# Ambiance



## violadude

New electronic piece guys! This was composed as an assignment for my intro to electronic music class. The only things I used as the source of the sounds for this piece were my viola and my voice.






Let me know what you think!


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## Couchie

I prefer music with notes


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## violadude

Couchie said:


> I prefer music with notes


Every thing you heard in that piece was a note.


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## kv466

Let's just say I like your viola work better...but this was pretty chill.


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## violadude

kv466 said:


> Let's just say I like your viola work better...but this was pretty chill.


Fair enough...lol

In my defense it was an assignment for school, so I had certain restrictions and parameters I had to work within.

Can you tell me any specific reasons you didn't like it too much? Maybe I could improve.


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## kv466

violadude said:


> Fair enough...lol
> 
> In my defense it was an assignment for school, so I had certain restrictions and parameters I had to work within.
> 
> Can you tell me any specific reasons you didn't like it too much? Maybe I could improve.


No specifics...just not my things...you do it well, actually...it was relaxing, just not me.

So when you gonna write a quintet with three violas, cello and double-bass?


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## violadude

kv466 said:


> So when you gonna write a quintet with three violas, cello and double-bass?


Haha I will put that on my list just for you, Kv


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## regressivetransphobe

I like the angle you were going for, although giving yourself two or three minutes to work is a pretty severe limit when you're doing ambient music. It's interesting how it's unclear whether natural sounds are imitating artificial ones or vice-versa (until I read how you made it).
For a second it kind of reminded me of a super-condensed take on this: 




Not speaking too technically here, but some of the elements felt a bit too separated; I'm hearing a handful of very distinct voices when I feel perhaps they should mesh a bit more organically, to be more true to the title. There's not much of a science to this besides having the right tools and tweaking the sounds like crazy until something "clicks".


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## violadude

regressivetransphobe said:


> I like the angle you were going for, although giving yourself two or three minutes to work is a pretty severe limit when you're doing ambient music. It's interesting how it's unclear whether natural sounds are imitating artificial ones or vice-versa (until I read how you made it).
> For a second it kind of reminded me of a super-condensed take on this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not speaking too technically here, but some of the elements felt a bit too separated; I'm hearing a handful of very distinct voices when I feel perhaps they should mesh a bit more organically, to be more true to the title. There's not much of a science to this besides having the right tools and tweaking the sounds like crazy until something "clicks".


Thank you for the feedback, Regressivetransphobe. It was helpful. To address some of your points,

1) The time limit: Yes, I agree, it had little time to develop. This was actually a homework assignment in which about 2 and a half minutes in length was a requirement. Perhaps since I am getting feedback confirming my thoughts about the time, I will expand this piece a bit.

2) The multiple voices: I kind of like all the different layers of things going on, personally. But you're right, for it to be true "ambient" music it should probably mesh a little better. Maybe once I expand it, since I will no longer be working within the assignments parameters it will cease to be ambient music and become something else. It does sound a little rough though because the only program I currently have to work with is garageband. I hope to get a program that is a little more advanced soon.

Thanks for your input!  and I liked the link you posted too! That was a pretty interesting piece.


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## regressivetransphobe

That's what I was thinking: maybe this isn't an ambient piece at all in spirit, and you'd rather grasp for more rigid structure.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk

I get behind what Couchie said, but i've been exploring this kind of stuff i like it man!


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## Iforgotmypassword

I liked it. I'm not much of one for technical terms since I go almost completely by feel, but I thought it sounded good. I would say my greatest gripe is that it was far too short to be effective. I had just started getting into it when it was over. Had the piece been closer to twenty minutes and continued to progress and shift as it did in this condensed piece then I would like it more.


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## samurai

@ Violadude, I definitely think if you had been alloted more time, the piece could have been developed more; I especially was being drawn into it when it suddenly ended! But I liked the mood it was starting to create--at least for me--near its close. Good work!


