As a producer, mixer, and recordist, I am often invited into the source material of a piece of music when an artist seeks input on specific aspects of the composition, song form, or lyrics.
Good stuff. Even with a lot of the ambient stuff I do, I envision it as not being done because I want drums, bass and other traditional instruments to fill some spaces, guide others. I think it partially comes from being a songwriter for most of my early creative years and still wanting to ultimately find that area between songwriting and beatless sound travel (I really need to do much more consistent work to find that area). Context is so important. Occasionally I'll come across an album where context is minimized, or specified via image and very little else outside of the album title. No track titles, no lyrics, just the cover image, the artist name and album name. And then you have all the instrumental music (or albums) where the images and titles attempt to lead the narrative of the sound you're hearing which is also quite interesting (especially given the predominant electronic nature of the music/artists I happen to have in my mind as I write this). To piggy back your analogy, and to add my own wrinkle: if the sounds (in my head) are fish, I sometimes want the context of the recording to be air, and they both evolve enough to sustain a new habitat, though still temporary until the next evolution. Hmmm...I guess in this analogy, I don't need a fish, I need a dolphin. At home in the water but need air. What a life (I need to be more at home "in the water").
Thanks for the ongoing attention to the posts and feedback. I love your phrase "beatless sound travel." Interesting to think about context related to the visual presentation of an album too (your example of images and titles playing into context creation).
Good stuff. Even with a lot of the ambient stuff I do, I envision it as not being done because I want drums, bass and other traditional instruments to fill some spaces, guide others. I think it partially comes from being a songwriter for most of my early creative years and still wanting to ultimately find that area between songwriting and beatless sound travel (I really need to do much more consistent work to find that area). Context is so important. Occasionally I'll come across an album where context is minimized, or specified via image and very little else outside of the album title. No track titles, no lyrics, just the cover image, the artist name and album name. And then you have all the instrumental music (or albums) where the images and titles attempt to lead the narrative of the sound you're hearing which is also quite interesting (especially given the predominant electronic nature of the music/artists I happen to have in my mind as I write this). To piggy back your analogy, and to add my own wrinkle: if the sounds (in my head) are fish, I sometimes want the context of the recording to be air, and they both evolve enough to sustain a new habitat, though still temporary until the next evolution. Hmmm...I guess in this analogy, I don't need a fish, I need a dolphin. At home in the water but need air. What a life (I need to be more at home "in the water").
Thanks for the ongoing attention to the posts and feedback. I love your phrase "beatless sound travel." Interesting to think about context related to the visual presentation of an album too (your example of images and titles playing into context creation).