beach, Museum Ludwig in Cologne and Kunsthalle Wien. Then there are his books: Rhythm Science, in which he explores the role of the DJ as someone who makes use of all kinds of resources and in so doing ultimately offers an insight into his own work as a DJ. Sound Unbound is a collection of 36 essays on “contemporary compositional strategies” with contributions by Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Jonathan Lethem, Chuck D, Moby, Saul Williams, Pierre Boulez and many more. His latest book was published this summer: The Book of Ice. He wrote it on a trip to Antarctica, the uninhabited and stateless icy colossus around the South Pole. The book is a collection of photographs, stories and interviews and also contains Miller’s Manifesto for a People’s Republic of Antarctica: noone should be allowed to settle there and no government should claim authority there – even if a number of states have long since registered claims. His graphic works for the manifesto feature in the excellent compendium Green Patriot Posters, a book project exploring the topics of sustainability and the fight against climate change.

Miller’s next book is already on the drawing board. Under the working title The Book of Islands, it takes us straight to another of the artist’s current projects, namely the Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation. Miller is setting about establishing a “Center for the Arts” on Tanna, an island in the South Pacific belonging to the independent group of over 80 islands that goes to make up Vanuatu. He was invited to the island in 2009 and was immediately fascinated by the way of life on the quiet and rather isolated archipelago. The Center for the Arts is conceived as a place where international artists and natives can come together. It is intended to promote dialog between the two and offer the visiting artists and thinkers an ideal environment for their work.

The project aims to link our 21st-century technology with the locals’ traditional knowledge of the environment.

“I had some of the best times of the last ten years hanging out with these people in Vanuatu and learning about their way of decelerating things. We live in a very accelerated and fragmented culture. It’s very important for me to create a place of peace for myself to just regroup. There is a calmness and peacefulness there that I treasure.”

Photo: Becky Yee

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“IT’S VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME TO CREATE A PLACE OF PEACE FOR MYSELF TO JUST REGROUP. THERE IS A CALMNESS AND PEACEFULNESS THERE THAT I TREASURE.” 68 HEAR THE WORLD

When asked if the mini paradise might become a hot new vacation destination, Miller shows no signs of worry: “It’s a 27-hour flight from New York, the island won’t get overrun.”

At present Miller is working on replicas of original Vanuatu percussion instruments. They are based on drums from the extensive collection of the Museum der Weltkulturen in Frankfurt/Main. Miller is a guest artist there and has the privilege of being able to choose whichever exhibits he likes to put in a new light and reinterpret. “The Museum der Weltkulturen has one of the premier collections of Oceanic art. I work with their collection, their library, their photography to come up with an initiative to see what happens if we apply current digital media techniques to historical material. I’ll bring some current energy to the collection and we’re going to have an exhibition.”

Miller is also planning a percussion project with the drummers of the bands The Police and Living Colour, namely Stewart Copeland and Will Calhoun. Perhaps even with the South Sea drums? The Pacific islands will also be the theme of another work for the Venice Biennial at the end of the year.

Miller is a master at realizing new ideas. Yet he likes working in teams and is certainly not the lone wolf he may seem.

The list of people he has worked with is long and notably varied. There is one collaboration after the other: be it with rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Lee Scratch Perry, Dave Lombardo from Slayer or Meredith Monk, whose new album he is currently producing – Miller has no reservations.

He draws inspiration from all sources imaginable; he never seems to run out of ideas. That is his particular strength. “A lot of my work is exploring ideas.” And that requires time, which for the New Yorker is always in short supply given his workload: “My main thing is that I have to think about time – there’s never enough time. If you don’t have time to think about new ideas you’re just going to keep repeating the same ones.”

Yet it seems Miller does indeed make time to think and as such is in no danger of continually repeating the same ideas. He is always thinking outside the box: “People just have to really appreciate and respect other forms of organizing time and social space. That’s what I think we can learn from indigenous people and that’s what I have been learning from them.”

Miller again spent a month in Vanuatu this July to start preparations for building the Center for the Arts. His tweets were only sporadic – no wonder: “There’s one place to check emails and I don’t go there very often …”

That’s it: He needs this sanctuary to recover from all his projects and so that for once he is not available and cannot be reached. Maybe he likes life in the Pacific so much that he’ll retire there some day … but I can’t really see that: He enjoys his work too much. It’s like he says at the end of our meeting: “Work for me is play.”

So … play on, DJ Spooky, play on.

Matthias Westerweller

1996 saw the release of his first own artist album, which made him the pioneer of a new genre that critics labeled “illbient”: a fusion of ambient and the seal of quality “ill” borrowed from hip hop slang, which stands for something particularly extreme, but ultimately positive. Over the years he has done such diverse things as remixes for Metallica or Nick Cave and film scores. But Miller does not simply compose a score for a movie. He treated D.W. Griffith’s controversial propaganda film Birth of a Nation like a DJ mix by adding historical image material from the past and present.

