The Streaming Savior?

admin / November 5, 2011 / No comments

Welcome to November AV readers. I hope that you are ready for the onslaught of the holidays and of course the cold, snowy weather that is right around the corner for a large portion of the United States. Of course there are millions on the east coast who don’t need to be reminded about the change in seasons as they were blasted with an unexpected fall snowstorm that took out the power to large swaths of the storm’s footprint. I hope that power has been restored to most of them at this point because it is miserable and dangerous spending extended periods of time without power during the cold that accompanies these storms. It certainly is a depressing way to start this portion of the year since if it is starting in late October then what in the world do we have to look forward to for the rest of the winter months.

In regards to my last blog I wanted to thank the two brave souls who responded to my request and offered support and assistance to help Ambient Visions stay on the web. Your thoughtfulness is very much appreciated. The other side of this coin is that there was a deafening silence from the majority of the readers of AV. I’m just going to take that as a mandate that we are all on our own and it is the survival of the fittest out here on the web so if AV doesn’t survive then that is what is meant to be. I can accept that. I still believe that the future has not been written yet and our actions in the here and now can still alter what is to be. I will continue to “kick against the darkness until it bleeds daylight” and hopefully AV will still be around to celebrate those brighter days.

On to other subjects. I have been noticing a growing discontent from artists who feel that the streaming services are really just exploiting their music for pennies a play while companies like Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify again reap the majority of the benefits from their deals with advertisers and with the labels that they acquire the music from. There are also some ideas that those artists who are signed by large labels are getting very little of the streaming revenue while the labels themselves continue to set themselves up to receive the lions share ahead of anyone else. That has always been their business model though so I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. They are doing what every other large corporation in America is doing which is looking out for their bottom line, their investors and the salaries of the CEOs before they even consider the artists or the general public.

I have heard some rumblings about this topic from smaller indie artists as well so I’m not sure if the same situation exists for them as well or not. How does it affect sales of titles when it can be streamed? Does it return enough money to make it worthwhile? For some reason I thought I would be very happy when people began to finally switch over from illegal downloading to some sort of legal streaming format so that artists were going to be fairly compensated for their work but now it appears that even this silver lining may have darker clouds lurking just behind it. I worry that artists will eventually give up their creative pursuits because they can no longer afford to release their music. Or the only music that will be released will be from those who wish to give away their music because they have a day job that allows them to do it. That is ok for those who want to make music simply for the joy of it and share it for free with others but there are many artists out there who are actually trying to make a living like any other person who has a skillset that others find useful or entertaining.

I’m not sure if the downloaders who don’t pay for this music realize what will happen once the artists start to quit. All the variety and all the unique voices and music that we are so used to having with us each and every day begins to dwindle away. All we will be left with is music that is created by corporate money designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator and that will be it. All the other indie artists will have faded away and gone back to day jobs that have nothing to do with music. I for one would find such a world lifeless, dull and monotonic with all the musical life sucked right out of it by corporate labels and corporate radio that played only the music that was top 40.

I hope that the even as Scrooge asked of the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” that we will realize that we can change the future by acting differently in the here and now. Streaming is legal from many services now but artists still need your help to continue on the career path that they are walking which is one that we want to keep them on. If you like an album from your favorite artist or a new artist that  you discovered via a streaming service then think about helping them by buying the album or the tracks straight from the artist. Cut out the middlemen and put the money straight into the hands of the artist who created it. Just like the trickle down economy has not worked for any of us no matter what the politicians or the corporations would have us to think so the trickle down of streaming pennies will probably not be enough for artists to survive on. The more you cut out the corporate middlemen such as iTunes, Amazon or any of the other services that take a slice of the pie the more money that will be funneled to the artists directly. If they have buy buttons on their websites use that instead of heading off to a corporate site. Listen indie and buy indie. Keep musicians making music.

