Adjacent to this excellent essay, Ali has a new, extremely large scale work that will be released on July 1st. It’s a continued exploration into his use of micro-tonality in Acousmatic music and sound design.
The short sampling that i’ve heard whets my appetite for the whole piece, a whopping 24 hours of music. This is a massive undertaking and I can’t wait to dive into the deep end with it.
You can access it here:
Thank you @Neuroticdog for sharing it!
I’m not sue why Ali’s post was flagged but, I also wanted to mention that his thinking about acousmatic music shares many similarities with my own.
The poetic nature that is in each piece as a potentiality, to become partially translucent though close listening, a type of listening filled with intention yet absent of any expectations of revealing. A revealing that is different each time, making it incomplete and never revealing it’s entirerty.
Ali pursues notions like this, through microtonal tuning systems and spatial configurations of speakers for the immersive live experience. I think his essay is a fascinating look into the process of one artist, creating something with endless possibilty
As someone who dabbles in poetry, I just want to say I appreciated the expanded definition this essay gives for what constitutes “poetry”—especially the notion that poetry (or the “poetic” ) is a phenomenon of consciousness that is not necessarily dependent on words, but transcends or ontologically precedes a given language and can be expressed/apprehended through a variety of media.
I’ve always believed something to that effect—that the spirit of poetry, through the power of consciousness, can infuse anything: music, film, architecture, even one’s lifestyle or way of being.
I’ve also enjoyed the samples of Mr. Balighi’s music that were shared through the Acousmatic series. It is music for thought—and it was good to get a window into the composer’s thinking process through the essay, as a complement to the music.
Thank you, Marco, for your kind comments. I actually have a few published poetry collections in Farsi, and I’ve always chased that poetic atmosphere in other art forms like dance, cinema, and theater. As you beautifully pointed out, poetry doesn’t strictly need words; it can be felt and understood through all arts and mediums. My Electropoem series explores those endless possibilities for poetic music. I truly believe that if a composer or artist simply thinks like a poet, they can create a poetic world within their own art.
Also, my article, “Tracing Poetic Atmospheres: Multichannel Electroacoustic Soundscapes and Their Cultural Dimensions,” was recently published in MIT’s Computer Music Journal. If you’re interested in reading it, you can find it via the DOI link.
