ABOUT THE "CINEMATIC GENRE"

 

It will have escaped no one, least of all musicians who work mainly on computers, with a DAW and various virtual instruments, that practically the entire VST industry has rushed into the "cinematic" music niche, i.e. soundtracks for films or TV series.

We can't help but notice the flood of sampled sound banks promising the buyer the trailer for the next Hollywood blockbuster (or almost...). Competition in this sector is fierce, and commercial offers come thick and fast...  

I am struck by the abundance, and often high quality, of orchestral banks, either dedicated to symphony orchestras in their entirety, or to particular sections (strings, winds, brass...), often subdivided according to particular playing styles...

Then, of course, there are the banks of percussive sounds, most often thunderous, to punctuate the trailers and various action scenes of the films.

Here we see the influence of the masters of the genre, in particular Hans Zimmer, who is also associated with various commercialized sound banks.

The high visibility of "cinematic" sounds on the market has led to a certain restriction of the creative field, by imposing sound stereotypes and standards of climates and composition.

As a result, musicians have to face new challenges, particularly in mastering the art of classical orchestration, from the distribution of different sound planes to the fine tuning of degrees of proximity or distance of recording microphones, not to mention the laws of harmony.

Orchestral sound banks have a twofold economic impact: they replace, with the exception of the largest productions, the costs of hiring a real symphony orchestra (salaries, studio rental, recording equipment, etc.); they can sometimes reach very high prices, depending on the prestige of the recorded orchestra, the sound quality and the sophistication of the available settings... The financial investment, for a musician working in this niche, can be very substantial too - whether it can be easily recouped is another question.

They also have an artistic impact: bringing acoustic orchestral simulation into the foreground in relation to purely electronic climates, even if the trend is towards hybridization (see Hans Zimmer again). And also to deny electronic music a certain autonomy by giving it an auxiliary, even ancillary role in relation to filmic narrative.

More modest or independent productions, such as avant-garde or auteur cinema, are nonetheless open to less stereotyped soundtracks, such as the neo-classical minimalism of Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter or Jóhann Jóhannsson, or the beautiful hybrid music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. But the Hollywood blockbuster industry closes the creative spectrum to standard sounds and compositions...

For my part, I use some of these orchestral sound banks in a minimalist way, from a chamber music rather than symphonic ensemble perspective, as a means of enriching electronic textures and climates, as a way to experiment rather than to emulate a classical orchestra...
 

FREE DOWNLOADS ON MY BANDCAMP PAGE!

As an independent, alternative musician, doubting more and more the relevance of my stubbornness to exist in the creative ecosystem of "serious" ambient and electronic music (😀😀😀), let me kindly remind you that I offer on Bandcamp THREE retrospective / compilation albums retracing my musical journey FOR FREE / NAME YOUR PRICE.

I just want to share my music, submit it to your listening, take the risk of your feedback, negative or positive...

So... here are three links to my "musical calling cards" on Bandcamp!

 

link > Ambient Variations

 

 link >  Ambient Explorations

 

 

link >  Ambient Transpositions

 




Thanks for visiting my Bandcamp page and for listening to my music!

A FEW VISUAL VARIATIONS FOR MY SPOTIFY CANVAS...

 Link to my Spotify page

Between you and me... A confidence!

 

As you know perhaps, "Cités Analogues" is a milestone in Lightwave career, the first "concept album" produced by Christoph Harbonnier and me...

Christoph remastered and remixed the original Revox tapes, and we released this first digital version on Lightwave Bandcamp page...

Link

We learnt today that a major German label of electronic music is willing to release it as a CD and even as a vinyl!

We will tell you more as soon as possible... We are so happy and proud our cassette release (!) is considered as a valuable part of the history of European electronic musics...

 

 

ABOUT AMBIENT MUSIC (Again...).