Category: Ambient Visions Blog /

The Future is Not Yet Written

admin / October 26, 2011 / No comments

The cooler winds of October have been blowing for ahwile now and Thanksgiving and Christmas are looming directly ahead. The outdoor work of summer is giving way to spending time inside sitting by the fire reading, catching up with social connections that may have been pushed aside while trying to keep up with outside work and of course catching up with the latest music or videos that did not seem so pressing while the sun was shining in the windows during the spring and summer.

Much has transpired during 2011 and I wanted to bring up something that I have never done before and that is how Ambient Visions manages to pay its fees for hosting and for domain name renewals. Ambient Visions has always been something that I did out of the love for the music and a desire to help those who make this music to find an audience large enough so that they can continue to make that music in the coming years. Ambient Visions has never done advertising or banner ads other than what I decide to put up there to help artists gain some recognition. Any fees or hosting charges I have been more than happy to take care of over the past 12 years but in June of 2011 I was let go from my day job and have yet to find another job. To make matters worse my wife was just laid off from her job last week so we have gone from a stable income to nothing in a matter of a few months.

I’ve never been one to make my problems public because I figured that no one really wanted to be bothered by hearing someone else’s sad story on a website that was meant for talking about music. I decided to do something subtle which was to add the following statement to my page, “Have you enjoyed Ambient Visions these last 12 years? Help support AV by clicking here” and the clicking here was a link to a PayPal donatinon page to help make sure that I had the money to host the domain and to pay for domain renewals as they came up. I’m assuming that this statement was too subtle because nothing came through on that at all. I just wanted to be a little more direct about the whole thing by writing this blog piece.

I’ve made appeals in the past to those who might like to write for Ambient Visions or for feedback from the community about certain issues or trends facing the ambient/new age community and for the most part never heard a word back. I’ve actually heard this from others over the years that the ambient/new age community is not the most vocal community when it comes to interacting with each other about the music that we love. Ambient Visions has been doing more traffic year over year for quite some time now and doesn’t show signs of letting up. I would hate for this website to have to disappear because I had to make a choice about putting food on the table or gas in the car or paying for hosting fees and domain registrations.

I am not going to drag this out at all and I won’t repeat it in future blogs. I wanted to plainly ask the community to help support Ambient Visions as AV has supported the music over the past 12 years. I would like to see the site continue for another 12 years or more but I need your help to do that. Please consider donating to Ambient Visions via the link on the front page or the link on the left of this page just under my picture. Star’s End and other public radio shows hold fund raisers each year to help offset their costs and this is the same as that. If you have found AV to be helpful over the years then please help it survive into the future. End of request. I’m not much for asking for help and I won’t do it again. Once is enough. The rest is up to you. Think about it. Oh and if anyone would like to write articles or reviews for AV I’m more than open to that as well. Figured I would get that in there while I had your attention. We now return you to the regular Ambient Visions website already in progress.

 

Have you enjoyed
Ambient Visions
these last 12 years?
Help support AV
by clicking here

Category: Ambient Visions Blog /

Social Networking and Musicians

admin / July 29, 2011 / No comments

I have talked to some artists over the last year or so and it started me wondering if social networks have made the lives of musicians easier or has it simply added one more thing that needs to be done to the business end of being a public figure. There was a time in prehistoric times somewhere back in the 1970′s, 1980′s and a little bit into the 1990′s when musicians and performers were rather elusive creatures that you only spotted when they were out touring, when they were promoting a new album or if they popped up as a news item in Billboard or Rolling Stone magazine. They lived a rather reclusive life and were pretty much aloof from their fans and the press. They went about their business of making music, doing the obligatory press appearances and for the most part not interacting with their fans directly unless they signed a picture that got sent out by the PR person who took care of handling fan contacts.

