Comments on: Music Appreciation: Drone

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 03:19:00 +0000

Finding Scelsi recordings can be a full-time job. My favorite CDs of his orchestral works are way out of print. For example:
http://www.discogs.com/Giacinto-Scelsi-Quattro-Pezzi-Per-Orchestra-Anahit-Uaxuctum/release/997365

By: strangevibe

strangevibe — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 03:08:00 +0000

Check out Valentin Silvestrov as well – he also has a way of taking very familiar sounding and loved-for-good-reasoned romantic and melodic styles in and out of strange resonances, or undercutting sweetness with some barely audible dissonant crosscurrents – perhaps less dramatically than Schnittke.
5th Symphony is a good place to start, plenty of shorter work on youtube.

It’s a bit random how we do or don’t pick up on composers – I wasn’t aware of Scelsi until a couple of years ago and have been exploring Schnittke for a while but there’s still a lot I haven’t heard.

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:32:00 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion. For some reason, I never picked up on Schnittke but he sounds totally ace.

By: strangevibe

strangevibe — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:18:00 +0000

I would also mention Alfred Schnittke as a composer who incorporated dronelike sections in his poly-stylistic work. Have a listen to his 3rd Symphony in which sections emerge out of dronelike baths. A lot of his work that I’ve heard seems to have that flavor, of structures emerging from or melting into dronelike textures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RWe35YrM5E

There is also his purely electronic work on the ANS synthesizer which is pretty straight up drone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O6BoTn172w

By: strangevibe

strangevibe — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 07:04:00 +0000

It is to some extent my thing, and I’m afraid the author may be counting on the boingboing demographic not to call him out on those name drops. Nevertheless I’ll second your choice of Scelsi as a leading light of dronology in concert music. I also think that the fellow above talking about pedal tones as an early instance of drone is stretching it – the way pedals work functionally with changing harmonic overlays is psychologically and perceptually very different than drone music. If I were forced to justify Debussy as a proto-drone guy I suppose we could at least say that with the whole tone scales and generally pushing things in the direction of stasis (in contrast to classical tension/resolution structures and the drawn out tension of late romantics). So he was opening a space for more floating structures which suspend perceptual time.

I’d probably mention the organ music of Messiaen as being perhaps closer to drone in spirit – something like The Celestial Banquet is very *vibratory* and the pedals cutting across the dissonant chords tend to lose the functional character associated with pedal tones in music prior to mid 20th century. It’s not very far from work of Scelsi like In Nomine Lucis.
Messiaen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTyvgKdlIZc
Scelsi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDhjMyNA4E0

I find a lot of Morton Feldman’s pieces work in a manner similar to dronology – it’s common to hear things along the lines of the listener needing to “inhabit” the pieces, again they’re vibratory rather than narrative in structure, and like drone music can’t really be memorized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Q-1u6sNgQ

By: togetherless

togetherless — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 03:49:00 +0000

I’d like to add Oren Ambarchi’s Grapes from the Estate and Keith Fullerton Whitman’s Playthroughs to the list. A couple of modern tone generated compositonal drone masterpieces

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:24:00 +0000

“Classical music” isn’t my thing but I don’t think that you will find drone there. if you are looking for drones in an orchestral context, look for works by Giacinto Scelsi (especially “Quattro Pezzi Per Orchestra.”) It takes a lot of tricks to get an orchestra to drone, but when Scelsi did it, the music was amazingly powerful!
Sent from my iPad

By: Michael Brown

Michael Brown — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:42:00 +0000

Thank you for a wonderful breadth of links to explore.

By: strangevibe

strangevibe — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:52:00 +0000

I do find myself saying oh really? regarding the drone tendencies of Debussy and Bartok, but I’m willing to be educated. Ostinatos, sure, but drones? Examples of the most droney Debussy and Bartok?

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:25:00 +0000

Well, another Beatles tune with a drone outside of “Tomorrow” would be “Within You, Without You” of course, and I think “It’s All Too Much” has drone-esque qualities.
Sent from my iPad

By: skeletoncityrepeater

skeletoncityrepeater — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 08:05:00 +0000

I agree, mostly – but their one contribution probably got heard more than anything else listed here, and probably influenced anything after 1966. I would listen to some more Beatles though – I’m pretty sure the drone happens in parts of Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine.

