How to listen to Ambient music

Hi!

I'm going to write about a strange type of music called Ambient. It's a little difficult to talk about specific elements in the music without resorting to some odd language, so be warned. Ambient is a form of electronic music that has almost no drums in it. I approached this genre with hesitance, as I generally like interesting rhythms in the music I listen to. But I found that there can be a lot of depth and structure in this form, but it took me a while to come to terms with it.

The fundamental issue is that you have to know where to look for the music. In pop, there is music in the melody and how the accompaniment interacts with it. In rap, there is music in the interactions between the rhythms of the lyrics and the rhythms of the music. In Ambient, the music can be hidden in the interactions between the textures of the sounds.

Here's a link to a 2-minute excerpt of a track called Chukhung from Biosphere's brilliant 1996 album called Substrata. It's a landmark in the genre, and I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to begin an exploration of Ambient. Give the excerpt a listen now, then come back and continue reading. Your best bet is to listen in headphones. (I'm really hoping Mr. Jenssen and his publisher will consider this a fair use of the material, should they come across this post.)

This album was in fact my first experience with Ambient music. I had heard the artist's earlier work (the excellent Microgravity from 1991), which did include a lot of drum work as it was in the Ambient Techno genre. But a few tracks had no drums, and they were very good. So I figured it was worth seeing what he did on a full album without drums (well, there's a very light bit of drumming in Uva-Ursi, but that's the only exception).

When I first listened to Chukhung, I heard the repeating "poong" that starts at 0:06, the "boo-ner-eem" that starts at 0:52, and the guitar that starts at 1:37. I thought they were interesting-sounding textures, and that was as far as it went. But after listening many more times, I came to hear a lot more elements.

The "poong" actually changes pitch with each hit, rising and falling quite slowly. Accompanying it is a bass sound that pans left and right a bit. The "poong" also has a very long echo on it, which doesn't actually end in time for the next "poong."

The echo of the "doo-ner-nim" is accompanied by an almost-metallic scraping sound, a dissonant mid-range chord, and slightly lower-frequency chord. These sounds change subtly in stereo positioning from hit to hit. The guitar also pans around alot, and has a lot of ambient echo on it throughout the soundspace.

The complexity in this music is not in the notes, as they would look quite simple on sheet music. The structure is all tied up in the textures of the sounds, and how these textures work with each other to create a soundscape.

In the full track 7.5 minute track, these elements change volume relative to each other, disappear and reappear, and one other element is brought in. The result is a subtly shifting soundscape that never bores me. Since my first experience with headphones when I was a kid, I've always loved what music can do with the soundstage in your head. Good Ambient artists really make this most of this, so it is best listened to in headphones. Much of the subtlety is lost if you aren't getting the effects of stereo placement of the sounds.

If you're interested in delving into his music, I recommend starting with Microgravity, then going on to Cirque, Substrata, then Shen Zhou. All of his main albums are excellent, but these give a good idea of the range of what he does. You can find his work at biosphere.no. It's not for everyone, but if you can get into it, it's a very special place in the world.

O. Noir - Blind dining in Montreal

Hi!

We've lived in Montreal for over 4 years now, and we've been curious about a restaurant called O. Noir. The waitstaff are blind or partially-sighted, and you eat in the dark. We decided to go try it finally on last Friday.

I always figured it would be in semi-darkness, where you might be able to see after your eyes adjusted. But no, it was completely pitch-black. The moment the light first disappeared and the noise crashed in on me, I almost had to leave as it kicked off my claustrophobia. I got past that, and survived the rest of the evening.

Well, I can't say I recommend going. The concept is something that I think is interesting. We were forced to do everything without sight, which meant re-learning how to eat and interact with other people. I found that part very interesting. The food was decent, though not brilliant.

But the place seems to cater to a tourist audience, and many of the other people treated it as a gag. The same thing happened there as you get on internet forums: give people anonymity, and they act like morons. A group next to us were shouting and howling and generally being a nuisance. I sincerely doubt these people would act that way anywhere they might be recognized.

Combine peoples' behavior with the acoustics of the room, and it became too loud to hear myself think. So I found that the combination of not being able to see, and not being able to hear anything above the din was stifling.

The service wasn't great, as they do a seat-everyone-at-once style banquet thing. So we felt trapped at our table as the waiter didn't come by except to bring food. Trena never got a knife despite asking for one twice. I understand that you can't expect perfect service when it's completely dark. But it could have been better. Given they were charging $40 per person (+drinks and tax), I found it odd that their strategy was to cram as many people into the space as possible. I suppose that makes an amount of sense given people can't see they're crammed in, but it certainly was apparent from the noise.

Overall, I think if they catered to a different audience and improved the acoustics of the room, they'd have something really special.

EVE: Strengths and Weaknesses

At the risk of posting too much about EVE, I decided I was tired of typing this. So now I can just point people to this post. :)

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EVE's weaknesses:

Poorly documented (being worked on).
Interface bugs (though these are slowly being cleaned up).
Tech II Blueprint Originals (I'd have to do some explaining on this one).

EVE's strengths:
Not sharded; all players are in the same world.
Robust player-driven economy and political system.
Expansions are always free, and there are two major ones per year.

Things you may or may not like, depending on your preferences:
Steep learning curve.
Skills train offline with real time.
PvP can happen anywhere, though they REALLY have to want you to go after you in high-security space.
Death incurs loss of equipment (not skills, if clone is kept up-to-date).
Classless: choose any skill to train, provided you have the pre-reqs and the cash.
You can train for years and still not top out the skill system.

For me, the game's inherent harshness makes it rewarding since you have to earn your way through the game; it doesn't give you anything.

One thing that worries new players is that if skills train with time, you can't ever catch up with the veterans in skill. They mitigate that by making the training time for levels exponential. Skills top out at level 5. Training times for a skill might be

L1: 15 minutes
L2: 2 hours
L3: 15 hours
L4: 2 days
L5: 30 days

It doesn't really take very long to get a lot of L4 skills, and skills usually add % bonuses. So you get get within 80% effectiveness on many things quite quickly.