Then along came the Internet and unless the artists were the Rolling Stones or some other super group they suddenly had a website and direct contact with their fans. Mostly through e-mail but it was a huge leap in that now fans could speak directly to an artist and get a direct answer…sometimes. It also meant that artists could hear immediately what fans thought of their music shortly after it hit the streets or sometimes even before it hit the streets…different story. That was a huge leap but it didn’t end there. Then came MySpace. Then came Facebook. Then came Twitter. Then came Google + and those are just the major ones. There are other ways out there to connect with your favorite musician and spend time getting to know them like you could never know an artist in days gone by. Mostly this relationship worked both ways in that it allowed fans to get inside the minds of those who were creating the music that was a part of their lives and it gave artists a chance to cultivate new fans and to reward loyal fans with inside information about artist that they cared so much about.

What it also added to the mix was more responsibility to the artist on top of what they already had to take care of to keep the business end of their music moving forward and to have the time to be creative and write new music. Now artists had to become adept at the new social networks and get out there and update their pages or accounts on a regular basis. This could be done via an assistant who was responsible for updating all the pages or they could do it themselves. An assistant costs money unless you can find someone to do it gratis and if they do it themselves then they have to invest their valuable time in creating this online presence instead of creating new music. Start to get the picture as to why social
networking might be a mixed blessing for artists?

There is an expectation on the part of the fans that any given artist should have a presence in all of the major social networking sites and when they don’t find them there they wonder why not. Since practically all of the ambient/new age artists are independents with only a few exceptions it is also critical that they take any avenue available to them to present their music to their fans and thereby getting some sales for their music as well. So the Internet has increased an artists visibility to extend for all practical purposes to the entire world or anywhere that has Internet access but it also has added more work to the artist’s plate to make use of these platforms so that they can take advantage of these new market opportunities. So the indie artist has to handle the business side, the creative side, the social side and even the touring side if they go out and do live concerts. And since they are an indie artist this all has to be handled by them since they are pretty much a one person show in all of these regards. Oh and did I mention that since many of these artists don’t make enough from their music to make a living at it they also have to hold down a full time job as well? I didn’t so throw that on top of everything else.

So social networking is great for the fans since it allows us access to artists that we normally would not have ever had direct contact with but you’ve got to wonder if the artists are just as happy to see more social networks pop up every year as we are. So the next time that you say that you wonder why a certain artist hasn’t tweeted enough or you haven’t seen any new posts on their Facebook page you might want to cut them just a little slack and remember what it takes to be an indie artist these days with no label support. Just some food for thought. See ya next time.

Michael Foster, editor
Ambient Visions
http://www.ambientvisions.com

Category: Ambient Visions Blog / Tags: , , ,

Has Music Lost Its Value?

admin / July 28, 2011 / One comment

We live in a time when the floodgates of music have been opened and there is a rising tide of music of all types and genres available at your fingertips day in and day out. We are plugged in via our smartphones, we carry huge libraries of music with us  on our portable MP3 players and if we want satellite radio or USB plugs in our car stereo will keep up connected to music as much as we want. When we get home we can stream music through Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify and hundreds of other podcasts and broadcasts both online and terrestrial radio stations. We can stream through our DVD players or game consoles and of course for us old timers we still have great sound systems set up in our homes that we can play good old fashioned CD’s. I said old fashioned because at some point in time I think that we will see even these shiny discs disappear in favor of an all digital way of transporting and playing our music at home and in our cars.  In fact it was just announced this week that Ford Motor Company plans to drop in dash CD players in their European cars for now but it won’t be long before that is the case here at home too.

At first I was very happy about this flood of music and I wallowed in it like a pig in…well you know what pigs like to wallow in but as we go deeper
into this cycle I’m not so sure I like how it is all turning out. There was a time in the past that I wished that I could listen to everything I had even a remote interest in as far as music goes knowing that something like that would never happen. Fast forward to 2011 and now that wish is a reality. There are millions of songs to listen to all while sitting at my computer or streamed through my home sound system and you now what…I don’t physically have the time to listen to all the music I would like to. There are not enough hours in the day to listen to all the music that is now available to me. And with the broad tastes that I have cultivated over the years that leaves me with so many choices that it boggles my mind just trying to choose which piece of music I will listen to for the night.

