Another short soundscaping study, using Fender Rhodes in the foreground to start, then fading in and out some more complex voices in the mix. Designed, once again, to provide a short interval of calm and relaxation in your day. Hope you enjoy, thanks for listening.
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/frank-paul-918241242/drift-study-2-the-swelling-of-spring
Cheers
Frank
Replies
Definitely calming. The thin-textured opening worked wonderfully and it could have gone on a while before the highly harmonically-blended mists (well, I can't really call them mists - waves, perhaps) drifted in behind. It so fits the pic attached to your soundcloud panel. Very ethereal.
Once again, though, I reckon you could have stretched another minute out of it at least. Calm is nice - but only 2 minutes? :)
Hi Dane
Thanks for your reply; much appreciated, as always. I hear you on the length issue - and totally agree. I need to address that. I think I've been having too much of an itchy trigger finger to close off these short ambient pieces too early. I definitely have a goal for the next one to be long form (30-60 minutes).
Thanks again for listening!
Cheers
Frank
Hi, Frank - I've enjoyed all your scoundscapes, and like Dane, I wish they could go on longer. I don't have experience in this form, but, I'm guessing a composer could keep a listener engaged four-to-six minutes on a single soundscape....like this one. So if you do something lasting 30-60 minutes how would you keep the listener enhaged. Would you, for instance, morph one sounscape into another, i.e. transition Drift Study 2 to "Rains Return" then onto "felt piano" ...... you know, transition the listener thru serial soundscapes?
I always enjoy these interesting concepts you come up with. --Ray
Thanks for your note Ray, much appreciated! You raise a very good point about maintaining listener interest in the case of long-form ambient compositions. There are a couple of thoughts that spring to mind in response. Firstly, I like the quote attributable to Brian Eno, who once said that "ambient music should be as ignorable as it is interesting". What he was getting at there, I think, in a funnily ironic way, is that ambient music can serve two overall purposes: 1) simply, quiet and non-intrusive sonic wallpaper you can have on in the backrgound while you do whatever activity you might otherwise have in mind that doesn't involve paying close attention to the music (e.g., like reading); or 2) putting on a pair of headphones and listening very closely to the minute detail in the music. In that context, you would almost prefer a longer duration for the piece, even if its intentions are far less obvious than, say, a symphonic piece. My other thought, related to that, is that when you analyze what's going on in long form ambient stuff, again, it's all about the glacial pace and the small details, and one can really take one's time developing those. (Not that I did in either of my two "Drift Study" comps as yet). The French electro-acoustic composer Eliane Radigue really comes to mind here; she will often begin with a long, unfolding drone and then add small textural details to it over time so that by the time you come to the end of the piece, you realize that what you've ended up with is a lot different than what you started with, even though you might not have been consciously aware of the evolution as it was unfolding. Anyways, just my own perceptions on that topic.
Thanks again for listening.
Cheers
Frank
Hi, Frank - I'm going to look her up (Eliane Radigue) and listen to her, keeping your comments in mind. I will probably listen to all ambient music from now on with his in mind, including electronic, avante garde.... all music, where the composer has made texture the primary object. Thank you for taking the time to organize and write out these thoughts.This paragraph of yours has wakened me to something new and it will change the way I listen. Wow.
Yes, I'm rooting for you that you'll continue to explore the longer form of this. --Ray
Oh very beautiful, I really enjoyed it, so relaxing great atmosphere and instruments, the harmony is pretty. it's more winterish for me hehe.
Thanks for those kind words Javier! Glad to hear that you enjoyed the listen. Cheers!
A very pleasant slowing down of time. This can really set a mood in a room, a meditation which allows thoughts to come and go like clouds.
Have you heard Eno's "Thursday Afternoon" or "Music for Airports"?
Thanks for posting!
Thanks for the nice feedback, Gregorio. Indeed, amongst my many musical interersts, Eno (and his sometime collaborator Jon Hassell) has been pretty consistently influential for me since I was a 17 y.o. hearing "Another Green World" for the first time back in the 80s. That album (and a few others, including the ones you cited) kind of changed my understanding of what music could be. Cheers!