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## Weston

To me it's a bit too glitch-like in places to be a straight up ambient, but I see nothing wrong with cooking different genres into a stew.


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## Aramis

So if you would be sleeping in mystical forest one day and by evening you would be awaken by Apollo and he would tell you GREEDINGS... ONLY MASTERS OF ART CAN SLEEP IN MY MAGICAL GARDEN... SHOW US YOUR MUSIC AND I, WITH MY MUSES, SHALL JUDGE IF YOU'RE WORTHY and then from the bushes there would come out all those awesome ladies fresh as spring dressed in light white robes gently moved by the wind and what, you would show them something like that, I'M ASKING YOU MAN, WOULD YOU SHOW THEM THIS PIECE


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## violadude

Aramis said:


> So if you would be sleeping in mystical forest one day and by evening you would be awaken by Apollo and he would tell you GREEDINGS... ONLY MASTERS OF ART CAN SLEEP IN MY MAGICAL GARDEN... SHOW US YOUR MUSIC AND I, WITH MY MUSES, SHALL JUDGE IF YOU'RE WORTHY and then from the bushes there would come out all those awesome ladies fresh as spring dressed in light white robes gently moved by the wind and what, you would show them something like that, I'M ASKING YOU MAN, WOULD YOU SHOW THEM THIS PIECE


yes...but good thing that would never happen.


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## Couchie

violadude said:


> Every thing you heard in that piece was a note.


Technically, the same is true for traffic jams


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## violadude

Couchie said:


> Technically, the same is true for traffic jams


Exactly! Now you are thinking like a John Cage enthusiast! 

But jokes aside, it is not exactly the same. Every sound you heard in my ambiance piece was an _exact_ pitch. Of course, exact being defined by our standard tuning system. However, the sounds in traffic are usually made up of approximate pitches. Nice try though. On second thought, the horns of a car can be fairly exact pitches sometimes, but then they would be notes...and therefore you should like it...right?


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## violadude

Hey guys, since a lot of you said I needed to expand the piece, I did so on my own time, without the constrictions of a school assignment. I added a few more minutes on my ambient piece and renamed it "Birth, destruction, rebirth" I think the three "sections" of the piece regarding the title are fairly obvious. What do you guys think of the new version? The only sounds that are used are still just my voice and my viola.


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## Kopachris

Both intellectually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing, as usual.


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## violadude

Kopachris said:


> Both intellectually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing, as usual.


Thank you


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## Sid James

Thanks very much for sharing.

I liked them both, both of them are different.

I think I preferred the first one, for it's brevity and more tighter feel.

The second one was or sounded chaotic to me, much like a wild feeling, and it made Aussie Surrealist painter, the late James Gleeson's images come to mind. HERE is an example. I often think of music in a visual way, either with just my own inner visions or the actual visions of artists, painters, etc. Your second piece came across as like a surreal landscape to me, at least on this first hearing...


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## PetrB

Well done. I'd like to suggest when you have a drone, as here, and have clearly then laid / improvised enough events around it, that you check the possibility of dropping the volume on the drone to bring the events to the foreground. It is also easy for me to imagine here the drone in this one cutting off abruptly, in alignment with a certain patch of multiple activity of the other rhythmic and pitch events, as if the orchestra had gone tacit in a multi-instrumental ensemble concerto. It is highly 'dramatic' and could be heard to launch the other events, with the drone coming back in after a bit. The listener's perception , even hearing the drone and the other events together again in the same balance, will be tipped to the other events still in the fore.

an exchange of roles is another possibility, trading of drone to the pitch variety of the other events and vice versa.


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## PetrB

Yes, lol, pitched or non-pitched, they're all tones.
Any two discrete tones, pitched or non-pitched, are harmony / harmonious.
"Atonal Music" is, literally, an oxymoron. O
Organized sound, fixed or notated, (I suppose even random improv - essentially 'man made') is music.

Now, how to get that through to 'the plebes,' who always start spluttering about melody, 'harmonious' and all the rest???


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