Do I choose something that I have listened to for years because it is like eating comfort food and will bring me a feeling of stability in a world that is changing so rapidly as to defy us to keep up? Or do I feel adventurous and want to sample some new music by artists that I have never heard of before? How do I choose which of these new artists that I will give an hour of my time to? Time has become a precious commodity when there are so many options as to how it can be spent. The latest movies which can be streamed to my television set, online e-zines or blogs, news sites to keep up with the world, social networking pages to keep up with friends or maybe I just want to sit and read a book but even that is becoming harder because now I can choose from thousands of titles that are as close as my Kindle. Music is suddenly competing with a myriad of entertainment choices and everything is blending together in a fast paced blur that is daring us to figure out what to do on any given night.

I have noticed that many artists are opting to give away a song as a way of tempting listeners to stop by their site and check out their music. Some of the netlabels are pretty much giving away whole albums under the Creative Commons License which is great for exposure but are we setting up future followers of this type of music to expect not to have to pay for music because it has been given away so much? It is already difficult to find the time to listen to much of this music so if whole albums are being given away  and you can download them with a click of the mouse does the music have the same value as it had when you paid good money for it and you held it in your hands? When I used to buy CD’s it was a special thing to bring one home and break open the plastic and pop the disc into the player. Lack of money meant that I only bought one or two a week at the most so I had the time to devote to devouring it and really listening to it. There are weeks now that I have downloaded 10 or more albums without even taking into consideration that I can go online and stream other new releases through the one service that I pay for right now which is Rhapsody.

The very fact that we have tons of music to choose from now is the very thing that is making music less valuable than what it was before. There was a lyric from a great little song called Very Busy People by the Limousines that said “I’ve got an iPod like a pirate ship, I’ll sail the seas with fifty thousand songs I’ve never heard” and I’m afraid that might be the fate of a lot of the music that floats around on the internet for free or that we obtain for no price at all. I’m just throwing this out for discussions because as a long time follower of ambient/new age music I want it to flourish and gain a new audience so that the artists will be able to continue to make this great music for years to come. If it gets lost in the flood of music that is currently pouring out onto the net or diluted to the point that it disappears beneath the waves of new titles that pour onto the market every Tuesday then it would be a great loss for those of us who have listened to it for decades. The way I see it is if the quantity of music can confuse those of us who have followed it for years then newcomers to the genre are going to be overwhelmed by the amount of releases that are positioning themselves to be heard these days and since most of us don’t just listen to ambient/new age exclusively it really becomes difficult for
everyone to get their piece of our attention.

It would be a shame to see music become something less than the unique pieces of art that they are or that they would be downloaded and then forgotten as they sit on hard drives filled to overflowing with other pieces of music to be listened to. It’s like the person who loves television and Tivos all their favorite programs but eventually the drive fills up and the person realizes that they will never have time to catch up so they erase the drive and start over without ever watching those shows that they recorded. Is that where we are heading with music? Will we place so little
value on it that we will erase it without ever listening to it because it was free to begin with? I hope not. See ya next time.

Michael Foster, editor
Ambient Visions

http://www.ambientvisions.com

 

Category: Ambient Visions Blog / Tags:

2Cellos…wow!

admin / July 28, 2011 / No comments

I just had to add this video here after I saw it. The duo is on Sony Masterworks but they do high energy cello renditions of pop songs. I can see why they are attracting attention. The song below is a cover of Guns N’ Roses Welcome to the Jungle but done on solo cellos. Yeah I know, how can that be any good? Just listen and believe it can be done and done well.

 

Category: Ambient Visions News / Tags: ,

New video from Joel Styzens

admin / July 28, 2011 / No comments

I received an update via e-mail about Joel and his music and there was a link to the following video included. Wonderful trio work on this song. I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as I did. Take a listen.

