Atmosphere Generator

AG production: "Memory Theater"

Surround-sound and other 3-dimensional sound environments hold great promise in the future of recorded music. In traditional stereo, sound can only be separated into a flat uni-dimensional configuration, coming from only two sound sources. In a natural acoustic environment, sounds come from all directions, reflecting off various surfaces. In fact, stereo panning is a very primitive attempt at recreating an acoustical space. For example, you might pan a guitar to the left channel to suggest that the player is situated on the left, but in a real environment, reflections would be coming from all directions.

I coined the term Ambient Jukebox ("AJ") (now more aptly named "Atmosphere Generation") ("AG") to describe a system where identical song or loop collections are installed on multiple players.

When I started working with random generation, I used CDs installed in multiple CD players set on random-play, but multiple computers or i-pods can work as well. AG collections are specifically created to be simultaneously played in two to four source players, with optimal effect using three, with strategically placed loudspeakers.

Up until the compact disc was invented, with its ability to randomly shuffle tracks, a concept such as this would not have been possible. The medium is indeed "the message" in this case because the nature of the medium makes this type of music composition and performance possible. Tape is inferior in that it doesn't have the capability to randomly play tracks; vinyl has this capability, but you have to physically move the tone arm (defeating the random quality).

AG has the element of surprise. You can never predict how the tracks will shuffle and combine with one another. It's similar to watching TV with the sound off while you have music playing: sometimes the sound and images will come together in an interesting contexts.

When you design an AG environment, you select which sounds will be a part of your "sound world." A friend of mine had traveled to Costa Rica in the early 1990s and had taken several tapes of field recordings in and around the Orosi Valley. I listened to each of these tapes and made a list of the segments that I thought would be interesting, and brought them into the computer and edited them using a sound editor (SoundForge). Once I had these collected, I composed other musical segments around the environmental sounds, and then mastered the complete set of sound segments onto a CD, and then made several copies of that disc. My initial conception was that each disc would contain a certain type of sound, e.g., disc 1, guitar sounds; disc 2, textures; disc 3, bell sounds; disc 4, sound effects, etc. After thinking this out, I realized that the same type of sound would always be coming from one set of speakers, and would consequently be quite boring. It made more sense to have all the sounds on one disc, make multiple copies of that disc and install it in multiple players. (This keeps the resultant performance completely blended and completely random.)

Once sounds are recorded into the computer they can be copied and/or manipulated and included on other AG compilations. For instance on my "Church Ruins" disc, I used sounds from another AG production, "Orientale"; further reshaping them to fit the concept of the new production. Therein lies the beauty of AG--the concept of reusing pre-existing material and incorporating it into new collaged and curated works, conceding (but not surrendering) to the new paradigm in music composition wherein all elements are recycled and/or reshaped, and used freely without copyright constraints. (See further discussion below.)

While I was trained in the "old school" of music composition where you actually play and write for traditional instruments, I feel that this new way of making music has interesting possibilities. (But surely does not replace the act of physically playing music.) Its advantage is that you can achieve compelling surface elements with a minimum of effort. The modern sentiment (and a quite intelligent one) is that effort no longer equates with the impact of the finished product or the strength of the original idea. One could spend 4 years studying at Julliard and another 4 years writing a symphony and nobody would care about it and would contribute next to nothing to the current cultural canon. I don't want to give the impression that there is never an effort involved using a modern method. In fact, Church Ruins took quite a long time to shape into the final product. One could even say that the level of craft parallels with Baroque music in the 17th century, and is even as revolutionary. Now, instead of learning to create art out of the equal-tempered tuning, we learn how to shape sound files into interesting works of art. Instead of showing someone how to write second-species counterpoint, we show them how to take a drum loop, deconstruct it, map the individual samples across the keyboard and use it as an instrument in a composition. In fact, this process can be as painstaking as sitting at a table scratching notes with a quill!

--Lee Barry