Daniel Belgrad
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226652368
- eISBN:
- 9780226652672
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226652672.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how experimental composers of the sixties and seventies explored the possible use of music as a means of engaging in an intersubjective dialogue with sentient nature. Following ...
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This chapter examines how experimental composers of the sixties and seventies explored the possible use of music as a means of engaging in an intersubjective dialogue with sentient nature. Following John Cage, they explored music as a decentralized physical phenomenon that derived its meaningfulness on that basis, rather than from an intentional arrangement of sounds.How could human society find its voice in nature? Within a cultural context defined by a new concern for noise pollution and "acoustic ecology," experimental composers invented various ways of making music that integrated sounds into a natural, open system organized by feedback relations. In this way their music took forms that created a human interface with other natural, open systems. Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley were the most important pioneers of this music. Young and Riley in particular were influenced by the raga form of Indian classical music. Other important contributors to the evolution of the style were Max Neuhaus, Alvin Lucier, and Cornelius Cardew. Philip Glass and Brian Eno were instrumental in bringing this music, which Eno named ambient music, to the attention of the general public.Less
This chapter examines how experimental composers of the sixties and seventies explored the possible use of music as a means of engaging in an intersubjective dialogue with sentient nature. Following John Cage, they explored music as a decentralized physical phenomenon that derived its meaningfulness on that basis, rather than from an intentional arrangement of sounds.How could human society find its voice in nature? Within a cultural context defined by a new concern for noise pollution and "acoustic ecology," experimental composers invented various ways of making music that integrated sounds into a natural, open system organized by feedback relations. In this way their music took forms that created a human interface with other natural, open systems. Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley were the most important pioneers of this music. Young and Riley in particular were influenced by the raga form of Indian classical music. Other important contributors to the evolution of the style were Max Neuhaus, Alvin Lucier, and Cornelius Cardew. Philip Glass and Brian Eno were instrumental in bringing this music, which Eno named ambient music, to the attention of the general public.
Adam Patrick Bell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190296605
- eISBN:
- 9780190296643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190296605.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Chapter 2 discusses the role of the producer, the concept of instrumentality, and how the recording studio has come to be conceptualized as an instrument since the mid-twentieth century. As ...
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Chapter 2 discusses the role of the producer, the concept of instrumentality, and how the recording studio has come to be conceptualized as an instrument since the mid-twentieth century. As exemplified by the practices of producers in the 1950s (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) and the 1960s (Phil Spector, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and Motown’s Berry Gordy), early iterations of the studio as musical instrument entailed a collaborative process of working with musicians and studio personnel. In the early 1970s playing the studio as musical instrument took on a new meaning in the hands of Jamaican dub producers like King Tubby, who forewent working with musicians in the studio and instead reimagined and remixed prerecorded tracks by playing the equipment of the studio. This approach was furthered by hip-hop producers in New York, notably the Bomb Squad, who incorporated the sampler into their studio-playing practices. Finally, a glimpse into the practices of Max Martin demonstrates that in contemporary music production DAWs are the de facto instrument.Less
Chapter 2 discusses the role of the producer, the concept of instrumentality, and how the recording studio has come to be conceptualized as an instrument since the mid-twentieth century. As exemplified by the practices of producers in the 1950s (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) and the 1960s (Phil Spector, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and Motown’s Berry Gordy), early iterations of the studio as musical instrument entailed a collaborative process of working with musicians and studio personnel. In the early 1970s playing the studio as musical instrument took on a new meaning in the hands of Jamaican dub producers like King Tubby, who forewent working with musicians in the studio and instead reimagined and remixed prerecorded tracks by playing the equipment of the studio. This approach was furthered by hip-hop producers in New York, notably the Bomb Squad, who incorporated the sampler into their studio-playing practices. Finally, a glimpse into the practices of Max Martin demonstrates that in contemporary music production DAWs are the de facto instrument.
John T. Lysaker
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190497293
- eISBN:
- 9780190497330
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190497293.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This study situates Eno’s ambient masterpiece, Music For Airports, within various avant-garde trends in order to underscore its multiple dimensions. In the manner of Satie, it aims to tint living ...
