Steven Ness is working on a version of Terry Riley’s minimalist classic In C, using Max For Live and Ableton Live 8.

In C consists of 53 musical phrases, lasting from half a beat to 32 beats that should be played in order, but can be repeated any number of times.

In this video demo, Ness explains how he’s using Max For Live to recreate the logic of In C using the capabilities of Max For Live.

Best quote: “Oh my god! Max For Live Is Going To Blow Your Mind!”

Optigan.com has announced a new Philip Glass-inspired Minimalism Optigan disc, featuring the vocal talents of Tara Busch (Analogsuicide.com):

We’re proud to announce the latest in our series of new Optigan discs: MINIMALISM! This is a special release for us, since it marks our first musical collaboration with the fabulous Tara Busch of AnalogSuicide.com. Tara sang the vocal solfege scale for the keyboard, a haunting sound that you’re sure to find plenty of uses for.

The Optigan is a bizarre 70’s musical instrument/music toy that’s features an electomechanical optical sound generator.

It’s available for pre-order now, for $99.99.

Details below.

via peahix:

Now available for pre-order at http://www.optigan.com/shoptigan

Here’s a hot new sound for the 1970s, straight from New York City! Mesmerizing musical kaleidoscopes throb from East Village loft windows and trendy art gallery doors, where less is definitely more More MORE! And you can be right there on the scene with the new Optigan Minimalism
program disc!

Your left hand conducts a tight ensemble of organ, flute, saxophones and bass clarinet- pulsing bass on the special effect tabs, and whirling arpeggios on the chord buttons. Your right hand plays vocal solfege melodies, sung for you by none other than Tara Busch of AnalogSuicide.com!

So fill up your glass and take a deep, satisfying gulp from the sonic ocean of Minimalism!

Performance Notes:

The Optigan Minimalism program disc was arranged specifically to allow for a large variety of extended harmonies by pressing two or more chord buttons simultaneously. For instance, holding down C Maj and E Min will produce a C Maj7 chord. G Maj and D Min combined will produce a G9
chord. Also, since the basslines on the special effects tabs contain no thirds, they can be used equally well in major or minor keys. Let your own imagination be your guide, and make your own kind of music!

Music arrangement and production by Pea Hicks
Vocal solfege scale sung and recorded by Tara Busch
Disc creation software, disc production cover artwork and jacket layout by Robert Becker

Rhythms: 4/4
LEFT HAND: Electric organ, flute, saxophones, bass clarinet.
RIGHT HAND: Female vocal solfege.
SPECIAL EFFECTS SWITCHES: 1. Bb Bass 2. F Bass 3. C Bass 4. G Bass 5. D
Bass.

This video demos 12Step – a neural sequencer developed by Ted Hayes at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for New Instruments for Musical Expression (NIME).

Software used: Puredata 0.41.4-extended, Ableton Live 8, Native Instruments Akoustik Piano.

via Tedb0t:

first iteration of software model with manual (software) input, demonstrating high-weight selection, multiple concurrent sequences, weight randomization and mode changes.

Philip Glass & Steve Reich, eat yr heart out X-)

Part 2 below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First step: You have to admit you are powerless over hypnotic minimal musical sequences….

The Pendulum Electronica

via sciencefidelity:

This is a work from 2002 inspired by the Pendulum Music by Steve Reich. Four torches hang directly above four light sensors, four assistants pull back and release the torches simultaneously, as each torch passes its light sensor a sound is played.

The sounds are field recordings made in the city the work is being performed. Cities the work has visited include Nottingham, Glasgow and Paris, here are clips from two different performances in Cardiff.

ArpShift is a melodic, interval based, poly-rhythmic arpeggiator:

It’s relatively simplistic in nature ,with only 3 pages and 7 lanes. However, it is flexible in it’s simplicity, and is able to take stagnant melodies and turn them into flowing, never repeating music.

The Nauru Elegies

A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky in collaboration with Annie Kwon

Artist Statement

Annie K. Kwon and
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

The Republic of Nauru is a small island in the South Pacific Ocean. It is the world’s smallest independent state and, at its core, represents a place at the most remote extreme of the planet.  Its seemingly utopic geography and landscape stages a dystopic economy and society. It was, by consensus of several “Great Powers”, used as a raw resource until there was literally, nothing left.  Nauru has been mined throughout the last two centuries for its phosphate deposits, which occupied 90% of the island. In the 1980s, phosphate exports briefly gave Nauruans one of the highest per capita incomes in the Third World. It is anticipated that the phosphate reserves will be completely exhausted before 2050. Despite this, the unemployment rate currently stands at 90%.

As a small territory with no exploitable resources, in the 1990’s Nauru turned to off-shore financing, and the creation of “virtual banks” as a way of earning sorely needed foreign currency. As such, it mirrors the off-shore island economies of The Cayman Islands, and continental havens like Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The Nauru Elegies project looks at the combination of unique qualities that make a remote place like Nauru a core member of the 21st century global economy: It explores an island in a state of environmental collapse. The music component of the Nauru Elegies reflects colonial and postcolonial issues facing the digital economy of the 21st century translated into a string quartet, composed by Paul D. Miller/DJ Spooky, while the architectural component conceptualized by Annie K. Kwon spatializes and formalizes otherwise invisible economic flows and irreversible ecological devastation.  A new architecture reclaims a local hypsographic territory at a culmination of global currents.

The poet Goethe once wrote: “architecture is nothing but frozen music.” The Nauru Elegies asks what happens if we reverse engineer that process through on-site recordings and footage translated through the prism of music and architectural form?

Technical write-up

‘The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture’ is a technical synthesis of a live string ensemble, projected high-definition video footage, digital animation and live internet feed. It is an orchestration of content retrieved and processed in multiple localities including research in New York City, documentation in Nauru and performed in Yokohama by local musicians. It is a statement of technology and media processes in the 21st century that is exponentially progressing to a more dematerialized and delocalized state.

