A Compositional Response to Information Anxiety

The composition portfolio presented here consists of four fixed media pieces that form a response to information overload, an everyday reality that is familiar to most people of the modern world. Drawing stylistic influences from electronic dance music and ambient music while transferring to a
musical context characteristics of meditative practices, the core elements that were combined for the construction of the composition portfolio were repetitive rhythmic patterns, textural material and long reverberations coming from empty, large indoor spaces. My manipulation of these elements, their meditative qualities and the ways they have been combined, as well as how they contribute to the creation of autonomous, static sonic environments are examined in Section A. In Section B, my compositional process, which is a variation of the typical acousmatic composer’s process is presented analytically, starting the discussion with preconceived ideas and my method behind the selection of sound sources, and ending with the compositional importance of the mixing stage which is the final stage. A key point to the formation of my compositional approach was the decision to incorporate an idea relating directly to the situation of information anxiety, which was the relinquishing of compositional control over the musicians’ performances to a great degree during recordings. The implications of this decision both on the process and the result are also discussed here, with the most important macro