KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Blurp! by Peg Ahrens

Analog Audio

Event Type

Music

Origin

KPFA

Identifier

P.AHR.MAR.02

Program Length

8 min

Dates

| broadcast
| 1974-10-31 | created

Description

Originally conceived as the soundtrack for a video sculpture piece, Blurp!, is a collage of strange vocalizations, recorded individually and then mixed together by Peg Ahrens in 1974. The sounds, all made by the human voice, vary from abrupt syllables, to humming, guttural sounds, and Daffy Duck like voices. The following is from a review of the work written by Beth Anderson which appeared in a 1974 edition of “EAR”.

“Peg Ahrens has a new piece called BLURP!!!, and she says it is, ‘permutations through time and space.’ I don't know what was going on in the sky that night but since everything else seemed to affect me bodily, this did too. It seemed to be totally oral. Peggy Blurp Ahrens, with the recurring Tigger theme woven into too many thematic ideas to count. Resembling improvisations on the eternity of the oral cavity. The most wonder-full comment I heard was, ‘Sounds like a healthy mid-western farm girl.’ Of course, Peggy is from Ohio, but the sounds weren't. Very full of humor and very aware of it. Nice.”

Genres

Sound poetry

Musical Selections

Blurp! (ca. 1974) / Peg Ahrens

Subjects

Text-sound compositions
Sound poetry
Vocalises

Acknowledgment

Funding for the preservation of this program made possible through a grant by the GRAMMY Foundation.

Related Entities

Ahrens, Margaret