Re: tyrannical ambient front

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

At 5:33 PM 8/4/97, Sarajane wrote:
>Caution: The following remarks are by a card carrying member
>of the "Tyrannical Ambient Front". Those easily offended by the
>lack of respect given to tradional musical logic, should avert their
>gaze now................or read on, and gather new scorn.
>
Aha, the ambient mafia reveals itself! No one expects the ambient 
inquisition!

Seriously, thanks for the input.  I totally respect your approach, I know
from experience that it's incredibly difficult to create music that works
gracefully as true ambience. My problem is that the word ambient has become
a generic catch phrase, and is on the verge of losing whatever real meaning
it had as a reference to music. Too many times I have tried to explain what
it is I'm after in my music, only to have the listener nod sagely and say,
"Ah, you do ambient music." Oh well, at least they're not calling it
jazz...

I've recommended this book before on this list, but David Toop's "Ocean of
Sound" is a terrific read. One of his major hypotheses is that this century
has seen 2 simultaneous forces that have potentially created a whole new
aesthetic of sound. One is the rise of music whose "meaning" is too
complex, too personal, or too ambiguous to be clearly read from just the
sound (I know this is very vague statement, hey, it takes Toop, a much
better writer than I the whole book to put this forth, what do you expect
me to do in a sentence?). This includes most contemporary classical music,
and much of the outer fringes of the pop and jazz worlds. The other force
is that the sound world we live in is increasingly complex, and includes
more music, whether we are listening to it consciouly or in the background,
than any previous era in human history. These forces have made us deal,
both as listeners and performers, with music in an entirely new way.
Anyway, it's a pretty thought-provoking book, I read it twice while I had
it from the library and will buy a copy soon.


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Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org  : www.peak.org/~improv/

"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
                                            -Sun Ra
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