He deconstructs the silent film and recomposes it, as it were. The soundtrack was a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet – yes, Miller also writes for string players. As he did for another project, namely Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, the acoustic portrait of his journey to Antarctica.

Miller also developed his iPhone app on this trip.

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MODERN

Girly music or: What’s next, Jamie Woon?

Photo: Phil Sharp

August 2007: A small podium has been set up in the middle of the open-air dance floor on the terrace at a summer party in Frankfurt. Shortly after sunset, a man unknown to most guests steps onto it with his guitar, a microphone, numerous pedals on the floor and a loop station, which he uses now and again to reproduce and layer his voice.

The pace of the party, which is gradually starting to get into swing, slows down again and it morphs into an acoustic songwriter live set, which would later be described as magical and legendary. With many compositions of his own and a phenomenal cover version of the Björk classic All Is Full Of Love, the young Londoner by the name of Jamie Woon gradually wows the audience, and in the end over 300 voices are singing the refrain. All really is full of love and the party goes on with the revelers relaxed and smiling contentedly until the sun rises over the small, peaceful lake behind the podium, smooth and calm in the morning light.

A perfect setting according to the 28-year-old Woon.

Indeed, he loves working at night: the quiet and accompanying bubbling creativity have produced most of the songs in his continually increasing repertoire. During nighttime walks too. He has now set his passion for night work to music in the brilliant Night Air, the opener on his debut album Mirrorwriting (Polydor/Universal), the finishing touches for which took almost four years. It also required the songs, originally composed acoustically with a guitar and also performed as such at countless sets, to be transformed into electronically reinforced tracks on which you often can no longer hear the guitar at all. Traditionally, pop songs are created in this way, and that is precisely what Jamie Woon always wanted to do. Even if many music journalists want to classify him, together with James Blake whom we presented in the last issue, as belonging to a genre that doesn’t really exist, namely post-dubstep.

This is probably because his first official release, a version of the traditional American folk song The Wayfaring Stranger, reached the ears of the central figures of a burgeoning dubstep scene in Great Britain. At the forefront of the piece is the Londoner’s velvety-soft voice, which he likes to play with. “I love reverb. Of course, you can overdo it, but you can create an incredible atmosphere with it.

I get really excited by really deep sub basses with not much in-between. There’s enough room for some twinkly stuff on top and this big cavern, for the voice.” Inspired by his mother’s (Scottish folk legend Mae McKenna) studio sessions, Woon started writing songs. McKenna sang for countless superstars like Björk and Michael Jackson and was a backing singer for many of the hits produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman. Initially Woon performed his songs at the “One Taste” evenings he curated himself, a platform for young, unknown performers of an emerging new wave of singer-songwriters. Alongside his mother’s work, other artists who have had the greatest influence on him include Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, R&B greats like D’Angelo and Boyz II Men, newer names like Mount Kimbie or the abovementioned James Blake and the

Tulsa Sound legend J.J. Cale. “I like people who find different ways of doing the blues. It’s at the root of all popular music. Blues and bass – that’s the real hybrid!” And Jamie Woon enriches this sound with a decent shot of pop.

Mirrorwriting features several Woon evergreens like Spirits, an appeal to take a more careful approach to nature, or the love song Gravity and one of the songs that popped into his head on a nighttime walk (Waterfront), plus several potential hits. Lady Luck is probably the most striking and radio-friendly track on the album.

One of the most remarkable things about Jamie Woon is that in just under five years he has gained a following solely on the back of live shows and without any help from major labels. In this regard he is following in the footsteps of his role models and sources of inspiration. We can’t help but describe all this as girly music, an impression that his charming, somewhat shy manner at his live sets only serves to reinforce. Songs that he originally recorded acoustically and then produced completely using the computer program Ableton are now performed on stage with a five-member band. And yet the magic only returns when he stands on stage alone during the encores and goes back to his roots. All it needs is a soul boy with a soft voice and a guitar who sincerely expresses his emotions through his music. When the prestigious Mercury Prize is awarded in the UK, we will get an idea at the end of the year whether he is going to succeed with this approach in the long run and what life has in store for him. He has been nominated in any case, thanks to the hype surrounding his influential fourth place in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 ranking in January this year. But for that he might need a wider range or a more clearly defined sound, like that which James Blake consistently delivers including in his live sets, complete with goose-bump moments. Indeed, he is nominated too … and is equally popular among both sexes. And moreover has the potential to open completely different musical doors. Anyone who likes good pop music that sticks in your head with catchy melodies should reach for Jamie Woon’s debut album this year. No-one knows what will come next, but we hope he will be more than a one-album wonder. In any case, it is written in the stars, like those that twinkled in the moonlit sky over Frankfurt that evening …

Michael Rütten

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MODERN

Philipp Rathmer A sharp eye When asked what is typical of him, he says he is probably one of the biggest fans of the FC St. Pauli football team ever. Always close to the action and with an eye for detail.

