Percy Grainger: free music experiments and studio portraits

During the 1950s Percy Grainger, together with his physicist friend Burnett Cross, invented bizarre looking sound-making contraptions from parts butchered from reed organs and other assorted instruments together with electrical componentry, bits of old timber and many yards of string. He gave these musical machines wonderful names like “Free Music Tone Tool” or “Kangaroo Pouch” machine and experimented with them to make what he called Free Music. For many years Grainger had been writing and talking about the possibilities of making music that was not tied to western culture’s conventions of pitch and rhythm. He tried to make music that was effectively ‘beatless’ and where pitch changed seamlessly, like a whistling wind or the rise and fall of a siren. The raw sounds of Grainger’s Free Music experiments anticipated the coming age of electronic music. 




Burnett Cross (1914-1996), New York Cross-Grainger Free Music experiment: Gliding tomes on whistle, notes on recorders, produced by holes and slits cut in paper rolls, February 1950 Silver gelatin print Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne.

Burnett Cross (1914-1996), New York Cross-Grainger Free Music experiment: “Sea Song” Sketch, three solovoxes, played by pianola roll, 1950 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne.

Burnett Cross (1914-1996), New York Ella Grainger, seated at her writing desk in the living room at home in White Plains, contemplates the “Kangaroo Pouch” Free Music machine, mid 1950s Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne.

Burnett Cross (1914-1996), New York Percy and Ella Grainger with the “Free Music Tone-Tool”, August 1951 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne. The “Free Music Tone Tool” used an air pressure system worked by a vacuum cleaner.

Unknown photographer , New York Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross demonstrating a Free Music experiment, February 1950 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne. This machine uses an organ pipe to create gliding tones. The holes are cut or drilled at one-third of a half-tone apart, and the pitch is controlled by rolling perforated paper over the pipe.

Ruskin Studios, Melbourne Publicity portrait of Percy Grainger, 1926 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne. Grainger often performed live-to-air recitals during his concert tours. Ruskin Studios produced a series of promotional images for ABC Radio 3LO during Grainger's 1926 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Unknown photographer Publicity portrait of Percy Grainger, c. 1935 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne.

Unknown photographer Percy Grainger "In the Round", 1933 Silver gelatin print. Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne.



Text and images courtesy of The Grainger Museum http://www.grainger.unimelb.edu.au/