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This study situates Eno’s ambient masterpiece, Music For Airports, within various avant-garde trends in order to underscore its multiple dimensions. In the manner of Satie, it aims to tint living situations without demanding that listeners give the album their full attention. In the manner of Cage, and with La Monte Young’s feel for the textures of individual tones, it arranges the activity of sounds outside traditional Euro-American musical conventions, and in a manner that can spark a kind of thoughtful reverie, thus bringing art into vital, possibly transformative contact with everyday life. Finally, like some of Steve Reich’s works, Music for Airports functions as a piece of conceptual art, facilitating sustained reflections on creativity, listening, and the overall ecology of human activity and meaning, including its technological variability. Because the album has these three distinct dimensions, it requires “prismatic listening,” which switches between distinct modes of attention in the knowledge that these dimensions cannot be heard simultaneously.Less
This study situates Eno’s ambient masterpiece, Music For Airports, within various avant-garde trends in order to underscore its multiple dimensions. In the manner of Satie, it aims to tint living situations without demanding that listeners give the album their full attention. In the manner of Cage, and with La Monte Young’s feel for the textures of individual tones, it arranges the activity of sounds outside traditional Euro-American musical conventions, and in a manner that can spark a kind of thoughtful reverie, thus bringing art into vital, possibly transformative contact with everyday life. Finally, like some of Steve Reich’s works, Music for Airports functions as a piece of conceptual art, facilitating sustained reflections on creativity, listening, and the overall ecology of human activity and meaning, including its technological variability. Because the album has these three distinct dimensions, it requires “prismatic listening,” which switches between distinct modes of attention in the knowledge that these dimensions cannot be heard simultaneously.
Paul Roquet
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816692446
- eISBN:
- 9781452953625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816692446.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools ...
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Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools to tune this atmospheric self. The book traces the emergence of mood-regulating media in Japan from the environmental art and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 70s to the more recent emphasis on “healing” styles. Focusing on how ambience reshapes those dwelling within it, Ambient Media explores the working of atmospheres designed for affective calm, rhythmic attunement, embodied security, and urban coexistence. The book argues for understanding ambient media as a specifically neoliberal response to mood regulation, serving as a way to atmospherically shape collective behavior while providing resources for emotional autonomy and attention restoration at the individual level. Ambient Media considers the adaptive side of atmosphere as an approach to self-care and social mobility. At the same time, the book considers the limits of mood regulation and the low-affect lifestyle when it comes to interpersonal life. Musicians, video artists, filmmakers, and writers in Japan have expanded on Brian Eno’s original idea of a style affording “calm, and a space to think,” providing materials to cultivate sensory serenity within the uncertain horizons of the contemporary social landscape. Offering a new way of understanding Japanese social demands to “read the air,” the book documents both the adaptive and the alarming sides of this turn to mediated moods.Less
Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools to tune this atmospheric self. The book traces the emergence of mood-regulating media in Japan from the environmental art and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 70s to the more recent emphasis on “healing” styles. Focusing on how ambience reshapes those dwelling within it, Ambient Media explores the working of atmospheres designed for affective calm, rhythmic attunement, embodied security, and urban coexistence. The book argues for understanding ambient media as a specifically neoliberal response to mood regulation, serving as a way to atmospherically shape collective behavior while providing resources for emotional autonomy and attention restoration at the individual level. Ambient Media considers the adaptive side of atmosphere as an approach to self-care and social mobility. At the same time, the book considers the limits of mood regulation and the low-affect lifestyle when it comes to interpersonal life. Musicians, video artists, filmmakers, and writers in Japan have expanded on Brian Eno’s original idea of a style affording “calm, and a space to think,” providing materials to cultivate sensory serenity within the uncertain horizons of the contemporary social landscape. Offering a new way of understanding Japanese social demands to “read the air,” the book documents both the adaptive and the alarming sides of this turn to mediated moods.