Audio and video recordings will be taken with the most current and mobile digital technologies in addition to the exploration of medical isosurf modeling techniques appropriated in architectural form and rendering. Economic dynamics will be mapped using current open source satellite and geospatial technologies including NASA World Wind to map hypsometric and bathymetric contours. The Nauru Elegies is realized in multiple technical layers, a manifold performance that has identifiable localities held by a complex global structure.

Torley’s Tangerine Dream Love On A Real Train Piano Variations is a classical piano work based on Tangerine Dream’s electronic music based on Steve Reich’s classical ensemble works based on his experimental electroacoustic work and his experiences with West African rhythms.

Torley explains it better:

I was humming Tangerine Dream’s Love on a Real Train (as featured in Risky Business) so much (mostly because I can’t whistle) that I decided to improvise some piano variations around it.

It’s a free download, from the player above or via Torley’s site, where you can also watch his piano-roll style video for the work. To download, click the down arrow in the SoundCloud player.

Leave a comment with your thoughts on Torley’s take on a Tangerine Dream classic.

Nodal, a generative music application, has been updated to run on both Mac and Windows.

The video above features a live performance of music created using Nodal 1.1 by Peter Mcilwain.

Nodal uses a novel method for the notation and playing of MIDI based music. This method is based around the concept of a user-defined graph. The graph consists of nodes (musical events) and edges (connections between events). You interactively define the graph, which is then traversed by any number of players who play the musical events as they encounter them on the graph. The time taken to travel from one node to another is based on the length of the edges that connect the nodes.

Version 1.1 beta version of Nodal is now available for download. It’s free, but future versions will require a registration fee. Details below.

If you’ve used Nodal, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Nodal Version 1.1

This version includes a number of enhancements and bug fixes over the previous 1.0 release. These include:

• Nodal is now cross-platform, working on both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms
• Nodal files can be freely interchanged between operating systems
• a redesigned user interface
• new keyboard shortcuts, including the use of the spacebar to start and stop playback
• Direct access to internal MIDI synths (Windows version only) so no external MIDI synth software is required.

The developers have received additional funding to continue the development of Nodal as a cross-platform generative composition tool. The current versions are free, but will expire on the 24th September 2009. Beyond that, they plan on charging a fee to purchase the updated version of the software. Fees collected will go back into further developments of the software. Updated versions will include technical support, a more detailed manual and tutorial guides.

This is a visualization of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music.

via DJparadiddle

Here’s a must-see Pitchfork.TV video of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore talking with Steve Reich at last year’s SXSW conference.

While Reich is best known for his acoustic works, his early electroacoustic works have been some of his most influential.

All scholars in this area are invited to submit papers. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• both American and European (and other) minimalist music;
• early minimalism of the 1950s and ?60s;
• outgrowths of minimalism into postminimalism, totalism, and oher movements;
• minimalist music?s relation to pop music or visual art;
• performance problems in minimalist music;
• analyses or investigation of music by La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Louis Andriessen, Gavin Bryars;
• especially encouraged are papers on crucial but less public figures such as Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Jon Gibson, Eliane Radigue, Rhys Chatham, Barbara Benary, Julius Eastman, and so on.

Contributions are welcomed in the form of individual papers (20 minutes). Abstracts containing a maximum of 500 words should be sent as email attachments, by October 31, 2008, to kgann@earthlink.net and compositeurkc@sbcglobal.net.

The Society for Minimalist Music exists to promote the intellectual and scholarly study of the music known as minimalism, and originating in the 1960s activities of composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Tony Conrad, Terry Jennings, Jon Gibson, Charlemagne Palestine, Phill Niblock, Barbara Benary, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and others. The Society’s interests are not limited to the music of that period, but also to ensuing streams of music developed from minimalist origins, and also in the relationship of music to minimalism in the other arts. Specifically, the Society recognizes minimalism not only in its familiar idiom of motivic repetition, but also its more general concern with drones and stasis.

Image: Martin Captures

In this classic clip, South Park Elementary presents the happy, non-offensive, non-denominational school play, with compositions by Philip Glass.

Bogus, but funny!

The IBM Glass Engine is designed to enable deep navigation of the music of Philip Glass. Personal interests, associations, and impulses guide the listener through an expanding selection of over sixty Glass works.

The interface is unusual, and takes a few moments to understand, but it lets you navigate Glass’s music in a variety of ways, such as time, length, density and velocity. 

The engine is currently compatible with MS internet Explorer 6 & 7, and Firefox 2 on Windows, and Safari and Firefox on Mac OS X. Medium to high-bandwidth Internet access is highly recommended.

“Minimalist” is a strange tag for Riley. It suits him in that he has never lost his love for interlocking repetitive figures imbued with the strength to send the brain into psychedelic reverie. But Riley is really a musical accumulator.

Years of study in India have made him a master of raga, played on the keyboard and sung. A virtuosic pianist and inspired improviser, he began as a jazz player and, at 72, remains a brilliant jazz player. Hardly remaining in or anywhere near C, he roams through modes and microtones continually enriching his harmonic palate. Melodically and rhythmically he flows naturally between East and West, ancient times, recent music history and the present.

For the first half of his program, Riley revised two classic pieces, first updating Persian Surgery Dervishes, a study in whirling repetitions for electric keyboard and tape delay. (A famous performance of that was given and recorded in Los Angeles in 1971).

Sunday’s new A Persian Surgery Dervish in the Nursery made his performance on the old electronic technology seem downright primitive. On Disney’s instrument, Riley achieved a sense of awe-inspiring vastness with thick church-like diapason textures. For an arrangement of a few themes from his epic 1985 string quartet, Salome Dances for Peace, Riley began with spellbinding rumbling of low notes and then traced trilling fanciful melodies, at one point adding raga-like vocalization.

My expectations for Sunday’s concert were impossibly high. They were exceeded.

Most fans of electronic music are aware of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, and on the influence they have had on electronic musicians.

You can’t understand minimalism, though, without listening to some of the 60’s work of La Monte Young and Terry Riley, two living classical composers whose influence is immeasurable.