 

                                                   ("Singing in Unison” Yoshi Wada - 1977)

 
Ambient music, in its various forms (dark, lo-fi, meditation etc.) is both a niche genre and a plethoric musical trend, as evidenced by the mass of albums and tracks on Bandcamp and all the platforms (and I contribute to them, of course).

I wonder if this exponential growth is due to the fact that it's relatively easy to compose and produce ambient music compared with other musical genres (jazz, rock, classical, etc.). Most ambient music is produced by solo musicians (although there are a few bands). All you need a minima is a midi keyboard, a computer, a few plug-ins and a DAW - no need for renting a rehearsal and professional recording studio. Ambient music is a genre for “home musicians”, with set-ups that can be very small. It is also characterized by a certain number of formal features - drones, stretched pads, long reverb, arpeggios - which, most of the time, do not require great instrumental dexterity, or even advanced harmonic knowledge, unlike jazz or classical music, for example...

Is ambient the musical genre par excellence for non-musicians? There's nothing pejorative about that: Brian Eno has said it over and over again...

Doesn't one reason for this exponential production also lie in the “utilitarian” nature of ambient music today, listened to as a backdrop for meditation, relaxation, yoga or even falling asleep? Could it be that ambient music reveals a tired, anxious, insomniac society, or one dreaming of spiritual escapism and “mindfulness”?

And finally, while this quantitative explosion of ambient music is of course positive, with more and more people practicing and enjoying it, doesn't it also have perverse effects, making creative breakthroughs and innovations more difficult, both because of the difficulty for them to gain visibility and because of the inertia and habituation effect of a predominantly standardized production?

Just a few questions I ask myself as I reflect on my own musical practice....

MY MUSIC ON ARTCORE.COM

 

   

 

 

I'm starting to distribute my music on the artcore.com platform to reach a new audience of DJs and remixers, electro and chill-out listeners, alongside Bandcamp, which remains my main "base camp", and all the usual streaming and download platforms.

 

I find it interesting and useful to expose my music to different audiences and make my work visible and accessible in a new ecosystem with new search algorithms...

 

I hope to upload most of my discography in the next few days!

 

 

LINK TO MY ARTCORE PAGE

THANKS!

 

 

A very big thank you to all those who support my musical adventure by buying my albums on Bandcamp....  Your support means a lot to me, it's also a strong political and artistic gesture on your part, in favor of independent creation...

(there was a notable peak in purchases on April 17, I don't know why... Review ? Podcast? Blog post? Radio show?).

I was also very touched by the fact that my retrospective album "Ambient Transpositions", offered for free or "Name your price" on my Bandcamp page, was the subject of several purchases alongside the many free downloads!

I'm delighted that my music is alive, circulating and being discovered by new listeners...

Many thanks again for your support!

 

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com

AN EARTHLING'S POINT OF VIEW ON THE SPOTIFY PLANET: A NOTEBOOK OF OBSERVATIONS...

- Some of the most influential ambient playlists in terms of subscriber numbers only offer tracks between 1 minute 30 and 3 minutes, for meditating, relaxing, daydreaming, falling asleep, and so on. As for me, this perpetual zapping would make me dizzy and prevent me from both concentrating and relaxing... Wouldn't you agree?

- From the point of view of the musicians involved: producing ambient pieces lasting around 2 minutes is a particular stylistic exercise... Musical haikus, without the depth and resonance of Japanese poems?

- What explains the success of sleep playlists? Has music become a soporific, and will it be reimbursed by social security?

- Spotify's in-house editorial playlists are the only ones capable of boosting a musician's visibility and listenership. But they only integrate new musicians once a statistical threshold of visibility and listens has been reached. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

- Given that a stream currently only earns a musician 0.004 euros, provided that the track in question has already reached 1,000 non-monetized listens, how many streams does it take to make a return on the sums demanded by playlist curators (“buy me a coffee, 5 euros for sharing your track on my playlist”)  or intermediary platforms that demand a minimum payment of 75 euros to submit your track to unidentified playlists?