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 03:36:00 +0000

IMHO, the Beatles weren’t really innovators – in this case, they borrowed from Ravi Shankar , the NY minimalists, and musique concrete – also they really didn’t do much drone outside that tune.

By: skeletoncityrepeater

skeletoncityrepeater — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:49:00 +0000

I know it’s just a band that appropriated other sounds, but why aren’t The Beatles, especially the drone-and tape loop-based track “Tomorrow Never Knows” mentioned anywhere?

By: swlabr

swlabr — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:02:00 +0000

Of course the first thing I thought of. I started clicking all of the links, and my olden times computer started hiccuping, which turned into a different sort of aural experience.

By: chadmulligan

chadmulligan — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:09:00 +0000

Given the VU’s traditional antipathy to the Left Coast, I wonder what Lou Reed would think now. :)

By: Marcus Boon

Marcus Boon — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 15:40:00 +0000

I second David’s comments … thanks for cataloguing further drones, people!

By: B E Pratt

B E Pratt — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 03:39:00 +0000

Don’t know if this would quite classify as drone, but it comes close: Yoko Ono’s ‘John, John (Let’s Hope For Peace) on side two of Live Peace in Toronto 1969 is Yoko singing the title accompanied by nothing but feedback. Eventually she starts screaming (put this on and watch dogs cower and hide!) and the thing ends with just massive waves of feedback. Even without visuals, you can tell that the audience and esp. the MC was stunned. Personally, I thought it was awesome. Still do.

By: David Pescovitz

David Pescovitz — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:30:00 +0000

I just want to pause and say that Marcus’s article and this thread are fantastic. I thought I knew at least a little something about drone, but this piece and the comments are like a wormhole to an entire universe of new music for me. Thank you all!

By: Freddie Freelance

Freddie Freelance — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:42:00 +0000

And Me! My album of drones, aptly named Drones:

http://alonetone.com/freddiefreelance/playlists/drones

By: Freddie Freelance

Freddie Freelance — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:41:00 +0000

John Cale plays nearly everything with strings, he just played the viola the most when working with drones.

By: vuzh

vuzh — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:02:00 +0000

It cannot go without mention that Drone music is a very prevalent area for exploration in the Creative Commons Netlabel underground. The good thing about this is that you can check out a huge amount of drone music for free. One great place to start is David Nemeth’s netlabel release news feed at http://theeasypace.com

By: MrJM

MrJM — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:53:00 +0000

A different flavor of drone music from the Mekons’ Jon Langford: http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/drone-operator-7-single

By: Wild Rumpus

Wild Rumpus — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Thank you Marcus. I am so incredibly loving all of your links in this article. I have loved Velvet Underground and Ragas for a long time, and this article has explained some things to me about what I like about Drone, and explained the history, and opened my ears to some new stuff.

Like you, I didn’t realize this was a genre but now I see. Well done and thanks.

Doesn’t one of my favourite 80′s bands Jesus and Mary Chain deserve a shout out? http://youtu.be/7EgB__YratE

By: David Pescovitz

David Pescovitz — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:03:00 +0000

Fixed, thanks!

By: darladoon

darladoon — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:00:00 +0000

that’s why we need a part 2!

By: William Tatalovich

William Tatalovich — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:49:00 +0000

John Cale played/plays viola, not cello. Other than that, great article!

By: Wallace Winfrey

Wallace Winfrey — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:43:00 +0000

An entire post and ensuing comment thread about “drone” without one single mention of Thomas Köner ? Shameful.

By: JackHertz

JackHertz — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Great article! You forgot to mention the original drone music, NATURE!!!! Man has been listening to it since he could hear.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:39:00 +0000

I too pictured a AV equipped UAV that would attend a crowded concert on your behalf. Also if it could hold up a lighter after a particularly good song I might buy one. Can’t bear the crowds.

By: M Ehm

M Ehm — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:33:00 +0000

Destroy All Dreamers (Automne)?
Cure (Carnage Visors)?