Image: RShinozaki

Peter Aidu plays Steve Reich’s Piano Phase, a work for two pianists, with with his left hand on one instrument and his right hand on the second.

While this is a unique performance and is a feat, the result seems to emphasize the synchronized phases of the two piano lines over the shifting phase relationships and the tension created by the “in-between” phase relationships.

If you’re a Reich fan, let me know what you think in the comments!

On Friday, August 15, 2008, Damrosch Park Bandshell will be turned into a place of intense listening thanks to a mediaeval piece by Perotin, a special commission from Rhys Chatham and the American live premiere of Göttsching’s E2-E4

Göttsching’s show will be accompanied by a display of psychedelic visual effects courtesy of Joshua Light Show. Led by multimedia artist Joshua White, this audiovisual presentation will mark the first collaboration between Göttsching and White.

Rhys Chatham will unleash an army of instrumentalists in his outdoor version of A Crimson Grail. Originally written for 400 Guitarists and with Paris’ Sacre-Coeur in mind, the fresh edit will still feature a massive 200 guitarists and be revised to suit the dynamics of the Park’s outdoor acoustic.

Visitors should already prepare themselves for a heavy psychological impact. As Chatham remembers from the world premiere of the work: “It was often quite an emotional experience for people, I had full grown men come up to me afterwards with tears in their eyes.”

via Tokafi

“I think that we should pull out,” says Glass. “The Chinese are supposed to be taking care of human rights; they haven’t done it. The only reason we don’t pull out is that people are more interested in money than they are in human rights.

“I think the Olympic Committee should really pull the plug on it.” adds Glass. “Basically, the Chinese commies have been isolated for 50 years; they have no idea what the rest of the world is like. They think that we’re just another province of China and that they can do what they damn well want to.”

“And they’re a bunch of losers. They make a distinction: As long as you’re not political, you can do whatever you want in China. But politics is about the way we live! They’re drawing the line on the very things that matter to us most.

via New York Magazine

Tamm’s book, Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound, is divided into two main sections. The first is a review of Brian Eno and his work in the context of modern music. This looks at both his role in the world of popular music and where he fits in the world of “art” music. It also looks at his background, influences, working methods, and the ideas that infuse his work.

The second part of his book looks in detail at Eno’s recordings. It examines both his rock and ambient music, and traces how Eno’s rock albums evolved into ambient pop:

PART I – Eno in the world of music

• One: Eno’s work in perspective
• Two: Backgrounds and influences
• Three: On other music: Eno as critic
• Four: The ear of the non-musician
• Five: Listeners and aims
• Six: The compositional process
• Seven: The musician as philosopher

Part II – Eno’s Music

• Eight: Taking rock to the limit
• Nine: Eno’s progressive rock: The music
• Ten: The ‘ambient sound’
• Eleven: Collaborations
• Twelve: Essence, History and Beauty

Tamm begins by putting Brian Eno’s work in perspective. He gives a good summary of Eno’s position in the world of music:

“He is a prime example of a new type of composer who has drawn freely on the resources of many types of music and ideas about music. These include a variety of popular genres such as rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, progressive rock, punk, and new wave, as well as African, Middle Eastern, and oriental styles. Also notable among his influences are minimalism, experimental new music, post-Cage avant-garde ideas, and electronic music. Eno has combined music with visual art in the form of video and sculptural installations, has lectured on musical subjects extensively, and is the author or co-author of a number of written materials. Although he has performed live, his primary arena of operation is the recording studio, which he has called his real instrument. In addition to the knobs and switches of the mixing board and multi-track tape recorder, Eno plays keyboards (primarily synthesizer), guitar (primarily electric), electric bass, and a variety of percussion instruments, he is also a singer.”

The overview is respectful and insightful, without fawning over Eno. Tamm states that “Eno’s music has received sustained critical attention out of all proportion to the (rather meager) number of records he has sold.” Tamm’s matter-of-fact approach is refreshing, and it helps put Eno’s place in music into perspective. Eno’s music is interesting and important, but Tamm points out that his greatest influence may be through the artists that he has influenced.

Tamm also sees the paradoxes encapsulated in Eno’s music, that it sometimes seems mindless in its simplicity.

“Is Eno’s music divinely simple or merely simplistic? Is it primal and elemental, or primitive and elementary? If it proceeds from a wondrous, enchanting ‘What if?’ attitude, do the results sometimes call for a cynical ‘So what?’ response? Eno himself combines a sophisticated, well-read intellectual sensibility with a vulnerable, child-like curiosity, in an alchemical mixture as rare in the rock world as outside it. Faced with the paradox, the listener must ultimately make his own decision.”

The second chapter looks at Eno’s influences. Tamm covers Eno’s pop music influences, and discusses how Eno was most interested in music that had arrived in Britain without a context. Doo-wop, for example, seemed foreign and exotic to Eno, because it came to Europe without a context or history. Tamm also notes several important influences from the classical world on Eno, including John Cage, Eric Satie, and the early minimal composers, especially Steve Reich.

Tamm even points out historical trails of ideas that Eno has developed. One example is Cage’s discussion of Satie, and its influence on Eno:

“In discussing Satie’s music to accompany the sounds of knives and forks, Cage says that ‘It is evidently a question of bringing one’s intended actions into relation with the ambient unintended ones.’ Although Eno has never publicly said as much, this reference to ‘ambient’ sounds is very likely the genesis of Eno’s own concept of ambient music, or at least the source of his use of the word. Later on the same page, Cage characteristically defines silence as ‘ambient noise.’ Cage quotes Satie again:

‘They will tell you I am not a musician. That’s right … Take the Fils des Etoiles or the Morceaux en forme de poire, En habit de cheval or the Sarabandes, it is clear no musical idea presided at the creation of these works.’

Again, although one may not be exactly sure how to interpret Satie’s blend of irony, bitterness, and wit, the statement ‘I am not a musician’ was taken up eagerly by Eno in the 1970’s, and became almost his motto or credo, however numerous the misunderstandings to which it has given rise may be.”

