New Age Music & Meditation
In the 70's, I enjoyed aspects of the subculture that was called the New Age. I embraced concerns, values, art and ideas that seemed to promise the emergence of a a new world order. Someone called the eclectic music of the time New Age music. New Age music was often peaceful, dreamy and unstructured sounds played on synthesizers and quiet instruments. The idea was to feel calm if not blissful. Chanting merged with synthesizer pads and flute obligatos. I especially recall Paul Winter's Missa Gaia, a world mass the celebrated the wolf and whale. I heard this new mass performed in one of Vancouver's large churches and was thrilled by the performance. Winter wrote real music with complex, sophisticated arrangements and a deep feeling for the animal nature in humans.
Some New Age music albums come with liner notes encouraging the music's use in meditation, and many albums were deigned and recorded for this purpose. Some pundits suggested that New Age music was relaxing, calming and supported healthy living. Health food stores, new age book stores, spas, and specialized radio stations played this music.
New age music became fusion music combining world sounds and instruments with an odd mix of activities - mediation, yoga, trance dancing and drug parties that featured LSD, grass and later ecstasy.
The contrast between calming music and frantic rock and roll sometimes separated groups with divergent values and sometimes restless youth would alternate between calm and frantic, pot and speed. If you tune into Sirius satellite radio, the Spa and Chill channels offer some music from the new age era. The new new age music of 2010 and beyond remains to be defined. I was surprised that iTunes categorized one of my albums, Going Beyond as "new age." The compositions were composed as 21st century music- eccentric compositions with jazz energy, rhythms and dense improvisations -- no resemblance to the new age music of the 70's. Maybe the iTunes pundits are right identifying interesting, energetic, innovative music as the new age. New genres emerged around the notions of relaxation, meditation, trance and trance dance. I recall liking other studio musicians who produced eclectic albums such as Enigma, Incognito, Air, Air Supply, Zero 7. Kitaro, Enya, Delerium.
Meditation
Mediation refers to a variety of methods to calm and focus the mind. Sitting practice is a universal form of meditation. The sitter ignores both external and internal distractions and aspires to have a calm mind and body. The idea is to transcend obvious concerns, worry and tame the endless chatter of spontaneous mind activity.
Meditation is one method of understanding how our mind works, how we know things and what conclusions we can derive from our knowledge. I prefer sitting on a beach, on a mountain, in a garden, in a boat, or floating on an inflated tire on a lake. Sitting inside buildings is not so appealing. One of my practices is sky and cloud watching which requires you to lie on a grassy or mossy patch of ground and looking up. One of the rules of mediation is not to look around and become distracted. Sky watching requires you to look up at the same patch of sky and let events such as birds, clouds and insects pass without following their paths.
The practice of meditation is based on a fundamental disinterest in the redeeming possibilities of language. Meditation leads to ineffable experiences and away from the beliefs, demands and rules of the local group. The Buddha manifests his identity as a professional philosopher by sitting upright in the Lotus position, poised, calm and alert. The lotus position is stable and can be maintained for hours. He has a gentle smile and his philosophical work looks effortless and natural.
Transcend means to rise above and go beyond. The idea is that properly chosen music itself goes beyond preceding music and listening to this music helps you transcend whatever local concerns that might preoccupy you. I appreciate that the listener can be a very creative person in the mix of composer-performer-listener.
The essence of healing music is not just a calming or soporific effect, but an opportunity for the listener to participate and create. This opportunity requires space between sounds, gradual transitions and nuanced understanding of the brain processing of sound. I use the Korg M3 Karma to generate complex polyrhythms that combine arpeggios, scale passages and chord changes played on the keyboard. The Korg Trinity contributes sustaining voices and the Proteus 2500 some percussion and instrumental sounds.
Music styles have interbred and proliferated beyond anyone's ability to classify and defend musical styles in a meaningful way. You could argue that this is good -- musical styles should be proliferating and evolving. Or you might value tradition over innovation and argue that styles should have well defined boundaries that players respect and audiences rely on. The proliferation of styles is supported by the internet and unprecedented music distribution network that erases many boundaries and permits aspiring musician to seek direct access to audiences. Persona Music Recordings: Our Music Catalogue includes recorded performances under the titles Persona Digital, P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort. Music online is offered to illustrate music history, advance music education and appreciation. The recordings presented online demonstrate Persona Studio's arranging, recording and mastering techniques. All the recordings are arrangements and performances completed in house by Stephen Gislason. The music selections and their history are explained in the book, Sound of Music.
Topics presented at Persona Digital Studio are from the
The Sound of Music by Stephen Gislason
Click Download to order from Alpha Online
Jazz
From The Sound of Music by Stephen Gislason
"I love that word ‘jazz,’ man. Jazz is a beautiful word. I connect jazz not with what’s happening today in America so much as when I was young and listened to Ellington, Miles Davis, Bird, Dizzy Gillespie: how beautiful music was then and how exciting music was then. That’s what I connect myself with.” Joe Zawinul
I have eclectic musical interests, but the rhythms, ideas and complexity of jazz dominates my music. Some will say that jazz is performance music, that demands novel improvisations from skilled performers. Others will emphasis jazz traditions and perform standards that recall the history of jazz. Since I am studio musician, I enjoy the privilege of private improvisations, thoughtful reflection on the structure and meaning of jazz forms and ample opportunity to score, edit and refine jazz performances before they become a public spectacle. The passionate energy of some jazz pieces has been, for me, healing music supplying energy that pushed and pulled me through hard times.
