Nature as music
Bruny Island
I believe a lot in osmosis, that things naturally make their way in. I've never really tried to set out to depict anything in Nature - I've never said "I'm going to write a piece about Bruny Island." It's more that I feel like having lived here all my life, the environment has shaped me.
It's all just creeping in and then it comes out by itself. I feel I can let it happen and trust that my music is going to be influenced by the environment, some of it more consciously than other parts - but all of it, just because I'm here.
This is the environment, and I think that shapes anybody's music, whoever, wherever they live. It shapes all the sounds you make.
I've done a few field recordings with a little recorder, in some sea caves and around the beaches. I'm trying to find a balance between environmental noise and the music you make. And it's pretty hard. I find it really hard because it feels like you're imposing.
I'm there with the guitar, trying to just fit in without it being like a layer like "here's Nature and here's me," but trying to play with it. Not even jamming with Nature, but just to really feel it's in there. It's super challenging, but really really refreshing for the ears and the mind.
Cycles are a big Influence for me. All the little layers of activity in Nature that happen, be it sonically, or seasons. I'm really into the idea that pulse is not just a metric grid.
A lot of our music is very much to a beat that's super regular, and feels quite grid-like. I think through Nature, you can start to feel a pulse.
It's more like a cycle, a rolling way of feeling pulse. That comes out of all these different layers of cycles. The big cycle, like the seasons, and then there might be migrations, there might be weather patterns and then breeding cycles. They're all making sound as they go.
It has been something I've thought about a fair bit.
All I can really do is is play. Then, how that's received is kind of out of my hands I think. But I feel it does translate, I've been told it translates. So I think it does come out through the whole.
It's all wrapped up in into the one, me as the music and this place. It has 100% really made me who I am. This island.
Nature has taught me how to improvise, just through it teaching me how to be present in the moment. That is the essence of improvising, to be really honed in on the moment and engaged with it and hearing it and reacting and this sort of interaction between your senses and what you're putting out, so what's coming in and what's going out.
I think time in Nature is just such a good way of cultivating an improvisatory spirit.
Julius Schwing
Musician and Composer
I believe a lot in osmosis, that things naturally make their way in. I've never really tried to set out to depict anything in Nature - I've never said "I'm going to write a piece about Bruny Island." It's more that I feel like having lived here all my life, the environment has shaped me.
It's all just creeping in and then it comes out by itself. I feel I can let it happen and trust that my music is going to be influenced by the environment, some of it more consciously than other parts - but all of it, just because I'm here.
This is the environment, and I think that shapes anybody's music, whoever, wherever they live. It shapes all the sounds you make.
I've done a few field recordings with a little recorder, in some sea caves and around the beaches. I'm trying to find a balance between environmental noise and the music you make. And it's pretty hard. I find it really hard because it feels like you're imposing.
I'm there with the guitar, trying to just fit in without it being like a layer like "here's Nature and here's me," but trying to play with it. Not even jamming with Nature, but just to really feel it's in there. It's super challenging, but really really refreshing for the ears and the mind.
Cycles are a big Influence for me. All the little layers of activity in Nature that happen, be it sonically, or seasons. I'm really into the idea that pulse is not just a metric grid.
A lot of our music is very much to a beat that's super regular, and feels quite grid-like. I think through Nature, you can start to feel a pulse.
It's more like a cycle, a rolling way of feeling pulse. That comes out of all these different layers of cycles. The big cycle, like the seasons, and then there might be migrations, there might be weather patterns and then breeding cycles. They're all making sound as they go.
It has been something I've thought about a fair bit.
All I can really do is is play. Then, how that's received is kind of out of my hands I think. But I feel it does translate, I've been told it translates. So I think it does come out through the whole.
It's all wrapped up in into the one, me as the music and this place. It has 100% really made me who I am. This island.
Nature has taught me how to improvise, just through it teaching me how to be present in the moment. That is the essence of improvising, to be really honed in on the moment and engaged with it and hearing it and reacting and this sort of interaction between your senses and what you're putting out, so what's coming in and what's going out.
I think time in Nature is just such a good way of cultivating an improvisatory spirit.
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