A 6-Hour Time-Stretched Version of Brian Eno's Music for Airports
openculture.com192 points by vinhnx 5 days ago
192 points by vinhnx 5 days ago
"Sitting among the gleaming steel fixtures and softly glowing concrete lines of the modernist Cologne Bonn Airport on a sunny Sunday morning in late 1977, en route to his homebase, the perennially nervous flier recoiled once again at the canned pop pleasantries mindlessly piped into such an inspired space. The music was not only an afterthought but also insulting to the idea that you would soon climb into a sleek metal tube and be propelled by engines through the sky at 40,000 feet. “I started thinking, ‘What should we be hearing here?’ I thought most of all you wanted music that didn’t try to pretend you weren’t going to die on the plane, ” Eno, laughing but serious."
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/brian-eno-ambient-1-mus...
It's a ritual of mine to play Eno's Discreet Music during takeoff. Something about it is just so enveloping, introspective and morose and no other piece of music hits me that way. So I figure, if I'm going to die, I want it to be to Discreet Music.
Thank you for sharing! I'm currently playing Discreet Music while there's lightning and thunder outside. My dog shivers with fright during bad storms and this is helping me to calm down, which in turn helps my pup.
What a beautiful scene. Something about Discreet Music just says.... things aren't perfect, sometimes they're scary or confusing, but it's going to be okay. It's like the repeating motif acts as a constant reassurance, but from many different perspectives over the length of the record. Hope the pup's doing okay now :)
> It's a ritual of mine to play Eno's Discreet Music during takeoff.
Mine is Giegling Mix 07. Less ambient and more 4/4 + breakbeat but beautifully emotive. Even better during sunset
This is mine too. This Is Not is one of if not the best mixes I’ve heard in my entire life. This and Live at Planet Uterus.
wow what are the odds? You have great taste in beautiful music, internet stranger
Perhaps the uplifting responsorial to this would be "An Ending (Ascent)" from his Apollo soundtrack.
I never thought to see a link to a Pitchfork Sunday review on HN. I've been reading them with my morning coffee every Sunday for years.
Great song.
For anyone curious how to produce something that sounds like this, paulstretch is the way to do it. https://sonosaurus.com/paulxstretch/
My personal favorite use of this: https://youtu.be/XiKWfcy-Z70?si=iJTP0XTEAAObI_rU
Paulstretch is such an utterly genius algorithm. Ridiculously simple solution to a difficult problem but it gets you amazing results
The algorithm is described at https://www.paulnasca.com/algorithms-created-by-me
This is just excellent, it works a lot better than I thought it would. You can really drown in the song, whoa.
aaaallllll
myyyyyy
paaaasssstt
aaaaaaandd
fuuuttuurrreeesss
The paulxstretch completely obliterates phase component of audio input. Its not really way to do it if you want real output.
Define "real" in this instance? We're talking about audio manipulation, fiddling with time and frequency domain. Something's going to have to give
Phase is relative, you are trying to sound intelligent
Of a single sinusoidal component, sure, this is true. But phase differences between sonic features are absolutely detectable.
The effect is most noticeable on raw synthesized tones: sawtooth, square wave, etc. These tones contain sonic energy concentrated at discontinuities in the waveforms. The ear can hear this, as a "buzzing sound".
Run these tones through Paulstretch (even with 0 stretch), and the sonic energy is distributed throughout the wavecycle. These tones retain their spectral character, but noticeably lose the buzzing character.
I've uploaded a demo here: https://chris.pacejo.net/temp/phase.wav It is a 55 Hz sawtooth tone, alternating every 2.5 s between the raw tone, and the tone fed through Paulstretch with no stretching.
There was even a paper written on this. Laitinen, Disch & Pulkki, "Sensitivity of Human Hearing to Changes in Phase Spectrum". [1]
Paulstretch muddies up percussive transients (like hi hat strikes) as well.
Anyway it's the reason things like gammatone filters exist for analyzing audio. They reveal phase correlations in the same way the ear is able to. Windowed Fourier transforms (used by e.g. Paulstretch and Audacity for various purposes) obfuscate these relationships.
Aside: please try to avoid snarky armchair dismissals on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "you are trying to sound intelligent" does not advance discourse.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ville-Pulkki/publicatio...
Doesn't phase only matter if you want to mix it with some other sound? If you're editing the final version you're going to be playing, what's the point in preserving phase?
The human ear is sensitive to phase correlation. It stems from the physiological fact that our ear is effectively a multiresolution filter. So with an overtone-rich tone, the time constant with which we perceive the uppermost harmonics is significantly less than the period of the base harmonic. So if the sonic energy of those harmonics is correlated into small "packets", we hear that as a "buzzing". This is true of raw synthesis waveforms: sawtooth, square, etc. It's also true of any short transients: clapping, hi-hats, etc.