Jazz became intellectual music but originated as dance music played by black musicians in New Orleans. Jass referred to sex and the rhythmic dances in the black community were sensual and erotic. Original jazz was band music for dancing, street parades and funerals. Jazz bands featured brass instruments, drums, and woodwinds. The favored brass were coronets and trombones. Pianos, guitars and banjos added ethnic flavors to the Creole bands who played rhythmic, complex arrangements with brief improvisatory breaks.
The evolution of jazz is fascinating and complex. The coronet was replaced by he trumpet, saxophones became more important than clarinets, bass fiddles became a standard instrument, and electric guitars eventually replaced acoustic. The drum kit with kick drum, snare, tom, toms and cymbals also became a standard feature of jazz ensembles. In the 30's big bands dominated dance halls and celebrated band leaders and soloists such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong became celebrities. Big bands eventfully shrunk to small bands. Soloists with virtuoso skills became the heroes of jazz. Band musicians would meet in after hours clubs to jam.
Interesting rhythms and improvisation were two essential elements of jazz. Innovations appeared quickly and were often resisted by more traditional musicians and audiences. Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie invented modern jazz, beginning in the 1940's. Their "bebop" rhythms, sophisticated arrangements and "wild" improvisations inspired the best of the new jazz players. Traditional jazz players scorned the innovators.
Jazz fusion describes the merging of progressive jazz formats with a wide variety other musical styles including funk, rock, R&B, electronic, Latin and world music.
Miles Davis moved his jazz expressions through cool jazz, bop, and modal jazz. The 1968 album “Miles in the Sky”
introduced Herbie Hancock playing electric piano and Carter playing an electric bass guitar. In 1969, electronic instruments dominated the next album “In a Silent Way”, an innovative fusion album.
The musicians who played with Miles often continued to develop fusions styles. 1970’s fusion bands originated with Miles Davis alumni: Tony Williams Lifetime, Weather Report, McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Corea's Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters band. Herbie Hancock was one of the first jazz keyboardists to use synthesizers. Funk jazz emerged in his albums, Head Hunters 1973 and Thrust in 1974.
Weather Report, featuring Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter developed "world music fusion jazz." Jaco Pastorius, the electric bass player, went on to great fame and a tragic death in 1987. In 2006, Pastorius was voted "The Greatest Bass Player Who Has Ever Lived" by reader submissions in Bass Guitar Magazine. Zawinul, a jazz keyboardist and composer used synthesizers and retired to his studio to record complete compositions on his own was widely admired. He won the "Best Keyboardist" award 30 times from American jazz magazine.
Chick Corea, another of the great keyboardists, founded the band Return to Forever in 1972 with latin-influenced music. The band soon evolved into a jazz-rock band. John McLaughlin was influenced by his guru, Sri Chinmoy and created the Mahavishnu Orchestra that merged psychedelic rock with Indian music. Carlos Santana’s band blended Latin salsa, rock, blues, and jazz. Pat Metheny started a fusion band in 1977 that produced popular recordings that made both jazz and pop charts. Cool jazz groups such as Dave Sanborn's bands and the Rippingtons became popular with more melodic pieces that appealed to listeners at home.
Persona Music Recordings: Our Music Catalogue includes recorded performances under the titles Persona Digital, P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort. Music online is offered to illustrate music history, advance music education and appreciation. The recordings presented online demonstrate Persona Studio's arranging, recording and mastering techniques. All the recordings are arrangements and performances completed in house by Stephen Gislason. The music selections and their history are explained in the book, The Sound of Music.
Topics presented at Persona Digital Studio are from the
The Sound of Music by Stephen Gislason
Click Download order eBook from Alpha Online
Classical music began as entertainment for rich aristocrats and a showcase feature of rich churches who could afford to support composers and musicians as full time employees. In the smaller venues of entertainment rooms in the homes of the wealthy, small chamber ensembles played pieces composed specifically for those audiences. Some pieces were for listening, others for dancing, and others as background music, part of the décor. Virtuoso performers played pieces designed to impress audiences with their technical skills.
Some of the great composers were also skilled performers who improvised in these small gatherings and competed with each other. Mozart was a childhood virtuoso and talented improviser who travelled Europe with his father and sister, impressing audiences.
Beethoven took advantage of improvements in instrument construction that allowed players to develop more virtuoso techniques. Beethoven is credited with the kind of progression of musical innovation that we recognize in the evolution of jazz in the 20th century. Stravinsky referred to his last quartets, as "this absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever." Among Beethoven’s innovations are complex syncopations and cross-rhythms; synchronized runs of sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes; and sudden modulations requiring special attention to intonation.”
The Persona Classical Series focuses on the music of JS Bach and Amadeus Mozart. Stephen Gislason selects and arranges pieces that are then developed in the studio using synthesizer voices and multitrack recording. In previous years, some of Bach’s pieces became contemporary hits: for example, by the Swingle Singers' (Air on the G string, Wachet Auf chorale prelude) and Wendy Carlos' 1968 album, Switched-On Bach, created with a Moog synthesizer. Stephen recalls " I enjoyed the Carlos arrangements and was inspired to learn about synthesizers. The distinct timbres of the Moog synthesizer voices made the four voices in preludes and fugues stand out clearly. I have edited and rearranged Bach's pieces with new voicing, new intonations seeking the clarity of voice definition I heard in "Switched on Bach." I like to imagine the if Bach were alive, he would enjoy this novel play on his musical ideas."
Digital Bach for the 21St Century
Art of the Fugue
Counterpoint for Genius
