Week 5 Listening

Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” begins with fluid phrases that stack, creating layers of complex harmonies. The enhanced reverb of the piano, coupled with the multiplicity of voicings, illustrates a scene of an airport terminal with travelers idly waiting for their flights. The second section employs more static voices that retain tones for a long duration. The gestural content changes from wistful, active sounds to steady, slow drones. The inner voices of the resulting harmony shift, resembling travelers moving about the cabin of an aircraft in flight. The final section blends elements of the other two. The parts either move about freely like the piano of the first section or sustain their tones like the cantus firmi of the second section. 

Maryanne Amacher’s “Synaptic Island” uses a plethora of white noise and rumble to create a frenetic piece. It seems to suggest a storm with its ebbing and flowing glitches and beeps. It reminds me of footage from a camera dropped in a body of water. The swelling effects further accentuate the water imagery. The frantic beeping that occurs toward the middle of the piece have regularity and rhythm, yet seem to lack an overarching melody. It does seem to have some harmonic contour since the sounds are not entirely discordant.