It’s clear, reading passages like this, that Tamm has done his work researching Eno and reflecting on what he found.

Another good example of the depth of Tamm’s research is found in his discussion of the influence of Steve Reich on Eno. Tamm pieces together several sources of information into a compelling explanation of the effects of minimal music and their influence on Eno:

“Although Eno has spoken with admiration of Riley’s music, a more decisive minimalist influence on his work was Steve Reich’s (b. 1936) phase tape pieces. In a 1985 interview he singled out Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain as probably ‘the most important piece that I heard, in that it gave me an idea I’ve never ceased being fascinated with – how variety can be generated by very, very simple systems.’ “

Eno continues:

“I heard this in the early 1970’s, which was just at the time that most of the people that I was involved with were doing exactly the opposite thing. Twenty-four track recorders had just become current, and the idea was to make more and more grotesque, Gothic pieces of music, filling up every space and every corner of the canvas. And to hear something that was as alive as this Reich piece, and so simple, was a real shock to me … I thought, I can do this. It’s not hard.’ [laughs]“

This passage also gives significant insight into Eno’s ear for music and his compositional approach. Tamm makes it clear that, while Cage’s writing helped open up the ideas of ambient sound to Eno, Reich’s work gave Eno license to think as a serious composer.

The chapter about Eno as a critic reviews Eno’s writing on other music. The chapter gives a little insight into how thinks about other music, his likes and dislikes, and a deeper understanding of his influences. The chapter, again, is well-researched, and covers Eno’s writing on many musical styles. The quotes Tamm has chosen reveal much about Eno’s interests, and Tamm’s commentary helps show how Eno’s opinions of other music shaped his own.

“Like many other white musicians of the late 1970’s (most notably the Police, who forged a distinctive popular style based on the angular vocal melodies and off-beat bass lines of reggae), Eno was fascinated with the sounds of Jamaican reggae music. Once again, it was the procedure of how the music was put together, as much as the sound itself, that interested Eno:

‘The contemporary studio composer is like a painter who puts things on, puts things together, tries things out, and erases them. The condition of the reggae composer is like that of the sculptor, I think. Five or six musicians play, they’re well isolated from one another. Then the thing they played, which you can regard as a kind of cube of music, is hacked away at – things are taken out, for long periods.

A guitar will appear for two strums, then never appear again, the bass will suddenly drop out, and an interesting space is created. Reggae composers have created a sense of dimension in the music, by very clever, unconventional use of echo, by leaving out instruments, and by the very open rhythmic structure of the music.’

The ’sculptural’ approach has clearly influenced Eno’s own way of composing. It is characteristic that he has shown no interest in reggae’s political implications, neither in terms of the indigenous philosophy or life-style of Rastafarianism nor in terms of Western white musicians and audiences finding some sort of meaning in expressing solidarity with the Third World through the reggae beat – Bob Dylan’s use of a Jamaican rhythm section on his 1983 album Infidels being a typical case in point. Eno’s interest is in the sound of the music, in the engineering point of view, in what the music can teach him as a composer, if a ‘political’ meaning of music is important to Eno at all, it is restricted to the local level of interaction between musicians and between musicians and audience.”

In this chapter, Tamm effectively makes connections between music and ideas that would otherwise seem disparate. This selection, for example, connects techniques found in Reggae music with Eno’s mature work, which sounds nothing like reggae. Nevertheless, Tamm helps point out that many of the techniques that Eno uses are ones that he could hear in the studio work of reggae musicians.

Chapter 4, The Ear of the Non-Musician, looks at Eno’s art school background, and how Eno’s non-traditional training influences his approach to music. It discusses ideas that were popular when Eno was in school, such as the processes of art being the art itself.

It also introduces a key idea of the book, that Eno’s music is “vertical”. Calling Eno’s music “vertical” is Tamm’s way of saying that the music doesn’t conform to traditional western ideas of music being linear, or of having a time-based form.

“Much of Eno’s music is constructed on a vertical basis: to a great extent, it is music concerned with the sheer color of sound, rather than with the linear (horizontal) growth of melodies. Each moment in Eno’s music presents certain tone colors or timbres, and the interest lies in the relationships between these colors – rather than in the evolution of thematic material, which has been the norm in most Western art music for centuries.”

Tamm’s characterization, while valid, seems to be a slight oversimplification. It’s true that Eno’s work doesn’t follow a traditional linear progression, or display traditional forms. It does change in significant ways over time, though. In his earliest ambient pieces, like his proto-ambient Discreet Music, Eno uses filtering and equalization to change the sound of the synthesizer lines in important ways over time.

Eno’s discussion of his approach in Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts makes clear that he’s most interested in creating systems that generate interesting music. Eno’s approach is to create sound paintings that have enough stasis to be consistent and recognizable, yet that have enough variety to be interesting. This tension between the static sound that identifies an individual piece and the range of infinite possibilities is what makes Eno’s approach to music interesting.

In fact, in Eno’s 1978 line notes for his Ambient series, Eno states that ambient music should be “it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” Tamm’s “vertical” characterization is certainly an important aspect of Eno’s music; Eno’s work embraces a sort of stasis that is unusual in western classical music. However, his music would be dull if this were not balanced with the tension generated by unexpected variation. The crux of understanding Eno’s sound is appreciating not just the “vertical” aspect of his music, but in also understanding the tension Eno generates between stasis and randomness, in “generating and organizing variety” within his music.

Tamm also discusses the idea of craftsmanship within Eno’s music. Eno is not a trained musician, is proficient but not virtuosic on the instruments he plays, and even questions the idea that he is a musician. Tamm provides an excellent discussion of Eno’s views:

“This resolute lack of technique has become an integral part of Eno’s whole philosophical approach to music-making. Whether out of inner or outer defensiveness, or out of honest self-examination, he has come up with a variety of justifications for remaining a ‘non-musician.’ One is that lack of technique almost forces one to be creative: it makes one confront one’s vulnerability. Eno explains:

‘I’ve seen musicians stuck for an idea, and what they’ll do between takes is just diddle around, playing the blues or whatever, just to reassure themselves that, Hey, I’m not useless. Look, I can do this.’ But I believe that to have that [technique] to fall back on is an illusion. It’s better to say, I’m useless,’ and start from that position. I think the way technique gets in the way is by fooling you into thinking that you are doing something when you actually are not.’”

