2. Literature review
In this literature review, I am reviewing, connecting, commenting on, and counter-arguing the source literature which I have found on the use of technology in improvised ambient music making as well as on mindstates that are affiliated with improvised ambient music.
Technology in improvised ambient music
While often being considered to fall under the umbrella of electronic music, with machines and effects playing a major role in its creation, ambient music forms a unique symbiosis with improvisation. ”Improvisatory ambient music is an unpredictable and erratic assemblage, flush with its own surges of tension and release. It is a musical and mechanical space where dozens of ideas unexpectedly meet for a split second and then tear apart again within each repetition” (Siepmann, 2010, p.189). Here Siepmann eloquently talks about a music-making strategy called the delay line technique. His study explains its significance in the creation of improvised ambient music while creatively linking its usage to musicological, philosophical, and technical realms, thus giving an important contribution to the topic.
Brian Eno introduced the delay line technique to the world in the 1970s, and it was highlighted in his track ”Discreet music” (1975). This particular piece uses a ”simple but clever system that utilised early synthesizer sequencing and sound-on-sound tape looping” (Reverb Machine, 2019). Bates (1997) explains the simple procedure: Two identical reel-to-reel decks are combined with a tape loop, and the sound is recorded onto the first deck with its erase head removed for the effect to work. Then the sound is played through the second deck’s play head while its output is being recorded on an external recorder. More sounds are then added to the process without erasing the already existing ones (p.164). Eno (1975) emphasizes that as soon as the system was set up, his work then included supplying musical input in the form of two mutually cooperative melodies which were recorded in different lengths, and at times using a graphic equalizer to modify the output of the synthesizer’s sound (p.1). This type of music making rests heavily on the creative use of the equipment; therefore, we should broaden our vision and acknowledge that the improvisational aspects of the music can also be found within the use of the equipment.
Siepmann (2010) clarifies, that in an improvisatory ambient system, gestures, voices, sounds, and other heterogeneous musical elements collide with one another, creating a unified stream of sound. When the operator of the delay line system then commandeers these disparate elements to create a spill over between sounds while adding a stammering, a vibrato or a tremolo, these previously separated threads conjoin with each other, establishing a new homogeneous aural flow (p.189). The application of improvisation to machines in this way hints that loopers, tape recorders, or any ambient music making systems could essentially be treated as instruments, capable of producing organic human expression, and maybe even error. Huggett (2017) points out that the ’mistakes’ and the variable moments that the delay line process and other creative uses of technology contribute to ambient music allow for more authentic spontaneity in improvisation by demanding unforeseen navigation in the performance process (pp.19-20). However, when an ambient musician has become fluent in the delay line technique, they have developed an aesthetic on what kinds of loops fit nicely together and how they should be implemented for creating balanced overall textures. Depending on the mindstate of the performer, this fluency leads to either creating complex, yet cohesively complementing layers of sound through intuitive implementation, or falling into old habits of using familiar loop combinations without any of these unpredictable mistakes to come.
For Huggett (2017) improvisation should be thought of as a cornerstone of ambient music making for its catalytic quality (p.19). Here we should understand that the improvisational approach takes ambient music towards a certain sound. It adds a meditative quality to the music that influences the direction of the aural aesthetic. As much as I also prefer making ambient music in an improvised way, we must not think of the improvisation as being the only available approach. Hugget (2017) explains, that by drawing inspiration from memories, emotion and environment, the improviser serves the purpose of ambient music’s quest for colouring the environment while inviting calm and contemplation (p.20), thus linking improvisation with Eno’s original idea of ambient music as a genre which is ”intended to induce calm and a space to think (Eno, 1978, p.1). Whereas improvisation allows for real-time presentation of Eno’s idea, ambient music does not have to be improvised in order to serve its function and purpose. Nevertheless, just like Siepmann, Huggett adds precious insights to the ”rather more niche and lesser-explored area of how improvisation can create ambient music” (huggett, 2017, p.4). This section has covered the key points of how improvisation links to the creation of ambient music through technological means, as well as their common qualities. In the next section, I will review studies on what kinds of mindstates are associated with the creation of improvised ambient music.
Mind in improvised ambient music
Dolan et al. (2018) conducted a study on improvisation’s effect on the mind by comparing performances of prepared and improvised versions of the same piece of classical music. The electroencephalography (EEG) was measured from 19 scalp locations in performers as well as in audience members. The results showed more activity in the areas associated with awareness and alertness, both in performers and in the audience, during the improvised performance (p.1). These results already show that there is a close connection between awareness and improvisation in general, since the audience was not aware of the randomized order in which the prepared and the improvised versions were performed.