- Is it completely utopian to imagine that the human and "organic" factor could, on its own scale, partly compete with the algorithmic steamroller?

For example, if I asked the readers of this post, who know and appreciate my music and are sensitive to my efforts to survive a little, if I asked them to follow my artist profile on Spotify, to listen to a few of my tracks, or even to subscribe to my page, could that make a little difference, as a gesture of support, as an artistic and political manifesto in favor of an independent and uncompromising musical approach?

And couldn't we imagine electronic musicians, struggling to survive in the merciless world of algorithms, supporting each other in this way?

Let's give it a try?

 

LINK TO MY SPOTIFY PROFILE 

 
 

CREATIVE DIARY

I've started work on a new project, which I've been dreaming of for years...

It would follow on from the Lightwave albums "Cantus Umbrarum" and "In der Unterwelt", in that it could be music for a multi-channel sound installation, combining fragments of spoken voice and an electronic soundscape.

But this project would have a particular dimension, and no doubt a different sound design, minimalist, uncluttered, experimental...

I've made a 5-minute demo, and I'm hoping for a "green light" to go ahead with this project...

I also have a collaborative project underway with a musician I admire: an interesting experiment, with unexpected creative rebounds, which forces us both to break out of our usual compositional routines and sound vocabularies to invent a common language... It's an exciting experience... The ball is in my court, and it's up to me to take the next step!

Otherwise, I'm thinking about my next record release. I've got various projects more or less finalized. I'm thinking of taking tracks from one or other of them for a very ambient and minimalist album, which I'd like to be as "translucent" as possible, slow, stretched out, contemplative, meditative, letting resonances and harmonics spread out into possible spaces...

I also ask myself questions, of course... Am I producing too much music? Am I saturating my audience? Should I make myself scarce, make myself desired and wait, at the risk of being forgotten? Or should I, on the contrary, unroll my creative thread, with coherence and integrity, like so many milestones whose very continuity makes sense? And in the end, who do we make music for? Is it an egocentric or altruistic activity? Is it a self-reflexive process, in which we strive to finally create the music we dream of listening to, but are unable to materialize? Or is it a public process, in which we address and adapt ourselves to an external audience and its expectations?

There's undoubtedly a little of all this in the deep-rooted reasons that drive me to compose, record and produce music, often on a daily basis...

WHO ARE MY LISTENERS?

 

The statistics given by Spotify on my audience over the past month are interesting. This gendered and generational profiling shows that my music is listened to mainly by men, but with a quarter of women.

I thought Spotify was mainly aimed at a very young, urban, hip, constantly zapping audience.

The under-thirties account for just over 17%.

"Serious" ambient music like mine (well, I consider it serious, but maybe I'm wrong...), which doesn't fit into the stereotypes of music for relaxation, yoga, meditation, sleep etc. (but which is perhaps perceived as such, I don't know...), is listened to by 64% of people over 35...

We can imagine that this category of "mature and senior" listeners has a certain musical culture and has come across the sure values of ambient and electronic music over the years, whether it's the Germans, the Californians, or Eno's gang...

I also think that across these age categories, there are "sharp" listening communities, following labels, artists and playlists that are more or less confidential, but reflect strong musical and artistic options and identities...

It's actually encouraging... For an independent musician like me, a qualitative and committed audience is obviously more valuable than a quantitative but fickle one...

I find a certain consistency between my followers on Bandcamp and on Spotify...

A "niche" audience, but loyal, curious, adventurous...

They are the invisible fuel of my creativity...!

NEW RULES FOR NEW GAMES...

 

I began creating ambient music in the days of alternative distribution networks (cassettes!), then record labels releasing CDs...

 

The new digital ecosystem of download and above all streaming platforms is a new world for me, and while I'm trying to be a player and carve out a place for myself in this new ecosystem, I'm conducting a quasi-ethnographic observation of how it works, its communities, its rules, its players, its economy, and its politico-artistic cleavages...