Tamm shows that Eno views technique as a double-edged sword. It can be useful for creating and recreating music, but it can also be a crutch that can substitute for creative insight.

Tamm summarizes Eno’s craft and approach:

“Eno’s primary asset, as with any composer, is his ear. Particularly since he works with sounds on tape rather than notes on the page, listening is his primary compositional activity. He has stressed again and again that the problem with many musicians, whether studio instrumentalists, instrumental virtuosi, synthesizer wizards, or computer-music composers, is that they do not listen to what they are doing. For his part, he is content to work with sound materials that he can understand, however minimal they may appear. As he has said, ‘The greater you understand the structure of something, the more you’ll be amazed at the tiniest movement within it. In that sense the possibilities are limitless.’

As we have already seen, some of the musicians Eno admires most are those who have realized that there are really distinct advantages to working within a quite restricted range of possibilities. Ultimately, this line of thought can become a transformational philosophy applicable to the whole of life, not just to musical composition. As Eno has advised, ‘Regard your limitations as secret strengths. Or as constraints that you can make use of.’

By 1981, if not before, Eno had come to the conclusion that the recording studio and the empirical method of composing has created a new art form, a whole new kind of music’: In some sense it’s so different that it really should be called by a different name. The only similarity is that people listen to it, so it enters through the same sense, but in the way it’s made it’s really a different thing.’”

The fifth chapter looks at Listeners and Aims. This includes a deep exploration of Eno’s ambient sound, and Tamm provides many great quotes from Eno. His coverage of Eno’s ideas about ambient music one of the most interesting sections of the book.

This chapter also provides some of Tamm’s most interesting writing.

Tamm begins by quoting Eno:

“‘Critics can’t stand these records, by and large, because in their search for eternal adolescence they still want it all to be spunky and manic and witty. They come back to rock music again and again, expecting to feel like kids. That isn’t what I want from music anymore – not in quite that way. I’m interested in the idea of feeling like a very young child, but I’m not interested in feeling like a teenager.’

The last paragraph in this quotation ties in with Eno’s many reservations about rock in general. Clearly, his ambient music has been aimed at a different audience than his progressive rock music, or at least at a different mode of receptivity. With his ambient works, Eno has explicitly tried to make music that is not too self-assertive, that does not intrude too much, that does not dare its audience to listen nor threaten them if they choose not to – yet at the same time, music that is complex and deep enough to sustain and reward close listening. His ambient music is designed to be played at low or medium volume, high volume settings do violence to the sense and spirit of the music. Close listening reveals a constantly changing soundscape, yet paradoxically the same music can seem static and uneventful, though benign enough, if one is not really paying attention. Critics of Eno’s ambient works have often complained that nothing much happens in the music. He answers such criticism by comparing his musical works to paintings, in their aspect ‘as a sort of continuous part of the environment’ that one can choose to notice or to ignore:

‘If a painting is hanging on a wall where we live, we don’t feel that we’re missing something by not paying attention to it … Yet with music and video, we still have the expectation of some kind of drama. My music and videos do change, but they change slowly. And they change in such a way that it doesn’t matter if you miss a bit … The conventional commercial notion that people want a lot of stimulus and constant change simply isn’t true. In the world I come from, the pop world, there’s always this notion that the public is basically very lazy and has to be prodded all the time. So everything is loaded with so-called surprises and changes.’”

There are at least three layers of ideas going on within Tamm’s writing here. He’s quoting Eno, giving a view of the music straight from the source. He’s providing a context for how Eno’s music was received by critics and listeners. Finally, Tamm reveals, indirectly, something about his own ear and interpretation.

This chapter also includes an excellent discussion of Eno’s essay, Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts. This essay is key to understanding Eno’s approach to music, and is probably Eno’s clearest explanation of the ideas underlying his approach. Tamm places Eno’s ideas within a larger context of the world of other art music, and covers how Eno’s interest in cybernetics and systems shows itself within his work.

Chapter 6 covers Eno’s compositional process. Of greatest interest in this chapter is Tamm’s discussion of Eno’s use of the studio as a compositional tool.

“As Eno himself has pointed out, his musical work is so heavily dependent on technology that it could not have existed in any previous age. When he speaks of himself in terms of being a painter with sound, or a constructor of sonic landscapes, he is being more than metaphorical: for in a very real sense, magnetic tape is his canvas, and he applies his sound-substances to that canvas, mixes them, blends them, determines their shape, in a specific painterly’ way. He has just enough instrumental technique to give him his pigments’ to begin with, in the previous chapter we saw how he finds it much more difficult to work with initial recorded materials that already have a complexity of their own. His claim to be not so much a composer as a sound-painter is reinforced by his statements to the effect that the way he works with light in his video pieces is identical to the way he works with sound in his music.”

Tamm goes on to discuss Eno’s important lecture The Studio As Compositional Tool, which discusses the way recording has changed the nature of music, and how it can be used as a tool to make music that has never before existed.

Of interest to gear-heads, this chapter also discusses Eno’s use of synthesizers. Tamm briefly discusses the instruments that have been important elements of Eno’s sound, including the EMS Model AKS, Yamaha CS-80, Yamaha DX7, Arp 2600, Korg Micropreset, and Yamaha YC-45D organ.

