I’ve never gotten my head around the plethora of genres and styles of electronic music; there just seems to be so many. In fact when genres are mentioned I usually have to go and look them up (Thank the gods and goddesses for the internet).

Actually I’ve always had trouble placing the music that I make in any particular niche. I’ve never been a blues guy, or a country guy, or a metal guy, or a reggae guy, though I’ve touched on those genres from time to time, I’ve never really lived within any genre.
But now that I’m using my iPad to make largely electronica music i.e. clearly synth and sampler based, I really feel the need to arrive at some definitions (if only in my own head), for the landscape of sound that I’m moving in.

And that is how I feel about music making, that each song or instrumental piece is a landscape that we are moving through.

So there is a landscape and a journey.

A landscape and a narrative.

A landscape and a mood.

Which leads me to my personal take on genres; its not comprehensive and its open to change, and it probably doesn’t apply to anyone else, but it is how my head is working at the moment, as I think about and make music.

When I make these landscapes, these Soundscapes, there is often no identifiable sounds, no reference to real world instruments or objects, I think of these pieces or elements as Abstract much like abstract paintings (which I make).

At the most they may contain some drones. If a piece is largely drone like I think of it as a Dronescape.

If it has more synthy, pad like sounds emerging and disappearing, more ‘notes’ in other words even if no exact harmony, I think of it as Ambient.

So, so far I have Abstract Soundscape and Ambient Soundscape.

Then sometimes drum beats appear. Perhaps as one element in the landscape, one of  the things encountered on the journey; but sometimes as the major element.

In fact sometimes the drumbeat becomes the landscape that the other sounds exist within. Thus we have the Beatscape.

And that is the little world of music that I’ve been living in lately, and it explains my categories in this blog.

Now I’m aware that there is more to music than that. There is more to my music than that.

I can feel the urge to pick up my guitar again, and I’m wondering more and more about returning to some sort of song form, and how I might be able to incorporate those elements into my landscapes.

But I guess thats what this year is about: how to explore these abstractions and ambiences, these soundscapes and beatscapes, and how to include field recordings, found sounds, words, songs, instruments, voices, and whatever else comes to mind.

Cheers, and thanks for listening to my ramblings.