[ Hypnos Forum ]

Hi all you stargazers at Hypnos, just to let you know, I'm doing a survey on creativity and flow, and I'd love some musicians to be involved. 
Read the bit below if you are interested.  Mike, I hope it's ok for me to put this up, if not, feel free to move/delete.  Of course, you know i'd love you in the survey too Mike.

here's the official blurb:

Dear colleagues

My name is Mirko Simon Ruckels from the School of Psychology and Counselling at QUT. I’m writing to ask you to participate in an online survey as part of my honours research in psychology. My research is looking at creativity and the experience of ‘flow’ (a deep sense of absorption and ‘losing’ oneself in an activity). It doesn’t matter if you do not consider yourself creative, as I need to survey people across the whole spectrum of creativity. So please consider completing my study whether you consider yourself creative or not. If you’d like to help me in this study I’m looking for males and females 17 years or older to complete a 15-20 minute online questionnaire.

You can go directly to the online survey, at the link below. You’ll find details of the study on the opening pages of the survey.

http://survey.qut.edu.au/survey/174276/2b12

Please note that this study has been approved by the QUT Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number 1200000399).

Many thanks for your consideration of this request.


MIrko Ruckels
Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Honours Psychology) student
School of Psychology & Counselling
Queensland University of Technology
Mobile: 0416 079 422
Email: mirkoruckels@gmail.com

Cheers guys.  It's nice to be back. 

The most awesome recent concert that blew my mind was Tori Amos.  I wasn't prepared, and was almost quite irritated to be there, as I wasn't in a concert mood at all.  What happened after she floated onto the stage blew my mind.  She is a phenomenal performer with a wonderful sense of dynamics- she worked so damn hard, all night, pouring everything into her songs.  I left exhausted emotionally.

Other brilliant concerts:
Jeff Buckley (1995)  I was a massive fan of his before he sadly died, and witnessing him live was a revelation.  The audience (of about 2000) was transfixed, and unusual for a 'rock' audience, completely quiet.  People were telling others to shut up.  Some got quite hostile at people who dared to speak.  And this was at a typical rock venue, where people usually mosh and generally let it all hang out.  The place turned into a church when he played.

Sonic Youth:  I saw them several times in the 90's and they always seem to control the elements in an almost supernatural way.  During one outdoor concert, it began to rain as they played.  I don't know if it had the same effect on the audience, but it was pretty magical for me. Some people looked confused at the wonderfully impressionistic yet abrasive sound.  I loved them even more because of it.

Tristan and Isolde (concert version) by Wagner.  This performance, which featured Lisa Gasteen, a local brisbane soprano who has conquered the opera world now, was phenomenal.  I was transfixed and felt like I'd be hollowed out and filled with marshmallows by the end.

Beck:  This was one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to.  Spaceships, Giant Creatures and all sort of whacky shit roamed the stages, while Beck took the audience through his massive backcatalog.  Completely brilliant.

Elliott Smith: I was fortunate enough to support Elliott Smith back in 2000.  He is one of the most brilliant songwriters I've ever come across, and he was wonderful live.  I didn't summon up the courage to talk to him, after doing soundcheck with him, and I wish I had.  He just sort of sat there in a corner during the soundcheck, strumming his guitar and writing something.  As you may know, he took his own life in 2003.  Very sad.

Many other concerts come to mind, but I'll leave it at that.

I actually find the statement: "We're not necessarily trying to advance the genre" a tad bit disturbing. Now maybe I am misinterpreting it, but boy am I glad that Brian Eno and Miles Davis and Led Zeppelin and so on in each ones respective genre's did not think that way.

Now the flip side is that the folks who go into a project or a musical experience with the attitude that "I am going to do something no one has ever done before, I will be ground breaking" is also equally disturbing...

But somewhere in the middle there should always be the goal of advancing one's self and their art. If you are not passionate about your art and its propagation, well why should anyone else be?