 

Category: Ambient Visions News /

Welcome to the new Blog for AV

admin / July 26, 2011 / 2 comments

I have been considering moving my Ambient Visions blog onto the Word Press platform for some time now so as to make it more vibrant when it comes to the type of information that I  am sharing with my readers. I will continue to post the blog entries to the site but I think that the WordPress format will allow me to share more information beyond my written observations about the music that I enjoy so much. It will also allow readers to post comments directly to the blog which will give me more of an idea as to what you think of the writings and information that I post to the blog. Hopefully these comments will be mostly positive but I am willing to take constructive criticism as well as long as it is not just a negative attack on someone or pushing a particular agenda. Otherwise please feel free to share your ideas on the particular topic that is being discussed or the music that is being featured on the blog.

The new blog area will be featuring new release information, links to new videos as I find out about them, my written commentary from time to time about my observations,  and news items that I run across. I’d like to get some information coming my way about new releases and news items that are relevant to the ambient community so if your run across anything be sure to send me the information via e-mail or through any of the other channels that I have listed on this page and I’ll get it up on the site and posted here in the blog area as well. The blog will allow comments to be made on the news items or on the blog posts that I make so be sure to let me know what you are thinking about the topics that are being covered here in the blog. All you have to do is click on the subject of the blog post and it will take you to the post’s individual page and it will have a spot at the bottom for comments to be made.

I hope that you the readers of AV will participate in the potential meeting point that Ambient Visions could be for the community. With Google +, Facebook, Twitter, Digg and WordPress there are ample opportunities for you the reader to jump in and be a part of helping to promote ambient music and related genres on multiple platforms. Time is always in limited supply but I think that these genres of music deserve a few minutes of your time each day so that others may discover what you already know about ambient music. I hope to hear from more of you as time goes on either through the websites that are linked off this blog or through my e-mail editor at ambientvisions dot com. If you’ve been with Ambient Visions since the beginning then I already know that you want to see this music succeed in a larger way in the coming years. Looking forward to working with artists and readers. See ya next time.

Michael Foster, editor
Ambient Visions
http://www.ambientvisions.com

Category: Ambient Visions Blog /

Ambient Visions News 07/26/2011

admin / July 26, 2011 / No comments

A new age for New Age music

In late 2009, noise-pop group Animal Collective followed up its critics-poll-topping album “Merriweather Post Pavilion” with a stopgap EP, “Fall Be Kind.” It generated buzz for featuring the first-ever licensed Grateful Dead sample, but what was more peculiar was a curlicue of pan flute woven into the song “Glaze” and credited to Gheorghe Zamfir. Zamfir, as the Romanian pan flute musician is best known, was a ubiquitous presence on television in the ’80s, peddling wispy flute albums. For many people, it was one of the first sounds that came to be known by the label of New Age music.

Full story here

Category: Ambient Visions News /

New Releases from Numina

admin / July 25, 2011 / No comments

Check out the video for Resurrection of the Stone Giant from the new album by Numina called Subterranean Landscapes.

Or visit Numina’s web store for the Subterranean Landscapes album or his other new title called Dawn of Obscurity.

Category: Ambient Visions Blog /

Music as a Conduit

admin / July 24, 2011 / No comments

I have been immersed as of late in music that acted as a conduit for my discovery of the ambient/new age genres and I find that it has a comforting effect on my over all well being as it conjures up memories of a time when things were more stable in my life. I have found over the years that music has always had this kind of effect on me and I’m sure that for others it is exactly the same. Ambient/new age music is even more adept at allowing us to achieve these states of consciousness because for the most part (not always) the music is without words so the intellectual part of the mind does not have to be listening to the words of the song and trying to make sense out of them. The mind can immediately shift into a state where it can simply allow the music to lead it where it will. A blank slate for impressions created by the music or the music can act as a catalyst to allow memories associated with the compositions to surface because the mind has been stilled to the point where the memories do not have to compete with an ever active mind for attention.