 

With around 250 tracks distributed so far, my music has never caught on with Spotify's editorial algorithms, the only ones capable of boosting a musician's stream statistics.

 

My music is probably not commercial enough, not this, not that. And I am aware there are 100.000 new tracks uploaded daily on Spotify!

So I have to go through mediators, platforms that put musicians and playlist curators in touch with each other, for a fee (between one and four euros / track).

 

So we're entering a world of merchandising, and the curators, who pocket a few euros just for listening to a submission, even if rejected, are the kings of the streaming world.

 

I have a sharing rate of almost 40% on these playlists.

And therefore around 60% refusals. 

 

I seem to be above average.

 

But deep down, I revel in the concise appreciations and motivations for rejection I receive from these new kings of the (streaming) world.

"too slow, too minimalist, too experimental, didn't hook me today, not relaxing enough, I don't like the melody, too ambient, sound production could be better, not harmonic enough, too dark, too abstract, a bit too floating, track too long, too dreamy for our sport sequence, aesthetic too polished, not a fit for my concept, too cinematic, too eery, a touch too dark, too experimental, not enough punctuations, too exploratory, a bit too chill, miss some extra elements, track a bit empty, too dissonant, don't like the mood, don't feel the instrumental in some parts, too long, meditative, too ethereal, didn't feel the vibe, too long, too creepy for our ambient playlist (! !!!), too much drone, etc etc etc".

 

Among these playlist curators, there are musicians with sometimes a very narrow view of what ambient music is or should be, but also influencers who invest in the niches of music for yoga, meditation, sleep, focus or other...

 

In short, by submitting a track to a spotify playlist with a few hundred followers (and probably far fewer actual listeners), you feel like you're applying for the Grammy Awards, or the Victoires de la Musique (French version), and seeing your music scrutinized by the world's greatest music critics...

 

That said, criticism can be constructive, of course, and I'd like to thank all the playlist curators, no matter how important their playlists are, who have generously, and sometimes without financial compensation, shared my music...

AMBIENT TRANSPOSITIONS — A RETROSPECTIVE: FREE DOWNLOAD ON BANDCAMP!

 LINK

 

AMBIENT TRANSPOSITIONS - A RETROSPECTIVE

FREE or NAME YOUR PRICE

Following on from my previous retrospective albums ("Ambient Variations" and "Ambient Explorations"), "Ambient Transpositions" presents a selection of my recent compositions, from December 2022 to February 2024.

It's not a "best of" or a "compilation" in the classical sense of the term, but rather a retrospective look at my musical path, in its continuity and inflections, but also and above all a means of introducing my music to new listeners.

This album is available as a free download or for "name your price".

I hope it will inspire you to take a closer look at my Bandcamp page.

 

Orientation Tables to my Releases (I, II, III, IV) - UPDATED!

In a creative journey, there are threads that cross and intertwine, but which nonetheless draw coherent trajectories.

And it's a reflexive challenge, for a musician, to try to trace the map or maps of these trajectories...

Am I best placed to do this?

Those who love my music will undoubtedly divide it up in other ways, or feel that such divisions are artificial...

Nevertheless, I'll give it a try: an orientation table for a musical horizon heading in four identifiable directions, which sometimes, often, overlap...

It's up to you to navigate with this compass, according to your listening habits, your curiosity and your sensitivity...

 

[the links below will redirect you to the dedicated pages of my blog!]

 

1. Ambient Soundscapes in the Style of Brian Eno, Harold Budd.... 

2. Atmospheric Classical

3. Space Music 

4. Abstract Ambient

Who are my listeners?

 It's so fascinating to see the countries where my music is listened to, through Spotify's globalized streams... It's not so much the number of streams as the worldwide distribution of listeners, who through algorithms and playlist crossings, listen to this or that track, from one time zone to another, from one continent to another...