It’s an advantage in his professional life, too. Hamburgbased photographer Philipp Rathmer has it, namely that eye for the extraordinary. He is willing to experiment and he is extremely versatile. Something he has proven in numerous works. Indeed, he has long since made a name for himself as a photographer, capturing celebrities, fashion, beauty, portraits, landscapes – in fact whatever happens to be in front of his camera – with the power of the moment and constantly creating surprises. He plays with colors, light and material and the results are extraordinary. Yet those who think Rathmer’s work is limited to glitz and glamour and artificial aesthetics are wrong. For he has traveled the world and seen a great deal: beautiful things and not so beautiful things.

Rathmer is visibly impressed by the commitment of volunteer German ENT doctor Dr. Michaela Fuchs and her staff who “do an incredible job” and are dedicated to helping the most needy, where basic care even for the youngest is not guaranteed.

With support from the Hear the World Foundation, all the children affected were examined thoroughly and subsequently fitted with a hearing aid adapted to their needs; a simple measure that considerably increases their chances of receiving an education and vocational training in their native country and can prevent them from being socially marginalized. As though the children knew exactly how much this would improve their lives, they beamed into Rathmer’s camera and let us be part of their newly acquired happiness. As an observer, Rathmer more than succeeded in capturing this small ray of light in his photographs.

Sandra Spannaus www.philipprathmer.de www.hear-the-world.com/foundation

Photos: Philipp Rathmer

He was recently in Africa with Swiss musician and Hear the World ambassador Patrick Nuo and had a look around the poorest districts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, a million miles from commercialism and beautymania. The resulting snapshots are unspectacular and all the more impressive precisely for that reason: naked, highly expressive portraits of socially disadvantaged children all suffering from hearing loss.

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EUNICE RAGIRA HEAR THE WORLD 73

CHERONO KIRUI 74 HEAR THE WORLD

GLADWELL NJOKI HEAR THE WORLD 75

JASRAJ GAHIR 76 HEAR THE WORLD

JAMES NJERU HEAR THE WORLD 77

PETER MWAURA 78 HEAR THE WORLD

KELVIN OTIENO HEAR THE WORLD 79

MODERN

The voice of Sam Prekop A few years before he was born and a few hundred miles south of Chicago, back at the end of the fifties something happened that was to have a certain significance for Sam Prekop. The then completely unknown João Gilberto escaped pulsating Rio de Janeiro for a while, fleeing into the arms of his relatives in the small town of Diamantina.

The singer was in a crisis and hoped that there, a far cry from the metropolis, he would get a little closer to his musical visions. To the wrath of his fellow inhabitants, he locked himself in the small bathroom for hours or days on end, played guitar, and sang to the walls. When he finally stepped back out into the light of day, it was to gift the world bossa nova. João Gilberto’s voice must have almost dissolved in the course of that bathroom exile, becoming ever softer and more ethereal, fading into pure yearning.

The tiles of the bathroom were unforgiving, and even the most minute exaltation was punished by being bounced back to the sensitive ear as noise. João Gilberto emerged as one of the softest, most entrancing singers in history, and Sam Prekop was to become one of his greatest admirers. Whenever Prekop is asked what album has had the greatest impact on him, he cites Gilberto’s so-called White Album, released in 1973. It’s an intricate mixture of melancholy, simplicity, grace, intensity, virtuosity and rhythm.

And if you listen carefully, you can detect precisely those elements in Sam Prekop’s voice: Not only the effeminate falsetto the soul singers of the Sixties and Seventies so loved, and not only the influence of Curtis Mayfield or Smokey Robinson, but you also definitely hear João Gilberto’s voice in its search for silence.

Sam Prekop, musician and photo artist from Chicago, that mecca of jazz and post-rock, first hit the headlines in the early Nineties with his band Shrimp Boat, the core members of which formed The Sea and Cake in 1993. Only recently, the band (it now consists of Prekop, Archer Prewitt on guitar, Eric Claridge on bass and John McEntire on drums) released its ninth album. As with the eight before, on The Moonlight Butterfly the focus is not on innovation or even radical new beginnings, but on developing musical forms already devised, giving them greater depth, getting that bit closer to the essence of the songs. The band develops the drive in its music so subtly you don’t even notice how much the sound has seized hold of you. In this context, it’s fair to say that for decades Sam Prekop has been writing one and the same piece, a finely structured song that glides along with a spring in its step, breathed or sighed. In fact, now and again Prekop’s English sounds as foreign as João Gilberto’s Portuguese. What counts is the tone, and the tone generates meaning born of feeling.