The world is a complex place these days and through the magic of technology most of us are connected far more than we would like to be. Stress and pressure are part of our daily routine and reading about conflicts in the far flung corners of the earth are part of what we do while we have our morning coffee or tea. It has become ingrained in us and not always for the better. I think that many of us have forgotten the fine art of relaxing and switching off our minds for at least a small portion of each day and it has taken its toll on many who are overwhelmed by this stress to the point that they succumb to physical symptoms such as high blood pressure, ulcers, insomnia, headaches, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. While music won’t be a cure all for everything that is wrong with a person it will at least allow the body to let go of some of the stress as the mind loses its very tight grip on the issues that you have dealt with all day long and begins dwelling on more pleasant thoughts. If the music has associations with the past then those more pleasant memories begin to flow into the mind and overpower the negative stress causing thoughts that have been dominating your thinking all day long.

Music is such an underrated art these days and I guess that would be because it has been a part of most of our lives from the day we were born until the day we die. Radio, TV, MP3 players, CD’s, podcasts are just a few of the ways that we are bombarded with music all day long. Elevators play it while we go up and down and malls play it as we walk the aisles spending our money. It is no wonder then that oftentimes we tune out the music that we are “hearing” all around us and move through our day almost oblivious to the music that surrounds us. Perhaps that is what happens when we finally do sit down in our homes to listen to music on the stereo system. We use it as background music (nothing wrong with that mind you) but we never really hear it. We never come down from our stress riddled lives long enough to just sit and enjoy listening to an album of our favorite music. I mean really listening to it and not doing anything else. I am as guilty as anyone of not taking the time to pull back from the tensions of life for awhile during each day and spend just a small fraction of my total available time doing something that is purely enjoyable and has no other purpose than to make me “feel” better.

I have a place downstairs where I have my stereo hooked up with no TV in the mix and a sofa that sits and faces a wall with bookcases and artwork. When I go down there I light up some incense, patchouli being my favorite, I put on a favorite album and then plop myself down on the sofa. I don’t sit there to work on anything and at most I might read a little bit as I listen to the music but it will not be technical reading it will be reading just for the sheer joy of reading. Most of the time I don’t even bring a book to the sofa but rather I just sit down and begin to allow myself to completely decompress for about an hour or so. In our busy lives I think that it has been drilled into us that we need to be “productive” with our time and we haven’t a moment to waste. It’s that kind of thinking that have led many of us to push ourselves so hard that we end up paying the price when the stress and the tension overflow into our physical well being. Eventually the body has a way of slowing us down whether we want to or not when it simply refuses to function anymore until we have properly cared for it.

Don’t wait for that “correction” to happen at a time not of your choosing. Rather start to plan times in your day that you set aside just for down time or relaxing time. Don’t feel guilty about it thinking about all the things that you should be doing but think about how you are making sure your body continues to function normally for many more years than if you neglected it. Ambient/new age music can be a healing factor in your life and all it takes is just a little bit of your time. Why do you think that massage therapists or aromatherapists or any number of alternative practitioners combine their skills with appropriate new age or ambient music? They know that the mind can inhibit the body from being fully prepared to accept the treatment that is about to be provided. The music triggers the release valve for the mind to dump all the garbage that is stuck in there from the day that has just been or the day that is coming up so that the mind can work in conjunction with the therapist to help heal the body. The mind is a powerful tool and can do both good and bad things to the body depending on how it is used. Music is a powerful tool as well but most people don’t give music its proper due. Music is not just entertainment. It can be but it can also be so much more. Emmy Rossum had a song a few years back that was called Slow Me Down. The song is only 2:38 long but it has an important message. Life is fleeting. Don’t miss your life by always being some place else other than in the moment you currently occupy. Right here, right now is all we have. Let ambient/new age music help you find a place where you can be present in your life if only for brief moment. As the old milk commercial goes….Got Music?

Check out the Emmy Rossum video below and pay close attention to the lyrics. Definitely something to keep in mind. See ya next time.

 

Category: Ambient Visions Blog /