Exactly Paul, the last paragraph: somewhere in the middle.  I don't think Miles Davis was trying to be experimental and different- he was creating music that he found stimulating.  Brian Eno himself wrote an article about how little innovation there is in a good piece of art, and about how it should have that perfect balance of craftsmanship, genre and a dab of innovation.  That's what I was saying.  What I was also trying to get at, was how the genre of ambient music mimics the music itself. It's not in a hurry.  It has long quiet sections.  See the past couple of years a quiet part maybe.

What are people really afraid of here?  That ambient music will cease to be, or that it will be forgotten? I have no fears of this style fading away because music thrives on opposition, and ambient music thrives on isolation.  that may sound odd, but i think it's part of the genre. This style stands in opposition to most things in the world.  A style where an artists can make such a minimal statment, and others out there 'get' it....that's just cool.

Everywhere you turn today all you get is more noise: faster, 'better', brighter, sexier, louder.  This scene is a relief and it can't be blamed for turning invisible every couple of years now can it. 

I recognise that Austere did put a warning in the title: yet the fact remains that most of the posters in this thread have been releasing music over the last 3-4 years.  It's a slightly silly thing to post, even with a warning.  Luckily, Austere's work is very good, so he's partially redeemed.

In a way, any argument that follows his statement is void, unless it's a defense of recent ambient music, because the initial statement is untrue.

I think that saying that the quality of the genre is diminishing is pointless. Brian's post is an excellent and gentle rebuttal to Austere's statement.  It takes into account the complexity of the ambient scene and the fact that a lot of us are trying to make beautiful and mysterious music, we're not necessarily trying to advance the genre so it fits more squarely within a marketed genre and we can finally get our space on the Wall-mart shelf!  It's not something that is as prone to cultural influence as pop music is.  The scene is going to go up and down.  It's going to blow in the wind like a tumbleweed.  The scene is a bit like the music itself.  Slightly formless and floating.  I don't know about you, but that's why I escape to it.   

I remember looking at a friend's setup, which was mac mini, and apple tv.  The mac mini does look great.
I thought the same about the apple tv at first- it seemed to have a quite restricted range of formats.  And itunes seemed to have
a quite  limited range of movies and tv shows, all mainly hollywood.  Recently that seems to have changed, and now there
is quite a big range of movies and tv shows

Right now we're in the honeymoon phase.   We're sitting around, looking at this big new tv, watching lots of itunes trailers and looking at photos
of our holiday. 

If it weren't for CD-R there is  A LOT of music in my collection that would have never seen the light of day.. meaning it may never have been released.

I agree with that statement.  CD-R allows labels to 'try out' artists that may otherwise incur a risk.  I think as time passes, the CD-R's will get better anyway.  I've already noticed a big difference over the last couple of years, at least from the 'person releasing music on them' end, in terms of burn accuracy.  Having said that, If you've been burned (excuse the pun) once as a customer, it's kind of hard to go back.

This very sad news has put me into quite an existential state.

Great to see so many people paying respects to a great musician. 

Farewell Jim. 

My parents have always referred to ambient as "non music."  And they love classical, n hate ambient.  So I don't think THEY see any correlations between the two.  I don't either. Period. Over n' out!! 

Well, those correlations sound highly subjective drone.    I'd like to point out (and to annoy you) with the fact that correlations are never seen as causation.  Meaning that you can't assume that any truth comes from a correlation. 

Enjoy that.  ;P

There is absolutely no relationship between classical music and ambient.  Classical music is temporal, acoustically produced, structured music.  (Good) ambient just isn't. Period.

Hi again everyone!

As to your comments drone on:

I disagree with your statement. 

Some ambient musicians use acoustic instruments (stars of the lid, eluvium, hammock, brian eno)
Some classical composers write music that doesn't have typical melodic narrative and structure (erik satie, debussy, mompou)
Some classical composers don't always use acoustic instruments (John Cage, Stockhausen, Philip Glass)
Some ambient musicians write music with clear sections and melodies (brian eno, harold budd, sotl and many others)

There are linkages between the two.  You just have to look carefully.  There are linkages between every genre of music.

So you basically can't make such statements. 

Period.