Avant Garde - Part 1

Lately I've been drinking a lot of margaritas, listening to ambient music, and conversing extensively with a friend over making video games -- often over a margarita (or two). My intention is to create one and I have been pulling concepts together and mulling over them in order to construct it thoroughly as an engaging story played out in an experimental and exploratory fashion. It's a difficult and mostly isolated process at this point but opening myself up to the feelings of the characters, and the scenes I imagine, rewards me with random flushes of emotion. I can close my eyes and sense pieces of the finished project, it beckons from afar, bristling under realistic constraints. Several items culminated into what has, mentally, become a very mature production.

First, I eluded to ambient music, generally labeled "new age" or (my preference) "atmospheric electronica". The infinite accessibility of packaged audibles through digital distribution provides a vast river of soundscapes limited only by the speed of my consumption. These tracks provide somewhat minimal rhythmic elements and little, if any, vocals aside from the language agnostic harmonics. So initially I only sunk knee-deep into these other worlds while, remaining connected in our realm by some visible activity: a game, browsing the web, or my current job of consultant programming. Songs not sung or without immediately engaging beats seem alien, and misunderstanding individuals given to favorable comments call it avante-garde.



But it isn't necessarily experimental or at the edge of anything, except what is currently apparent. Some of it is the sound you might already hear when you're deep in thought and seriously listening to yourself. A lot has been around for decades and had no clear path to reach people ignorant of its existence. Maybe my ravenous appetite for movie/television scores (first made aware of by my brother who explained the difference between that and an "original soundtrack") directed a hunger for less discreet, more ethereal vibrations. I also owe a large debt to Pandora and eMusic for shamelessly contextualizing particular interests outside of fads and marketing budgets. Whatever the source or influences, utter entrancement of the form has followed.

Mainstream music and movies craft specific imagery to tell their tales. Given the level of technology available on top and the pervasiveness of the media machine, it becomes easy to discount or misinterpret many independent films. Rather than broadening themselves to mass appeal via proven tropes, there is an openness to the presentation: inviting your interpretation and even disagreement. Story books do not interest most folk because it is easier to be fed. A reader becomes a director of sorts, organizing the assets of their particular imagination and experiences. Left without video, audio, and maybe even some descriptions, we become responsible for their reconstruction - however brief. Whereas passive entertainment provides swift but structured escape. In the same way, ambient music spins new yarns in the listener's mind without tying it to descriptions, dialog, areas, times, or characters. It can be more than merely a meditative crutch.

The lack of sharp edges in the texture of these tunes mimic, in my mind, a higher level view of struggles and situations. Not "holier than thou", but backing up and re-evaluating perspective. Everything looks nice and clean from up above; images of earth from space evoke it. Similarly I hear the soft rhythms and practically imagine them washing over me, or better: blanketing and surrounding. A springboard for filling in the remaining physiological senses: cold, lost, fear, hope, longing.

And so I began developing my story first from this kind of music. It must be paired with an implied freedom to try, test, fail, and perhaps succeed. A very abstract beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. Next post I will try to explain where I have gone from there.