November 2021 Oscar van Dillen’s small book Music is Sound and Silence appeared with Donemus Publishing. The book contains a brief biography, an artistic statement, as well as a description of selected works. The book is illustrated and contains two additional original pencil drawings by the composer. “My teachers …
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The 3 tracks follow a path of reverse deconstruction and unraveling, going back to the origins of this composition, and presenting earlier stages of creation as later tracks progressively. In this way the listener is not only able to hear details that might be hard to hear in the tutti version (track 1), but also the tracks become more introvert, while striving to keep their emotional impact. Gradually the clear and concrete music of We will never forgive you merges into the slightly more abstract The song without words, which is in fact a minus-two version, to be followed by the even more abstract Planet of the Ants, connecting to the sound universe of van Dillen’s earlier Dronescapes. The title of the last track explicitly refers to Dronescape 5 – Myrmecology, this time as a planet of the ants, which may be the very thing we are currently creating and heading towards. As mammals succeeded the dinosaurs, now ants may have a good chance to succeed the mammals, once extinct. If that happens, may they thrive and develop collective intelligence instead!
After having recorded all the 40+ tracks in Italy, Falconi sent these to van Dillen in Rotterdam to composite and compose the final blend of both composer’s work by creating the mix and final master. His creative mixing went through several stages before a satisfying result was approached, which was refined in his mastering process afterwards. With great care this very complex music had to be mixed, composited, composed and mastered, so as allowing for the complexity to come out while maintaining transparency and optimal spatial placement and width of every sound as well as the overall sound. After sharing the result, this time sending from Rotterdam to Rome, both composers finally agreed on the end result after what had amounted to over a year of intense collaborative work.
One can imagine that at the reality of a larger than primal atom, the road is open for more complex atoms, and so it was: in the heavier stars, thermonuclear fission processes produced heavier elements still. In fact, there is not a single heavier atom that was not created at some point in time in some star. All matter is stardust. All heavier atoms are the product of nuclear fission in stars.
We ourselves are the children of stars become aware.
It is with Helium that this process of atom creation takes its very first step: forming an atom with 2 protons, over twice as heavy as the primal atom Hydrogen. It is a strange coincidence that so many human cultures worshipped the sun as a creator god: the sun being our star is de facto one of the many creators of matter, in its shining we see the life-giving light: a waste product of this process.
Now imagine ourselves the size of a planet, listening to the sounds of this process of matter creation. We are become huge cosmic ears now, listening to the sounds of the sun.
One of the main aims when creating Azote was to create a music in which sounds move musically, and where the pitches are not the necessarily most important sound aspects, but sound, register and dynamics are, and it was composed so that each sound has its own sense of space with it. Also sometimes these spaces move independently within the music, allowing for sounds to enter and sound in these spaces. Thus beat becomes breath, or the lack of it. Although at first hearing it appears that rhythm is the main musical area explored, deeper listening reveals that the music is happening within the virtual spaces created by what we can call breathing rhythmic bubbles of sound. The importance of the sense of architectural space gives Azote aspects of soundscape, but the fact that these spaces are formally treated and move about in an overall very rhythmical way, points again to a possible symphony. But these are mere words, insufficiently able and possibly obsolete to describe let alone categorize this music.
Although perhaps 5 formal parts plus an introduction can be discerned, the work is here presented as a single track, in the spirit of the sister productions in the Dronescape 6.* series. A single almost 54 minutes long track does require some patience contemporary listeners are mostly unaccustomed to, being used to either the standard 3 minutes long popular songs, the standard 3-7 minutes long jazz recordings, or the standard 12 to 20 minutes long composed works, with which the musical mediascape of today is flooded. In this sense, the listener is offered an opportunity to enter another timescape. A dreamscape. A dronescape, where one can make sense or nonsense at will and decide what threads and paths of sound and music to follow with undivided attention.
Dronescape 8: The four Pillars of Reason is the tenth in a series of albums, containing contemporary Electronic Symphonies by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed, created, and recorded January-March 2022. Music and cover art were created by Oscar van Dillen. Tracks Identity 1:06:36 …
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The work Jñāna – Rigpa is exploring the boundaries of autonomous drone composition, both in the sense of its duration (it has the longest single-track duration streaming platforms allow today), as in the sense of its minimalism of musical and technical means used. While creating an atmosphere of almost trance and meditation, it also serves as a means, a tool, for deep and inner reflection. Reflection on one’s own hearing is intended explicitly here: a music that serves to listen to one’s own hearing.
Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, after Oxygen, the latter being also abundant in the atmosphere. In the periodic table Si is placed just below C and the two elements share many characteristics. Still, Carbon is the basic element for life, and no Silicon-based …
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Oxygen is all around us: surprisingly, it is even the most abundant element on our planet. But the free, breathable oxygen O2 found in the Earth’s atmosphere, without which human and animal life would be impossible, has not always been here; it has been freed from its stable compounds …
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Carbon is above all the Element that makes life possible. As symbolized by the pencil drawing at this album’s cover, it forms chains, and as basic carbon-based chains the amino acids are found in all life forms. As are the very long chains of amino acids, such as DNA, …
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Elements 118 Oganesson is the last in the Periodic Table, completing its structure with 7 full layers of electron shells. As an element, Oganesson fits in the group of the so-called “noble gases” but is predicted to be a solid at room temperature. Predicted, because only a handful of …
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The series Elements are digital compositions which have a more static, installation-like character, crossing the border between musical and spatial composition, linking up music and architecture, both arts concerning Space. Van Dillen’s compositions in the series Elements can be listened to in several ways. Traditionally these are: privately over …
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Oneirology 2 In Peter Brook’s 1979 film Meetings with Remarkable Men there is a scene in which musicians will attempt to produce a sound that will make the stones of a valley vibrate. In this re-enacting of a famous scene from Gurdieff’s memoires, Kudsi Erguner is one of the …
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Dronescape 6.0 is the sixth in a series of albums, containing new Digital Symphonies by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed January-April 2021. Similar to the earlier Dronescape releases, this work can be considered to be an Electronic or Digital Symphony. This one-part work is …
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Dronescape 5 is the fifth in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed November-December 2020. Similar to the other Dronescape releases, this album too can be considered to be an Electronic symphony, the 5th by Oscar …
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The title Elude is derived from the verb to elude = to avoid cunningly or adroitly (Penguin Reference 2001), which has as noun the word elusion. However, the composer chose to create for this music the new noun Elude, in assonance to Prelude and words like it, such as …
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Dronescape 4 is the fourth in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed October 2020.
Dronescape 3 is the third in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed August-September 2020. The third Dronescape album by Oscar van Dillen contains a single long composition: Infinity – Pantonal Dronescape (duration 2 hours 56 …
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Dronescape 2 is the second in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed July-August 2020. In music, a drone (or bourdon) is understood to be a continuous sound, interval or chord, usually an accompaniment to a …
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Dronescape 1 is the first in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed June-July 2020. The title Dronescape suggests the contraction of the terms Drone and Soundscape, inferring a music which might at first sight be …
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de Stad, originally released in a more surround sound type of mix, the time is ripe to now release a remastered version, much better suited for our present times and today’s streaming platforms used for listening. The composer himself has meticulously revised the original recordings, corrected and remastered these …
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During summer and social distancing 3 albums have been created! They are released on OIJ Records / Donemus Records: release date for distribution is 22 August 2020. OIJ Records was founded July 2020. It is a record label dedicated to publishing recordings of the compositions by Oscar van Dillen. …
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Introduction When provoking thinking about music in teaching I am used to asking my students how they personally conceptualize and position music in itself, asking them to describe and position music as a middle level category in between 2/3 contained subsets and 2/3 containing supersets. This assignment I call: …
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Here is a first photoblog of my life as artist and teacher, enjoy! ©Oscar van Dillen
Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in November 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in October 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in September 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in May 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in April 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in March 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in February 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in January 2018. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in December 2017. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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Paradox, Music for A Sculpture was written 2007 to be performed on the sculpture “Grote Sext” by Harmen Brethouwer. The composition was written for two percussionists, and is envisioned to be the first in a series of pieces to be performed on objects becoming instruments. In this way, Edgar Varèses old …
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Here are the whiteboards and pictures from my lessons in November 2017. All these images and whiteboards deal with art and music, more especially with composition and music theory, so they have some companion pages here that treat at least a part of this in more depth: Basic elements …
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