How do you see it, is it already electronic music or does it count as acoustic? As I understand it, it is recorded on handpans. But then the sound is changed a lot and sounds like drone, ambient etc. to me. So what counts more, the final sound or the way the basic sound is produced?
youtube . com / watch?v=TJPX5Q9yAqk
Reminds me of discussions at the time when instruments like the clavinet emerged. There, for example, metal reeds are plucked, then fed to the electronics via a pickup (usually a simple coil around the reed) and then processed as desired. Basically, the same way it is done with any electric guitar. But despite the distortion and modulation effects, it is not automatically described as electronic music. Or should we be more flexible with the categories?
They used to call that ānew ageā, if that means anything. Drone and ambient are often created with a combination of electronic and acoustic elements; think about all of the field recordings in really cool, textural music. Are those electronic components? I guess it depends on your need for definition
I think most people are pretty flexible in realizing that both domains (we could say the acoustic world versus digits) are likely present in all forms of music in one way or another these days, but you could also just call it ānew ageā and find meaning there. Even the analog purists are probably posting it on soundcloud or youtube ā just donāt tell them you know this requires a computer, itāll blow their cover
True. But hey, in some things we all are purists. Happens so often that my eyes pop out about things others consider as ānormalā. Tbh I didnāt even think of new age as category. But yes, thereās a lot of overlap between drone, ambient and similar genresā¦
Electroacoustic and lowercase are some other ones worthy of debate ā technically they use the technology from both worlds (well, at least the modern version might), but the source sounds are almost always out the in the physical world. Itās also the amplification of the sounds themselves that almost define the other half of the genre, which is kind of weird.
A lot of these constructs just get bottled up into larger ones later and almost swept under the rug for the sake of convenience. Nowadays theyāre just part of the sampling process for a lot of us, more or less
pop out about things others consider as ānormalā. Tbh I didnāt even think of new age as category. But yes, thereās a lot of overlap between drone, ambient and similar genresā¦