In an ambient music context, Huggett (2017) argues that the improvisational approach is complementary because the slowly moving pace of the music gives beginner-friendly decision-making time for the improviser when considering their next musical input (p.19). Here Huggett points out how the improvisation becomes easily accessible when performed in a forgiving pace, but one might also argue that the slowness of the music puts more responsibility to the improvisers shoulders by demanding a more attentive focus while opening up a new direction in the performance altogether, an opportunity for practicing present moment awareness. In 2020, Dr. Jeremy Mayall conducted a study on collective slow improvisation via an internet connection during the corona lockdown. His device was a musical style which he simply calls ”Slow music”, an aesthetic which is ”inspired by genres like minimalism, trance music, ambient music, contemporary classical music, soundscapes, musique concrete, and electronic music, and creates a hybrid that explores the tensions between musical ideas that slowly evolve over time through a conversational improvisational structure” (Mayall, 2021, p.5). If I were to define the music that my own artistic research uncovered, the above-mentioned combination of genres might come close to what it sounds like; therefore Mayall’s study is relevant for this literature review. Mayall (2021) explains that just like in many other improvisational practices, slow music requires the ability to be connected to the moment with full presence, while the ambient and textural quality of the music often helps initiate a flow-state (p.5). From my own music-making I have learned that the flow-state then works as a catalyst for creating a more calming quality to the musical textures to come during the performance, which will further sustain the flow-state. ”An additional element that supports the state of flow in the improvised performance is the existence of longer and more flowing musical gestures” (Dolan et al., 2018, p.18). As stated earlier, these flowing musical gestures might have already been influenced by the state of flow. Textural music and states of concentration are like other ends of the same object. When you pick up that object, both ends come up.
A flow-state is a psychological term referring to a ”state of total absorption in an activity, involving focused attention, deep engagement, loss of self-conscious awareness, and self-perceived temporal distortion” (Zielke et al., 2023, p.1) and was originally coined by a Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, in 1975. Habe & Biasutti (2023) explain that during a flow-state, people are so entirely involved and fixed upon a task that they lose track of time while feeling like everything that they do happens unconsciously (p.1). According to Mayall (2021), performing slow music also feels as if existing in a state of flux where time seems to be moving forward while being at a standstill simultaneously (p.5). A revered Thai Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah talked about the state of the mind in meditation as being like a still, yet flowing body of water. ”Have you ever seen flowing water?... Have you ever seen still water?... If your mind is peaceful it will be just like still, flowing water. Have you ever seen still, flowing water? There!” (Ajahn Chah, 1981). He speaks of seeing the natural state of the mind beyond the everyday thinking mind, which in Buddhism is considered to be a mind at peace, a mind in ”samadhi”. Flow-state seems to be a modern iteration of samadhi, a concept that in Buddhist literature means ”'the firmly established mind’’ (Ajahn Chah, 1981). It refers to a fixed one-pointed attention, and a ”state of joyful calm, or even of rapture and beatitude, in which one maintains one’s full mental alertness and acuity” (Britannica definition, 2025). Both flow and samadhi seem to be states of concentration where the mind is one-pointed towards a single object of attention.
In my own improvisational practice, I have experienced something which I have come to call ”slow buzz”. Slow buzz is a state of being where the mind’s attention is directed equally to everything around, and the physical movement of the body has slowed down. I started to notice being like this sometimes after my morning improvisations, yet even more so after the longer improvisational sets, which I started to rehearse during the final stages of my bachelor’s research. I later found out about Luke Jaaniste’s idea of the ambient mode of being which is a similar concept, or to put it more precisely, a dissolution of concepts for that matter. He states that ”The ambient mode involves engaging with our surroundings as an ambient pervasive all-around field, without anything being prioritised into foreground and background. Without the salience of the foreground, what would need to become salient is the pervasive ambience itself” (Jaaniste, 2007, p.43). While in flow and in samadhi, the concentration happens by focusing attention one-pointedly on something specific, in slow buzz and in the ambient mode of being, the concentration happens by focusing attention equally to everything around in the environment. These might seem like separate states of the mind at first, but actually, we could argue that the same dissolution of human concepts and the revealing of the bare nature of phenomena is happening in all of these, just through different means. The only difference might be that in slow buzz and in the ambient mode of being the mind’s attention is directed to everything perceivable in the present moment and not just towards one object. However, technically, how could one concentrate on everything around without concentrating on the concentrating itself as one singular object? This is where we are landing back on the practice of samadhi and the one-pointedness that unites everything in the mind, bringing us back to our natural flow.
It is almost as if improvised ambient music is a technical and aural representation of the inner workings of the human mind. Sounds are inserted into a machine to swirl like the sounds we hear in the natural environment around us. All of these sounds are then brought together and unified inside the machine, forming a single aural flow. This flow is then listened to carefully and shaped with musical gestures that fit the slow pace of the music. This, in turn, establishes one-pointed attention and induces flow in the performer. From here onwards, future studies could help shed light on how this mind state could be transferable to listeners.