These immediately identifiable sonic images go hand in hand with the guitar riffs Prekop and Prewitt usually play on the higher strings, enticing and embracing each other, while in the background Claridge’s bass sculpts sonorous, elegant lines that are more melodic than rhythmic. Only John McEntire seems less “sophisticated”, hitting a usually straightforward beat, as if these otherwise almost freefloating tones needed at least one clear bedrock.

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Above them all lords Prekop’s voice, although “lord” is possibly not apposite, as his voice is neither bragging nor pompous or even ostentatious: It seems to glide over the other instruments and to arise from the band’s overall sound, to step forth from the background, to be part of the whole and yet decisively present and predominant, initially quite without being pushy. Like a shy actor who sneaks a look at the audience from behind the curtain before stepping out onto the grand stage, where, with small gestures and cautious mimicry he gradually grows more confident and then, finally, triumphs. Prekop is a minimalist singer, who plays his instrument quietly but with great refinement. That wasn’t always the case, and the restraint is the product of greater depth, of a perhaps ongoing process.

With Shrimp Boat and on the early The Sea and Cake albums there was still the occasional outburst of strong emotions, manifest in the voice and in the overall sensory appeal, even in screaming and shouting, but down through the years this has given way to stoic softness. Perhaps, you may think now and again, this voice will at some point be so restrained that you can hardly hear it at all.

A taste of this, if you like, was to be heard on Sam Prekop’s last solo album, entitled Old Punch Card. Electronic miniatures on the synthesizer, a completely new and for Prekop quite unusual sound, and the voice had disappeared.

Thankfully, it’s back on The Moonlight Butterfly, as beautiful and effective as on the band’s last three albums. Yet The Sea and Cake has made a few minor shifts in its dense sonic weave, as is best shown on the new album by the synthesizer title track The Moonlight Butterfly, reminiscent of Prekop’s last solo album. At first, it sounds out of place, but structures the mini-album and gives contours to how the other songs are made, rather than flying in their face. The synthesizer also creates the backbone for Inn Keeping, a long piece built around a pulsating motif, discreetly alluding to krautrock and conveying that leantback sense of relaxation that makes The Sea and Cake the most spectacular unspectacular band in the world.

And Sam Prekop one of the most ethereal singers of today.

Ulrich Rüdenauer

HEAR THE WORLD 81 Photo: Erik Keldsen

HEAR THE WORLD IMPRINT

Publishing Company

Trademark Publishing, Westendstr. 87, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany Publishing manager Armin J. Noll Publisher Alexander Zschokke Editorial team Maarten Barmentlo, Heiko Ernst, Markus Frenzl, Christian Gärtner, Antonia Henschel (V.i.S.d.P.G.), Karl W. Henschel, Christine Ringhoff, Elena Torresani Cover photo Bryan Adams Contributors Bryan Adams, Max Ackermann, Christian Arndt, Anno Bachem, Nico Beck, Markus Frenzl, Hennie Haworth, Shin-Shin Hobi, Sandra Hofmeister, Klaus Janke, Marcel Krenz, Stefan Kugel, Daniel Lachenmeier, Staffan Larsson, Céline Meyrat, Philipp Rathmer, Malin Rosenqvist, Ulrich Rüdenauer, Michael Rütten, Sandra Spannaus, Daniela Tewes, Matthias Westerweller Art direction Antonia Henschel Production Remo Weiss Translations Jeremy Gaines Printed by pva, Druck und Medien-Dienstleistungen GmbH, Landau/Pfalz, Germany www.hear-the-world.com ISSN 1863-9755

Ad selling Publicitas GmbH, Falkensteiner Str. 77, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, phone: +49 (0)69 719 149 29, fax: +49 (0)69 719 149 30, email: sven.kietz@publicitas.com, www.publicitas.com/germany Von Wedel Media Solutions, Amselstraße 1b, 22081 Hamburg, Germany, phone: +49 (0)40 677 85 29, Mobile: +49 (0)173 208 52 51, fax: +49 (0)40 401 68 102, email: vonwedel@vwedel-mediasolutions.de The magazine HEAR THE WORLD is published quarterly.

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The articles published in HEAR THE WORLD are protected by copyright. Reprints, even in part, are only possible with the publishing company’s prior written permission. Neither the publisher nor the editors assume responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and photos submitted. We presume the right to print letters sent to the editor, in full or in part. The editor is not responsible for the content of ads and ad supplements.

In the next issue:

Attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) KT Tunstall The Vegetable Orchestra

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AMY WINEHOUSE (* 14 SEPTEMBER 1983; † 23 JULY 2011) Thank you Amy – your music will never be forgotten.

Just because you can’t hear a high-frequency sound, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

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