Who are these listeners? When and how do they listen to my music? What do they think about it, what images cross their minds? Why do some of them save my tracks, include them in their playlists, and decide to follow my musical adventure?

I'm thinking of those unknown people, in Japan, Brazil, Australia, Canada, India or Africa, who devote a little of their time and attention to my music...

Thanks to all the Spotify playlist curators who make my music travel the world!

Visit my Spotify page!

Works in Progress: What is coming next?

 

In my musical workflow, I divide my recordings between different parallel projects, which take shape as I go along. I like the way my music develops intuitively and almost organically, like a tree with multiple branches stemming from the same roots.

Certain branches grow, branch out and become stronger: they outline album projects that gradually take shape... I take the time to let them mature and rest. I like this idea: you have to let the music you compose rest, let it grow and mature, until it's ready to live its own life, like a person, and go out to meet possible listeners, along the paths of the vast world.

Other branches won't grow, too fragile, unfinished, with no real flowering... They will remain in my musical nursery, waiting for additions, inflections, new ideas that will perhaps enable them to resume their growth...

My albums thus take time to mature, as I listen to them and make corrections, and the moment comes when a concept, a title, an artwork naturally emerge...

 

Ambient Music Today...

Global audience of an independant musician: map of my Spotify listeners (April 2024)

Today, ambient music creation is more active than ever... Dozens of musicians are creating new soundscapes, often demanding and experimental, and sometimes achieving international fame (Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Nils Frahm...),

Film and series productions are multiplying the opportunities for trailers and soundtracks, and often the accompaniment of the image allows a certain experimentation in the music...

Numerous independent labels are springing up, offering visibility to emerging, confidential or already-recognized artists, with no concern for immediate commercial profitability. In addition to musical quality and innovation, these labels often add a high standard of design and packaging, giving a new life to the discographic object, in the form of a CD or e-record.

A platform like Bandcamp is a veritable marketplace for independent creation, forging lasting and equitable links between musicians and their audiences...

A whole ecosystem of enthusiasts and activists circulate this independent creation in the form of blog reviews, podcasts, radio shows and playlists.

Despite the opacity of their algorithms and their often derisory remuneration, streaming platforms are bringing independent creation to the four corners of the globe, from New Zealand to Canada, from Argentina to Japan....

LIGHTWAVE - CITES ANALOGUES - BANDCAMP EXCLUSIVE RELEASE !

 

 

"Cités Analogues" is the first opus by Lightwave, reformed as a duo by Christoph Harbonnier and Christian Wittman. Recorded between April and May 1988, then edited and produced in July 1988, "Cités Analogues" was distributed as an audio cassette via various alternative circuits.

After the experiments and improvisations of their first cassette, "Modular Experiments", recorded with Serge Leroy, Lightwave chose the form of a concept album, built and thought out from different climates and compositions assembled to form two long cross-fading tracks.

All compositions were recorded live on a Revox B77, using an Allen & Heath 12/2 mixer.

The mixing is therefore live, and the different parts of this album bear witness to Lightwave's live performance, where instrumental interplay takes place in mutual listening.

The instrumentation consists mainly of analog synthesizers, including several modular ones (RSF, ARP, Roland, Oberheim), while the sequences and rhythms are driven by two Roland sequencers.

The first digital effects contribute greatly to the spatialization and depth of the sound.

Recordings of urban atmosphere and tape processing enrich the overall framework with experimental punctuations.

"Cités Analogues" is thus a seminal album for the Harbonnier - Wittman duo, laying the foundations for a musical collaboration that continues thirty-five years on, based on the complementarity of their skills and sonic universes.

Long overdue, this remastered reissue of “Cités Analogues”, produced by Christoph Harbonnier, documents an important stage in Lightwave's trajectory and reflects the kaleidoscope of its influences at the end of the 80s, between the Berlin School, Brian Eno's ambient, and a certain French-style electro-acoustic experimentation.

"Expanding Galaxies" — Feedback from Spotify playlists curators