Graphical sound

Graphical sound or drawn sound (Fr. son dessiné, Ger. graphische Tonerzeugung,; It. suono disegnato) is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are several different techniques depending on the technology employed, but all are a consequence of the sound-on-film technology and based on the creation of artificial optical polyphonic sound tracks on transparent film.

The first practical sound-on-film systems were created almost simultaneously in the USSR, USA and Germany. In Soviet Russia Pavel Tager initiated the first developments in 1926 in Moscow.

In 1927, just over a few months later, Alexander Shorin started his research in Leningrad. The popular version of his “Shorinophone”, widely used for field and studio sound recording, was based on a mechanical reproduction of gramophone-like longitudinal grooves along the filmstrip. Another version of Shorin’s system – “Kinap”, mainly used for sound-on-film production, was based on a variable area optical recording on film – “transversal” recoding as it was called in Russia.

As far back as 1916, in the article “Upcoming Science of Music and the New Era in the History of Music”, Arseny Avraamov proclaimed his view on the future of the Art of Music: “By knowing the way to record the most complex sound textures by means of a phonograph, after analysis of the curve structure of the sound groove, directing the needle of the resonating membrane, one can create synthetically any, even most fantastic sound by making a groove with a proper structure of shape and depth".

In October 1929 the first film-roll of Piatiletka. Plan velikih rabot ("Plan of Great Works") movie by A. Room was developed. The group working on this film included the painter, book illustrator and animator Mikhail Tsekhanovsky as well as talented inventor and engineer Evgeny Sholpo. But the most outstanding participant in the project was Arseny Avraamov - composer, journalist, music theorist, inventor, one of the most adventurous people of his time, performance instigator, irreconcilable foe of the classical twelve tone system (based on well-tempered scale), promoter of the ultrachromatic “Welttonsystem”, developer of experimental musical instruments and tools, and author of the storied Symphony of Factory Sirens.

The crew members were amazed with the view of the first sound track they ever saw and Mikhail Tsekhanovsky had voiced the idea: “what if we take some Egyptian or ancient Greek ornaments as a sound track, perhaps we will hear some unknown archaic music?”. Each crew member immediately recognized in the new optical film sound process a means to effectively realize their long-standing ideas: Arseny Avraamov - to develop further his concept of ultrachromatic “Welttonsystem” and to explore the sonic qualities of new ornamental sound; Evgeny Sholpo – to develop his “performer-less” musical tools. The next day they were already furiously at work on experiments in what they referred to variously as “ornamental”, "drawn," “paper”, “graphical”, “artificial” or "synthetic" sound.

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Wikipedia