In addition to the studio itself and synthesizers, Tamm points out that effects are an important part of Eno’s sound:

“Other important components of Eno’s mega-instrument are the innumerable electronic boxes or devices that can be added to a circuit, usually between the guitar or keyboard and amplifier, to alter the tone color and sound envelope characteristics. Typical effects to be got from these linking machines include echo, reverb, (intentional) distortion, flange, phase shift, chorus, and wah-wah. Some of these effects can also be produced at the mixing board, but it often makes a difference where in the total electronic circuit the sound-altering device is located: echoed fuzz may have a different sound profile than fuzzed echo. Possibilities multiply, as Eno has said,

‘The whole point of using effects devices is to try to reintroduce those idiosyncrasies into the sound, to take the sound out of the realm of the perfect and into the realm of the real. I’ll put any amount of junk in a long line after my synthesizer to see what will happen to it [the sound].’

Where possible, Eno likes to work with devices that make use of a foot-pedal – again, to give him a sense of physical control. He has no standard ‘line of junk’ – his configurations of sound-altering devices are always changing. He sees graphic equalization as being totally essential’ in most of the circuits he puts together, echo effects are almost as important, and he is liable to use two or even three echo devices at once, normally at the end of the chain nearest to the tape recorder. Echo and reverb are in a sense in a different class than other effects, since they create the illusion of the physical space where the music is taking place. The same instrument can be made to sound as if it is located in a small room, a large room, a concert hall, a stone cathedral, or even the Grand Canyon. Echo and reverb effects can evoke a whole geography.’”

Tamm’s discussion of effects is important, because they are so important to Eno’s sound, and have become essential elements of modern ambient music. The use of these cheap effects has largely been ignored by electronic musicians working in a classical context. As a result, Eno’s sonic explorations have been some of the most original uses of these tools.

Tamm goes beyond name-checking the equipment that Eno’ uses. He even diagrams a hypothetical studio configuration for one of Eno’s pieces. It shows how Eno uses equipment in conventional and unconventional ways to create unique effects, and the compositional function of various studio elements. This leads to Tamm’s discussion of Eno’s Systems of Composing. This section looks at how Eno works within his studio, what he does to create inspiration, what his working methods are.

Chapter 7 discusses The musician as philosopher. The theme of this chapter is a bit of a stretch, especially since Tamm has pointed out earlier that Eno doesn’t really consider himself a musician, and questions whether his work is even music. The chapter looks at underlying philosophical ideas within Eno’s music. Tamm discussion includes: Ultimate Realities, such as the existence of God; Culture and Information; The Masculine and the Feminine; Politics; and Metaphors and Images.

This chapter is less compelling that some of Tamm’s other chapters, though, because Eno’s music tends to be absolute music, rather than programmatic. While Eno’s music may convey wonder, it’s not really about a religion.

The second part of the book is an in-depth look at Eno’s music. Chapter 8, Taking Rock to the Limit, looks at Eno’s solo rock albums. Tamm focuses on albums where Eno is the primary composer. This chapter introduces each of Eno’s main solo works, and discusses their place at the fringe of the rock world.

Chapter 9, Eno’s Progressive Rock: The Music, digs in great detail into these works. It categorizes Eno’s pop work into five main groups: assaultive songs that attack the listener with distortion, driving beats and aggressive imagery; pop songs that have a more palatable sound; “strange” songs that combine elements of rock, pop and jazz to create a weird, wistful, or dreamlike effect; and hymn-like songs that feature slow diatonic melodies over string or organ-like backing; and instrumental pieces that anticipate Eno’s later work.

Tamm’s groupings are insightful, and he applies these categories to each of the pieces on Here come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science. Tamm then reviews each type of song, and dissects a prime example of each type.

For example, here is Tamm’s discussion of St. Elmo’s Fire:

“St. Elmo’s Fire (Green World) is the most unblushingly poppish song Eno has ever committed to record – it was doubtless prominent in the minds of those critics who called Another Green World Eno’s most accessible album – and it is a considerable puzzle why he did not release it as a single, as it seems to have most of the ingredients of a popular hit: conventional verse/refrain form, a lively beat, simple major tonality, pleasant and unobjectionable though original instrumentation, a dynamic guitar solo, suave falsetto harmonies on the refrain, and – most importantly – a genuine melodic/lyrical hook in the refrain (the words In the blue August moon/In the cool August moon’). If the song lacks one crucial element for the hit parade, it is the earthiness and sensuality of explicit romantic interest: St. Elmo’s Fire is a love song of a sort, but its imagery is too rarefied for the Top 40, telling of a couple’s metaphorical journey through moors, briars, endless blue meanders, fires, wires, highways and storms (’Then we rested in a desert/Where the bones were white as teeth sir/And we saw St. Elmo’s fire/Splitting ions in the ether’). St. Elmo’s Fire is completely non-ironic, a beautiful pop song that accepts and embraces the limitations of the medium.

Only two musicians took part in making the song. Eno plays organ, piano, Yamaha bass pedals, desert guitars,’ and synthetic percussion (including tom-tom-drum-like and wood-block-like effects, whose driving rhythms compensate for the lack of actual drums), while Robert Fripp adds the Wimshurst guitar’ solo whose genesis has been described above (see p. 89). Overall, the texture in St. Elmo’s Fire is more dense than usual for Eno, but this is in keeping with the song’s more popular nature. At three minutes, it does not overstay its welcome. The song’s form is easily schematized:

Example 2

Form of St. Elmo’s Fire

• Introduction (cumulative entrance of instruments)
• Verse 1 (over major tonic chord)
• Refrain (over ||: vi | V | IV | progression)
• Verse 2
• Refrain
• Verse 3 (Wimshurst guitar warms up in background)
• Wimshurst guitar solo (over Refrain chords)
• Refrain
• Fade-out over tonic chord

Straightforward as it is harmonically, rhythmically, melodically, and formally, Eno was correct in pointing out that songs like this cannot be reductively analyzed in such terms alone: ‘You can’t notate the sound of St. Elmo’s Fire.’ (Emphasis mine.)

Reading through Tamm’s detailed analysis made me want to revisit the recordings.

In addition to the thorough discussion of the solo rock albums, their place in rock history, and the music, Tamm shows a progression from Eno’s first rock album to his last that reveal Eno’s growing interest in ambient instrumental music.

