3. Conceptual framework
The key concepts this research rests upon are ambient music, looping and present moment awareness. I will now briefly outline these concepts and explain how they relate to my research.
Ambient music
When we think of ambient music, we might think of highly reverberated music that has no rhythm. Whereas this might often times be the case, we must understand that this is to define ambient music only for its musical quality. While music genres usually are indeed defined by their musical quality, ambient music is actually not only defined by its characteristics, but for the way it is listened to as well. Siepmann (2010) writes that ambient music is a style of music where a musical texture is woven from a non-functional or completely disregarded use of traditional musical elements such as melody, harmony, and rhythm in order to create a form of background music which is not meant to be listened to directly, but rather intended for colouring the listener’s environment (p.174). The term ambient music was originally coined by Brian Eno in the mid-1970’s. He states that ”Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting” (Eno, 1978, p.1). From here we can understand that ambient music is not only background music, but can be an object of direct listening as well. It is a style of music which is intentionally created to be a part of an environment (external and/or internal), and it is this peculiar aspect of it, that gives ambient music its musical characteristics. Even though all sorts of music styles can be played as a backdrop for enhancing the mood of any physical or mental space, ambient music is an art form which specifically and deliberately pursues those connections, yet not by demanding the full control over the space, but by leaving space for imagination. Ambient music is the musical frame in which my own art also operates, therefore it was inevitable to define its meaning here.
Looping
”Looping means repeating part of a song using a looper device, pedal, or plugin” (Blackmore, 2022). It is a music making method that induces creativity for its possibilities, as well as for its limitations. ”A loop pedal, or looper pedal, is an electronic device that creates instant recordings of a musical performance and plays those recordings back in real-time. This allows a musician to begin overdubbing themselves to create a vast, polyphonic soundscape based on their own performances in the room” (MasterClass, 2021). All the music that I created during this project was done with a looper called Boomerang III Phrase Sampler. It has three tracks that can loop different musical materials in various loop lengths. The loop tracks can be either rhythmically synchronized with each other or completely out-of-sync to one another. There is no memory to store any sounds or loops, therefore every improvisation in this artistic research was recorded from scratch. This looper is very much a hands-on type of pedal without that many on-board effects, so the music making relies mostly on the artistic creativity of the musician when working with this pedal. A looper pedal for an ambient musician could be considered a modern adaptation on Brian Eno’s early delay line system.
Present moment awareness
In this artistic research, present moment awareness refers to a mindstate when a person is actively present with what is perceived through their senses in the here and now. One way of explaining it would be through what it is not. It is the non-dwelling in the past, and the non-worrying about the future. It is a relaxed state of calm which can be practiced through different techniques. ”Mindfulness techniques such as observing the breath, walking meditation, working meditation, eating meditation, scanning the body, mindful writing, deep listening, mindfully cradling our thoughts and feelings, and observing mind with mind are all methods of cultivating an awareness of the ’here and now.’ In effect, these techniques are types of meditative anchor that help to tie the mind to the present moment and provide a reference point for maintaining an unbroken flow of awareness throughout the day (Shonin, E., & Van Gordon, W., 2013, p.105). During this artistic project, I practiced present moment awareness in two different ways. Firstly, by sitting in an upright yet relaxed posture while focusing attention on the bodily sensations during my morning meditation sessions and secondly, by improvising slowly evolving ambient music while focusing attention on creating balanced musical textures.