Ambient Podcast Broadcast
There's an ongoing Spacemusic podcast out of the Netherlands, hosted by TC from Rotterdam. (An eccentric radio announcer if every there was one, but with good taste in ambient music, trance, and techno, and their related genres.) I've been listening to Spacemusic for years.
On the Spacemusic webpage, scroll down a bit to the episode titled 07 Jun 10 Coffee Break: 64-bit podcast. You can download or listen via from there, or subscribe and download via iTunes.
The last track on this podcast episode, starting just after 59 minutes, and about 8 minutes long, features Tony Kapela playing mostly bass guitar (and processing), and myself playing Chapman Stick. You'll hear some recognizable Stick sounds in there, but mostly it's very floaty-ambient, which is very appropriate for this Spacemusic program. I was very pleased to be part of this. (Actually, although I've listened to Spacemusic for years, I didn't know Tony had finished and submitted this track till I heard the show. Surprise!) TC seemed to think those were guitar sounds, but htey're actually made on Stick.
Ambient Stick marches on!
On the Spacemusic webpage, scroll down a bit to the episode titled 07 Jun 10 Coffee Break: 64-bit podcast. You can download or listen via from there, or subscribe and download via iTunes.
The last track on this podcast episode, starting just after 59 minutes, and about 8 minutes long, features Tony Kapela playing mostly bass guitar (and processing), and myself playing Chapman Stick. You'll hear some recognizable Stick sounds in there, but mostly it's very floaty-ambient, which is very appropriate for this Spacemusic program. I was very pleased to be part of this. (Actually, although I've listened to Spacemusic for years, I didn't know Tony had finished and submitted this track till I heard the show. Surprise!) TC seemed to think those were guitar sounds, but htey're actually made on Stick.
Ambient Stick marches on!
Labels: ambient music, Chapman Stick, music, podcast
posted by Art Durkee at 8:00 AM
2 Comments:
I had a wee listen to it. Very pleasant but I don't recall any stick sounds. I tend to prefer my ambient music with a bit more shape, maybe not so much a tune as regular markers or motifs that become familiar and that the listener looks forward to. This was like a wash of sound, nice but not too memorable.
Between what Erik Satie called "furniture" music and what Brian Eno called ambient music, exemplified by his album "Music for Airports," there's a lot of room to move around in. The whole point being that ambient music doesn't need to have a beat, a melody (a hummable tune), or a musical form.
Because of the dominance of the various forms of techno over most leading-edge music in the various underground scenes in opposition to over-produced corporate pop music—think alternative film rather than Hollywood movie—everybody tends to think everything has to have a beat. If it doesn't have some kind of beat or melody, it's not music, right? That's the contemporary assumption.
The whole point of ambient music is that it's there but you don't have to listen to it. There's that fine line between the music being present, and the music requiring your attention. Passive vs. active listening.
So I have no problem with it being a was of sound. That's sort of the point. Other musics that I (we) make do have a beat, and do have melody and shape. But that wasn't the purpose here.
All the things that sound like guitar in this piece are actually Stick.
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