In Chapter 10, Tamm gets into the The Ambient sound. This section is one of the most interesting of the book, and provides an excellent introduction to ambient music.

The bulk of this chapter looks at the work that Eno created in one of his richest creative periods, 1978-1982. In these years, Eno released the four albums that make up his Ambient series, Ambient I-IV. These works created ambient music as a style, and each album explored different musical territory, territory that artists are revisiting to this day.

Tamm brings the same depth of critical analysis to his discussion of Eno’s ambient works as he did to Eno’s rock music. Of particular interest is his discussion of one of the loveliest pieces from Eno’s Ambient 1, Music for Airports:

“‘2/1,’ the second piece on the first side, is the purest, and arguably most effective, of the four compositions. The only sound sources used are taped female voices singing single pitches with an absolutely unwavering tone production, on the syllable ah,’ for about five seconds per pitch. These sung notes have been electronically treated to give them a soft attack/decay envelope and a slight hiss that accompanies the tone. Once again, the pitch material is very limited: seven tones that taken together spell a Db major seventh chord with an added ninth. (See Example 10.)

Example 10

Harmonic content of ‘2/1′
ab’
f’
eb’
db’
c’
ab
f

The rhythm of ‘2/1′ is serially organized. As Eno has explained, each long note was recorded onto a separate piece of tape, and each piece of tape was made into a loop of a different length. The relationships between the lengths of the loops ‘aren’t simple, they’re not six to four. They’re like 27 to 79, or something like that. Numbers that mean they would constantly be falling in different relationships to one another.’ In fact, Eno did not measure the lengths precisely, but simply spun off what seemed like a ‘reasonable’ amount of extra tape for each note. ‘And then I started all the loops running, and let them configure in the way they chose to configure. So sometimes you get dense clusters and fairly long silences, and then you get a sequence of notes that makes a kind of melody.’

Thus the exact ratios between the cycles of repetition of the seven notes Eno deemed unimportant. For the record, the approximate duration of each cycle, determined through measurement with a stopwatch, is given in Example 11, the pitches are given in order of their first appearance.

Example 11

Approximate Duration of Pitch-Cycles in 2/1′

c’	eb’	f	ab’	db’	f’	ab
21′	17′	25′	18′	31′	20′	22′

It is interesting to note that once again Eno’s pitch material adds up to a chord that is not in root position (that is, the theoretically strongest note, Db, is not the lowest note of the chord). Furthermore, the root Db, the one note capable of producing a high-level dissonance in the context (a minor second with the neighboring C), has the longest cycle of the whole set, and is thus heard least frequently. The competing tonics’ of Db and Ab exemplify the modal ambiguity found frequently in Eno’s music. Such music suggests a key, keys, or mode, but does not assert one unambiguously. The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic cadences so important to the establishment of key in tonal music are completely absent here.

The balance between sound and silence is of the essence in ‘2/1,’ and in no other piece of Eno’s is silence itself so important. The composition, in its rarefied nature, its systematic use of long notes, and its serial organization, is reminiscent of Webern pieces like the first movement of his Symphony, Op. 21, of 1928, in spite of the different tonal idioms. Most critics and musicologists would agree, however, that even those initiated souls who have plotted out numerically the complex double canon among tone-row forms in that Symphony’s exposition are unlikely to have much success following the canon in real time without a score. In Eno’s ‘2/1,’ on the other hand, owing to the limited pitch material, the fixed, narrow register, and the slow rhythmic cycles, the informed listener has considerably greater hope of following the serial unfolding, should he or she choose to do so. Between the poles of airport ambiance and mental chess game, ‘2/1′ admirably lives up to its professed goal of being able to accommodate different levels of listening attention while offering different kinds of rewards at each level.”

Tamm recognizes that the depth of his analyis may be a musicalogical geek-out. However, like all good music analysis and criticism, Tamm’s writing will give a new depth of understanding and appreciation of Eno’s music to interested readers.

Chapter 11, Collaborations looks at Eno’s work with other musicians. Eno has a long history of working with other interesting musicians, and he often acts as a catalyst to help them create their best work. In fact, if you look at Eno’s work with other musicians, it’s not only a list of some of their best albums, but some of the best pop music of the last 30 years. His collaborations include: Robert Fripp’s ambient guitar work; David Bowie’s Low, Heroes, and Lodger; Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!; Talking Heads’ More Songs about Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light; and with U2 on many of their best albums.

Because Eno works as a producer or collaborator on these albums, Tamm does not go into as much detail in his discussion of these albums. These collaborations do reveal a great deal of Eno’s ability as a collaborator, and also of his insight and intelligence in understanding in the world of popular music.

Chapter 12, Essence, History and Beauty puts Eno’s work into a context within both western classical music and popular electronic music. It sums up Eno’s place.

This chapter, in some ways, serves to qualify Tamm’s work. Tamm recognizes that, while the tools of western classic music theory are great tools for understanding classical music, they are somewhat limited for understanding Eno’s music:

“Yet the theoretical tradition has had little direct impact on the way most people perceive music. Although theory and analysis certainly represent a continuous conversation – and probably an indispensable one – in the totality of the world’s musical discourse, I doubt whether a precise measurement of the tape-loop lengths of Eno’s ‘2/1′ is likely to hold any greater sway over most listeners’ reaction to the sounding surface than is an explanation of the operation of tone row forms in Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21. A suggestion that recurring cycles underlie the piece’s structure is enough, and Eno knows it.”

While Tamm recognizes the limitations of applying his training in classical theory to Eno’s music, he doesn’t use this as an excuse to shy away from dealing with the questions raised by Eno’s work.

The author provides several additional sections that add details that would have otherwise bogged down his writing. An Epilog updates the book with some of Eno’s more recent work. An extensive set of end notes and a bibliography provide sources for the annotations that appear throughout the book. Hardcore Eno fans will find these useful for finding both Eno’s most important writings and other writing related to Eno’s work. A Glossary defines terms that Tamm uses in the book that are part of the lingo of music theory, but that many readers may not be familiar with. Finally, a Discography identifies Eno’s recorded work through 1995, and is thorough without anal-retentive excess.