If you "mess with" the phase information of the harmonics relative to the base harmonic, this is the same thing as changing where the sonic energy of those harmonics falls in the wavecycle. So notably, in the cases listed above where the sonic energy falls into small "packets", if you randomize that phase information relative to a much lower tone (as Paulstretch does), you now have spread that energy throughout the full wavecycle. This eliminates any sensation of "buzzing" or "clicking" and makes transients "mushy".
Do you know where someone can read more about how to make things "buzzing" , very interested in that kind of sound quality
I'm not sure any literature on this beyond my own experience.
In the context of synthesizers, "buzzing" quality is associated with unfiltered basic waveforms: sawtooth, square, triangle (to a lesser extent), pulse (notably so). A sawtooth wave is used, for example, as the bass sound in Gorillaz' "DARE".
More generally, in my personal experiments, "buzzing" is associated with the presence of discontinuities in the waveform (i.e., the Dirac delta and its antiderivatives). Any discontinuity is associated with sonic energy at all frequencies, at a highly localised point in time. (See the Fourier transform of Dirac delta (anti)derivatives here [1].) Higher antiderivatives of the Dirac delta have progressively less energy at higher frequencies; beyond the 2nd antiderivative buzzing is not really audible.
Aside – a pulse wave is a series of Dirac deltas; a sawtooth is the 1st-order antiderivative thereof; a square wave is a series of sign-alternating 1st-order Dirac delta antiderivatives; and a triangle wave is alternating 2nd-order Dirac delta antiderivatives. Hence – buzziness in these waveforms.
The human ear has a Q of about 15 (very approximate) – meaning its response at any frequency lasts for about 15 cycles of that frequency. So, when presented with a periodic discontinuity (e.g. sawtooth wave), the sonic content below about 15 times the base frequency will tend to cohere together into a tone, while the sonic content above 10 times the base frequency will tend to be perceived independently of frequency – as a buzzing. (See Bell, "A Resonance Approach to Cochlear Mechanics".)
So, if you want to increase the amount of buzzing in a waveform, you can add localized "packets" of high-frequency sonic energy up to a rate 1/15 that of the lowest frequency content of said packets. You can experiment with this in Audacity by generating sawtooth waves of various frequencies (between 25-250 Hz, where buzzing is easily audible) and low- and high-passing them appropriately to separate the "tonal" (low-frequency) content from the "buzz" (high-frequency) content. Then mix and match the two from different frequency waveforms two create a waveform at your desired base frequency with your desired rate of buzzing.
Finally, a more pedestrian – and very common – way that the above is achieved is the synthesis technique known as "supersaw", by which a handful of slightly-detuned sawtooth waves are mixed together. Beside giving a "shimmering" effect which one gets from mixing any slightly-detuned sounds together, this also results in increased "buzziness". This effect is very common in pop electronic music. E.g. the bass sound in Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" is a good example.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform#Distribution...
You can not just preserve original phase when doing time stretching, there are "smarter" algorithms that try to derive "correct" phase, while the paulxstretch just make it random values, maybe for extreme stretching values it doesn't matter for ambient music but for general music and sounds its not that trivial.
I'm rather fond of The Black Dog's Music for Real Airports, myself. https://ra.co/reviews/7404
The Black Dog's "Music for Photographers" is probably my favorite album of all time. Yet it's almost completely unknown. Everyone should give it a listen.
I like that one a lot, too. But it's not the kind of music a lot of people like. You'll get mostly blank or concerned looks if you make everyone listen to it.
Music for Real Airports is one of the albums I put on to block out the world when I’m trying to get work done.
If anyone would like to play with something more interactive, I'm testing out some new effects on Ambiphone, my ambient soundscape web app. The test version is at https://test.ambiph.one
There's a basic playback speed control now (basic in as much as it doesn't preserve pitch) plus things like reverb and delay effects
Here's some slowed-down ambient music: https://test.ambiph.one/?m=1-Slow+Realisation-ap50a25c60
And a cat purring at 50% speed makes a pretty convincing lion: https://test.ambiph.one/?m=1-Lion's+Den-aa8a34c60e37f100ac50...
(Audio may be a little glitchy on Android Chrome if you have lots of sounds playing - I'm debugging that at the moment)
In this field : Windows 95 startup sound, from Brian Eno as well : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnoX3E2WFcc
It has that calming quality, and I would hear it frequently as I would still shut down my computer after every session.
