Abstract electronica
Jul. 13th, 2007 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseIt strikes me that ambient electronica music is much like abstract art, in that both are extremely tricky to create. Sure, anyone can toss some paint on a canvas or mix a few sound samples and call it abstract or electronica, but it's not the physical process that's difficult. In order for it to be art, it needs to catch hold of the viewer/listener (hereon, "participant")'s emotions, and do so without giving the participant any framework on which to lean.
Think of it like mask acting. Humans are biologically primed to recognize faces, and simple facial expressions are universal across cultures. Many actors, then, depend on their face to communicate what it is they're feeling at the moment. Mask acting, wherein the actor wears a mask with either a preset or neutral expression, provides a challenge - communicate the character's emotional state using voice and body language alone. Few actors can do so truly effectively.
Likewise, abstract art is a challenge for the artist. People can easily recognize words, and pictures can be even more universal. Random splotches of color, on the other hand, aren't so clear-cut. Trying to find a way to engage a participant's emotions using nothing recognizable presents a huge obstacle for the artist. Therefore, 90% of abstract pieces (think the color-coordinated canvases adorning the walls at your local McDonald's, for instance) is nonchallenging, nonthreatening non-art. But every once in a while you see a piece that, despite (or perhaps because of) its lack of recognizable form, really provides a window into what the artist was feeling at the time.
Which brings me back to ambient electronica. By definition, this particular type of music has few recognizable instruments and no real lyrics; the sounds of which it is comprised are upsampled, downsampled, resampled, and generally processed often to the point of unrecognizability. Most of the music consists of a backbeat with a few chords overlaid, and maybe a complementary glitch pattern or two for gloss. Simple, easy to construct, but extremely hard to do well enough that a person registers it as more than pleasant background noise.
But get a good artist on your playlist - Massive Attack, Apparat, and Chicane all spring to mind - put on a pair of headphones, close your eyes, and you're in for an incredibly immersive trancelike experience. It's really no wonder that trance electronica is associated with drug use or long drives at night on an empty highway. If you loosen your ties to your logical mind, either chemically, through sleep/sensory deprivation, meditation or sheer force of will, this kind of music can take you on one hell of a trip.
Think of it like mask acting. Humans are biologically primed to recognize faces, and simple facial expressions are universal across cultures. Many actors, then, depend on their face to communicate what it is they're feeling at the moment. Mask acting, wherein the actor wears a mask with either a preset or neutral expression, provides a challenge - communicate the character's emotional state using voice and body language alone. Few actors can do so truly effectively.
Likewise, abstract art is a challenge for the artist. People can easily recognize words, and pictures can be even more universal. Random splotches of color, on the other hand, aren't so clear-cut. Trying to find a way to engage a participant's emotions using nothing recognizable presents a huge obstacle for the artist. Therefore, 90% of abstract pieces (think the color-coordinated canvases adorning the walls at your local McDonald's, for instance) is nonchallenging, nonthreatening non-art. But every once in a while you see a piece that, despite (or perhaps because of) its lack of recognizable form, really provides a window into what the artist was feeling at the time.
Which brings me back to ambient electronica. By definition, this particular type of music has few recognizable instruments and no real lyrics; the sounds of which it is comprised are upsampled, downsampled, resampled, and generally processed often to the point of unrecognizability. Most of the music consists of a backbeat with a few chords overlaid, and maybe a complementary glitch pattern or two for gloss. Simple, easy to construct, but extremely hard to do well enough that a person registers it as more than pleasant background noise.
But get a good artist on your playlist - Massive Attack, Apparat, and Chicane all spring to mind - put on a pair of headphones, close your eyes, and you're in for an incredibly immersive trancelike experience. It's really no wonder that trance electronica is associated with drug use or long drives at night on an empty highway. If you loosen your ties to your logical mind, either chemically, through sleep/sensory deprivation, meditation or sheer force of will, this kind of music can take you on one hell of a trip.