Brian Eno – His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound is one of the most thorough books ever written about a modern musician in the pop or art arena. It covers Eno’s music with obvious respect, but without fawning reverence. It is thorough, comprehensive and deep, attacks the important questions that Eno’s music raises, and subjects Eno’s music to fair critical scrutiny. Tamm’s book is the best written on Brian Eno and his music, the deepest look at ambient music, and one of the best books on electronic music that I’ve read.

While Tamm’s work is an excellent, essential book, it is not without weaknesses. The most obvious problem of the book is that it was originally written as a thesis. It is occasionally dry or academic as a result, which drains some of the life out of the subject matter.

Another weakness is the almost complete lack of illustrations. Additional illustrations would make the book much more accessible, and would give insight into Eno’s background as a visual artist. Eno’s album covers, for example, are sometimes visual representations of his music, and at other times amplify the ideas of moods contained in his music. Tamm at one point discusses sexuality and sexual roles in Eno’s work, and photos of Eno over time would help amplify this discussion. When Tamm discusses Eno’s studio and how he works, it would have been interesting to have photos to refer to for this, also.

Though Tamm emphasizes the “vertical color of sound” in Eno’s music, there is little discussion of Eno’s orchestration, or the instrumentation of his pieces. Eno sees himself as more of a sound painter, rather than a musician, and his use of tone color, sound effects, and reverberant spaces is a very important aspect of his music. Eno is also well-known for his use of Yamaha DX-7’s, and FM synthesis. Readers interested in his approach to orchestration, his sound palette, and the actual tone colors used in his work may be disappointed by Tamm’s coverage.

More discussion of Eno’s musical judgment would have been interesting, also. Tamm notes that Eno’s work is a bit of a paradox. It’s simple to the point of being simplistic. In fact, many musicians that listen to Eno’s work might think that “I could do that” by simply taking some pretty sounds, looping them, and adding a lot of reverb.

In fact, hundreds of musicians have done just that. There are now dozens of variations on ambient music: ambient pop, ambient trance, dark ambient, ambient rock, and so on. While many of the musicians inspired by Eno have done interesting work, none has been able to equal the mystery and beauty of Eno’s seminal pieces. Most “ambient” work seems inspired by the superficial sound of some of Eno’s more accessible pieces, rather than by an understanding of the ideas and processes Eno uses to create his work.

What makes Eno’s ambient work different? Additional discussion of Eno’s musical judgment might provide some context for understanding and appreciating his work in relationship to other ambient music.

It reflects well on Tamm’s work that each of these “weaknesses” are examples of his writing making one want to know even more.

Summary

Tamm’s book is essential reading for fans of Eno, ambient music, and electronic music in general. The book is deep, thorough, and provides a great deal of insight into the music and mind of one of the most influential musicians, composers and thinkers of the late twentieth century.

The book is a serious and thorough review of the ideas and techniques in the music of Brian Eno. It’s a very interesting read, and will inspire readers to listen with new appreciation of Eno’s music.

Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound is essential reading for anyone interested in ambient and electronic music.

About the Author

Eric Tamm, right, is a musician and writer, and works as a marketing writer in the software industry. He is co-founder of the seminal Silicon Valley rock band The Raving Daves, and, according to his site, he composes and records “unbelievable quantities of warped classicoid music, a miniscule fraction of which is available on CD.”

In addition to his book on Brian Eno, Tamm has written Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft.

His website has information on his music, the Raving Daves, his books, and his painting.

The Etudes are an interesting collection. As etudes, they explore a range of piano technique. They also explore the world of piano music through Glass’s eyes.

The music is immediately identifiable as Glass’s. If you’ve heard some of his more popular and accessible work, such as the score for Koyaanisqatsi, you’ll find the style of the Etudes familiar.

There are ten pieces. They don’t form a complete cycle, but are just the first ten that Glass has written. In his liner notes, Glass explains some of the goals for the work: “Their purpose was two-fold. First, to provide new music for my solo piano concerts. And second, for me to expand my piano technique with music that would enhance and challenge my playing. Hence, the name Etudes, or “studies”. The result is a body of work that has a broad range of dynamic, tempo and emotion. I hope to complete the second set of ten etudes, of which the first six are already composed, in the next few years.”

The pieces cover a range of tempos and moods. Several of the pieces are outstanding. One example is Etude II. This etude is very lyrical, and uses the full range of the keyboard to create motion within the piece. An lyrical ostinato continues through the piece while a simple melody is played first in the low end of the keyboard, then at the high end, and then simultaneously. The ostinato is then treated chordally, before returning to the initial treatment.

Etude X is another clever piece. It’s full of joy, with bouncing tempo. Glass contrasts the ends of the keyboard against each other, and the melodies dance around with the feel of a Hungarian folk dance.

The Etudes have two main failings. First, they don’t break new ground for Glass. If you’ve heard any of his recent music, there will be little that will surprise you on this CD. Second, the pieces are not best served by his performance. Glass is not a virtuoso pianist. While there are benefits to hearing the composer perform his work, it’s hard to listen to these pieces without thinking that a great pianist might have brought more life into them.

Overall the Etudes are an enjoyable collection of music, and a necessary addition for Glass fans. Others may want to give this a listen before buying.

Mychael Danna is extremely prolific. His work includes dozens of film scores, including The Antwone Fisher Story, Monsoon Wedding, and many other art-house flicks.

Each of the movement is made up of small melodic or harmonic fragments that repeat in various combinations. In some respects, this reflects Brian Eno’s early ambient works, but with a more orchestral arrangement. On top of the minimal background, Danna adds solo instruments, resulting in an evocative orchestral feel.

This music could fall into the category of New Age, but it is new age without any of the cloying cheesiness that detracts from most of it. The ten movements work together to create a sustained mood that supports active listening or background ambience.

The mood on this album is largely dark and reflective. These pieces won’t leave you humming memorable melodies, but if you like new age minimalism, you’ll find yourself playing this often.