When the AI songs started happening, I've been hoping someone would make a very long version of 1/1 from Music for Airports. This is not that. I don't mean stretched out. I just mean that it gets interpolated outwards after the original composition ends.
Does anyone know what can make that?
I linked this page in another comment:
Deconstructing Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-musi...
It's not exactly for 1/1, but scroll down to "Deconstructing 2/1" or "Deconstructing 1/2", then down to the music staves section - Hit "Start All", then roll the dice, and it will randomize the loop times! With a little javascript hacking I'm sure you can add more control over the loops and such.
He has some samples for 1/1 tracks too, those could be looped or fed to some AI music software I'm sure to come up with some interpolated result too.
The Black Dog have a lovely Patreon where they personally answer comments. Have you considered asking them?
Try https://play.generative.fm/browse. The endless aisatsana generator is pretty good, I'm sure there's an option that's similar to 1/1.
It seems like the website is region locked? I haven't seen an 405 error mentioning a specific country yet though, it seemed interesting. https://imgur.com/a/AiY9xMJ
No problem here from The Netherlands... I wonder what's so specific about Slovenia.
But the site is mostly a link to this 6 hour track: https://youtu.be/ZWUlLHv7-64
For anyone else perusing the comments for more ambient music, I recommend Stars of the Lkd for anyone looking for similar feels.
also here to mention stars of the lid. I just found out about them and they're great. on the same youtube binge I also learned about Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and have become fascinated with their work as well
Semi-related in the same vein of background ambient music:
For fans of the film Heat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHP4qbgAN6s One of my absolute favorites to work to.
Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified) just made a worthwhile documentary about Eno: https://www.hustwit.com/eno
It's only streaming right now and each streamed version is unique, riffing off of Eno's "generative" music.
Perfect opportunity to point out that there is a 23x slowed down version of Brian Enos Windows 95 startup sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIfbdi41ho
Deconstructing Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports:
https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-musi...
It's a must-read! It has analysis of all Eno's tape loops and an interactive note randomizer. Mentioned in the article's related content but it's worth an extra shout.
Fun to play around with for anyone who likes the album or ambient music in general.
I bought Bang On A Can's version soon after it was released in 97, and it remains one of my favourite pieces of music to code to. For reasons that I can't adequately explain I prefer it to the (itself wonderful) original.
If you like Brian Eno's music, you might enjoy Hiroshi Yoshimura. Wet Land is one of my favorite albums of all time.
Well I know what I’m listening to at work tomorrow. Wonder if this is going to make my code happier or sadder.
Also now wondering if there’s any research on how music affects (cognitive) performance.
I heard of a study many years ago that concluded that listening to music you like made you drive your car a bit faster, regardless of the pace of your preferred music. Not sure that translates to cognitive performance, but might suggest listening to music at the gym is useful.
For those who find this finishes all too quickly, before it really gets started, here's Igor Levit's performance of Satie's Vexations
https://www.youtube.com/live/Uu_03mUPgHU?si=ggJYSJH8SUy0AcKO
sounds like paulstretch is heavily used. you can get similar results when applying this to almost any sont.
Not sure anyone posted it already, also great: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hOVdjxtnsH8
Listened to a bit of it and it seems like a decent analogue to East Forest's Music For Mushrooms which is 5 hours.
Interesting bit there about music for facing mortality. An ambient classic from that same era is Steve Roach “Structures from Silence”. He had an NDE and that music is what he heard during.
Or, on Thursday afternoons, you can listen to one of my favorites
I'm glad to see that someone finally got the hang of Thursdays. I never could.
One great musician to listen to during late coding sessions.
Brian Eno - Alternative 3
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H9AldyuIh5A
I heard this music off on for decades, but couldn’t place it. I doubled down and only having a memory of it I was certain it was by Brian Eno.
It took me a while to stumble upon it, it was music written for an ITV Science programme’s April Fool’s episode; which due to strike action was delayed until July.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3
This comes up repeatedly with regards to conspiracy theories, I assume not by people who think the Moon landings are a hoax, that would be insane. Erm wait a minute…
God is this annoying. How can I listen to music where a single note stretches longer than my window of attention? My mind perceives this the same way as the sound of my fridge working, except much louder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRLTjESyuQk
Fun fact: it seems to be somewhere around 33 beats per minute that people lose the connection between one beat and the next and therefore lose the ability to perceive rhythm. Though oddly enough this video asserts that and then immediately disproves it by having a band play a 33 BPM song while the audience counts along.
great to visit with Eno at his long-time music machine installation at the Palace of Fine Arts SF, so long ago.. a real artist!
Not really necessary. So little happens in the original (in a good way)
Alternative title: Journalist discover the paulstretch software
dupe? this was on the homepage 4 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520122