Experiments in Ambience (EIA)
 
What is EIA Experiment in Ambience (EIA) is an attempt to create various types of improvisational sights and sounds. EIA produces pieces of music called audio visual scapes or AVscapes. The AVscape becomes a conversation between musicians during the session. One musician sets the stage with scape playing out the chord patterns, and/or melody. Musicians can start a scape by stringing sampled sounds together and playing them back to set the tone. The instruments we play in the scapes are: analog synth, digital synth, tap guitar, chaos pad, didjeridu, acoustic bass, turntable, percussion, and ambient vocals. In May 2008, Jonas and I initiated talking about EIA referring to “The Beats” and the way that they expressed themselves poetically in this jazz improv style. An EIA AVscape can be viewed as a Kerouac-style “On the Road” journey of music. What is an AVscape AVscapes in EIA are defined as audio/visual ‘scapes. An AVscape can be generated and scored in a number of ways. We like to generate scapes by sampling sounds and sampling video based around a theme. The sights and sounds are then loaded up into various instruments to be played out a venue. The music around the scape is then generated by first choosing a key, then picking out some basic chord changes, and melodies. Types of AVscapes As the sessions start to evolve we realize that there are two forms of AVscapes: light ambience, and thick ambience. We call light ambience a type of music that tends to be orchestrated, simple, and open in “space”. Thick ambience is packed with textures, and complex rhythms, and is completely improvisational in nature. These definitions will evolve as we move forward.
 
Ambience (n)...
1. - a particular environment or surrounding influence
2. the atmosphere of an environment
 
 
 
EIA Happenings...
 
EIA-I
June 2008
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright © Owen McCusker 1997-2008