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Kankyō Ongaku: generative music for swimming days

by manuel guimarães

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Mark Coyle
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1.
Kankyō Ongaku: environmental music for swimming days 44:40

about

" 'Kankyō ongaku' is Japanese for 'environmental music', and as used here it’s an umbrella term for calm, spacious, and slightly chilly music.”(1)

It "was established in the 1980s as a reaction to the rapid urbanisation and economic development of the time. Influenced by Erik Satie and Brian Eno, it consists of minimalist electronica infused with the ambient sounds of nature.”(2)

Generative music is a form of music in which a piece of music creates itself from an initial set of musical elements and behaviours and rules defined by the composer and/or a system (natural or artificial). It is an “approach to music creation concerning itself with neither improvisation nor explicit composition, but rather with framing an indeterminate system from which music can emerge” (Priestley, 2014, p. 1). It is therefore not a musical genre or style on its own but rather a compositional practice where the composer is more concerned with creating or discovering a system or a process – physical or virtual – that will then generate the music autonomously of the composer, than with writing the composition from start to finish in the traditional sense. In generative music the role of the composer could be seen more as that of a gardener than an architect, to use Brian Eno’s analogy (Edge, November 10, 2011). Or to borrow another metaphor of his, “generative music is like trying to create a seed, as opposed to classical composition which is like trying to engineer a tree” (Toop, 2004, p. 182). (3)

Having these definitions as starting point, this interpretative composition is created with generative techniques to bring a continuous ethereal movement of ambient music.

On the creation of this piece it was used Oliver Patrice Weder’s The pool project toolkit (released through Spitfire Audio (4)) ; Max/MSP (5) ; and tools form Eventide (6) and ina-GRM (7).

Have a nice swim.

#ambient video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfk-4zQ3R2s&t=1159s&ab_channel=ManuelGuimar%C3%A3es

+info: manuelguimaraes.com

1 - pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/...
2 - goldsteinmusic.com/kankyo-ong...
3 - ilpojauhiainen.com/writings/generative-music/
4 - www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-...
5 - cycling74.com
6 - www.eventideaudio.com
7 - inagrm.com

credits

released September 8, 2021

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